Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 13 February 1942 — Page 22

PAGE 22

The Indianapolis Times

ROY W. HOWARD RALPH BURKHOLDER MARR FERREE President Editor Business Manager

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Give Light end the Péople Will Find Ther Own Wop

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 1942

WE DRAW BLOOD TE hope the men of Wake—the captured survivors, that is, of that supremely gallant band—will get the news, somehow, that vengeance has been claimed. That our Navy, in its raid on the Jap islands from which the attacks on Wake are believed to have been launched, knocked out a swarm of Jap warships, including an aircraft carrier. This is good news indeed for a Friday the 13th that offers otherwise a very somber set of headlines. And it should teach us all to have more patience—to lay off the “where’s-our-Navy ?” murmurs. The Navy isn’t forgetting Pearl Harbor.

KELLAND ON UNITY

Fair Enough By Westbrook Pegler

CHICAGO, Feb. 13. — Having acknowledged the huge ability of the American man of big business and his value to the community in time of war or peace, I might add that he is, in his moments of social relaxation, the most poisonous and vulgar bore on earth, with a penchant for incoherent oratory larded with the catchwords of the hour, stupidly dirty and aged locker-room jokes and timeworn songs, drunkenly done. A genius in his line, which is big machinery and the development of markets to absorb wares produced in the mass, he ought always to remain in character for the sake of his prestige, instead of which he rather fancies himself as a combination of the late Will Rogers and all the personality wags in dinner jackets whom he has heard in the night clubs and cannot resist the temptation to be droll in his clumsy, witless way. The result is appalling and the unfortunate waiters, sulking behind the pillars, go out and biak to the chauffeurs, who teil the cops and service station men what paltry oafs these masters are and the word thus gets around. Even at little lunching parties or dinners within their own circle, men who have been seeing one another in business day after day for years arrive at a point when one of their number who is, by some intuition, toastmaster of the occasion, presently will tinkle on his glass with a butter knife, clear his throat and, after one joke in Swedish dialect and one in Italian or Irish, each inevitably arriving at an unclean climax, begin to introduce as speakers of the occasion all the others clockwise around the board.

Politeness Calls for Mirth

LARENCE BUDINGTON KELLAND is a first-class

ecutive director of the Republican National Committee. Of three Lincoln Day speeches we have read (and with all admiration for the other two, by Alf M. Landon and

Wendell Willkie), Mr. Kelland's interested us most, for |

a reason. It looked through the large end of the telescope. It reflected rare perspective, wisdom and restraint on the

vital question of politics in wartime.

Speaking here in Indianapolis, Mr. Kelland first ex- |

pressed for himself and his party unalterable opposition

to a negotiated peace of any kind and high resolve for carry- | ing the fight until the Axis is “eradicated from the face of |

the earth, utterly and finally.” He then swung into his conception of the “device under | which we have lived from the birth of this republic, which | has preserved and made it strong and without which it | must have died.” That is the two-party system. = = = = s “Y DO not mean venal politics,” he said, “or cheap, job- |

=»

seeking partisan politics, but that brand of politics | which is the sole means by which the common man can | express his patriotism and his vital interest in the welfare | of his country.” Mr. Kelland states his theme—the differentiation between political unity and national unity—as follows: “National unity is unity, solidity, loyalty to the coms mon state and for the common welfare; to the country and to the flag which belong to all of us alike. “Political unity is a cat of a different color. It is unity under the emblem of a single political party. It is the abolition of the two-party system and the erection of the one-party system. “When political unity comes in at the door, human liberties go out of the window. . . . Political unity means that all opposition, all criticism dies—a system of tyranny upon which there is no deterrent, and no brake. ...

“It is those nations which have succumbed to political |

unity which have loosed madmen and death upon this planet. | . + . Germany has political unity. Italy has political unity. Japan has political unity.”

= = = » * =

R. KELLAND quotes Lincoln, a Republican President ||

in wartime, and Wilson, a Democratic President in | wartime, to reinforce his point, and in characteristically | clear language clarifies what amounts to the number one |

of the freedoms for which we are fighting.

