Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 2 May 1942 — Page 10

ROY W. HOWARD ' RALPH BURKHOLDER MARK FERREE President : Editor : Business Manager : (A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

Owned and published daily (except Sunday) by The Indianapolis Times Publishing Co., 214 W. Maryland st.

Member of United Press, Scripps - Howard Newspaper Alliance, NEA -Service, and Audit Bureau of Circulations.

ty, 3 cents a copy; deliv ered by carrier, 15 cents a week.

Mail subscription rates in Indiana, $4 a year, outside of Indiana, 75 cents & month.

Po RILEY 5551

Give Lights and the People Will Find Their Own Way

SATURDAY, MAY 2, 1042

‘CHURCHILL IN THE MIDDLE | EFEAT of Churchill candidates in two by-elections for commons, following a similar loss last month, make three in a row. That is too many to ignore. Obviously something is happening ‘in the British electorate which is - highly critical of the present government. But the local cenclusion that the people are tired of their hero, Churchill, is incorrect—or at least premature. The successful independent candidates, though critical of the Churchill government, were favorable to the prime minister personally. As explained by one of the successful candidates: : “The people have given me a message to Churchil that he should set himself free from the party prison and reassert individual responsibility in politics, and that he should put down his foot on privileged inefficiency in high places. My election is a call to the governmént to settle its political differences with Russia, to achieve unity of strategy, and a command to open a second front and win victory this year.” » ” » : : ” ” » 5 THIS demand for a British offensive has a familiar ring to Americans. Only a few days ago they heard it from Lord Beaverbrook, Britain’s lend-lease co-ordinator. After the government’s defeat in the two by-elections there was a debate in commons on Beaverbrook’s speech, in which the government said he had been speaking as an Sndividual rather than as an official. Many predict that the military situation and internal political pressure will force Churchill to lead an offensive policy—or force him out. Hitherto when: such predictions have been made, Churchill has survived by shuffling his cabinet gently. But each shuffle has left the public crying for action. That the month of May will see plenty of action, if not from Britain then from Germany, few doubt.

IF YOU WROTE THE TAX BILL

\/E’'VE seldom seen a more interesting set of figures than those collected by the Gallup poll in its survey of public opinion- on the subject of the new federal incometax bill. : ; : If that bill were being written by the public, instead of by the politicians, it would contain some surprising features. [t would tax low incomes more heavily, and high incomes much less heavily, than the treasury proposes. "Here are the Gallup figures: Typical Family

(Man, Wife, 2 the Public Children) Earning: Would Impose:

$ 1,000 : $ 1 1,500 24 2,000 54 3,000 201 $ 5,000 470 : 10,000 1,640 50,000 13,700 100,000 33,700 - This poll reveals two significant things: 1. That Americans in the lower income brackets are willing to make greater financial sacrifices for their country than the politicians in the administration and congress dare to ask of them. 2. That most of the public doesn’t realize how steeply upper-bracket incomes—those, say, from $4000 a year up— are already being taxed and how much more steeply they will be taxed. Demagogs in politics and labor leadership are greatly responsible for this lack of understanding. To serve their own purposes they have fostered the notion that wealth is escaping its share of the tax burden—that the government's fiscal problems can be solved by soaking the rich. The rich are getting soaked. They will have to be soaked harder. But the public needs to realize that the incomes of the rich, even if the treasury took them all, wouldn’t be enough to pay the war bill.

New Tax Rates Proposed by the Treasury: Nothing Nothing Nothing 118 587 2,143 26.537 68,261

Income Tax

NO “GIMMES” FOR US XPRESSING an attitude prevalent among many newspaper publishers and trade publications, Frank S. Hoy, chairman of the smaller-dailies division of the American Newspaper Publishers association, is beating the tom-toms in behalf of government advertising in the newspapers. Mr. Hoy, in a speech at the opening of the publishers’ "convention in New York, urged the government to buy newspaper space instead of flooding newspaper offices with “wasteful and silly publicity stories emanating from the army and navy services and from innumerable government bureaus.” There is plenty of useless government publicity, all right, that is a waste of time and money and paper. But the use of paid government advertising will not cure it. in the hands of some bureaucrats, at least, vast sums of money for paid advertising space would provide too tempting an opportunity to interfere with newspaper freedom. : The newspapers owe it to their country and to their readers to provide, without cost, a maximum of information about the government. Nothing could be added to this - obligation by the use of paid government advertising. The newspapers should be the last to indulge in a gimme campaign. Certainly it is a campaign in which The Indianapolis Times will not join.

