Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 8 April 1942 — Page 10
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The Indianapolis Times
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RALPH BURKHOLDER MARK FERREE Editor Business Manager (A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)
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WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8, 1942
CONGRESS AND WAR PROFITS
HE public is being treated to one of those curious spectacles which congress sometimes stages when it suddenly discovers that it has to hurry to get in step with popular sentiment. From the end of the first world war there was searcely a year but what some official committee in Washington was at work on a tax program that would “take the profits out of the next war.” The people took it for granted that it would be done. When war came, even before our own nation became a belligerent, congress should have pulled out of the pigeonhole the best of those profit-taxing plans and rushed it to enactment. But congress waited on the secretary of the treasury to say how it should be done. The secretary waited on the treasury experts. The experts finally rejecting the old plans in favor of a brand-new scheme of their own. Meanwhile, the letting of war contracts couldn't wait. And one after another came disclosures that some contractors were making unconscionable profits. The people began demanding that something be done to stop these excessive profits. : = = = = 2 O congress, instead of putting some steam behind the war tax bill, tried to take a short cut. The house one day, with very little debate, tacked an amendment onto an army appropriation bill, fixing a flat 6 per cent profit limit on any war contract. In the senate, after a little study, it soon became apparent that the house provision was a stab in the dark, and wide of its mark. The 6 per-cent limit would enormously enrich some contractors, and bankrupt others, especially small contractors. So a few senators cooked up a new scheme—a sliding scale of profit limits, ranging up from 2 per cent on contracts over $50,000,000 to 10 per cent qn contracts under $100,000. Even 2 per cent probably is too much on some contracts, where turnover of capital is rapid, and this sort of limitation on profits has a tendency to encourage extravagance, tempting contractors to run up costs and so increase profits. For this reason, and others, Production Boss Donald Nelson, Secretary Morgenthau and other administration officials opposed both congressional plans. Mr. Nelson finally persuaded the senators to accept a compromise giving authority to the army, navy and maritime commission to renegotiate contracts on which excessive profits are being made. The bill now goes tec a conference between the two houses, for a final decision. The trouble with Mr. Nelson's suggestion, from a political viewpoint, is that it gives congress no opportunity to do something dramatic to appease outraged voters.
8 8 2 = = = HAT congress really ought to do is a much harder and much less “popular” job. It ought to get on with its duty to impose higher taxes on everybody, including war contractors. That's actually the only certain way to insure that no industry or individual shall keep a single dollar of abnormal profit made out of the war effort. The danger is that, out of all this mess, congress will rush through some spectacular but phony “remedy” which will quiet the public demand for genuine action—and then settle back to more delay on the tax program. Taxing the profits out of war is not a job for demagoguery. Investors in industry should no more be expected to risk their capital without a chance for a reasonable return than labor should be asked to work for less than a living wage. But profiteering is another matter. Mr. Nelson believes that a majority of industry would produce war materials without profit, provided only that it could be assured that capital investments would not be impaired. He thinks that 90 per cent of industry sincerely wants to avoid profiteering. We're inclined to believe that the other 10 per cent should be handled firmly, by the method Mr. Nelson favors, and that congress should devote its immediate attention to the urgent tax problem.
