Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 7 January 1942 — Page 10
PAGE 10
The Indianapolis Times
ROY W. HOWARD RALPH BURKHOLDER MARK FERRER President Editor Business Manager (A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)
Owned and pu daily (except Sunday) by The Indianapolis Times Publishing Co, 214 W, Maryiang St
Member of United Press, Scripps « Howard Newspaper Alliance NEA Service, and Audit Bureau of Circulations
in I outside of cents a month.
pe RILEY 8881 | STRIPPS = FOWAR Give Light and the People Will Find Ther Own Wap
WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 7, 1842
THE PRESIDENT'S MESSAGE “IT OST ground can always be regained—lost time never." This it the slogan of the President's message to Congress. It is good enough to see us through the war to victory, It is the answer to those who cry over our defeats of the first month, serious defeats admitted by the President. It can steel us against military and naval losses yet to come. For “lost ground can always be regained.” That is no wishful thinking of a leader in the dark, whistling to keep up American courage. Our allies have proved it can be done. The Russians have regained ground and lots of it. So have the British in Libya. And the Chinese.
Americans can do no less, = = =. = UT part of the slogan ig not so important for Americans |
as the time warning. Not even Pearl Harbor and Manila have made ug downhearted. Always we have been an optimistic people. From the “ard frontier days down to the present, through each national emergency we have been able to pick ourselves up from defeat, dust ourselves off, and fight all the harder— never doubting that we would win in the end. But the vice of that great virtue has been boastfulness, and the lack of preparedness which goes with certainty that you are stronger than the other feilow. The disadvantage of being a giant is that you do not take care of vourself like the little fellow who knows he has to; so you get morning-after depression headaches, vour muscles grow flabby, and you sleep during the alert. - " es . . » V THAT this country needs today is not Pollyanna pap | but fear that we will get going too late. Unless we start moving, moving fast, we will get licked. Therefore the President's piea against complacency, against over-confidence, against underrating the enemy.
Therefore his warning that lost time never can be regained. What counts now is speed: “Speed will save lives, speed will save this ation which is in peril; speed will save our freedom and civilization.” He adds that “slowness has never been an American characteristic.” No, not after we get started—but how the | minutes have dragged into months, and the months into vears, since Japan started in 1931. So now it must be more speed for ug, every day, every | hour, down the long and bloody road to the end. » = » = » » FORTUNATELY for us, and for the world, that race against the clock is chiefly a productive race. This is the field in which America should be strongest and fastest. Whatever technical and token troops we send to Asia, | Africa and Europe, the war will be won or lost not by Amerjcan mass armies abroad but by cur mass production at | home. The war would be over before we could train and transport enough millions of men to the distant fronts which | will be decisive. But already there are more millions of | Russiang, Chinese, British imperials and others in those | fighting areas than the Axis has. They can win if we give them the weapons. That means the vast production the President calls for, the quick shift into sustained all-out war economy which will touch every American, It also means heroic, hard-hitting American fliers, sailors, and technical troops, blasting open and keeping open | all the sea lanes and airways of the world to supply and | support those vast allied armies, Until we have done that life-and-death job, let us omit | the boasts of our strength and speed and save our breath to prove it.
INGENIOUS, BUT NO THANKS N advertising agency sends us, in a handsome brochure, an mgenious plan for stimulating the sale of defense | bonds and stamps. The proposal is that non-buvers of the bonds and | stamps be exposed to “public ridicule and scorn.” This would be accomplished by issuing each month, to those who do invest, lapel buttons, automobile stickers and homewindow posters, each bearing a bold “\'™ for victory—all three of these devices to appear in a new color each month. (For those who bought only stamps, and not bonds, one ! “leg” of the “V" on the button would be omitted.) “The vast majority of people,” says the advertising agency, “must be constantly prodded by every form of emo- | tion to recognize and honor their obligation to the United States of America.” The plan has been submitted to Secreteary of the Treasury Morgenthau. We doubt if he will go for it. We doubt if | he subscribes, any more than we do, to the theory that | threats of public ridicule and scorn are necessary to the suc- | cess of the defense bonds and stamps plan. | If such a scheme were adopted. we might as well recpncile ourselves to an early reappearance of the hysterical and cruel anti-“slacker” measures that were a disgraceful | feature of the Liberty Bond drives in the last war.
