Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 28 February 1942 — Page 9

gr . > Be dianapolis Times RD RALPH BURKHOLDER MARK FERREE | Editor Business Manager + (A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER) | ’ + EE Price in Marion County, 8 cenis a copy; delive ered by carrier, 12 cents 8 week. Mail subscription rate in Indiana, $3 a outside of Indiana, cents a month.

Fond Give Light ond the People Will Find Their Own Way

| | | BATURDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1043 | sar

WAR? YES, YES, BUT— JT'LL take something worse than Pearl Harbor or Si pore to convince some Americans that this war is no S y school picnic, with ice cream-and-cake-as-usual. Take the|case of Q. Edward Gatlin, WPA director fo ssissippi. For all we know, Mr. Gatlin is an amiable d patriotic fellow. But we wonder whether he wouldn’ have slept right on when Paul Revere yelled through th room window. % ug | Mr. Gatlin has been wiring Mississippi congressme e telegrams being paid for by you and the other tax rers—urging support for an “adequate” appropriatior for WPA. By “adequate” he means more money than sient Roosevelt has proposed for WPA. At the same time he has been buttonholing Missis‘communities, by mail, exhorting them to submit more por of keep-'em-rolling campaign, but vintage bo |

- | Even in| peacetime, such salesmanship by a bureauat would be of dubious propriety and legality. In time of war, with critical shortages of material and manpower looming up, ithe. importunities of Mr. Gatlin (and others ike him, in WPA, NYA, CCC and elsewhere) are decidedly out of order.

E ALSO SERVED T was a two-paragraph item on the inside of the rews- ) e didn’t fire a red-hot machine gun from a i g 3ataan. She piloted no precious cargo through

ancy Vance of Charlottesville, Va., knew she She gave up a private room and tal ward so she would have more

other day and left all she had, $2300, for that great Many of us do less with more.

| ELECT MEANS SELECT” S the needs of our nation-at-war expand let's. again emphasize that word “selective.” Strictly) applied it is the very essence of democracy in pulsory service for the nation. It means every man to his post, and every woman. | ' : 1h, ht Roosevelt aptly described it on Sept. 16, 1940, laimed the passage of the compulsory service nciple expressed then has not changed, but the lem hag multiplied manyfold. 1a As the picture has broadened we have seen that almost part of our national life is “essential” to war. But » have been disturbed of late by a tendency at the top ithe selective service system to sort out “essential” classiations for special mention—movie industry, labor leaders, wspaper and radio. Ilo True, each of those divisions contains within it men who obviously could serve their country better where they are than in the armed divisions. But we don’t believe that by a nudge from on high the implication should go out that ‘e membership in any classification should call for special considenati n or dispensation. And the very mention of a class or group doés«carry the implication—inevitably. It ~ hands to le local draft boards a hint, and an “out.” toc yo. a ‘. 8 = HE most important preservative of democracy in the _opefatipn of selective service runs to that very local : . It’s the same idea as a jury of your peers. It is “home rule—by neighbors who are in best position to know those brought before them and to pass on their relative values, civil or military. fo Working within all classifications the local board— use it is local—is under pressure, in turn, from its neighbors to avoid favoritism which if allowed to exist would poison the whole stream of selective service. So we hope that the high draft officials in Washington will place more emphasis on local selection and avoid in the future the naming of classes, professions, industries or groups, For all classes are essential and selection becomes a matter of degree. In short, of selection. . . . § ss » = stress this point now because apparently we are in expansion of selective service way beyond anyed of when the president issued that first

| Preside

up survey shows 53 per cent for such a. total

n ohilizati | in Massachusetts and 67 per cent in the city Such indications of public support for going the whole il as well as military—is significant indeed. But sblic enthusiasm would quickly wane if suspicion ard groups or individuals were allowed

MBER way back when the brightest war news e laughing inl from Greece and Albania? Most of 8 big haw-haw about Big Bad Benito’s Invincibles sorts of hasty retreat records before the Greeks