SUSPICION AIDS THE AXIS
HE Peglers and the Clappers address national audiences. Here and there in the country are local columnists, who command equal attention in their limited spheres. One of the best is Art Caylor of The San Francisco News, who interested himself recently in a subject of vital importance: What is wrong with production in the shipyards? He appealed directly to rank-and-file workers to tell him their ideas. And, because they have confidence in him, they have responded with hundreds of letters—some of the frankest, most interesting letters we have ever seen. We asked Mr. Caylor, who has read all these letters and pondered them, to summarize his conclusions. Here is his reply: “The real hindrance to maximum production is everybody's suspicion that the other fellow is using patriotism to cover up some private grab. We all seem to fear the Japs less than we fear that someone will make suckers of us. “I think I reflect what has been written to me by many workers, and what has been said by others to whom I have talked, and by many employers to whom I have also talked, ~ when I say this: “The situation can’t be changed by appeasement. The way to get rank-and-file labor whole-heartedly behind the war effort is to crack down on excessive company profits. The way to win management is to crack down on union abuses. Each side seems willing to take some rough treat‘ment for its own faults—provided the other fellow gets the
Fair Enough
By Westbrook Pegler
TUCSON, Ariz, April 8.—A lawyer and law officer of these parts has been telling me that I did very wrong in asserting in a recent essay that Harold Ickes should have killed the editor of an occasional paper published in Bridgeport, Conn. who, in the Coulee Of some uncommonly dirty editorial repartee with Mr. Ickes, impugned the character of Mrs. : Ickes. This lawyer and law officer says such counsel might encourage impetuous citizens to go around shooting other citizens on trival provocation, so I wish to withdraw the suggestion, but will stand pat on my belief that if Mr, Ickes had done such, no jury in the United States—eéven though it were drawn exclusively from the roster of the the Publishers association—having heard the vicious libel, would have convicted Mr. Ickes.
can be a publisher and the paper in the Ickes case was not fairly representative of the regular American press, but there is no sense in pretending that the regular press, itself, avoids this sort of thing, Almost any day you can read in our papers clear across the country items about married couples which say slyly that their friends are worrying or that they are acting very foolishly, which are other ways of saying that the people in question are having a family jam which is nobody’s business but their own and is libelous, what's more.
Just a Few Examples . . .
I DON'T KNOW how any editor can tec.on that he has any right to speculate indiscriminately on how other people's marriages are going, and if there is actual ground for such speculation that only makes the offense the worse, because then the parties concerned are publicly embarrassed and their chances of reconciliation are injured. If an editor has a reporter with a high percentage of error and rumor he finds some way to fire him and, meanwhile, combs and checks his stuff. But the same editor may buy as merchandise and print without checking, statements and insinuations seriously affecting the character and happiness of individuals in New York or Washington or Hollywood which may have a background of personal spite and often are absolutely false. An actor, for instance, was accused in a great
on the stage several blocks away during this meeting. Another man was said to have separated from his
port. after receiving threats, when a phone call to his home would have proved that he was not at all concerned.
"Got Your Revolver, Mr. Editor?"
THE INSTANCES OF false statement harmful or at least humiliating to individuals who have a decent right not to be so abused by newspaper publishers are countless and the majority of them come from tawdry, raucous slum known as Broadway whose journalism is notoriously unreliable and contaminated with base motives, including blackmail and malice,
customary for the editor to keep a Colt revolver in an open drawer of his desk, but may return to those editors who do not realize that this immunity from fatal personal reprisal is accompanied by a personal and professional obligation to shun certain types of personal items and reject informants whose work, by fair test, has proved to be habitually inaccurate or dishonest, whether from motives of blackmail or personal revenge.
Too Little... Again By Gen. Hugh S. Johnson
WASHINGTON, April 8.—The rumor here in Washington is that OPA has practically adopted the Baruch plan of a “price ceiling” over everything, and that Bernard Baruch is said to be very much pleased, because, at last, the final principal step he suggested years ago for industrial mobilization of the United States has been taken. Among those steps were oneman control of industry; committees for each industry dove-tailing with corresponding committees of the government for that industry; the purchase of vast reserve stocks of “strategic materials”—rubber, tin, manganese, etc., and, above all, a “ceiling over the price of every service, right or thing” as that price existed at the beginning of the war, I doubt that Mr. Baruch gets much satisfaction out of what has been done and what it is now proposed to do—especially as to price “ceilings.” Why? Because it is “too little and too late.”
The Germans Adopted It
IF THERE is one thing that experience has proved, it is that, if you wait to apply price control until the components of principal prices have gone sky-high, it is too late to relate the whole price structure back to the beginning of the war and get prices restored to the old level. All that you can then do is to squeeze swollen, inflationary profits out of a few prices. This we actually did do in 1918 but the public benefit was not half what it could have been if we could only have started in time. You may recall that, before the ill-fated Stettinius board was quietly dissolved and its recomniendations silenced, it was rumored that the war college and the general staff had an “industrial mobilization plan.” Those rumors were squeezed to death also by the administration which said they were “just something being talked about in the war department.”
department pamphlet called I. M. P. or “industrial mobilization plan.” They contained all that Mr. Baruch had been suggesting and had lectured about for many years at the general staff, the war college and the army industrial college. It was the plan that the Germans adopted and that we now have adopted piece-meal, “toc little and too late.”