COME BACK, POP HE discontinuation of the 500-mile race “for the duration” was a step Indianapolis had half expected and took with good grace. But the resignation of Theodore E. Myers as vice president and general manager comes as an unpleasant surprice. “Pop” Myers is more than the man who held the boss driver's seat during all of the 500-mile races. He is the | man who all these vesrs has been the symbol of automobile | racing in this community—a handsome, erect, affable sports- | man combining the virtues of the real executive and the born promoter, We hope and trust that if and when the 500-mile race comes back, “Pop” Myers comes back to rum it. If he doesn’t, it will never be the same old race.
| means
of our armed forces.
| ships. let's build one so it will run upside down.
| such a submersible aircraft carrier could be!
| Cordell Hull,
Fair Enough By Westbrook Pegler
NEW YORK, Jan. T.-—-The C. I. O. and the Automobile Manufacturers’ Association are wasting time, breath, ink and good white paper arguing a proposition that it no more solvable than how-high-is<up and equally bootless. What the hell difference does it make now whether maladministration in Washington, industrial inefficiency, economie caution or honest fear of a socialistic coup in the motor industry or what combination of all these factors caused the enormous and irretrievable waste of materials and logs of time in the conversion of the motor factories to war production? . The grim fact is that the stuff and time did slip through our fingers and the lowdown, dirty truth is that we were caught just as Hitler figured we would be caught, divided on the issue of war and hardly even half willing to make a war effort until Japan made war official. During much of that time we were almost wholly occupied with one of the weird quadrennial political frenzies which enliven the life of this interesting republic and were scrapping over such questions as “Is Willkie a phony Hoosier?" and “How did Haruvld Ickes strike it rich?”
Have You Forgotten So Soon?
NATURALLY, THE motor companies were slow to abandon their regular trade and go into the war business, because war is a business without a future and they were thinking of a time when the war would be over, perhaps without our ever having entered the fight. and they would be left with a lot of expensive plant which would be useless for any other trade. Moreover, it can't be forgotten surely that as recently as the first year of the New Deal the industrialists who had turned out the tcools and soldier suits and canned goods for the last war were being denounced as bloody-handed monsters who had practically kicked up the whole ghastly business in cold premeditation so that they could get rich on the war orders. And we have to remember that within the very same C. I. O. which is now making politics of this tragic bungle, and high in its councils, too, there were a number of men of Moscow who fought, by subtle means and open, to snarl our war program, then called the defense program, because Hitler and Stalin imperialistic war, and no proper business of ours.
This Is A Fight For Life
NO QUESTION ABOUT it, we were just caught in a jam, mostly of our own making, and Hitler, who always was the No. 1 enemy, had studied our habits and our condition and calculated the advantage which this gave him The situation now is that this enormous wad of American Industrial muscle must be put to fighting purposes and. granted good will and good faith un both sides, will be,
It is simply pathetic that such might, which Hitler
| and the Japs admire, envy and fear. isn't fighting
today. but that great loss of effort and what-it-takes can't be retrieved and the C. I, O. contributes nothing to unity and the great effort by wrangling now. The most practical and courageous stroke in the whole sad mess was the sudden, brutal abolition of the passenger car trade and the sale of tires.
That hurt, but in our geographical position. so
| far from the suffering and noise of war, the lash
will be needed again and again before we quit making politics and wasting time in who-dunnit debates and
realize that this is a fight for life. <
Aviation By Maj. Al Williams
LET'S PLAY AGAIN with the idea of American submersible aircraft carriers. The job can be done. And if and when it is done, our naval commanders will have a bag of tricks unequalled anywhere else. The machinery of ses warfare in this struggle must either hit and run, or, if it can't hit, it must ren. And “run.” in the modern sense, does not mean that a surface vessel can “outspeed” a bomber overhead. It running vertically—diving and hiding under the sea's surface. I believe the dinosaurs lost out because they were so designed that they had to stand-and-slug—fight it out toe to toe. They lacked maneuverability, just as
| the modern battleship, with its tons and tons of steel
hide and heavy hitting power, succumbs to attack by fast-moving, death-dealing enemies which can't be nailed to a spot long enough to be annihilated. Undoubtedly. I think, the gigantic prehistoric animals
were exterminated by smaller but far quicker and !
more maneuverable creatures.
A Giant Sub Roost
I TELL YOU THAT the only thing that will win this war for us will be unorthodox, two-fisted leaders If we must build more battleIn that position, at least, air bombs will bounce off its
| hide and not stick and blister and bust everything.
