Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 18 February 1942 — Page 12

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e Indianapolis Times

ROY W. HOWARD RALPH BURKHOLDER MARK FERREE President Editor ~_ Business Manager

(A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

Price in Marion County, 3 cents a Sor%h delive ered by carrier, 13 cents week. :

hii paper Servi reau

- Howard New: tiianc ad A t Bue

$ and the Peoply Wilk Pind Tho Own Wap

a FEBRUARY 18, 1942

THE WARNING

THE U-boat attack on the Aruba area is stably our luckiest break since the war began. It is a terrible warning, but unlike Pearl Harbor it has not crippled us—not yet. Seven to 10 tankers sunk or damaged is a very small price to pay for the discovery that outlying Caribbean defenses of the Panama Canal and of a major allied oil source If shells from the enemy subs had not gone high, they might have fired the largest refineries in the world—the || source of half the oil for the British navy, army and air corps before the fall of P. embang, Sumatra, and even |more important now. : If the pack of U-boats, after piercing the outer defense | screen 500 miles to the east, had by-passed the Aruba temptation and continued their straight line to Panama, we might have paid much higher for the warning.

THE questions raised by this daring enemy raid, deep c into our most closely gu rded waters, are as numerous as| they are obvious: er Is this another Pearl arbor case of the Navy and my, which share the patral responsibility, being asleep? Is this another case of depending too much on shore stations and ships and too little on air patrol? At what place in the defense line of islands and guarded rhannels screening the Caribbean did the enemy find a sonvenient hole? In Hie Am rican part of the line, or the British ? ) |" We have no doubt that the President and the chiefs of the fighting services are seeki 2 and will find, the answers 0 these disturbing questions. | Meanwhile, ortunate that the warning cost so little.

| po [HE INDISPENSABLES | EN it comes to bad timing, here’s a oy On the very day that millions of American men were registering for the draft, Selective Service headquarters in| otis revealed that it had issued a “directive” authorizing local boards to grant draft deferment to labor leaders. | Also to employers’ labor-relations men, and to Government | labor-liaison men. | This came on top of a similar announcement about

ovie people. { It’s going to be a great comfort [to your draftee, as he

: lls off a hard cot before dawn to catch a transport for

s unknown, to reflect that the walking delegates, the

a es collectors, the picket-line strategists, the men who call

out on strike “the men behind the men behind the guns,” . are safe, along with Hollywood glamour boys, for the duration. | | If there’s anybody that can be spared from civilian ife right now, certainly it’s the gentry who have sandbagged carpenters and laborers for extortionate union dues “before permitting them to help build Army barracks.

GT TO THE POINT |

HOMAS H. REED, the former di rector of the National Municipal Consultant Service,was dealing in no namby- ' pamby words in his gdress yesterd y to the Rotary Club here. ? Running a metropcliian area, said Mr. Reed, is like fighting a war. The prime need is unified control. Not five or six different governments, not three, not two—one. lish your township setups, put the enire county under | one administration. Call it what you will—city or county aye one government handling zoning, planning, police, , school, fire, all the problems that go into running th community. . is is war-time and-you can’t go into any huge public ks program. But you can plan, said Mr, Reed. And you can straighten out your governmental problems. 2 # t » # 8. HAT Mr. Reed had to say was particularly pertinent for In iangpolis. What is going to happen in the postwar days to come? What is happening even now? .| Why, the building program keeps spreading in an ever-outward arc. Out beyond the city limits. The problems of police and fire protection, of traffic control, of health

one

les, all these are haphazardly handled by various over- | most potent arm of modern warfare—airpower.

lapping agencies, Yes, it’s time for Indianapolis to come of age, pe start ~ thinking of consolidating our many-headed governmental monster. Time to start planning for one county-wide wernment, 1t is ote way of making democtacy work.

zl S . ! ; COME ON, MR. COFFEE (IONGRESSMAN COFFEE of ‘Washington arose in- the House the other day to lambaste newspapers for ating “Pensions for Congress.”

“Will the newspapers,” asked Mr. Coffee, “tell how much it costs the taxpayers for the subsidy we give to them

through their use of the second class mailing privilege?