$13,000,000 SAVED "HE senate showed a small gleam of the right idea when ~ it sliced $18,000,000 of non-defense expenditures in the independent offices appropriation bill, The $13,000,000 aved will finance war spending for only about three hours ‘at the current rate. But that’s something, especially when fou ‘think of how much taxation is required to raise $13,000,000. For instance, it approximates the total of cigaret es collected from 570,000 persons who smoke a pack of

a day over a year of 365 days,

"Fair Enouc

By Westbrook Pegler

NEW YORK, May 2.—Some of our best minds have been toying with a great brotherhood of peoples under a rule of justice to be enforced, of course, by us and our partners in the role of + military victors and I would like to throw in my opinion that they | are either crazy or just being politicians. If our side wins the war, Russia will plan the peace of the Eurepean continent, and on the basis of all Russia’s past performances we can confidently assume that in Germany it will be a peace not much different from that which Hitler has imposed on Poland. Russia will not be asking our advice or permission and our own people will pick' up their marbles and come on home to be more nationalistic than ever, but very militaristic, too. As a nation, we simply aren't inclined to world brotherhood. We are strictly loners as we demonstrated after the last war, Notwithstanding whatever it was that Mrs. Roosevelt said about what the American fighting men did when the other war was over, it was the whole American people who renounced Europe. The American Legion had very little influence except in lobbying up pensions and the bonus and annoying people with riotous goings-on at the national conventions.

We'll Have to Keep Tough

WE TURNED DOWN Woodrow Wilson's league because we felt sure that we always would be running to a hen-house fire in the Balkans with a leaky hose and a celluloid ladder, but we also got plastered on jake and jumpsteady and, as drunks will, thought we could lick a half-dozen you-know-whats in the house with no more training than a haircut and a shave. In all this time our nationalism hasn't diminished a tenth of a degree, but we surely have discovered in the last couple of years that we can learn to shoot and march and fly as well as anyone. else when' we put our mind to it and I think we are going to enjoy the feel of being tough so much that we will keep in training indefinitely, with plenty of divisions, planes, ships and war industry. Furthermore, we will have to keep tough because if our side wins that means Russia wins and there is a nation with no friends, brothers or confidants, a mysterious, mighty giant. If we can learn to be as single-minded and selfish as Russia about our own national safety we will do very well and we certainly should try to learn to keep our secrets about inventions, methods, supplies, capacities and so forth because Russia and Germany

did that while we were showing off our toys with the

vain, silly pride of little kids. It Permits of No Planning

RUSSIA, LIKE GERMANY, has rubber boundaries |

‘which stretch and contract, and wherever they stretch to, there communism is. I just don’t believe our people ever will go for communism or collaborate sincerely in a post-war world arrangement in which one of the dominant powers is communism. Moreover, collaboration has got to be reciprocal. You may say this is a very sordid and pessimistic writing and not an alternative plan. Of course, it is no plan, but no plan is at least as good as any plan which: calls on us to share world responsibility with a nation which shares nothing but her troubles with anybody. The situation permits of no planning. ‘The immediate business is to lick Germany, which having been done, Japan will be a pushover. The future will have to be managed as it happens and the stronger we remain when the war is over the better we will manage it from the standpoint of the only country that should matter to Americans of the U. S. A. Did you ever hear of any nation wanting to protect us?

How to Fly By Major Al Williams

LAZY PEOPLE speak of “born pilots.” Tommyrot. There is no such thing, and there never will be until babies are born with wings. Human talents and capacities vary with individuals. Some are adapted to learn a certain thing and become expert in it. The motivating which fires such facility usually is tke individual’s love for and interest in a given work. I've often heard John McGraw, the famous manager of the old New York Giants, say: “To become a star ball player you'll have to eat, drink and sleep baseball.” I know expert pilots who were told during their flight student days that they would never be safe— much less good—pilots. Nine chances out of 10, their real difficulty was the inability of otherwise sound, keen men to learn to do things with a plane’s controls without knowing the why and wherefore of each move. That put the real responsibility on pilot instructors, who either didn’t know enough about the flying technique or lacked capacity to teach others what they knew. .