Now, what could be done with a giant submersible aircraft carrier? England has lost at least four of her original eight aircraft carriers, so apparently the orthodox carrier can't be kept afloat any more successfully than the battleship. Comparatively safe,
lurking in the ocean depths, the giant sub roost for |
aircraft could come to the surface in the dark hours
| before sunrise and launch her 10 or 20 flying boat | bombers with time enough to bomb an objective and escape. either to the point of original take-off or to |
some distant rendezvous. by daylight. What an effective weapon of surprise and power But it will take two-fisted, hard-headed. "results" men to give the orders and write the contracts.
The views expressed hy columnists in this They are not necessarily those
Fditar's Note: fewspaper are their own, of The Indianapolis Times,
So They Say—
He must indeed have a blind soul who cannot see that some great purpose and design is being worked out here below, of which we have the honor to be the faithful servants. —Winston Churchill, British Prime
! Minister,
* * *
We had prepared ourselves slowly and unconsciously for this eventuality. There need be no fear of any
| mental breakdown.—Dr. G. Kirby Collier, psychiatrist. - -
War always breaks up family life and family ties. R is up to women to keep those ties as strong and
| as real as possible —Senator Hattie W. Caraway, |
Arkansas. * * - Today while we fight for our liberty, our free institutions and our very lives, we also fight to maintain the principality of peace which was established on this earth 19 centuries ago.—Secretary of State
The people of the United States will never forget
Na day So il 6
\ Islands are doing the oo come. —President
THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES
were partners and the war was then an |
(article after article on Buy Defense
——_—— Cok + :
IRI SE TRIP A ARIS Lo WI Sh Sh RI NEE. Sb re Ma do (A » t ‘
NBT
WEDNESDAY, JAN. 7, 1942
Hard to Dicker With a Flying Wedge
The Hoosier Forum
I wholly disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.— Voltaire.
fort to make it seem that someone was playing with these matters as a sort of self-elevating pastime, and that the public should not be un{duly alarmed. . . . | Our greatest misfortune is that such little fellows with big noises have heretofore dominated our Congress. They succeeded in keeping the country frem being prepared to defend itself should it be plunged into war, These little men talked loud and convincingly and succeeded in
DISGUSTED WITH THE 10 BEST-DRESSED WOMEN By UG. K. Bauer. Indianapolis All radio programs, in addition to
(Times readers are invited their these columns, religious conMake
your letters short, so all can
to express views in
troversies excluded. Bonds, Save Paper, Save Clothing, requests for Red Cross and Civilian Defense Workers are just grand. It makes an ordinary housewife feel like she should arrange her work and budget in order to help more and more. We are more than glad | to give our time and money, effect the result would be that] ; However, your article in The Times those who have had incomes JEIEEkIDE ie CUNY Yegys thay 4a on Jan. 1, 1942 listing the 10 best- | $100,000 or more would cut down | el armed nd ag ared 0 fully dressed women, with the Duchess|their production so there would not | cefend ov pees t t a of Windsor at the top, makes a!be so much above that amount tol hi h }S : he lo pu d person disgusted—not with the gen- | be confiscated by the Government. | 3D Upon wr Shoulders any send eral public but with those that could This would greatly handicap de- | 1° fouh i seanhop! she Out and should set an example. |fense production as well as she) country has been lousy. -witly Such How do you suppose the people supply of goods for civilian needs. little men, Our people who have of England feel who have given un! So long as the profit system tgyrend small town editors in Smell everything, their families and homes, | adhered to, there is no remedy for {OW newspapers have «wis these going hungry, putting in hours ol his condition.
jie men to Congress ., toil and even donating their cooking| The only remedy would be for the
have a chance. Letters must
be signed.)
® |
One ‘out of every two men lost
| Windsor so the Duchess who | American born and not reared a/owners with 20-year bonds, matur-|attack. . ..