From $90,000,000 to $120,000,000 a year the newspapers of America are subsidized by the taxpayers, because it costs hat much more to send out their papers through the mail n they paysthe Post Office for this service.” ‘The genleman is correct. The newspapers do get a sidy from the Government. And, as we have said be- , this subsidy was voted by Congress and should be reed by Congress. We repeat what we have said previ-

The Indianapolis Times and the Scripps-Howard orRiley want no free ride at the taxpayers’ expense. We

villing to pay the cost of disteluting our newspapers.” :

Fair Enough By Westbrook Pegler

CHICAGO, Feb. 18.—Edmund Scott, a reporter for PM, the strange journalistic whatizzit which Marshall Field runs in New York, has written a shocking account of conditions aboard the Normandie and along the New York waterfront, generally, under the domination of the Longshoremen’s Union of the A. F. of L., which is an unconscionable racket

with a long underworld history. | For authentic background on this union read |

“Dock-Walloper,” the memoirs of Dick Butler, an old underworld’ character who formerly was an official of the racket along the Chelsea piers and as a side job delivered Harry Thaw from Matteawan, a historic jailbreak. It was ghosted by Joseph Driscoll, I believe, and not only reads well but checks well against the known facts of life on the West Side waterfront. Scott recently was assigned to obtain work as a longie aboard the Normandie. He joined the union

at a cost of $26, marked down from the standard price

of $100, without the slightest inquiry and was put to work on the Normandie notwithstanding his own inti-~ mation to the business agent of the longshoremen that he had been “in trouble” and Tight be using a false name,

The FBI Certainly Knows It

SCOTT WAS PICKED for the Normandie job by the union and when he had written his story his editors spiked it because, they report, it was “a blueprint for sabotage.” However, PM says the gist of the piece was communicated to Capt. Charles H. Zeerfoss, the chief of the anti-sabotage division of the Maritime

| Commission, and that Zeerfoss scoffed and warned thet paper to get Scott out of there “before he gets shot.”

Scott reported loafing by the men and himself, stalled a total of one and one-half hours in one day, locking himself in staterooms aboard the liner to smoke. He saw 20 open barrels of excelsior into which a saboteur could have tossed a match and learned that there were no precautions against sabotage by fire through any of the simple chemical devices which the Germans used freely jo ignite cargoes in the last war. The character of the Longshoremen’s Union cannot be unknown to the FBI. Or any other Government agency. It is a job monopoly extending to the vital shores of Staten Island and Jersey: where racketeers rule with despotic power and prey on the men not only for fees and dues but for various shake-

downs.

‘You Read It, Too, Eleanor

I AM RATHER glad PM did it because when I explode such stories they are instantly denounced as “labor baiting” by such journals which have played up to these rackets along with Mayor LaGuardia whose sympathy generally runs with pickets and unioneers and against his own cops: whose loss of morale is largely attributable to that. The Longshoremen’s Union not only certifies the longies but actually qualifies the guards who are supposed to protect property on the piers. This union was responsible for the rise of Harry Bridges because its acquiescence in the pitiless robbery and exploitation of the workers put them in a mood to adopt any leader who would pretend to be their friend even though he should exploit them, himself, in the interests of the Communist conspiracy. The attention of Senator Wagner and Mrs. Roose-

| velt is invited to the story of Edmund Scott in last

Tuesday’s issue of PM whioh certainly will not be accused of union-booting, having started life with a large Communist cell on the editorial side and but-

| tered the union fakers consistently down to now.

U. S. Aviation By Maj. Al Williams

THE OUTSTANDING explanation for the ease with which the Japs raided Hawaii is the failure of the Army and the Navy to coordinate the materiel ard personnel at their disposal. Co-ordina-tion between the Army and Navy has been much of a myth, still is, and very possibly always will be, unless something is done to take responsibility for co-ordination out of the hands of officers of the two old services and put it in the hands of a unified Supreme command. The average American can readily recognize that, when the two parent services do not co-ordinate their efforts, the air forces of those organizations are left in a vacuum. The Roberts report flatly states that, “The major part of the damage to ships in Pearl Harbor resulted

from torpedoes launched from planes.” That means

that what damage wasn’t done by aerial torpedoes was done by derial bombs. The entire damage at Pearl Harbor was done by airpower.,

The System Is Impeding Us

HERE WE FIND again the recurrence so customary in this war—airpower constituting the striking power against surface and land forces commanded by non-fliers. Admiral Kimmel was not an aviator; neither was Gen. Short. What they knew and thought of airpower was based upon hearsay and was influenced by the prejudices and jealousies found in both their parent organizations for anything with wings on it. The Army and the Navy have never co-operated effectively, either in peacetime or in wartime, and they won't co-operate until we have a supreme command, in which will be represented the third and

It's the system which is impeding us in this war. We've got to have a ‘unified high command, and we've got to have our three national weapons—Army, Navy, Air—under the jurisdiction and at the orders of that command, set up in such fashion that they can be wielded in the best interests of the safety of the United States.