@ musa |

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

CHICAGO, Feb. 28.—Those per-

man’s status and, if victorious, would degrade him to the position of a .beast. It is plain that the colored American is not fighting a white man’s war this time, “whatever he may think of his part in Cubayin '98 and in France in 1917 and in ’18. : The error is often made of saying that the United States is no less oppressive toward the Negro than Hitler toward the Jew and the feelings of colored men have been churned up by ‘this thought. But it is a

to dehumanize the Jew and deprive him of all human rights, whereas our constitution and laws pointedly recognize the colored man as a human being and, citizen. The impositions on the Negro, the discriminations, are imperfections which our government has been trying to work out for many years and, as understanding: improves between the races, his status steadily rises.

our colored people, for communism, if it isto be a revolt on the masses against the few, must throw the Negro into conflict with the masses because, in our country, it has been the ignorant and prejudiced white man who has most jealously and suspiciously opposed the rise of the dark man. :

Facing It Frankly

UNTIL VERY RECENTLY, even the more enlightened workers who formed the labor aristocracy in the craft unions rejected the colored man on racial grounds and the improvement in relations has come from tne higher levels of intelligence while prejudice persisted further down. So, if communism were ‘to prevail, the Negroes would still find themselves in conflict with and outnumbered by a victorious element that has been least generous to them all along. - The Negro writer, composer, painter, actor and musical’ artist nowadays are limited only by their own ability and the normal - handicaps which trouble white Sen. The name of an author, for example, does not proclaim him to be a Negro and even if it be proudly announced that the writer of some great work were a colored man or woman, that person would be acclaimed and rewarded. Frankly, the political leaders who have risen in Negro communities in the north have been undistinguished and selfish and on a par generally with the inferior white politician and, in method, very similar to the padrones of Italian immigrant neighborhoods, the professional Irishman and the professional Pole, a familiar political figure in Chicago and Buffalo. No sensible man will say that the Negro associates freely with us, but we white people, ourselves, are divided into groups according to manners, gccupations and interests and do not regard these rather instinctive segregations as inequalities. I say good will on the white man’s side wrought more improvement than we realize and the Negro has more to lose than any other American but the Jew by a victory for Adolf Hitler.

This and That By Peter Edson

’

WASHINGTON, Feb. 28—The * automobile industry is 54 per cent converted to war work... . When fully converted, the auto industry will employ a million workers .as compared with peacetime employment’ of around 550,000. . . .. * Curtailment of the amount of printing on bread wrappers has been ordered to save engraving materials and color pigments for & ink. . . . An effort is being made to assure sugar supplies for the home canning season. « +» + All raw silk stocks are now in the hands of the government. . . . Manufacturers of merry-go-rounds and orange juice squeesers are among the firms that have converted to war supplies, . ./% A boring mill built in 1865 and a steam hammer built in the Civil War have been converted to war production. . . Sell back that hoarded sugar,

30,000 Meals a Day!

A THOUSAND GUESTS were invited to a Mexican embassy cocktail party. . . . Government building cafeterias are now serving 100,000 meals a day. . « « And when the “world’s largest office building” is opened for the War Department across the Potomac in Arlington it will have the world’s largest eating place, equipped to handle 30,000 meals a day 28 cafeteria lines. . . . The magnificent Fed-

. ? a * « « o Living costs in * Washington are higher than in any city in the nation.

So They Say— |

One of the best possible means of columnists and saboteurs is to turn u workers who are an important part of ply into the streets in idleness—Dr. W. V.

of War Production Board's labor division. 3 aha

3 #0 ein Completion of plans for civilian medical be rushed because there will be no time when the

declared policy and purpose of the nazi government |'

The Communists have imposed shamelessly on |

care must | §

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

“DRINKING PEDESTRIAN IS THE MORE DANGEROUS”

