Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 13 February 1942 — Page 21
FRIDAY, FEB. 13, 1942
ie Indianapolis Times
SECOND SECTION
Hoosier Vagabond
PORTLAND, Ore, Feb. 13.—Since the WPA has always captivated me as a phenomenon, a social force, a doer of good deeds, and a possible haven for myself in some future private storm, I dropped around today to see what the WPA was doing for its country now. Or more specifically, to see what the Art Project undar WPA was doing. Well, they're doing all right. The Art Project of Oregon's WPA is hard at work on defense. It isn’t making shells or planes— but it’s making the men happy who shoot the shells and pilot the planes. At the moment it is head over heels furnishing and decorating the new Tongue Poift Naval Air Station. That's all said in a few words, and yet it's a colossal job. The Art Project has made the furniture (and boy you should see it!) for all the public and many of the private rooms—280 pieces, chairs, tables, beds, lamps, ash trays, the drapes, even a crap table. You might ask why the Navy, in a time of urgency like this, has to help keep WPA going by having it do this work. Why not just go to a store and buy the stuff? .
The Answer Is Easy
THE ANSWER is simple—the Oregon Art Project can ‘do this job more artistically, and far more cheaply, than it could be done any other way right now. Why, for $7000 the Government is getting at Tongue Point what would cost $20,000 anywhere else. That's the answer. Oregon's Art Project is unique. No other state has put its art craftsmanship to such practical use.
By Ernie Pyle
They've really created a renaissance out here. For at least five years it has been actually creating things—unusual, tasteful and practical things—for people to use. The Art Project fished out carpenters from the WPA rolls, and made delicate cabinetmakers out of them. It took foundry workers and trained them into ironwork-Cellinis. It took guys like me whose fingers were all thumbs, and made fine upholsterers of them. It took ordinary housewives and set them to weaving unusual drapes and upholstering material. Then with all this newly developed talent it starced making things that were both useful and beautiful. What it did was the opposite of leaf-raking.
War Reducing Rolls
IT BUILT and completely furnished Timberline Lodge. It decorated the University of Oregon’s medical school. It furnished and decorated the court rooms and judge's chambers at Klamath Falls. It did the interior of the new Klamath Falls Infirmary. It furnished—in Oregon's native and rare mpyrtlewood—the lodge at Silver Creek Falls State park, It did the Bend County courthouse, and dozens of libraries and schools. It furnished and decorated the quarters of an Army Engineers outfit here in Portland, and did some decorative work at the Air Base. The number of people employed on the Art Project has dropped by one-third—and the two-thirds remaining are not the same people who were working a year ago, but are green hands pulled off the regular WPA rolls and trained to this specialized work. If the war goes long enough, the Project visualizes the day when it will fold up altogether because there'll no longer be anybody to do the work—everybody will be in actual defense work. That would be a fitting climax to a job well done.
Inside Indianapolis By Lowell Nussbaum
A QUIET CRUSADE to put national defense production in local plants on an all-out basis is being waged by a couple of our leading manufacturers. They went to New York recently and conferred with Donald Nelson. They returned impressed not only with Mr. Nelson himself, but also with the urgent need for more production TODAY—not just next year. It's going to take vast quantities of weapons and equipment for Uncle Sam to win the war, and if we don’t win within the year, it'll be a 10-year war, the two industrialists are convinced. One, whose plant doubled its 1940 production last year, came home from New York, checked up and found ways to increase production substantially right away, with more increases to come shortly. He got several other big industrialists steamed up with the idea, and now they, too, are helping to spread the “hurry up” gospel far and wide.
The Election’s Over
WED LIKE to have been a little mouse yesterday afternoon. If we had been, we could have listened to what the County's five biggest Democratic organization leaders talked about in an hour and a half’s huddle. The pow-wow was held in the Claypool dining room. In the huddle—behind a huge pillar— were County Chairman Ira Haymaker, County Treasurer Walter Boetcher, former Treasurer Frank McKinney, former Chairman Billy Clauer and former Prosecutor David M. Lewis. Nobody knows what they were talking about. But if you want our guess, and that of several lobby spectators, they were holding the Marion County Primary. election—in advance. Going to the polis to nominate Democratic candidates next May looks like a mere formality, now that they're already hand picked.