So They Say—
Concentration by high schools on classic college preparatorv courses is a luxury the nation can ill afford at this time.—Lamar Johnson, dean of Stephens College. ® - * Isn't it'a glorious way to unite our country to put congress on the spot and condemn the one institu tion which stands for representative government?— Senator Elbert Thomas, Utah Democrat. - * -
The motion picture industry cries, “Win the war now! Everything else is chores.”—Movie Czar Will H. Hays. * LJ *®
Americans are not content with the ivory towers and fanciful vagueness of European folklore. They
, what happened, often to the point
Of course, anyone with a shirt-tail full of type '
wife when the truth was that she was dangerously | ill and there was not the faintest ground for the re- | Another was said to have gone into hiding |
The day has passed when it was necessary and |
ice activities,” and an editorial in
As a matter of fact they were printed in a war I
THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES The Strain Is Beginning to Tell!
ITAINT FUNNY,
MCGEE t
number of papers of attending a Nazi meeting in | New York. This was a harmful lie, for the actor was |
The Hoosier Forum
1 wholly disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.—Voltaire.
“PLENTY OF SCRAP IRON IF YOU LOOK FOR IT” | By A Loyal American, Indianapolis You read in the papers all the | Hime that U. 8S. is short on scrap iron, There is plenty of scrap iron right here in Indianapolis if the government will only take it over. Ride around the city, you will see junkyards and garages full of old cars. Only yesterday while riding around I saw five or six old cars! piled up at a filling station. If the government would send in- | spectors around in each town they | would get plenty of scrap iron. If people want to be such loyal | Americans, why don't they turn this ! stuff in?
#4 9 “SOCIAL WORK IS NOT A NONESSENTIAL”
By Robert K. Taylor, apolis Social Workers Two recent Times editorials have been disconcerting. Your editorial, “Wake Up, America—It's -Late.” spoke of “boondoggling, social serv-
president, Indian- ' elub
the March 28 editions spoke dis-| paragingly of social workers. Now, social workers are the first line of defense agdinst social problems. Seeing regularly the most discouraging conditions, it is no wonder that social workers report on what they see. In a real sense, they are commissioned by society to report on poverty, individual and social maladjustments. These conditions are embarrassing. No one likes to hear of them, | not even social workers, disciplined ! and well trained as they are. And since when have aid, understanding and treatment for persons (and communities) in trouble been considered disreputable? My Bible doesn’t say so. Christianity is the very essence of social work. Social work is not a nonessential. If it is nonessential in war time, when the stresses and strains of communal living are at maximum, then surely it has had no cause for being in other times. The Times may not like social work, but it must recognize that
there will always be social work, no
Side Glances=By Galbraith
(Times readers are invited their these columns, religious conMake
your letters short, so all can
to express views in
excluded.
troversies
have a chance. Letters must
be signed.)
matter what it is called. So long as men are injured in industrial] accidents, so long as workers are in-
capacitated by iliness, so long as working mothers need day nurseries for their children, so long as there are unmarried mothers, adoptions, boarding home placements for children, so long as children and their parents need to play, so long as students require assistance to continue in school, so long as aged persons no longer able to care for themselves must stay in old homes, so long as there are delinquencies and crimes, so long as school nurses, camps, hospitals, clinics, courts, churches and all other social serv-| ices are necessary, there will be social work. It is high-minded, unselfish work. It releases energies in individuals and communities, allowing them to rise above handicaps, and balances needs and resources in both. It aims at the freedom of the spirit and the enrichment of life. Social work must go on, in war time as in peace time, essential, civilizing, humanitarian.