“It is essential,” he says, “that every American, rich, | poor, Democrat or Republican, male or female, shall distinguish between unity under a flag and under an ideal, | and unity under a symbol printed at the head of a column |

on a ballot.” Though the speech is a Republican speech, on the big day of the year for the Republican Party—as Jackson Day is for the Democrats—we believe that none other than Franklin D. Roosevelt, head of the Democratic Party, will applaud its philosophy.

ALL OF THE SAME CLOTH NDIANA'S WPA administrator, John K. Jennings, has

directory listing the churches and religious organizations of northern Indiana. It is doubtless a useful work for many groups and organizations. Yet, even though it was begun long before Pearl Harbor, one cannot regard activities of this nature with anything save a critical eve. Mayris Chaneys when we need planes. Douglases when we need tanks. Church directories when we need ships and men and supplies in a dozen corners of this battered earth.

“STRONG FOR AMERICA”

NDIANAPOLIS joins the United States this week in saluting 1,500,000 Boy Scouts who are celebrating the 32d anniversary of their organization. The boys in this spontaneous movement are already justifying their war slogan “Strong for America.” They collected millions of pounds of aluminum. They distributed Defense Bond posters in 11,500 communities. They listed 400,000 home available for defense housing. They are serving their country every day in numerous other ways. Further, more than 8,000,000 “alumni” of the Boy Scout movement are serving their country in more mature capacities. Some of them, no doubt, are with MacArthur in the Philippines; all are serving the better for having been Scouts. Indianapolis and America honor her Boy Scouts, thank them for past services, congratulates them on greater service {p come. :

~

»

All these men may be tremendous doers in the

! manufacture of motor cars, vacuum cleaners or vital

writing man, known for years to millions of magazine - T i is vi himself also a first-class | machines that make machines but, with the excepFT as | tions of old Henry Ford and one other whom you may

political philosopher in his comparatively new role as ex- |

articles unknown to the public which go into the great

personally nominate to prove the rule, they all suffer from a delusion that they are wits, raconteurs and even humorists and not too bad in eclose-harmony, either, given a low ceiling and three or four rounds

; of what it takes to loosen them up.

Dialect is a tricky medium even for the best professional entertainers, but your business genius at his fun recklessly deals in such subtle tongues as Negro, German, Scots, Spigoty, Chinese, Japanese and the two versions of the English which are the cockney or

gorblimey and the drawing-room or, as he thinks,

bloody-blighter.

The scenarios are not more than three in number, | all incredibly nasty and so bully familiar to every | man that the boresome narrative never is relieved by |

the climax. Politeness, however, calls for roars of mirth during which the speaker prepares to explain

how this light digression illustrates a point in his |

argument which has no conceivable relation to the

| tale just told.

At Their Worst While Relaxing :

THEY ARE AT their incredible worst when relaxing from their cares in Palm Beach or Miami and strangers in their midst, who have heard big names or seen them in the national ads for years, find it very hard to reconcile such personalities, observed

| under such conditions, with the achievements which

these dull people undoubtedly have wrought. Great men, giants among the American people they

| undoubtedly are, when working at their jobs, but taken

at play they propagate that very low opinion which has had so much to do with the sullenness of the men at the machines in the plant. Oratory is an art, though a low and insincere one. But men with no gift of expression may be seen twitching in their chairs and penciling little notes on the cloth, awaiting their turns to rise and stammer

| meaningless nothings about nothing. And yet, in

their normal moods, at work or in casual conversation with no circle for an audience, they are interesting men whose achievements prove their stature. Perhaps these social faults are immaterial. but it must be remembered that they made a very unfavor-

able expression on the hot-eyed world-shakers of the |

New Deal who knew nothing of business or its mighty men and undoubtediy were responsible for the belief in Washington that such funless clowns must be impostors getting by on advertising alone.

U.S. Aviation

By Maj. Al Williams

OUR AIRLINES today represent the use of about 350 transport planes, with schedules touching only one or two cities in the average state, This we have been pleased to boast about as “air service” to a nation of more than 130 million people. It is merely the skeleton of what is coming. The volume of airline passenger business increased 38 per cent between 1936 and 1939, but the air express business? In 1938, for example, the total of all air express

volume handled by our domestic airlines amounted to |

7.300.000 pounds, while a little airline in Central America, using about six old tri-motored Fords, carried some

- 15 million pounds. In 1939, two European airlines car-

ried 3739 tons of air express, flying about 13 million schedule miles, yet two of the greatest airlines in this country carried only about 657 tons while flying about 1815 schedule miles. Our failure in flying freight and express is not wholly due to railroad control, but the association of airlines and railroads is a makeshift which forces the airlines to avail themselves of the Railway Express pickup truck service. The pickup system is

announced publication of the first part of a two-volume | SoOlete, because of the 20 mile-per-hour traffic

through congested cities.