By Roberta L. Jackson, Butler university. In reply to the letter of Mrs. Gray on drunken driving in Feb. 24 issue, I fail to agree. Perhaps I would if I drank or knew drinkers but as it is I have only my lessons to go on. I think, if it is worth the trouble, that in Gray's “Psychology in Use,” you will find figures on that. Page 73, lines 19-23 show that .in accidents of fatality, one driver out of nine had been drinking; one pedestrian out of seven had been drinking. That would seem to mean that drunken walking is more dangerous than drunken driving. But who am I to argue? 8 2 ” “LABOR HAS TAKEN LEAD IN THIS WAR” PD ainus State Industrial Un he hi For two long years now labor and its leaders have insisted on an effective defense program. Labor has taken the lead in this war. Thousands of union men are fighting or ready to fight on the military fronts. Hundreds of thousands are skill-

fully producing the materiel that

will win. Labor’s leaders have persuaded labor to sheathe the only weapon that labor has, the strike. Labor's lenders have rallied the workers to full support of the civilian defense program. Labor's leaders have summoned all the backing of all the thousands of organized workers to the defense stamp and bond drive. Labor's leaders have given their blood to the Red Cross blood banks and have called upon the workers to do the same. Labor's leaders have inspired the effort that has galvanized our war indusrties. Labor’s leaders are ready to fight for their country when they are needed. The decision of the selective srvice administration that labor leaders may be deferred because they are vital to national defense is merely a recognition of a generally known fact that the organized. workers of the nation have confidence in their leaders and look to them for leadership. Drafting union leaders would not

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

excluded.

be signed.)

weaken the unions, but it definitely would weaken the war effort. The rank and file of labor is impulsive. It so abhors profiteering, chiseling, pork-barreling at the expense of the people of the nation, that without the restraint of experienced leaders whom it trusts, it would doubtless act drastically to end conditions such as these exposed by the Truman-committee, the Tolan committee and the Vinson committee. Labor is impatient. Labor would have no truck with those who*vote themselves pensions or spend days vilifying the president and his wife while Gen. MacArthur and a gallant band of soldiers, workers, are making history. Labor’s indignation without the guidance of labor’s leaders might possibly harm our war effort by trying to impulsively correct other conditions that harm it.

Most employers recognize this fact. Most unprejudiced people realize it but there still remains a

group which hates labor so bitterly.

that they think to harm labor by taking its leaders. This group attempts to hamstring the war effort by insisting that labor leaders be drafted. In this time of crisis the nation has the right to the services of every man and woman, of every

dollar, or every machine, of every|

jot of wealth, of everything that can help to win this war. Those who direct this effort realize that each person or thing must be used where it do the most ‘good. There is no doubt in our minds that if a union president or representative can be most useful, insur-

{ing maximum production in the

plants, that is where he should be;

| 4

Side Glances—By Galbraith

"PRINCIPALS OFFICE

if he can be most useful as a private on the military front, that is where he should be. It would be well if those of the public outside of labor unions, who have been given a concentrated, continuous diet of balderdash which boils down to this simple but false statement, “Labor leaders” cause strikes, stoppages, demands,” would open their eyes to the truth which is this: Labor leaders prevent and stop vastly more strikes than they start; labor leaders modify and withdraw many more demands than they inspire; labor leaders urge and persuade the workers to many more compromises than thé workers want; labor is almost always more militant, mere demanding, more uncompromising than “labor leaders; the leader of labor is the man whose experience, training and dependability enable him to direct the volatile fighting spirit of the workers into the channels which in the long run improve the general welfare of the working people as a whole. : » 8 8 “FOR SHAME ON WE NATIVE AMERICAN CITIZENS!”

By Arthur S. Mellinger, 3500 W. 30th st. Last fall in our little community a man gave a three-day celebration ‘when he received his final naturalization papers. He held open house and spent $200 or $300. He certainly was thankful that he could be called a citizen of this country. I will wager my last dollar that e won't complain if his sugar is ort. For shame! We native born Americans howl to the high heavens if we have to walk a square, do without a tire; but I will assure you a lot of people are going to appreciate just what this country has been to them. I have watched many criminal characters. They brag and defy the law; but when finally cornered and the chair of death stares them in the face, most of them cringe when they face the grim reaper. Maybe a lot of people will listen to friendly advice when some of their privileges are threatened to be taken from them, and respect the rules of a good citizen. o ” » “PEGLER IS CUTTING A SORRY SPECTACLE” By L. 8. Scharrer, 937 N. King ave. Westbrook Pegler is cutting a sorry ‘spectacle these days. This writer who year after year engaged in the most poisonous pen scratching against the Soviet union now feels. compelled to praise the land he reviled in order to hold his readers and so continue his dirty work agpinst America and the rest the united nations. Communist is a

ments that Pegler suffered before he finally typed out those words. Like Goebbels, Pegler féels that any lie if it is big enough will be believed by someone, so a lie that the American Communists say that “Alaska should belong to Russia.”