Eat It, Drink It, Sleep It.

THE CONTROL SYSTEM of an airplane is simple. Anyone with medium intelligence can understand its use after a few minutes of proper explanation. The rubber bar has much the same action found on bobsleds. Push the left rudder pedal, and the nose of the plane swings left; push the right rudder pedal, and the nose swings right. Push the control stick forward, and the nose of the plane inclines earthward; pull the control stick back, and the nose inclines skyward. Moye the control stick to the left, and the left wing drops below the horizon line; move the stick to the right, and the right wing is lowered. The plane must be “banked” to offset skidding in a turn. The steepness of the bank is in proportion to the sharpness of the turn. Wide turn—shallow bank; short turn—steep bank. On the instrument board is a curved level-glass with a bubble in it. When the bubble is in the center during a turn, you have the correct bank for that turn. A few more simple things like that and it's all you need know. But to fly successfully you must apply what you know, and that calls for experience in the air—in a plane—perfecting the co-ordinated execution of your knowledge. If you have normal sight, a sound body and a healthy nervous system, all you need is, first, to determine that you are going to become an expert pilot, and then to work, work, work toward that end. The best pilots I have known were fledglings who worked for hours practicing what the mediocre airmen dismissed with a gesture. 2 Bat flying, drink flying and sleep flying—you you will not only learn to fly, but to fly expertly.

So They Say—

There are only a certain number of commissions in each service and too many of them are going to heroic defenders of home plate and the boxing ring.— Rep. Donald O'Toole, New York Democrat. * ® * Despite the immensity of continuing plant expanse sion, our aircraft firms are keeping up with or ahead of government schedules.<-John H. Jouett, president of the Aeronautical Chamber of Commerce,

~The Hoosier Forum

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

MR. MEITZLER ANSWERS “THAT DEFENSE WORKER” By James R. Meitzler, Attica In The Times, April 25, “That Defense Worker” comes to hat with the usual rodomontade against real or alleged profiteers, other than the labor unions, and with this defense of himself and fellows: “The war started officially for us Dec. 1T. Since then the price of the cost of living has risen 25 per cent. The price, per hour, of experienced labor has not been increased at all. The top pay is the same and there are very few getting top pay. We are working more hours, more regularly, which has increased the earnings of labor and naturally given us more purchasing power.” Unfortunately for “That Defense Worker” and our belief in the accuracy of his statements, there was published in the same issue of The Times, on the front page, Washington Calling column, this statement: ‘Labor department figures give labor leaders good excuse for quieting down. They show cost of living up 15.4 per cent since start of war; average hourly industrial earnings up 26 per cent; average weekly. industrial earnings up 46 per cent because of longer hours, overtime.”

4 a» “ELEANOR MUST MAKE FDR

HAPPY BY ASSISTING” By R. M., Indianapolis My dear Mr. L. J. Sullivan: Have just read your item about Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt and Joe Lash. Your envy and jealousy overwhelms me. . . . President Roosevelt a hard working president and has the biggest job in the world; Eleanor must make him very happy by assisting in humanitarian detail. Joe, in spite of his quest for social standing, has gone willingly into the armed forces of the U. 8. the honor and privilege for which I envy him. - Believe you are an envious little termite of everyone you see who is successful, and of those you do not understand. . . . passes many laws each day to annihilate them who disagree with you. . . Your poor wife could not really

(Times readers are invited to express their views in these columns," religious conMake

your letters short, so all can

troversies excluded.

have a chance. Letters must be signed.)

be happy living under your matrimonial dictatorship; after reading your item, I said additional prayers that the dictators of the world may soon be annihilated so that society will have ample time in reaching “little dictators” who would ruthlessly beat their wives with a No. 2 iron. : ' Have you tried to enlist to administer your beating to those forces we are trying to overcome?

#8 » “I DON'T HAVE TO INCLUDE HER IN MY ESTEEM”

By L. J. Sullivan, $19 Board of Trade bldg.

