Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 31 January 1942 — Page 8

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The Indianapolis Times

ROY V7. HOWARD RALPH BURKHOLDER MARK FERREE President Editor Business Manager (A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

Price In Marion County, 3 cents a copy, delivered by carrier, 12 cents a week.

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«9 RILEY 551

Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way

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

SATURDAY, JANUARY 31, 1942

CALLING ALL PARASITES RESIDENT ROOSEVELT’S plan for solving the housing shortage in Washington, by asking all “parasites” to move out and make room for defense workers, is an idea of immense possibilities. Funk & Wagnalls’ dictionary defines a parasite as— “1. A living organism, as an animal or a plant, that lives on or in another organism, from which it gets nourish-

©

ment. “2 A bird that lays its eggs in the nest of another.

“3. An animal that steals the food of another. “4. An obsequious sycophant who lives at another’s expense.” If that definition is broadly applied across the capital ity it will start the greatest hegira from Washington since the British burned the Capitol.

CONGRESS LEAVES. THE GAPS

IGNING the price-control bill into law, despite its many faults and what he described as the real dangers of its agricultural provisions, President Roosevelt, according to the United Press: “ ... Expressed a hope for a vigorous administration of price control which would compensate for the legislative gaps.” That should be noted with shame by members of the “equal and co-ordina®” branch of Government at the other end of Pennsylvania Ave. : How can ours remain a government by laws and not by men if Congress persists in its habit of sloppy lawmaking? The elected representatives of the people have shuffled off to appointed bureaucrats the responsibility for per-

fecting faulty legislation. Often the bureaucracy, by rulings | and interpretations, gives by Congress and the people. that the executive branch is seizing dangerous powers. But the fundamental trouble is that Congress leaves the legislative gaps for which vigorous administration un-

dertakes to compensate.

to laws meanings never intended |

And then the cry goes up !

THE INDIANAPOLIS FOUNDATION

HE Indianapolis Foundation has won well-deserved national recognition among agencies distributing trust funds left in its care to charitable and welfare institutions. | Although Indianapolis ranks 20th in population, the Founda- | tion stands seventh in expenditures among such groups and fifth in fund holdings. We can think of few groups doing a finer work. Or | more ably and conscientiously,

THE BATTLE OF MACASSAR STRAIT

HE continuing battle of Macassar Strait—the longest, | biggest, bloodiest and most crucial sea battle of the | war—is still in doubt. Judged by losses, the result to date appears much in | favor of the Allies. Judged, by ability to make landings | under fire, and to disperse and save at least temporarily a large part of her fleet and convoy, Japan seems to be winning so far—though at a terrible cost. Tokyo's time-table is all-important. If the Japs had | not been delayed in the Philippines and at Singapore, there would have been few if any Allied planes and submarines | to meet them in the Macassar Strait. hold them in the Macassar center and on the Singapore and

<

o

Torres flanks another fortnight, the Allies should have | |

many more planes and the Japs many fewer planes than now. Already the desperate battle of Macassar Strait has demonstrated two things. One is that Tokyo is gambling everything on quick conquest of the far Pacific before American relief can arrive. The other is that American | and Allied crews, given the planes and submarines, can lick the Japs. But they can’t do it with bare fists.

VAIN SACRIFICE

WENTY young men and women—students at Harding College, Searcy, Ark., were receiving aid through the National Youth Admiristration—an average of $10.50 a month—a total of $210 a month. They decided that a good way to start helping the Government would be to let the Government stop helping them.

So they hustled private jobs to earn enough money to continue in school. Then they wrote a letter to Secretary Morgenthau, asking him to take their names off the NYA payroll so that the $210-a-month could be used, instead, to fight the war. They made a particular point of asking that the money “not be used to increase the allotment of some other college, which probably needs the assistance no more than our own college, and where the students could likely find other employment just as we have found that we ean get other employment here.”

What happened?

NYA headquarters in Washington rushed out a press | release, written in an unmistakably down-the-nose tone, |

quoting Aubrey Williams, the administrator, as saying in effect that if the Harding College students don’t want the NYA money, plenty of students in other colleges do want it, and some of them will get it. So the Harding College students seem to have sacrificed in vain. Come hell, high water and war, all the sweat and tears of those who sacrifice will not dampen this era of wonderful handouts.