So They Say—

Not since the days of the Revolution have we ever |

had ; gmuch of a chance to lose a war. ‘And we have a chance to lose this one.—William L. Batt, chairman, ‘Inter-Allied Raw Materials Board.

* * *

What both ts and Republicans should be doing now is not dividing the country with excessive partisanship but selecting in the coming Jimaties and conventions men who have the and imagination to! see the world whole and to the people the truth. —Wendell Willkie, G. O. P. Presidential nominee, 1940. re .

It we went to Moscow to give, We went to Washingion to get, and getting is always more

ister.

. . o Va : »

| 1 see no difference between the man ‘who irs ¥ thumbs down on Wagner, because he was, a German, | and the man who bans Mendelssohn, because he was |

8 | Jew: Dees Taylor, composer.

than giving.—Lord Beaverbrook, British supply may 1

The Hoosier Forum

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

“WE NEED MEN TO PULL, NOT TO GRUMBLE” By O. O. Dismore, Scottsburg

Kindly inform me and others in this Forum just what are these columns writers trying to do. Kill the G. O. P. Party or just stir up hard feelings? It looks sometimes as though Hitler had them in hand. Some of them seem to be of a very jealous nature. Why cause all this perplexity in times like these? Seems to me by the looks of these pictures they might be able to man a gun. If behind a gun I am sure they would feel so much better, for then they would be doing something worth while. , . . We: need men to pull, not grumble at every litfle thing. They remind me of two dogs that were fighting on a bridge over a bone, growling, holding on till they saw their own reflection in the water. Then started to bark, of course the bone fell intp the water and was lost. . ., » # os

‘INDIANA SHOULD LEAD IN ABOLISHING DISCRIMINATION’

By John W. Crook, pastor, Scott Methodist Church, 2121 Martindale Ave. + » o For the past few weeks I have lost many nights’ sleep, thinking of the many embarrassments the Negro citizens of this state and other states meet every day and week through discrimination and prejudice and brutish treatment.... The millions of Negroes in these United. States are loyal and love the Stars and Stripes, and are giving and will give their last drop of blood to defend it. The heart of Indiana has always been to do justice to mankind. During the days of slavery Indiana was one of the stations of the underground railroad, helping to send the slaves from Kentucky to the land of freedom. ... I am writing to Governor Schricker to ask if he will do his best to apbeal to Indiana, and ask that we lead the other states in carrying out the President's command that we abolish all prejudice and discrimination. I was in a small restaurant the other day in a hurry to go to the hospital to administer to a sick girl, with a fellow minister from another city, and asked to

(Times readers are invited to express their views in these columns, religious controversies excluded. Make - your letters short, so all can have a chance. Letters must be signed.)

be served a sandwich and a cup of coffee; they refused us unless we would go to the kitchen; we refused to go to the kitchen, and then stopped in a sandwich shop, and there again we were refused service unless we would go out the door to drink it. I don’t think that you know of such conditions in “Glorious Indiana.” It is also hard for Negroes to buy a sandwich on the highway. I am... appealing to the Governor of Indiana in the name of the Great God of the Universe to ask Indiana to lead in abolishing these conditions in this great state and other states of the Union. He has the privilege of finishirig the work that was started years ago by Abranam Lincoln. ” ” ”

“NO MIDDLE GROUND IN NATION'S WAR EFFORT”

By A “Little” American, Indianapolis We read much in lamentation of the evident complacency of the American people foward our position in a war-mad world. , , . We read the people. are, ready to bear down and go after the serious business of winning this war. But, since sacrifice and patriotism is a requirement of all Americans in times like this we are not going to get “het up” over the war until those prices for freedom are paid by all Americans, not just we little folks. For example, every radio program break is filled with an appeal to save your breakfast food boxes, or your old newspapers for they are sorely needed in our war effort. Are they trying to kid us? Each 24 hours the front porches of the city and the mail boxes of the country are receptacles for tons of cheap, worthless, hand bills and