I read with interest Mrs. Moore's answer in yesterday's edition to my letter of last week on Mrs. Roosevelt entertaining Joe Lash and I hope you can find space for my reply on my promise that this will close’ the matter so far as I am concerned. Mrs. Moore apparently ‘did not read my comments very carefully, for she states I made a vicious attack on Mrs. Roosevelt and the president. The only mention I made of our president was to say that “if my wife interfered in my business as much as Eleanor does in Franklin’s I'd rap her smartly in the teeth with my No. 2 iron.” But then quite possibly the president doesn’t own a No. 2 iron. I have the very highest regard for President Roosevelt particularly in this most trying of all times. However, I can’t find anything in the rule book governing the actions of good Americans that says I have to include his wife in my esteem. If Eleanor would retire to her Victory garden she spoke about in the White House backyard and discontinue her “My Day” column, her radio program and her press conferences which she gives so freely, and devoted her boundless energy to

Side Glances=By Galbraith

‘Lone,

the task of running her home where she is most needed, I'll guarantee I'll make no further reference to her either by written or spoken word. In closing please let me say that I don’t believe anyone gives any comments by me sufficient, attention to divide this country but that is certainly not true in Eleanor’s case, especially after such statements as hers that the presént world conflict was brought about by the neglect of citizenship by the veterans of World War No. 1. There is really a statement that goes a long way toward dividing this country. Thanks a lot for the space you ‘have given me and, to Mrs. Moore, let me say I'm too = - - - busy trying to make a living and buy some war stamps to answer any further comment she may make, FJ ” o “WE CAN DO WITHOUT DIRTY LITTLE SHEETS” By 8. B. H., Indianapolis Apparently Attorney General Biddle found the water was not so hot as he had feared. Except for a few professional liberals, and of course the Christian Fronters, almost everybody was pleased when Father Coughlin’s Social Justice was given the works. ; Now Mr. Biddle has announced his readiness to go after a lot more “dirty little sheets,’ which are preaching sedition, bigotry, defeatism, anti-democracy generally." The attorney genera! has a broad and fertile field in which to work. This nation at war, fighting not alone for the theoretical cause of democracy but for its very existence, has been tolerating hundreds of “dirty little sheets” which have no possible excuse for existence. We can fight this war very well without such publications of their authors and sponsors. » ” # “GIVING CREDIT WHERE CREDIT IS DUE” ; By Robert S. Sheets, 2312 English ave. According to today’s issue of The ‘Times, the Packard Co. is stated as being the first plant in this state to attain 100 per cent participation in war bond payroll allotment plan on the 10 per oent of salary basis. I should like to state that the Electronic Laboratories, Inc., of Indianapolis has«had this same plan in operation since Jan. 21st of this year. Everyone in the organization has acquired at least ong bond, 75 per cent have bought two and more than 40 per cent have hought from three to four.

Being an enthusiastic employee, |

I feel that credit should be given where rightfully due. I shall appreciate a reply if I am in the wrong. 2 ” ” “ONE WAY TO SOLVE THE SHIRT TAIL PROBLEM” By Edith L. Moors, 3110 Guilford ave. ‘To the gal who wants to know how to keep her shirt tail in: One person wrote and gave you a very good solution, but I have since seen what I believe is a betfer There is a shirt and shorts made all in one piece and designed

“| especially for women who wear slacks or tennis short. :

" You could very easily make them,

simply by sewing an ordinary shirt to an ordinary pair of shorts. They

- | are very comfortable and solve the |

problem in the best way I hawe

_ DAILY THOUGHT . Let them learn first to shew biety at home —I Timothy 8:4 HOME is where the hear( is.—

.

By Peter Edson

ly WASHINGTON, May 2~The 1.7 million retail store owners of the United States are now busier : than they ever were 'at big sale time, inventory time or i ; tax time, tying to figure how they're going to come out on this new general miximum price regu~ lation order slapped down by Leon Henderson. de he | The story behind the 4 ht of this order is almost as Pe esting as the order itself. It became apparent ast early as last January that the selective price control principle was not adequate to check inflation. A number of OPA men went to Canada to study the

TR oe

dominion’s system of price control, and from time to™> =

time some of the Canadian price officials came to On March 31, OPA took its first steps to consult with representatives of the retail trade, April 1 and April 27, there were from 13 to 30 merchants of national standing in Washington for a day or more. Their work finally was delegated to a com= mittee of seven, with Fred Lazarus Jr. of Columbus, 0., as chairman.