8 4 8 “THIS IS TIME TO UNITE CAPITAL AND LABOR”
By W. H. Edwards, Spencer As a constant subscriber of The Times, I deplore the paper's present attitude towards union labor. Nor can I be classed among those who have upheld the unrestrained, unreasoning policy of unions in the past. It is true that many union officials have tended to make a racket out of unionism, and thereby have aroused the ire of the public. But at this critical time, it should be the editorial policy of each news-
- " ~ i ‘4 J p Li HE Ck A § a SE ESE SE CL CE de
34 oven
paper, small or large, to seek ways of uniting management and labor in a common front against our axis foes. + + There are many of us who seek a middle ground where capital, represented as industry, can form a working partnership with labor, the two pulling as a team, instead of against each other. Labor has sacrificed the double time pay for Sundays and holidays; now it should be capital's turn to concede the 40-hour week, with time and one-half for over 40 hours. This is not, or at least it should not be, a government for either capital or labor; it should be a government for all the people. Yor newspapers to keep on pro-
longing the fight between capital and labor is far from contributing
towards our national war effort. Labor's past racketeering is merely a reaction against corporation racketeering so flagrantly practiced in the 1920s, and in conclusion please bear in mind the newspaper game isn't altogether free of racketeering. ” ” 8
“VOLUNTEER SYSTEM MUCH TOO SLOW FOR EMERGENCY” By Voice In The Crowd, Indianapolis Let Mr. Maddox be reminded that when we have a fire we relinquish our claim to the streets and our right to use them. In the locality of the fire all of our rights as citizens are temporarily waived In favor of the firemen. When the fire is out we get our rights back because they are our rights. Right now there is a fire in the world that can consume our constitution and our American way of life and every liberty that free. men have ever died for, unless we all become firemen. There is only one way to save anything that is American, and that is to win the war. If we win we will have everything that we ever had and more because the whole world will be free with us. If we lose we will have nothing, and if we fear each other we will lose. The time has come for every man, woman and child to do their part to save America and to shower the blessings of freedom on all mankind. The volunteer system is much ton slow for tie emergency, No matter how liberal or fair a man may credit himself as being, in the heart of everyone is a selfish spark that will let the other fellow volunteer first. It is perfectly natural. The quickest way to victory is to put every man in the spot from which he can do the most good and the only way to do that with speed and justice is to draft every man and woman of any age and condition that is serviceable. If you read behind the lines instead of in front of them, you will know that in the recent few weeks a miracle has happened in America. With scarcely a sound and with no flag waving at all the great midsection of the American commonwealth known for all time as the “middle class” has made it known in Washington that petty politics will not win the war, Congress is bewildered, but alert to the change.
The Profit Side
By Peter Edson
WASHINGTON, April 8.—~"“One of the most flagrant attempts at war profiteering to come to its notice” is to be given a Washingwn airing some time soon when the Truman committee investisaiuing national defense has a further look at the affairs of Basic Magnesium, Inc., Cleveland, operating company now building a $63,000,000 magnesium plant near Las Vegas, Nev, using the gove ernment’s Defense Plant Corp. money. A sub-com-mittee of senators had a preliminary look several weeks ago. What the senators found was evidence that the company, on an original investment of $50,000 to prove magnesite ore deposits claimed from the public domain, stands to make a possible $280,000 a year royalties, plus a possible $560,000 a year operating fee, for the next 30 years. Hence the committee's label of “flagrant war profiteering.”
It's a Regular Daisy Chain
UP TO THE beginning of the emergency, the U. S. had only one magnesium plant in operation, a 9000 tons a year unit run by Dow Chemical, which extracted the metal from salt water. Additional U, 8, consumption of this metal, lighter than aluminum and valuable as an alloy to give aluminum extra hardness, had been met by imports from Europe. German metallurgists had really pioneered the development of the metal, but in 1936 a British com= pany, British Elektron, Ltd. began extensive reduction of the ore in England, licensed to operate under patents controlled by I. G. Farbenindustrie. In the U. 8. these patents are supposedly controlled but not developed by Magnesium Development Co., a holding company jointly owned by the Aluminum Company of America and I. G, F. Other industrialists saw the possibilities, among them the Hanna interests of Cleveland, for years operators of coal and iron properties in the Great Lakes area. Hanna sent engineers to England to study British Elektron, with an eye to developing the magnesite ore deposits in Nevada. The result was the formation of Basic Magnesium, Ind. 45 per cent owned by the British who were to furnish the “know= how,” 55 per cent owned by Basic Refractories, a Hanna holding company which in turn owned as a subsidiary, Basic Ores, which acquired the Nevada magnesite deposits—if you can follow that corporate daisy chain.