Need Freight Planes

THEN, TOO, we are trying to carry air express in | This is expensive. Every passenger in an air transport represents not only his own |

passenger transports.

weight, as a pay load, but an equal poundage in plane equipment for his comfort—sound insulation, heating, steward or hostess, food, seats, racks, ete. Air Express costs about 75 to 95 cents a ton-mile, railroad express about 11 to 18 cents. Rail express shipments total about 150 million packages a year, averaging 40 to 45 pounds per package. Air express and air freight planes now on drafting boards will be

capable of carrying 16000 pounds of cargo at 150 Conservative cost estimates indicate | that such planes could be operated at about 15 to 16 |

miles an hour.

cents per ton-mile, meaning 415000 to 520,000 air express packages a day. Such things can and will be done. This will put all fast, urgent delivery freight and express in the air, the heavy, bulky freight on the trains, and the rest on trucks, There must be a network of transfer and auxiliary short-flight airlines feeding into the main line air operations. Specially designed or modified airplanes for such service are available. For instance, the helicopter, landing on and taking off from the tops of big buildings in the hearts of cities, may eliminate time-wasting . city traffic transportation in trucks.

So They Say—

There are going to be a lot of new faces here next | year —Anonymous and rueful member of Congress |

quoted by the New York Times. - .

With this belly?—Mayor La Guardia's reply to the n that he m mode a :

LE 3 > ~

ne TE The Hot Potato!

FRIDAY,

AR ¥

13, 1942

iy Bem

The Hoosier Forum

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

HITLER WAS WRONG, HE POINTS OUT By C. 0. T., East Chicage A nation least three parts: (a) The physical | geography of the country. (b) The | people who live there. (¢) The government in power at the present time, Hitler, in his last speech, as usual, was wrong again. The only thing

form of government. The government is going to be changed but! | the people and the geography will | still be there. | 2 = 2 REMINDS READERS OF PETAIN'S STATEMENT | By H. S., Indianapolis Just what kind of a democracy jare we fighting for, anyway? Are ‘we going through all this “toil and ‘sweat, blood and tears” just for the {privilege of retiring our Congress{men on pensions after a few years’ iservice? Just who do they think they are and what do they think they've done, that they should be eligible for pensions after their terms have ended. Politics is a mad scramble for soft snaps anyway, and getting one for a few years ought to be enough for these Congressmen instead of them trying to figure out how they can prolong the gravy for the rest of their lives. .. Patriotism flamed high after Pearl Harbor, but if this sort of thing keeps up, the men at the top are going to wonder one of these days {why the people seem so unwilling to fight and to make sacrifices. When Marshal Petain capitulated ‘to the Germans, he made the signi[ficant statement that there did not seem to be any use going on, because the French people seemed to {lack the spirit that they had during (the first war. I wonder why they lacked it. The story of graft and pois in France was well known.

! s =» RULES ARE RULES, {SHE POINTS OUT By Myra Carey Morgan, 8668 Bellefontaine St. . The writer in the Hoosier Forum, sobbing over the mother who took her little girl to the postoffice with

is a composite of at

| that can change in Germany is the!

. (Times readers are invited their these columns, religious con-

Make

your letters short, so all can

to express views in

troversies excluded.

have a chance. Letters must

be signed.)

comes self-supporting she is subject to lose the only companion she has and loves, All of us are potential mothers and lots of us would love to become mothers, but we can’t and remain self-supporting when our men leave, and we're in a spot. . . . If the Army takes any married men at all, the fact that a man's wife is working should not constitute a blanket go-ahead on his

status. It's time that the idea that

Gen. Johnson Says—

WASHINGTON, Feb. 13 — As was remarked here quite recently, on good authority, in our Army now building there are less than 10 officers among every 100 who were in the Army three years. As that Army rapidly multiplies on present plans to three, four or even 10 million men that percentage will decline until we have one officer—to a hundred. Of course these are shocking danger signs. No parent wants to trust the care and leadership of a son to arbitrary command in a life and death struggle to a man whose only outward sign of competence is a piece of metal insignia on his collar, It is true that all this is not quite as bad as it sounds. Thousands of these military commissions are not in combat groups at all. They are various kinds of specialists — engineers, doctors and technicians where the basic professional training may be expected to do as good or even better than in the regular army. Under our Army theory and system all these men are supposed to be under military law and cammand. This, according to tradition, carries the unifqrm and the soldier's oath and obligation.