CHEER UP

IF March 15 gets under your skin, stop and think which

And if the Allies can |

| war—Wendell Willkie on -

you'd rather have on your neck-—taxes or

oh a

Fair Enough By Westbrook Pegler

WASHINGTON, Jan. 31.— Communists? No, theyre not Communists. They are— Well, take, for example, an economic genius named Harold Loeb, who is identified by the Dies Committee as a “senior business specialist” on the staff of Leon Henderson, the price administrator, who has just been authorized to ration all goods sold at retail. Mr. Loeb and Mr. Henderson were interested in technocracy some years age and Mr. Loeb wrote a book about technocracy in which he said, ‘our case would be hopeless if the profit system could be made to work.” Mr. Henderson was a member of the technocracy committee, one of whose early statements said that if technocracy were adopted “all social, political and economic theories of the present must be thrown away.” But a little over a year later he resigned from the committee, rejecting technocracy. Mr. Loeb’s book, however, was published two years after that, in 1935, and, in 1936, he wrote another called “Production For Use.” He is not a businessman, by trade, of course. He does it by ear

Prolific, Eh What?

MR. LOEB IS quite gn author. His other works include one called “Doodab,” dedicated “to Kitty,” published in 1925; “Tumbling Mustard,” dedicated “to Poke,” published in 1929, and “Professors Like Vodka,” one of those roguish Parisian things, which came out in 1927 and was dedicated to—you'd never guess—to “my friend Malcolm Cowley” who is— A poet, deemed to be, among all Americans, the best man available for an $8000 job in the Office of Facts and Figures, and an old political comrade of William Z. Foster and James W. Ford, who were, respectively, the presidential ana vice presidential candidates of the Communist Party. Comrade Ford, being a Negro, was selected as an incitation to civil commotion among the colored population, north and south, and Mr. Cowley, who, of course, is not and never was a Communist himself, indorsed this ticket. He also was a member of the national executive committee of the American League against War and Fascism, whose directorate included Earl Browder, late chief of the Communist Party and now a prisoner in Atlanta, and Clarence Hathaway, late editor | of the Communists’ official organ in New York.

He Never, Never Was

MR. LOEB'S FRIEND, Malcolm Cowley, poet and expert compiler of facts and figures at $8000 a year, to be paid, in part, out of the income taxes of the 7,000,000 new eligibles in income brackets as low as $1450 a week, later went along with the League Against War and Fascism, when, because of the excessive heat generated by the popular anti-commu-nist sentiment of the country, it changed its name to the American League for Peace and Democracy.

Even then, of course, Mr. Cowley was not a Com-

| munist, nor had he succumbed when, in 1936, his

name appeared on the list of sponsors of a banquet to Mother Ella Reeve Bloor, a well-known Communist relic, who, incidentally, has a son in the present government service, who, of course, is not a Communist himself.

Nor could you have called Mr. Cowley a Communist even when, in 1935, the Sunday Worker, the official organ in New York advertised him as a contributing member of the staff, although you might have been tempted to this rash judgment had you known that The Worker commonly excludes nonmembers from its employ and asserts the right to censor all copy in the interest of the party.

Don't Be a Dirty Quisling

LOOSE AND IDLE TALK about Communists, Communists, Communists is going to do no good

| whatever, except for Japan and Germany by caus- | ing disunity on the home front where the noted au-

thor, Mr. Loeb, has revealed his great but unsuspected capacity for government powers over American business and Mr. Cowley, a poet by trade, surprises everyone by his indispensability as a fact-and-figure man at $R000 = vear. But if you want to be a dirty Quisling and a disrupter, go ahead and read false meanings into past expressions of such patriotic men, so devoted to the capitalistic system, under which, alone, in all the world, exist those freedoms for which this nation

| fights, impugn their old motives and their present

matchless talents for government, and thereby help the enemy win the war. Do you think Mr. Henderson would have a Communist around or Mr. Cowley’s boss, Mr. MacLeish? If you do you ar: a dirty Quisling. :

This and That

By Peter Edson

WASHINGTON, Jan. 31. Grocers who compei you to buy a designated amount of other groceries in order to obtain a limited amount of sugar are violating the law. , . . Atlanta penitentiary inmates have increased production of Army tents and other canvas war supplies by 100 per cent in the past year. . , . The 54 million dollar power project and tunnel under the Continental Divide in Colorado is 17 per cent completed and will be producing power in 1943. . . . Theres no shortage of potash for fertilizers this war, though potash was woefully lacking in World War I. . . . Sodium nitrate, coming largely from South America, is short and is to be rationed among fertilizer, explosive, chemical, glass and meat curing industries, supplies run short. carpet weavers may be assigned

| to make it. . . . Newest unpatriotic dodge to beat

wartime restrictions is to misgrade scrap materials. . Carrying home the groceries saves trucks, tires and paper wrappers.