that. was

Next came a and radio are also subject to It is true that it was pointed out blanket exemption; that the final decisio hands of the local board to whom it must that the industry is necessary in. Pro for the national safety, health or the man is personally doing is essential % tioning and that there is no replacement s

There Are No Indispensibles!

BUT WHAT GOOD is that when headquarters itself “advises” that. the and labor leadership are essential to the terest? That certainly takes away’ that p cision, reposed by law in the local boards, it in headquarters. en The question of the individuals being isn’t taken away in’ the same forthright But what is likely to be the reaction of { board to the actual language that is used? There are no wholly non-essential {i There is no indispensible man. The terms a relative. ' They change as war ebbs and fio the alternative to deferring one man is another. x The one taken goes to the imminent and peril of his life and limb, It is true that of not g the other is that you think he c a greater contribution to victory at a lathe fi a rifle. : It is only in the government's interest man is taken—not in his interest. . Yet he removed from danger than his fellow and, usually turn out, he is many times better pa

How to Undermine Morals

rr NO SUCH TERRIBLE choice should ever considered, unless the nation’s need for the stay at home is so clear, and the fact that be satisfactorily replaced so plain, that ‘the: scarcely room for argument about it. It is gris bitter business in which fear, favor or inten have no part whatever. William Green of A, F. of L. has denied for the deferments on the part of labor. like to hear the same from Mr. Hillman, contrary, he has pressed for them. These breaches in the foundations of one of the strongest elements of our national defense ase the first. We can’t let them grow without undermining their whole structure. oo Jd Parents, relatives and friends of men and boy who are asked to give up everything, and the and boys themselves, are not apt to take lightly thi kind of favoritism and discrimination in a matte so serious. EE If you wanted to invent a way to undermine popular morale, you would have to think a long while before you could equal this. ibid

Editor's Note: The views expressed by columnists newspaper are their own.’ They are not of The Indianapolis Times.

A Woman's Viewpe

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

WHEN YOU HAVE a new in the house, the old “Flag of Union” joke takes on gel id meaning. For babies and diapers | go together like right and left 4 left shoes. One is no good without the other. TEA In certain cities, now, eX= pectant mdther can run down to her local diaper service shop and arrange for help with this/proble ; at the right moment. Sometimes grandmothers ‘tag along. It was in this way I met Mrs. Neva Montgomery, proprietor of | neapolis service, who told me sevreal inter about her business. There are 65 diaper service firms in States. It is still a comparatively new

learn that this peculiarly feminine labor-savil had been originated by a woman.

What a Stupid Bird!

LIKE THE FOUNDER, Mrs. Montgor trained nurse. After marriage she gave fession but, hating idleness, she soon sf first venture of its kind in the Northwest. now another company in: St. Paul, 20 1 and it also does a thriving business.

sanitary standards. Large metal cans are us haul the diapers to and from customers. De is made in gay pink and blue trucks, and go out in lots of three dozen each. n Although this business is still in d it's coming dlong fast. Last year .the 65. called a convention and set up stringent r i for themselves and those who will follow into | occupation. d

Trim, snappy-eyed Mrs. Montgofhe! really the word for her—works wherever to be needed. Since the draft has taken helpers, she and her husband are regular They're thinking of adopting a baby, | stork has passed them by. What a stupid Montgomery would be one mother well £ with the diaper situation,

Questions and A

Times ] Bureau, 1013 Thirteenth St.. Washington. D. 0.)

Q—What is the Soldiers and Sailors’ Act? 2d fo A—On Oct. 17, 1940, a law was passe suspension of the