This Job Is Different

I HAVE NO LATE trustworthy break-down of the figures showing the percentage of this group, but the fact remains that, among combat troops, it is very low and will go lower to an almost absurd degree. Also some of these men have rudimentary reserve training and at least know what a soldier looks like but the men remaining in these reserves are dwindling daily. Intensive training of hundreds of thousands or at least a minimum of combat officers seems to be a subject which, in the jam and rush of building the world’s greatest army, is not getting the attention it deserves. Much more could be done. Indeed, in the training of air-fighters, miracles have been done and are being done daily. The job is a little different. The end to be gained is far more specialized and the basic training need not be as broad. The training of line officers will take more time.

Let's Avoid This Error

IN THE MEANWHILE, a rather vicious practice is going on. Men come to Washington who don’t know “squads. west” but, by reason of business experience, or special standing, apply for Army administrative jobs—by the dozens. We don't want to~pull an Army administrator, trained also as a soldier, out of our scant reserve of soldiers. But, in the Washington hierarchy of rank, and also out in the field, this fellow suddenly appears in a major's or lieutenant colonel’s uniform. There he stays—“for the duration” and sometimes longer, This may happen although he never saw a day's service. There are regular field soldiers who have served nearly 10 years and are only captains. They will remain below the one-day major or lietuten= ant colonel in rank as long as his war lasts unless they are, by good luck and opportunity, selected for efficiency. After the World War, officers of such short service remained as a “hump” in the promotion list to stymie promotion for many years. It forced Army morale down to its lowest ebb right up to the day this war

her pennies, and the naughty man a woman's place is in the home, and wouldn't take them because they|if she is anywhere else she shouid were not wrapped. Of course, it| be punished in some way, be sent

| hearted plea for myself and other

Side Glances=By Galbraith

made no difference to the chiid’s| to the good old trash pile. . , .

mother if the pennies were not| wrapped, but rules are rules, so why! sob over it. | I love little children as well as {the next person, but we have to be sensible about such matters. | Sure Uncle Sam needs our pen-| 'nies and dollars, but not bad enough ! |to break a rule for just one person

{because the child must be favored. | America hasn't changed one bit—

[it's still all American, but a lot of|

folks are going to have to change {in their thinking or forever be sob- | bing over such happenings as the | little girl and her pennies.

¥ 8 = | WIFE RAISES PROBLEM | OF HUSBANDS AND DRAFT

By ‘Anon, Indianapolis I should like to enter & whole-

women that someone, Somewhere, give some consideration to the! | status of married women whose husbands are subject to be drafted.

| We do not want our husbands to ‘shirk their responsibility to their country in any way, but the Army admittedly cannot take care of all the men who are being sent, and they might leave them home with us until they can. In the second place, it is manifestly unfair to take the husbands of women who are working and leave those home whose wives do not work. Those of us who work have a good reason, many times, for doing so. We have a mother or a| father or someone to whose support we contribute. And now the Government is urging women to get out and do their part—in industry if they must—but the minute she be-

~

"All right! Maybe it d newspapers as her part in,

LE | T Tr

'hood put their tails between their’

n't look romantic—but my girl's savin e war, and this bundle is

‘not be opposed by those who are not

* # =» SAYS C. I. 0. DEMANDS NOT UNREASONABLE

By J. F. 8S, Indianapolis The new C. 1. O. demands for a | wage increase, bonus and eight other demands are not too much if you look at it right. There are 5,000,000 members, the most important men in America today, as imost of the work is defense work. A worker on these vital jobs is worth $100 a week, the right to strike will be kept, and no ceiling will be placed on his wages. Higher prices on food, rent, taxes and payroll deductions for defense bonds, etc., must all be met by pay

increases as they develop; these costs shold be paid cheerfully by the other 125,000,000 Americans who will not mind sacrifices when the money is going to the patriotic men who are working for victory. The President realizes this, and has asked for $300,000,000 to be paid | to the C. I. O. members who are not working because of the changeover in the auto industry. Union leaders are not all gangsters and Communists, but are just trying to get a better living. They should

doing so much for the country.