Woops—Excuse It!
DURING HIS VISIT here yesterday, Clarence Budington Xelland, the author and G. O. P. National
Washington
WASHINGTON, Feb. 13—This is a great country, and we don’t want to run it down because the war is
going badly. Why have we made such & poor start in the wai? Isn't it because, at heart, the United States has always been a decent country? Our very failure now is a credit to our instincts and standards as a people. We are not caught in this predicament because we are a weak people, or because we don’t know how to make war weapons, or because we have been indifferent to the security of America. Not at
We are a strong people. No nation has shown more vitality than the American people has in settling this continent. We are not stupid and sluggish. Our ingenuity and energy have developed a peacetime standard of living that all other nations have envied. We know how t6 make war weapons. There is nothing the matter with our battleships, our cruisers, our destroyers, our planes and tanks—except that we have not improved the designs as fast as the experience of war in other countries has made desirable. But we know how to make them, and you won't find anything better than our heavy bombers and our new fighter with its 2000-horsepower engine, now in production. Neither have we been indifferent to the security of America. We have spent a good deal of effort on Panama, on Hawaii, on Pacific stepping stones for trans-ocean flying, on a Navy that was abreast of Britain's as one of the two largest in the world. As we
saw our problem, we did make an effort to protect ourselves,
My Day
ITHACA N. Y, Thursday.—I spent an hour and a8 half Wednesday afternoon at a regional meeting for civilian defense, called by Mrs. Oswald Lord, the regional director. Federal staff members ang regional staff members met with representatives of the different states in this region. It was a very interesting meeting and I think some good suggestions came out of it. I was particularly happy to see some of the new staff of the Office of Civilian Defense in action, and to feel how well they are all carrying out their jobs. James Landis has issued a statement in which he says what I have known to be true for a long while: That it has never been completely decided where physical fitness, as a division, should be placed. Many of the things which John Kelly is so ably doing, are things which should be done year in and year out. Perhaps, therefore, a permanent government agency is where his organization would function best. Hc has done a very good job and enlisted people whe can interest both old and young in keeping
i
Committee executive director, stayed at the Columbia Club. As soon as he had unpacked his luggage, he went downstairs to breakfast. He returned a little later and unlocked the door and had it half open before he discovered it was the wrong room—the room next to his own room. It was hard to tell who was more startled—Mr. Kelland or the man and woman occupying the room. . . . During his press conference, the G. O. P. big shot was chided by a newspaperman for wearing one of those white hats made famous by Governor Schricker. “Don’t you know that's considered a Democratic hat here in Indiana?” he was asked. “Sure,” replied Bud; “a Democrat down in Florida gave it to me.”
Our Own Winnie
WE'VE JUST LEARNED that Winston Churchill— yep, Winnie Churchill—is living right here in Indianapolis. Furthermore, he’s staying with relatives, Mr. and Mrs. Russell Churchill, out at 1006 Churchman Ave. In fact, they're his parents. The Winston Churchill we're talking about is 16, a sophomore at Tech, and gets quite a bit of kidding about his name. He was named in honor of Britain's present Prime Minister. . . . Earl Montgomery, who may be remembered for the newsreel short showing him riding a shark in the water, is the new swimming instructor at the I. A. C. He succeeds Jim Clark, who now is teaching Uncle Sam’s gobs to swim.
All Gummed Up
IT WAS CHILLY the other night and Mrs. C. C. Burbridge wanted to “park” her chewing gum without opening the window of her car. So she groped in the glove compartment, found a small piece of paper in which she wrapped the gum. The next day she found the paper with the gum in it and dis-
covered, to her horror, that the paper was her auto use tax stamp. She took it to the Federal Building to see what could be done about it. The clerk just scratched his head and opined that there was nothing in the regulations about removing chewing gum from stamps. And that’s the way it still stands.