utensils, when they think of the Government to confiscate and take must be charged to those little men enormous salary paid the Duke of | possession of all the large indus-|Who talked us out of being prepared is| tries, compensating the present to protect ourselves from the first
Duchess, can spend an appalling ling 5 per cent each year with in-{ We will win this war; we have to amount of money on clothes to|terest on the deferred payments,|win it, Our enemies will wear themreach the top of that imposing list? |operate them, employing the same selves out winning battles. When Our own President's wife didn't managers and workers as at pres- [they are exhausted, we will, we hope, rate that listing, neither did the | ent, paying all a decent living wage be sufficiently prepared to take the Queen of England. [and manufacturing defense goods | offer.sive and win the war — and rn |and civilian supplies to be sold at! count our “crosses row on row.” URGES GOVERNMENT CONFIS- |cost, eliminating all private profit| The little men who talked so big CATE ALL LARGE INDUSTRIES | to individuals. | saved us from taxes for the Army By Jasper Douglas, Indianapolis This proposition, like all others,|and Navy budget, but for every mil- : should be carefully viewed from all | lion they saved us we must now To tax Ihe Wig industries 50 Pe sides and it is the opinion of this spend a hundred million. The loss cent of their earnings at first sight |g jter that it will stand the most|of life will be doubled. appears to be a good way to equalize | gig inspection. If there is a flaw | It is peculiar to these little men the sharing of war expense, but 8C- in jit, that should be brought to|that the fault is always with cording to a diagram published 0 |light before so drastic a change|others. Nob one of them will ever The Call, New York, the profits of , : : p should be made. . . . suspect that blame for the country’s all corporations in 1941 after nearly F FF # jeopardy is with them. or that they 50 per cent had been taken in taxes «pITTLE MEN IN LITTLE oP De . 1 indeed murderers. Little men, be was greater than any vear since | 4 Oo WNS—BE STILL!" | ' 1020, k a Bh This simply shows that the taxes | BY James Kelt Brown, Columbus ; : : 8 & # have been counted as part of their| A few days ago a small town edi- «GAMBLING ONE OF THIS operating expenses and had not | tor of a small town newspapel STATE'S WORST PROBLEMS” only been passed on in the price waxed wise and noisy on the subof the products but with actually ject of tire and rubber rationing... By Flord Harrington, Indianapolis a profit had been added to the| He would have it appear that The recent letters in regards to amount of the tax together with the since there was much talk about alstopping gambling in Indiana meet other items of expense. |gasoline and oil shortage that did my approval as well as thousands Now, a proposition has been made | not materialize, “maybe” the tire/ of other Indiana folks. As a salesto limit the profits any individual and rubber shortage is being played man whose duties carry me into may retain for himself of from $10 up for public effect. He was gar-/many of Indiana's smaller cities, I to $25,000. Should this be put into rulous and inconsistent in his ef-|am in a position to see how the : [rackets are worked. Not all these
smaller cities have gambling but. a few of them are such fiagrant violators that it is time that our Gov-
Side Glances=By Galbraith
ernor stop it in cities where the Mayor refuses to act. | In one of these smaller cities I ‘witnessed two young boys playing a money board and the owner of the place informed me that he and others had these boards and that (they had as much right to operate | thein as the poker and dice games [that were operating cn the public square and which the Mayor has refused to close. I suggest that the law-abiding citizens of these cities that have Mayors who refuse to enforce the {gambling laws demand that our | Sroyernar act, as he swore to uphold the State laws, and gambling is one of the worst violations, although some of the Mayors in the State think otherwise.
DEATH AND THE FAIRIES Before I joined the Army I lived in Donegal, Where every night the Fairies Would hold their carnival.
But now I'm out in Flanders, Where men like wheat-ears fall,
And it's Death and not the Fairies Who is holding carnival. Patrick MacGill (1890- )
DAILY THOUGHT
For whats nation is there so great who hath God so nigh unto them, as the Lord our God | is in all things that we call upon him for?—Deuteronomy 4:7.
NEVER idle a moment, but thrifty thoughtful of _others.—Long-
COPR. 1942 BY NRA SERV T. M. REQ. U. 8, PAT. OFF. 15
"Zeke's about the unhappiest man in the country—he made a New Year's resolution not to.get into any more argumexts and it
1 °° drives him crazy fo see us sitting around this stove!" fellow. 5
Gen. Johnson Says—
WASHINGTON, Jan. T7.~No one contests the necessity for an absolute veil of military secrecy on the position and movements of ships and troops, especially. when they are not known to the enemy. No one will argue that the mili tary and naval authorities must make the decision for suppression of news in their own unlimited discretion. But it is equally as important that the civilian population have complete confidence in those authorities and that, while it is necessary to maintain such lack of information as might fool the enemy, we must not give the impression of trying to fool our people. The early reluctance to give out any information about the disaster at Pearl Harbor didn’t set well with press and public. Even when it came, it didn’t even pretend to be complete. It never has been completed as to the extent of airplane losses. Further=more, in appraising both that catastrophe and its sequels in the Philippines, we are being told that the Philippines couldn't be held anyway and that our twin disasters in the Pacific are “just the usual losses of democracies” of the first battles of a cam= paign.