Henderson Overruled by Higher-Ups =

FROM TIME TO TIME, these retailers gave write ten memoranda to OPA outlining their views, At the beginning of the conferences on April 1, assurance was given that the price freezing order would, cover all phases of the national economy, including agrie cultural products and wages. ] we Some place along the line, those two items were dropped from consideration. Who gave the order, or why, is a mystery. It was known that Leon Henderson favored and fought for an across-the-boards freeze that would include wages and farm products, but somwhere in’ the top policy councils of the goveryment, Henderson was overruled. The way the retailers express their viewpoint is that you can’t control the flood waters of the Missis~ sippi by putting a roof over the Gulf of Mexico. The national economy is pictured as being much like that. Price control must start back where thy goods originate, with raw materials and wages. Too are the catch-basins of the economic system in the view of the retailers.

Fear Black Markets

AS TO THE consequerfces of failing to take inte consideration this catch-basin theory, the retailers are rather pessimistic, Frankly, they fear black mar-

kets and a return of the lawless spirit of the prohibi« tion era. ;

The second point which the retailers question is on the matter of “lag.” Under normal trading conditions, there is a lapse of time, or lag, between production of raw materials and manufacturing, between manu~

facturing and wholesaling, between wholesaling and retailing, and between retailing and buying by the ultimate consumer. In simple terms, the shirt you buy this week was raw cotton last summer. The average lag on some 1200 non-food items is about two and a half months. ’ The remedy suggested for this i a system of “rollbacks”—making the wholesaler and the manufacturer take low prices. How the manufacturer can do this in the face of advancing raw material and wage costs is the puzzle. One solution is to grant subsidies te businesses caught in the lag. You know what that means.

A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson -

THE WIFE OF the noted Chi. nese writer, Lin Yu-tang, looks like a practical matron and a good wife and mother. She is plump, with unlined face and sparkling black eyes behind nose glasses. Her hair is dressed in the usual fashion of her countrywomen, smoothed straight and knotted at the back, with bangs covering the forehead. . Mrs. Lin specks English with difficulty. Learning our language is easy, she says, since we have only 26 letters. It’s the pronunciation that throws her. Scholars in China must master 40,000 characters, although a modern langusge has been worked out in recent years which includes only 1000. With this simplification, illiteracy is being swiftly reduced. A main objective of China’s leaders is a common-school education for ali the people. In a group of American women, Mrs. Lin offers a striking Oriental note. However, a few Words from her prove that a close bond of friendship exists between this daughter of the East and her Western, friends, especially about the conduct of the war.

There Will Always Be Hope

MANY OF HER own class, women who have been educated and sheltered, are able to travel fo the United States and other countries, telling the story of SH s and its possibilities. Some, like Mrs. Lin, spend years Mere, helping to establish une derstanding betwee cident and Orient. For times has proved Mr. Kipling wrong. The twain have met. Mrs, Lin stirs the ¥magination with Her accounts of the poor women oM@hina and their behavior

throughout the four years of war torture they have

endured. Uneducated, caught in the grip of powerful forces, beaten, battered, starved, they still manage to Dp each otha and their soldiers. Like the poor in countries, they bear the heaviest burdens. of: and are not able to flee from its bombs and Hip Yet I think there will always be hope for our’ world so long as the Mrs, Lins of a nation are capable of understanding the woes of humankind and work to alleviate them. : ©

——— T

Editor’s Note: The views: expressed hy columnists in his sewspaper are their own, They are not necessarily these of The Indianapolis Times.

Questions and Answers

, (The Indianapolis Times Service Burean will answer any question of fact or information, not invelving exfensive res search. [Write your question clearly. sign name and sdiréss, inclose a three-cent postage stamp. Madieal or logal rion eannot be given, Address The Times Washington Bureau. 1013 Thirteenth $t.. Washingten. D. OG.) |

Q—Has the manufacture or sale of gas masks bees i]

prohibited in the United States?

A—Manufacture or sale of gas masks and able :

gas devices for protection against enemy attack, banned March 3, 1942, by the war production unless the masks and devices are actually on by agencies of the government, including of civilian defense, and. are built to army che warfare service specifications. SR Q—1Is there a simple method for severing th p from a glass bottle so that the bottom can be use

N

ES EE EE

ay

i TS