By Raymond Clapper
Why We Have Done Badly
NO, I don’t think the reasons lie in any weakness, or lack of vitalily, or indifference to our security. The reason we have done so badly is that we had no appreciation at all of what a vicious world we were living in. We were babes in the woods and we didn’t know what a wolf was really like. Haven't we generally operated on the belief that all other countries felt some sense of restraint about plunging into the horrors of war We thought that if we went halfway, peaceful enemies in Japan would come the other half. Only a short time before Pearl Harbor Senator Wheeler was insisting that Japan didn’t want to attack us, that nobody was interested in attacking us. Long after the Government became disiliusioned, a large section of the American people still believed in the good instincts of other nations. They believed there were things other nations wouldn’t do. None of us had any idea of how extensively Germany and Japan had prepared for war. We never believed a nation would so completely devote itself to the coldblooded business of getting ready to set out on a course of savage conquest.
In Our Failure Lies Hope
WE UNDERESTIMATED the thoroughness with which those nations developed the savage instinct and equipped it to fight. That was our failure. Our mistake was in believing the world was better than it was. So we were caught poorly prepared. If we had been able to comprehend the viciousness that was ruling in Berlin and Tokyo we would have been doing years age what we are now doing in building the largest war industry ever undertaken. Our failure to believe the extent of the evil which was abroad in the world must be a cause of regret. It has jeopardized all that we stand for. It is adding heavily to the cost of victory. But in that very failure is found the spirit which must return to the earth after we have outdone our enemies at their own game.
By Eleanor Roosevelt
themselves in good condition. I think no one will question the necessity for young and old, rich and poor, in this country to be physically fit. The next n, of course, that rises after the decision is made as to whether a division of this kind belongs in a permanent or emergency agency, is whether a dance program is part of that division. I happen to believe it is, for a great many people will dance who will not take other forms of exercise. There is a good deal in the way of entertainment for children which can be developed as a form of exercise. But that is a question to be decided by the people in charge of the program. If dancing is to be included, I think Miss Chaney offered an extremely good program, and is capable of carrying it out because of her contacts in that field throughout the country, as well as her years of experience. A few gentlemen in Congress have suggested that there is something not quite moral about dancing. There are good and bad people in the dancing profession, just as there are good and bad people in every walk of life. Dancing is an art and people who practice that art work hard and faithfully to perfect themselves. I think they should command our respect, just as all other good workers do.
LINCOLN TALKS KEYNOTE GOP DRIVE IN STATE
Voters Urged to Follow Martyr's Principles in Crisis of War.
By UNITED PRESS Hoosier Republicans sounded the keynote of their coming campaign in a series of Lincoln Day addresses last night celebrating the birthday of Abraham Lincoln. Throughout the state, G. O. P. leaders, from Congressmen and state officials to precinct heads, told party members that “America needs the sincere leadership of Lincoln in this great crisis,” and called upon citizens to “invoke the philosophy of the Great Emancipator.” Pleas for continuation of the twoparty system, and differences with the Administration’s domestic policies were heard for the most part.
Willis Assails Pinks
AT ALBION — Sen. Raymond E. Willis (R. Ind). “The Republican Party is dedicated to two victories—one to win the war and the other to preserve American freedoms from the domestic sabotage of pink vipers in off.cial positions. “Politics is the only instrument of expression of the people in their Government, and when we cease to have Government by political parties, we shall cease to be a free country.” AT FRANKFORT—Rep. Forrest A. Harness (R. Fifth District): “Passage of the pension law for Congressmen is the most stupid thing Congress has done in the present crisis because it not only tends to destroy the confidence of people in Congress, but was done at a time when the Government is urging citizens to buy defense bonds to the limit and warning them incessantly of the need for higher taxes.” Gates on Radio
AT TURKEY RUN STATE PARK —Richard T. James, Auditor of State: “Proven leaders such as Willkie, Farley and Kennedy have been denied important Government posts by the clique of theorists and patronage boys in Washington.” BY RADIO—State Republican Chairman Ralph Gates: “Republicans must carry the philosophy of Lincoln into action . . the Democratic processes must not be destroyed in the prosecution of the war.” AT PERU-—William K. Jenner, Republican State Senator: “Fan dancers and dreamers are dominating the Washington scene and men of ability and leadership have been left on the sidelines.”
Sees Trend to G. O. P.
AT RICHMOND—James M. Knapp, Speaker of the Indiana House of Representatives: “America must not endanger its two-party system in the present emergency.” A™ MARION—James M. Tucker, Secretary of State: “Americans are turning to the Republican Party now as they did in the days of secession and the Republicans must and will keep faith.” AT TERRE HAUTE—James M. Givens, Treasurer of State: “Americans must utilize every resource in the Republic to suppress those who would destroy us.”