Why the Sacrifice?
THEY WERE VERY much more than that. XH, as is now said and has been said in this column for years, the Philippines could not be held, why did we risk sacrifice of such great soldiers as MacArthur and Wainright and thousands of Americans and loyal Filipinos and the city of Manila by destruction? We are told that “when we get into our stride” we will take them back. It is a lot easier to lose a position as strong as that one by insufficient supply and garrison than it is to “take it back” so far from home. : Every informed observer knows that we have suffered in the Pacific more than the usual “initial set-back” of democracies. We have lost:the jumpe ing-off places on which our strategy was based.
We Can Take It, Too
ALL IS BY NO means lost. In the conquest of Singapore and the Dutch East Indies the Japs have the toughest job they have yet undertaken. If they don't take them, the brightest hope in their dream of empire is gone. On our side there are still chances pro and chances contra. But is it a wise way to handle the American public to emphasize all the favorable chances and soft-pedal the doubtful ones? Our people can take it as well as the British, who have received far more accurate information of their disasters than have we. As long as Pearl Harbor and the Philippines are described to them as serious but, after all, nothing more than little local disasters on the other side of the world, their outlook is likely to be twisted and designed to produce complacency. There has been very little insistence on news thus far withheld. The whereabouts and condition of our fleets are shrouded in mystery. But everybody accepts that and the decision to make it so in absolute good faith. Nevertheless, when the veil is lifted, we all hope that the decision will be shown to have been a wise precaution to strengthen our defense and not an effort to keep further bad news away from our shores,
A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson
I HAVE a disquieting letter from a reader whose name, as you can see, must be withheld. He says: “I collect rents from a hundred or more very poor families and in my work have occasion to visit many of them, I have come to the sad conclusion that very lew can be helped or are worthy of helping. They are naturally dirty; throw garbage, cans, old shoes, ashes out of their windows into front and backyards. “They tear down doors for kindling, even burn coal sheds and basement stairways. They are con= tented to live with bedbugs, rats, dirty dogs and cats, spit on floors, sweep filth under rugs and beds. Many are drunkards—hoth men and women—and their children are not taught good traits. And since the incoming of thousands of ‘hill billies,” conditions are getting worse instead of better in my city. We are presented with a serious problem.” Now, I am sure that all these things are true. I've talked with many social service workers who felt that the job of helping certain kinds of poor people was hopeless, because these people lack ability and ambition, But why should such horrors exist in our great, wealthy contury? Why is America breeding such people?
Attempting an Answer
I THINK the answer is simple. Poverty creates poverty and in the process invites other social evils. A man is the creature of his environment. ‘The child who lacks nourishing food will inevitably suffer from rickets and other physical ailments. This, in turn, affects his mentality and in time he becomes a moral, mental and physical wreck, no good to family or country. But surely something can be done to better the situation so graphically described by my correspondent, Further child bearing should be stopped among these groups. Society should take children from such environment, feed, clothe and educate them, or society will surely suffer the consequences. For every pang of hunger endured by helpless little ones, for every moral shame they suffer, and for every temptation they are forced to meet, we—the able, the whole, the well fed—are to blame. And, unless we regard them as the cancer within our nation, they will destroy us in the end.
Questions and Answers
answe; any question of fact or information. not involving extensive research. Write vour question clearly. sign name and address,
(The Indianapolis Times Service Burean wil)
incloss a three-cent postage stamp. Medical or legal advice cannot be given. Address The Times Washington Service Bureau. 1013 Thirteenth 8t.. Washington. D. 0.)
Q—What was the total number of labor strikes in the U. 8. in 1914? A—The statistics are incomplete but the approxi mate number was 1204.
Q—Who was the first priest to be made a cardinal in the United States? A—Rev. John McCloskey, by Pope Pius IX. The investiture took place in the old cathedral in Mott Street, New York City, April 27, 1875. John McCloskey was born in Broolyn ih 1810. He became the first President of St. John's College, Fordham.
Q—How does the crop of avocados in California compare with that of Florida? A—The 1940 California crop was 27,200,000 pounds and the Florida crop was 1,760,000 pounds.
Q—When was the Louisiana Purchase compléted and by whom? A—On April 30, 1803, an agreement of sale was reached by the United States Government and the Government of France. Thomas Jefferson was President of the United States and Napoleon Bonaparte was Emperor of France. The region was morn than
-& million square miles in extent, and cost about $20
‘
s square mil.