Stopping the Tire Thieves

NINE states are now considering bills making tire theft a felony, imposing sentences up to 10 years. . .

Sapphire mining in Montana has been declared a | . Mental defectives confined | in state institutions number 97,000 and are maintained |

seasonal occupation. . .

at a cost of $28 million dollars a year. . . . Department

of Commerce reports more manufacturers gradually |

taking over the functions of wholesalers. . . . Women wear 42 per cent of the nation’s hose, men 37 per cent, children 21 per cent on a pairs basis. . . . Peanut eating may be curtailed to provide more peanuts for oil. . . . The candy industry faces curtailment through reduced sugar quotas and increased demands for Army emergency rations.

So They Say—

Absolutely not. We're not in the counterfeiting business. We don’t have to win wars by stooping to this immoral, dishonest stupidity.—Treasury Secretary Morgenthau, being asked whether the U. S. will print phony money for any territory it conquers. = *- »

No permanent disaster can come to a person who has a capacity to read; I found it out in the last the book drive for soldiers. - * It is because I see the light gleaming behind the clouds and broadening upon our path that I make so bold now as to demand a declaration of confidence of the House of Commons. ish Prime |

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DIANAPOLIS TIMES

| Quick, Somebody—the Flit!

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The Hoosier Forum

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

“FARMER IS BOTH AN INVESTOR AND WORKER” By William Taylor, Morgantown

Well, well, Meitzler, I had your number in the beginning, but it has taken a long while to bring you out in the open where you finally admitted your pésition.

According to you, unions should be destroyed so workers would lose their strength and right to withhold their services. Secondly, you want to place a ceiling on wages. If you had your wishes carried out, that ceiling would be $1 per day. Next in your statement is your ery for the top price paid during the last war, for farm products. My position has always been that a farmer is both an investor and

equitable market. To have a market, the farmer must have consumers. Consumers of farm products are the workers.

(Times readers are invited their these columns, religious corMake

your letters short, so all can

to express views in

troversies excluded.

have a chance. Letters must

be signed.)

Your vaunted C. I. O. plan was to retool the automobile plants for plane production. What plane? You answer, “The type and .size of plane to be decided by Government.” Yes, but the Government could not or would not decide. Can you blame the motor companies for Government's indecision You say, “General Motors reports $161,000,000 profits the first nine months of 1841. Who pays this war bill?” But that profit was on cars for

If the workers have no buying power, how could the farmer have| a market? To cut wages and want | top prices for your products is killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. I number many farms among my friends. All of them are of the type that believe in live and let live. It is a pleasure to know you are not representative of the farm element. I suggest you consult your leaders in your own union (farm bureau) and learn the relationship between the farmer and the worker,

$ & 8 | “UNION WAGE INCREASES BURDEN POOR MAN” J By James R. Meitzler, Attica

Pardon me, Mr. Taylor, but you wound up your abuse of the em-

civilian consumption so why call it a war bill? And that $161,000,000 was a sacrifice vou wanted General Motors to make while Government was twiddling its thumbs. “I will always maintain a life is more than profits,” you say, Taylor, and cite the union members in America’s armed forces as the union’s sacrifice. A sacrifice by proxy. The man in the ranks makes the sacrifice. Mr. Taylor and the rest stay safe at home and draw the highest wage in history. Some sacrifice! Mr. Taylor states his union dues are $1 a month or $12 a year. If none of C. 1. O. or A. PF. of L. 10,000,000 members paid more that would be a yearly income for the unions of $120,000,000 a year, all tax exempt. Pretty soft, don’t you think, you fellows with the $750

ployer and description of conditions

words, were not allowed.” Since labor receives approximately two-thirds the national income {Department of Commerce), and since the wage rate is the highest on record (Indiana Employment Security Division and National Industrial Conference Board), it is rather foolish to argue that the raise in wages did not cause the rise in living costs. People do support families on less than the average wage and when the unions force an increase in the union wage! rate they are adding to the poorly paid man’s burden.