GITIZENS DINE ON
Shush! Shut Up, and Beat the Japs!
Margerie McAbee, a cadette at the Army, Navy and Marine Service Men’s Club, agrees with three soldiers that if one has anything to say about the war, it should be said with—Defense Bonds from Wash-
ington, and with bombs for Tokyo and Berlin.
The soldiers are (left to right)
Pvts. Howard Besett,
Morrilton, Ark.; Abraham Davis, Cincinnati, and Stratton Cox, Center, Tex.
A CLUB WITH a long name— almost as long as some of Calvin Coolidge’s speeches — has formed an auxiliary club with a name which says, in effect: “Emulate Calvin Coolidge; talk less.” More briefly and bluntly, new club says: “Shut up!” Persons who join the Shush Club of the Army, Navy and Marine Club pay no dues, elect no
the
officers, think up no long titles. They merely sign a pledge which says: “I will not gossip. listen to gossip.” That is a way to combat German and Japanese propaganda, so easily scattered from wagging tongue to eager ear. Members of the Shush Club don’t like German and Japanese
I will not
propaganda. In fact, they feel about such propaganda exactly the way Calvin Coolidge’s pastor felt about sin. The tight-lipped New Englander, after hearing an hour’s sermon on the topic of sin, reported the pastor's verbose message in four words: “He was agin it.” The Shush Club is very decidedly against too much talk.
NAVY GHOW TONIGHT
Regulation Navy “chow” will be the bill of fare for 50 members of a citizens’ committee at 6:30 p. m. today in the Naval Armory at 30th St. and White River. The dinnermeeting is for the purpose of organizing the Indiana Navy Booster Club, a civilian agency to aid in Navy recruiting. I. T. Dwyer, general chairman, has invited presidents of all Indianapolis service-luncheon clubs to attend. They will prepare for the Navy Booster’'s Day celebration in Indianapolis Feb. 22, which will be one of the most outstanding events of its kind ever held in Indiana, according to Mr. Dwyer. On that day civilian pilots will “bomb” Indianapolis from the air with thousands of leaflets, and the public has been invited to a night mass meeting later in the Butler Fieldhouse.
STAKE OUT BUILDING SITES AT NEW CAMP
FRANKLIN, Ind, Feb. 12 (U.P.). —The Consolidated Construction of Chicago began preliminary work on the construction of temporary hospital buildings at the new Army camp between here and Columbus today. Sites for the buildings were staked out yesterday and trucks began moving equipment into the area along Road 252. It was reported Consolidated was low bidder on a $3,943,623 section of the camp construction program. Reports from Washington indicated no name for the camp had been selected yet.
SIGNS LOAN TO CHINA BILL WASHINGTON, Feb. 13 (U. P) — President Roosevelt today signed! the bill appropriating $500,000,000
immediately.
oy HALLETT ABEND
Chapter Xl—Japan's Gamble
JAPAN'S FATE is no longer in her own hands. wheel spins: The gamble is on.
The Japan’s future will not
be decided in Tokyo, but by the outcome of the war in Europe, and by decisions to be made in Washington. Japan had long been ideologically sympathetic to Germany and to Italy, as was shown by the enthusiasm with which she supported : the Anti-Comintern Pact signed with those nations
before the outbreak of the war in Europe.
It
seems practically certain that Japan was ready and even eager to go to war on the side of the totalitarian stutes as long ago as the Munich Pact
signing in September of 1938.
This readiness to
fight side by side with Hitler and Mussolini continued through the summer of 1939, and there is no doubt that Japan would nave struck against Britain at Hongkong and against France in IndoChina in September, 1639, excent for the shock cf surprise with which she received news of the
Hallett Abend
Berlin-Moscow agreement concluded in August. As a result, the Japanese did not attack Hong-
kong and Manila, as planned in 1939, and the British, instead of having to keep a large portion of their fleet at Singapore, and tc guard the sea lanes to Australia, were able | to withdraw most of their war-
ships from that base to the Red Sea and to the Mediterranean. For a year Japan hesitated. Most of the Army influence was in favor of joining the Axis, but the more powerful of the Navy chiefs counseled a wait-and-see policy. Two developments determined the final decision formally to join the world’s other two great aggressor nations — first, the collapse of France and the overwhelming of Holland, and, second, the clear line of American policy to accord every possible form of assistance to the democracies short of actual participation in hostilities. The helpless position of France and Holland gave Japan her chance for expansion into IndoChina and into the East Indies, and America’s attitude toward the basic issues involved in the war in Europe convinced Tokyo that reconciliation with Washington was impossible unless Japan was prepared to relinquish all the gains brought to her by aggression on the Asiatic mainland since the summer of 1937.