Side Glances—By Galbraith

| million dollars a day in taxes

circulars sponsored by certain adherents of “Business as usual” and evidently their slogan is “Forget Pearl Harbor.” How can the American people be other than complacent in the face of such a farce? Either certain materials arg needed or they are not needed. There is no middle ground. If such things are needed to help preserve our homes, is it not also needed to preserve their business? I have a sneaking opinion that paper is needed and there is one way in which we, the people, can be patriotic. Save those hand bills both for defense and to remind us that their sponsors are no more American than Hirohito who is also using our “scrap” for his own selfish ends. 2 ” ”

“MAYBE ADOLF WOULD TAKE

MAYRIS OFF OCD’s HANDS!” By Margaret Stearns Reese, Thompson Rd. At the most critical period .in all history for the United States and indeed the world, with men fighting and dying, enduring hell and deprivation for a paltry $21 per month, Mrs, Roosevelt appoints a dancer in the OCD at $4600 a year. There are thousands of Civil Service employees in the service of their country who never have one whole night at home with. their families, who go all hours, in any kind of weather, who out of loyalty to their Government turn down one high salaried defense job after another for from $1440 annually upward to $2300 yearly. | These men receive no medals for valor, they get no headlines, they are the unimportant minority who keep your country’s mails moving on schedule. They receive no time and a half on Sunday, nor double time, and when they ret: to their homes, they ar& too tired for any social life. 5 These men are not leeches. They] * are not chiselers and they render a service just as wv ble in proportion as our armed forces, They buy bonds and stam beyond their means that their money might help Uncle Sam. But the American people are certainly not making such sacrifices to pay Mayris Chaney $4600 a year, What has she got to offer that is so valuable? Let her get a job in the theater where she belongs—if she’s good enough, and if she isn’t place her on relief like others were and give her a WPA Job for about $10 or $12 a week. When this country is at war and on the losing side at that, when we are painted dark pictures for all of 1942 and perhaps much longer, why can’t Mayris Chaney volunteer her services? . We're willing to work and save and make every sacrifice for our armed forces but we're not going to see Mayris Chaney haul down $4600 a year for a pair of slick legs when our sons are ‘being sent all over the world for any $21 a month. Someone ought to page old Adolph Schickelgruber, he goes for dancers. Maybe he could take her off the OCD’s hands. ...

® 8 = “WHISKY TAXES IN STATE JUST AIN'T HAY” By, Gilbert B. Stambre, 3021 N. Keystone

I have just finished reading Mrs. Willard G. Gray's letter in the Forum and wish to say that I wholeheartedly disagree with her, We may spend on. whisky and the like but we also buy defense bonds and stamps. + pray tell me, are a few measly paper sacks an being rationed on other things actually are not necessities to

whisky alone in Indiana, and “tha ain't hay.” Think that over, Mrs. Gray.

DAILY THOUGHT

ee farihy. of Ms, reward—Timothy 5:18.

‘southeast, almost at right angles to the strip

Gen. Johnson"

Says— +

WASHINGTON, Feb. 18.—The escape of the German fleet to the Helgoland Bight wasn't just a playful little game of hide-ande seek, When it was nicely bottled up ‘on the French coast, Britain at least knew where it was and could” and should have ridden herd on: it without tying down too much. of her dwindling navy. Now it is like some nameless terror in the ‘dark. The British, and perhaps we, will have to weaker their naval strength in many places to seek, find and destroy it and prevent some new and hideous raiding and-surprise attack anywhere on the earth's. surface. i Furthermore, after what happened at Pearl Harbor, and. to the Normandie right under our noses—anye thing tpay happen. : There are at least three great French capital ships and many lesser crafts. The Italian navy may not be so Lot, but it has a good deal of modern tonnage;

J he Questions People Are Asking

IT [[S NOT IMPOSSIBLE that these remnants might be gathered to make. a formidable high seas

fight and what is not impossible to happen these days

may hsppen. The British navy problem is completely changed by Singapdre. The long route around Africa is, as Mr. Churchill says, the only way left open to them to the Mar East. If we are to send a great A, E, F, to New Zealand and Australia Wat is the route we must take. With all our shipping for either navy or mercantile marine there is not enough tonnage in sight or builde ing to ship, supply or convoy a great army. People talk of our carrying on the fight in the Far East. Few stop to ask “Why?” or “With What?” How muich of our Navy was crippled at Pearl Harbor and ‘how long will it be before we can repair and use it? ‘What is the actual state of the British battle-. ship fleet which should have blocked the straits of Dover for the German escape? People are asking such questions. They \are no longer satisfled with ‘the answers they get. They have a right not to be satisfied, because so many. of those answers have proved misleading or Sowntight untrue.