» x = PROBLEM FOR CITY HALL By Mr. X., Indianapolis | Something has gone wrong with, the sewage system at 20th St. and N. Keystone Ave. on the northeast | corner. The earth is giving away in places, and sewer rats as big as cats are digging holes up through the earth to get a sniff of fresh air.’

Several complaints have been made |

i |

|

2-13

her Valentine!’

LIE

about it, but nothing has been done to correct it. | When the rats make their ap-| pearance the dogs of the neighbor-|

legs and seek other neighborhoods. Once in a while a brave cat will kill one. When they get in the walls of the houses and start gnawing on the laths it sounds like 8 mad Nazi grinding his teeth with wrath, So, I'm leaving it up to The Times to call it to the attention of the proper city officials to have something done about it.

THE CONSTANT ONE

When love was false and I was full of care, And friendship cold and I was sick with fear; Music, the beautiful disturber of the air, ’ Drew near, Saying: Come with me into my country of air, Out of the querulous and uncivil clay; Fling down its aching members into a chair, And come away. —George Dillon (1907 —)

DAILY THOUGHT

Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty.—II Corinthians 3:17.

THE LOVE of liberty with life is given, and life itself the inferior gift of Heaven.—Dryden, . ' x3 CRG Sie SRA oy

RNG

began. These are lessons of experience. Like so many others in industrial and man-power mobilization— they ought not to be allowed to happen again.

A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

THERE'S something about a hospital that restores your faith in human kindness and efficiency. In few places do you feel so sure that every one knows exactly what to do and how to do it. I don't wonder, either, that men fall in love with their nurses. Even the women patients go sentimental over them, and as tie visitor observes the nice combination of crisp capability and pieasant personality, she too thinks of them as ministering angels. The quality that distinguishes them from the mill run of females is a sense of humor. Without it they'd never be able to get through a day’s work, because the folks they meet are usually selfishly occupied with their ailments, or they are nervous relatives who act simple minded and get under foot in emergencies.

Smilingly she endures their whims, And probably she understands funny old human nature better than most of us, For before her the patient is stripped of more than his clothes; he is also denuded of those pretty airs and graces which he wears like a garment

| when among other people.

A Good Word for the Fathers

HE CAN'T make convincing pretenses to his nurse,

| After she's had him in hand for a week or two, she

knows the sort of a guy he is and no fooling. The wonder to me is that nurses ever marry their charges, for certainly a sick man is neither agreeable nor charming, even at his best. Since most of my time was spent in the obstetrical ward, where my newest grandchild now adorns the nursery, I also had opportunity to watch a number of expectant fathers. On the whole, they behaved well. I noticed that a few actually talked about politics and the war while their wives were in the delivery room. Evidently they belong to the sterner brotherhood who have experienced the ordeal before.

The instant the infant appears, however, every family reacts alike. They wear fixed grins, repeat the same phrases over and over, acting as if they had indulged in some heady wine. Foolish, to be sure. But never more lovable,

Editor’s Note: newspaper are their own. of The Indianapolis Times,

The views expressed bv columnists in this They are not necessarily those

Questions and Answers

@ (The Indianapolis Times Service Bureau will answer any question of fact or information, not involving extensive research. Write your question clearly, sizn 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--Why did President Hoover propose a maratorium on the debts of foreign countries to the United States for the fiscal year 1932? A—Because it was evident that if the economic structure of Germany was to be saved, some temporary postponement of payments due to foreign countries from Germany would have to be arranged. The moratorium carried the provision that the important creditor nations would take similar action with respect to reparations and intergovernmental debts due them.

Q—Are there State income and sales taxes in Florida? A—Neither tax is levied in Florida. Q—Where are Al Sind and Al Hind?

A—Sind is a province in the extreme western part of British India; Hind is Hindustan in the central part of India. “Al” is the word for “the.”