o 2 2
Fanatics in Saddle
ACCORDINGLY, on Sept. 27, 1940, Japan signed the new Tripartite Pact at Berlin and bound herself to triumph or to fall with Germany and Italy. The Japanese pact with Germany and Italy is not popular with the Japanese people, but was entered into largely at the in-
sistence of the extremist or ‘“radical” group in the army. Japan is now goverened by a group of about a score of fanatical militaristic visionaries, many of them dangerously ignorant of the rest of the world. One of their leaders is that sinister Col. Kingoro Hashimoto, who was involved in the Tokyo mutiny of 1936, when several Cabinet members were assassinated and actual fighling continued in Japan's capital for several days. Hashimoto was then cashiered from the army, but he was recalled in 1937 and sent to China. It was he who ordered the bombing of the U. S. S. Panay, and the shelling of the British river gunboats Ladybird and Bee on the Yangtze. Again retired, Col. Hashimoto began organizing the Japan Young Men's Federation, a body of extreme reactionaries, said now to have about 5,000,000 mem-
bers. 2 2 2
Moral Bankrutpcy
TOYKO, so dominated, finally signed a treaty with the Wang Ching-wei regime in Nanking, after negotiations that had been protracted for about eight months, instead of having been speedily concluded when a special mission was sent to Nanking in the early spring of 1940. All of this was of no importance whatsoever, except insofar as it evidenced the moral bankruptcy of Japan's leaders and the final
HOLD EVERYTHING
COPR. 1942 BY NEA
VICE, INC. T. M. REG. U. S. PAT. OFF.
for a loan to China. The money is| “He says he’s trying to think up a comic Valentine that’s horrible
enough to insult the Japs!”
a 1941, Ba iallest Abend; ha
abandonment of their last hope of breaking Chungking’s resistance to a compromise peace. Wang Ching-wei and his satellites have neither power nor prestige at home, nor a vestige of honor abroad. For Japan's militarists to recognize formally the crowd of Chinese traitors and mercenaries who are at Nanking as the “Government of China” was not only an insult to China, their great neighbor, but an insult to their own Emperor. It meant that he must receive before his throne an emissary from Nanking as an equal in rank and honor to anyone named as his own Ambassador to Nanking. The Son of Heaven to honor a mountebank! And the negotiations at Nanking were prolonged and prolonged, not because Wang Ching-wei and his
. men were resisting Japan’s de-
mands, but because Japan kept hoping and hoping that Chiang Kai-shek would surrender and make a peace that would ‘save the face” of the Japanese militarists. 2 ” o
The ‘Generous’ Japs
GERMANY AND ITALY, for reasons that may well cause disquiet in Tokyo, wished to continue diplomatic relations with Chungking. It has been “all out” for Tokyo, because Japan is no longer master of her own destiny. The, terms of this treaty, under which Japan pretended to recognize the independent existence of the Nanking regime as a sovereign government, are worth attention because they reveal, at least in part, the nature of Japan's political, military and economic aims under the all-inclusive term of the “New Order in Greater East Asia.” This extraordinary document, which gives a not yet successful conqueror the theoretical right to keep army and navy forces in China as long as it chooses, which gives Japan control of Nanking’s foreign and economic policies, and which throws the occupied areas of China open to uncontrolled Japanese exploitation, is hailed as “incredibly moderate and generous to the Chinese” by one of the Chinese publicity boosters attached to Wang Ching-wei. He defends the treaty as a “liberal settlement” because, as he says, Nanking is not required to pay “a single cent of indemnity to Japan” or to make any territorial concessions. ” on ”
Path of Disaster
HAVING, so far as possible, handed over the whole country to Japanese military occupation, having granted Japan control of
coastal and river waters for an |
undetermined period, and having
given Japan control of foreign |
and economic policies as well as the right to develop the country’s resources unhindered, it would seem that any cession of specific territories or any allocation of specific monies would have been both futile and foolish.