"The Truth Is Not Being Told'

IN THE MEANTIME, the bedlam of confusion, in competerice’ and waste at Washington resechoes throughout the land. There is a constant jealous grabbing : for power and the foundations of power seem to be the multiplication of inexperienced personnel to do the work by many that could be done by few. Its superstructure is the attempt by each bureau<" cratic chieftain to duplicate or displace something that is being done by another. Why? Because it im= proves thie resulting work? No, because it inflate the stature of the successful power-grabber., Take the question of deferment for the draft on account of employment in a nécessary industry. Well, under the guise of having a “labor supply” adminise tration, direction of this function of the draft, after a bitter battle among the Secretary of Labor, Paul McNutt, Sidney Hillman and several others, has been: won by Hillman. This was simply a struggle for power. It is just an instance of what is happening in several places. It is why things don’t get done. It leads to a cone viction that is sweeping this country—that the truth’ is no being told and that, if it were told, it would ‘be Altflsk too nauseating to suffer.

newspaper are their own,’ of The Indianapolis Times.

This and That

By Peter Edion

They are not

WASHINGTON, Feb, 18 Eighty per cent of the automobile: and truck: trips are for fewer than 20 miles. . , , Fewer than 2 per cent of the cars and trucks go. more than 100 miles from their: starting point on any one trip. . « » Fifty-four per cent of farm. tractors are now rubber tired. A hitherto nameless peak in the: Great Smokies has been dubbed: Mount Lanier, after the southern: poet, Sidney” Lanier. . . . Floyd Odlum says the united: | nations must outproduce the Axis two-and-one-half: to ene Yo win, and that it will take from two to three months, just to place the orders for munitions now: appropriated for "Congress, , . Two hundred thous! sand “lead men” are to be trained by July 1 to ine struct war workers and break them in on new Jobs. . Leon Henderson's Price Schedule No. 99 was on; aspirin,

Taxicabs Into Ambulances WASHINGTON TAXICABS are being organized’ into emergency amubulance units. . Municipak anti-smoke ordinances may be upset by difficulties in: getting low-smoke coals, . . . Tin in cans has been reduced from 15 to 1.25 per cent, « +.» The fire pump Industry is stepping up production from 30 to 100 units a day. . . . The typewriter industry, which made a million machines last, year, will cut production 25 per cent and convert to ordnance production. . . ; Brush makers must use only 45 per cent imported Chinese pig bristle, substituting horsehair, nylon, sisal; badger or ixtle. . , . Canadian and United States price administrations are co-operating to set maximums on newsprint. , . . Consumers who find retail sugar ky more than 1 ‘cent higher on a five-pound bag than they were in the first week of December should pro< test to the storekeeper, :

a 5

. ; ; Questions and Answers (The Indianapolis Times Service Bureau will answer any: question of fact or Internation. net involving extensive re=: search. ‘Write your question clearly. sign mame 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 is Camation Day celebrated in connection of the birth of President McKinley? A—The anniversary of his birth has been observed as Carnation Day since 1903 because that was his fas vorite flower and he always wore one in Mis buttons hole. The choice was made by the Carnation League,

Q—Is it true Soak ti, oun. ten Slime Saco end of the Panama Canal? an " A—An oddity of the Panama Canal is that | Pacific terminus is farther east than the Atlantic end. The axis of the Isthmus of Panama is from southwest to southeast. ‘The canal was built from northwest t

ili

§ F

and the Pacific end is about 27 miles east 0! lantic end. ' Thus, since the sun rises in the rises over the Pacific end and sets over the énd of the Panama Canal.

Q—What is the. significance of the statue ¢ cumseh at the Naval Academy? A—The original statue, known to midshipmen “The God of 2.5” was once the figurehead. Irigats Delaware. J 01" onde epi vu: a ak dor

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