before the Wagner Act with these | “Meetings of the workers!

|tax exemption? ” 2

‘SEEMS AS IF EVERYTHING

! ”

|IN TIMES IS TWADDLE

By I. D. Smith, Beech Grove Mr, F. C. McKee of 526 Parker Ave. should not be unduly concerned over the maunderings of A. J. Schneider, for he merely reflects a frame of mind caused by reading editorials in The Times and the comments of most of its columnists. Now, here is the proper way to approach the sort of propaganda that those howling dervishes give us as the law and the prophets. Start with Old Iron Pants (also

Side Glances=By Galbraith

letter she just

| ober. 1942 BY NEA SERVICE We. T. W. RED. U8. PAT OFF,

"These people will have to wait! The boss’ wife is reading him a t from their

28

son in the Navy and for an hour!"

a

iron head), (alias sour grapes), and (what have you?) Johnson's column. Read it, and say to yourself, “Well, what's wrong,” and you will be right. Nobody has ever been more consistently wrong than Hugh is. His is a case of sour grapes because he couldn't hold his NRA Job. Now if you have an appetite for muck, filth and inane twaddle, pass over to Peglg’'s blurb. He uses these approaches alternately for the benefit of himself and the National Association of Manufacturers.

Then last, but by no means least, go to the omniscient editorials. Out

-~

of a hundred of them youll get 50+

disagreeing with everything the Administration is trying to do, 20 urging the readers to do and say everything to promote unity, 20 doing just the opposite, five copying what its obstructionist columnists are bleating about, four moaning about the national debt, and one good one and that must be a mistake. So you see, Schneider is one of the poor misled readers who believes what he reads. The thing to do is to read them with a healthy sense of distrust, but read them by all means, for you'll find exactly what, not to believe. With full knowledge that these ‘publications get into the hands of the armed forces and their parents, these gentry go on and on with this reactionary, obstructionist and useless drivel.

This it their idea of propagating morale and unity, civil and military. Poor Schneider!

¥ a ¥ “DOES TREASURY CARE ABOUT HIGHWAY SAFETY?”

By W. Brewer Graham, 184 E. Drive, Woodruff Place

For years the best automotive engineers have striven to design the auto so that the driver has as much clear vision as possible. The newest cars do give the driver a,clear vision as the large posts and other parts have been replaced by more glass. However, much of this engineer-

ing and years of development has been of no use, due to the motoring public's desire to cover up the windshields with stickers, signs, toys, baby shoes, etc. In the interest of public safety I have often wondered why we do not have a law prohibiting these various stickers—any one of which can cause an accident. Now I notice in The Times that the U. S. Treasury Department has ordered that the new Federal stamps be placed on the windshields. Did the man responsible for this decision ever give a thought to highway safety and the possibilities for decreasing the highway slaughter? Governor Schricker has announced that he is interested in decreasing automobile accidents. If the Governor can change this unwise rule, he will certainly save many people from the tragedy of an accident.

WISDOM

A wise man holds himself in check, But fools and poets run ahead. One must be credulous or sit Forever with the living dead.

The wise man shuts his door at night And pulls the bolts and drops bars. One must go trustful through the dark To earn the friendship of the stars. Scudder Middleton (1888- ).

DAILY THOUGHT

For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom againgt kingdom.—Matthew 24:7. ~

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SATURDAY, JAN. 31, 1

Gen. Johnson Says—

WASHINGTON, Jan. 31.— There has been so much comment, criticism and discussion about the lack of proper overhead organization and failure to fix single and individual responsibility at the top of practically all the major departments of defense, that an even greater fault of the same kind in local organization has been largely overlooked. This nation can’t operate as a unit, as it must do, to undertake the stupendous task ahead, unless it is organized as a unit. Whether it be the Office of Civilian Defense, or the Selective Service, or mobilizing all facilities of production to act as one machine, or to ration automobles, tires and rubber, or to control the price structure—especially retail prices—there’ must be a decentralized organization in every community in the nation. So far as the regimentation of agriculture is concerned, an excellent q@rganization already exists in AAA and the Department of Agriculture.