Japan knew very well that the United States and Britain would never acquiesce in these new arrangements she was making in China, nor in similar arrangements she hoped to make in the additional portions of the Far East. So Japanese spokesmen said and shouted in varying tones and with various degrees of emphasis that their empire would fight any nation that attempted to interfere, directly or indirectly, with Japan’s “manifest destiny.” Japan deliberately chose the path of defiance and violence, or rather Japan’s leaders chose that path, and the people are blindly and submissively following their leaders to irretrievable disaster,
Next—Subterfuge and hypocrisy.
U.S. MAY HELP DEVELOP VAST AMAZON AREA
Aid Offered to Brazil in Putting Great Potential Wealth to Work.
WASHINGTON, Feb. 13 (U. P.). —A. project for development of the Amazon Valley basin—2.600,000 square miles of mystery and fabulous wealth—is being studied by the United States and Brazil. Plans have been drawn in considerable detail by Government experts here for the proposal which is officially known as the “Amazon basin development project.” It fs expected to be submitted to the State Department soon for approval. Experts said it was not just another study project but a plan that will call for adequate funds far developing wild rubber, valuable oils, strategic minerals, timber and countless other products known to exist in that area.
Proposed by Welles
Such a project for the basin—almost as large as the land azea of the United States—has long been cherished in Brazil and in this country. The war-time need for materials brought it to a head. The proposal was carried to Brazilian President Getulio Vargas by Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles during the recent conference in Rio De Janeiro. Mr. Vargas showed great interest and immediately dispatched to Washington a financial mission headed by Finance Minister Arthur Souza-Costa, to confer with American officials. Mr. Welles has said the mission was making rapid progress. According to the plan drawn here the United States would send a grcup of outstanding technical experts to the Amazon region to make a study of the basin in cooperation with Brazilians.
Many Possibilities
These experts, it was said, would investigate the possibilities for: 1. Development and commercial production of rubber, vegetable oils, drug-bearing plants and fibers, and the use of tropical plants for production of methyl alcohol, cork substitutes and other vital war
products. 92. Establishment of agricultural colonies. 3. Sanitary control — especially malaria control which has been a major barrier to development of the region. 4. Extension of air, railroad and water transportation. 5. Solving dietary problems, including production of food for pro=posed agricultural cclonies. 6. Labor supply for development of the region. 7. Settlement of various land questions, including lease and sale of federal lands.
Great Potential Wealth
A1l immediate $200,000 budge’ for payment of salaries and transportation of experts is proposed. Officials said that once this project with Brazil is started similar co-operative ventures with other Amazon valley countries—Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia—probably would follow. Scientists have long considered the Amazon Valley as probably the greatest undeveloped area in the world. Scientific expeditions have brought back stories for years of its great potential wealth. The basin has a network of rivers which are navigable for 15,814 miles. The Amazon itself—considered the world’s longest, rises in the Andes Mountains of Peru and empties into the Atlantic Ocean 4000 miles to the east. It is navigable nearly half of its length.
TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE
1—What rank in the Army does William S. Knudsen hold? 2—If the United States is at war in 1944, the Presidential election will automatically be postponed; true or false? 3—Who said, “No terms but unconditional surrender?” 4—A place for cremating dead bodies is called a ¢ |5—~Name the five boroughs of New York City.
Seen
[6—In which State does the Missis-
sippi River have its source? 7—The Chief Justice of the United States receives a salary of $20,500 a year; what is the salary of Associate Justices? 8—Holidays observed in the United States are established by Federal or State laws and proclamations?
Answers 1—Lieutenant General.
| 2—False.
3—Ulysses S. Grant.
| 4—Crematory. {5—Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan,
Queens and Richmond. 6—Minnesota. 7—$20,000. 8—State.
8 ” 5 ASK THE TIMES
Inclose a 3-cent stamp for reply when addressing any question of fact or informetion to The Indianapolis Times Washington Service Bureau, 1013 13th St., N. W. Washington, D. C. Legal and medical advice cannot be given nor can extended research be undertaken.
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