Nice Business, Isn't It?
ORIGINAL PLANS called for a plant with a modest 5000 tons a year capacity. Then came the war. After consulting the army and the Defense Plant Corp. the company multiplied these plans gradually by 11 plus, with the result that contracts were let for the $63,000,000 plant with a capacity of 56,000 tons of ore a year, which was announced in mid-August, 1941. Basic Magnesium didn’t have to put up a cent, beyond its nominal costs for promoetion and proving the ore, estimated at from $25,000 to $50,000. Under the contract, the government retains title to the plant, but Basic Magnesium was given a coste plus fixed-fee contract for operations and construce tion. Basic Magnesium is to receive a $300,000 fee plus cost for construction and engineering, although the company had little construction experience and though more than $1,000,000 is to be paid in fees for construction, engineering and architectural services being performed by others. Further, if the Defense Plant Corp. should cane cel the contract, the government would have to pay Basic Magnesium $1,000,000 and double the royalties on the ore from $1 to $2 a ton, although the Basic Refractories Co. is now leasing quarries near Las Vegas on payment of 25 cents a ton royalty.
A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson
\ - THE ORDINARY citizen ought to be more than a little tired of official innuendoes which put him into the fifth or sixth columns. And I think he is. National unity is necessary; we all know it. But it has never yet been acquired in a democracy by a system of “yessing.” It is won only when the common people are set a good example by their leaders—social, industrial and political, And at present there is entirely too much cat-and-dog fighting going on among the higher-ups to make the common citizen feel comfortable. Our inspiration for courage and valor comes from men like MacArthur. From his kind we expect certain ethical military behavior. And we expect and should have the same sort of ethical behavior during a war, from political leaders.
Worst Disunity: Washington
YET OUR CAUSE is constantly jeopardized because, while the leaders cry for unity, they won't quit their petty scraps nor lay aside their personal prejudices or ambitions. Everybody who disagrees with a policy upon which the fate of all of us may rest can be called a sixth columnist with impunity. And these accusations get under the skin of upright and sincere men and women who are earnestly trying to help win the war. All signs show that the people are away ahead of their Washington leaders. And I for one believe their desire for unity is greater, and that they are doing more to create it. Maybe it was a good thing that congress decided to go home and see how the voters feel. The trip over the country proposed and planned for the president should also be carried out. For, it seems to me, the worst disunity in the U. S. A. is in the national capitol.
Editor's Note: The views expressed by columnists in this newspaper are their own, They are not necessarily those
of The Indianapolis Times. rT
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Questions and Answers #
(The Indianapolis Times Service Bureau will answer any question of fact or information, not involving extensive ree search. Write your guestion clearly, sign name and address, inclose a three-cent postage stamp. Medical or legal advice cannot be given. Address The Times Washington Service Bureau. 1018 Thirteenth St. Washington. D. OC.)
Q-—Was Corregidor fortified when the United States took the Philippines? A—It was fortified by the Spaniards in the Philip= pines. Admiral Dewey slipped the U. 8. warships past the island in the darkness of night on the eve of the battle of Manila bay. The United States established a military force on the island in 1900 and since then it has been heavily reinforced.
Q-—-When did Sir Hubert Wilkins make his submarine exploration under the ice and what happened to the expedition? z A-—In September, 1031, he made an experimental cruise under the ice north of Spitzbergen. His sube marine, Nautilus, was damaged by the ice, and Sir Hubert was persuaded to abandon his attempt.
Q-—How much were the expenditures of the Amer jean National Red Oross on the armed forces of the U. 8, including disabled veterans and their families in 1941? A—From July 1, 1040 to June 30, 1941, those expenditures amounted to $2,382,815.57.
Q-Wien did Bdgar Bergen make his frst radio