Red Tape Being Cut

THE GREATEST shortcoming -of SPAB was thas it did not at once set up such “industry” committees as were used in World War One to bring every face tory in each producing group into easy access and control by the Knudsen-Hillman czars. Apparently Donald Nelson understands this thoroughly and is now moving rapidly to complete this necessary spade work, In addition he will have the advantage in Army production of the district offices set up in the Orde nance Department. There is one of these for each great territorial producing area. Attached to it are able men who know the situation in their districts, They can guide both the placing and the follow-up of these great orders and cut reels of red tape. They are doing this already. The decentralized pattern for selective service fole lowed the successful model of 1917 and 1918 and there is little to worry about there. The “industry committees,” if promptly and prope erly organized, will greatly aid and Speed production for the maritime commission and lease-lend,

Nelson on Right Path

AS WELL AS can be gauged at this early date in Mr. Nelson's administration, he is moving along right and proved lines and, if critics are not too impatient, they will find reason to applaud the result as the great American machine for production actually sete tles down to the stupendous job assigned to it. Of one great element—perhaps {the most important one—very little of what has been said applies. Leon Henderson deserves our prayers. His job is to ration our scant supplies and to keep the price structure ii rising through the skies—particularly retail prices. The job is his. The tools with which to do it are not. He has no control over Wages and, since rising farm prices are tied to rising wage rates under the new price control bill, that means that he has no adequate control of the whole price structure,

A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

WHEN THE NATIONAL Emere gency Council of the League of Women Voters met recently at Indianapolis, a splendid program of war aims was outlined.

Listen to this: “That no grant of executive power in a war emergency, however great, lessens the importance of an alert, under standing, critical body of citizens active continuously in relation to the functioning of the Government. Without this the people become passive and democracy dies at its roots.

“Therefore the league expresses the conviction that, at the level of local government, whose importance is often under-rated in normal times, and whose functions are eclipsed in public attention during war times, lies a task of special importance. “The League of Women Voters will devise ways and means to see that a Congress is elected in November, 1942, which is capable of dealing with the problems it will face, particularly the post-war organization for peace. For upon this next Congress may well hang the fate of that kind of civilization for which we are now pledging our all.”

Let's Win the Peace This Time

I FELT greatly encouraged as I read those words. It is heartening to realize that a large group of our most intelligent women thinks with clarity about the real issues we face, which are not always easy to define. What put a crimp into peace plans after the last war? Certainly our own post-war Congress was partly responsible for the fact that, having won the fight, we failed to win the peace. Dare we make the same mistake twice? Therefore it seems to me most important for other women in other organizations, and for those who hee long to none, to join the league in its resolve. The men we elect to office, national and local, during the next few years quite literally will hold the destiny of a world in their hands. We may win the war in the air, on the sea, in the factories. We can win the peace only at the polls.

Editor's Note: The views expressed by columnists in this newspaper are their own. They are not necessarily those of The Indianapolis Times,

Questions and Answers

(The Indianapolis Times Service Bureau will answer any question of facet or information, not involving extensive research. Write vour guestion clearly. sign name and address, inclose a three-cent postage stamp. Medical or legal advice cannot be given, Address The Times Washington Service Bureau, 1013 Thirteenth St.. Washington, D. C.)

Q—Do the Courts of Canada have the power to declare laws passed by the Canadian Legislatures une constitutional? A—The Canadian Legation says that the Courts do have this power, though the final court of appeal, as in all other cases, by Canada’s consent, is the Judicial Committee of the Privy Couneil. The underlying prine ciple is that all questions of constitutionality are sube ject to the interpretation of the Courts. Q—May women enlist in the American Army? A—The only armed service which accepts women is the Army Nurse Corps. But untrained women cannot “enlist”; registered nurses only are accepted. Q—Which city in the United States has the largest number of manufacturing establishments? : A—New York City, which in 1939 had 26,651. Q—When it is 12 o'clock noon in New York City, what time is it Manila, Philippine Islands? A—One o'clock in the morning of the following day. Q—What was a normal speed for airplanes during World War I? A—Fast flying planes normally attained a speed of 100 to 135 miles per hour; bombers averaged 90 to 100 miles per hour. Before the end of the war the iat = ceed of 168 Wiles pr, oth

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