Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 9 May 1942 — Page 8

AGE 8

The Indianapolis: Times

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

Price in Marion County, 3 cents a copy; delivered by carrier, 1% cents 2 week.

Mail subscription sates

Owned and published daily (except Sunday) by

The Indianapolis Times Maryland st. :

Member of United Press, Seripps = - Howsrd News- : paper Alliance, NEA - Service, and Bureau of

outside of Indians, cents a month,

«p> RILEY 585)

Give. Light ang the People Wii Find Their Own Woy

SATURDAY, MAY 0, 1942

THE BIGGEST BATTLE HE biggest battle in the history of the American navy and the largest sea conflict in this war, is temporarily ended.” It started Monday off the Solomon islands and swung back and forth over hundreds of miles of the Coral sea, northeast of Australia. Gen. MacArthur's communiques indicate a great American victory achieved with relatively slight losses. Enemy propaganda statements claiming heavy - American losses were called “fantastic” and “fictional.” In the first round 17 Japanese ships, including 13 warships, were reported sunk or severely damaged. Among those sunk were an aircraft carrier, two cruisers and two destroyers, besides another carrier and two cruisers knocked out. . Such a large enemy concentration presumably was for the purpose of cutting the American-Australian supply lines and seizing islands along that route, including strategic New Calendonia, which the United States recently took over from the Free French. Australian officials fear an invasion atiompt against their country. They agree with Washington observers that “the size of the forces involved may make this battle decisive in the south Pacific. : w # » p . ” # ” SINCE Pearl Harbor and American losses in the battles of the Dutch Indies, the enemy apparently has held balance of power in the Pacific, particularly with aircraft carriers. The latest battle may well turn the course of -the war. Besides influencing, and perhaps deciding, the fate of the south Pacific, it will affect naval strategy and construction everywhere. It may even settle the long dispute over relative merits of the battleship versus the plane and carrier. Unless the big ships come through this engagement much better than hitherto in this war, the rapid swing to.air power and smaller surface ships will continue. The immediate effect of the battle will depend on what American force was engaged. If only our small south Pacific fleet was fighting a Japanese defeat would be more ‘significant—and an American defeat less serious—than if part of our main Pacific fleet also was engaged. If small American forces have destroyed so many of the enemy ships in the south and our main fleet is still "far north off Hawaii, it presumably is in position to strike at Japanese lines and bases nearer home.

MOTHER'S DAY—1942 r= this be a tribute to*the mothers whose sons are in the war. ; To the mothers whose needles are flying under chins . that are up. To the mothers whose eyes are dry though the * tears seek exit; who struggle so gamely against undue introspection, against overmuch indulgence in memory of cradles and lullabies and carefree laughter. To the mothers . who, instead, hold their faces forward to the instant need of things in that tragic but vital business in which their _ sons are now engaged. . To the mothers who try not to wonder “Where Is My Bov Tonight” but who nevertheless cannot refrain from chanting in their souls that line from the old song—“My heart overflows for I love him he knows.” For a mother is a mother in peace time or in conflict, and the story is constant, yesterday, today and forever, though now it’s distilled in the test tube of war. But, as

always, it’s the same:

“If I were drowned in the deepest sea, : “Mother o’ mine, o mother o’ mine, “I know whose tears would come down to me, “Mother o’ mine, 0 mother o’ mine.”

BARRIER BREAKING HE war may rid us of the evils of interstate trade barriers for the duration at least. ; State officials, gathered in Washington to canvass. "the situation, have been told the problem is so serious in wartime that the federal government must act if the states: . don’t. Things like this have been going on: Arkansas state police stopped ordnance workers from pooling cars and expenses to drive to work, because the drivers did not have commercial passenger carriers’ licenses. "In many states truckers of live stock are forbidden to carry freight back to farmers, on their return trips, in spite of the urgent need of conserving transportation. Some states limit the number of freight cars that ean be put on any one train, causing the break-up of traing and use of more engines. WPB wanted the stocks of “frozen” refrigerators stored in centrally located warehouses to save transporta- * tion. But most states charge a high “domestication” tax to companies from outside the state for such storage of their products. As Donald Nelson has said, we can afford the luxuries of waste and lost motion in peace time. Now we can’t. And perhaps the war will teach us how much better off we are without many ofthese barriers to free trade among the states, so that we'll never let them be erected again.

HE'S A PIKER ADOLF HITLER'S titles, as recited by Fatty Goering before the dummy reichstag the other day, are: “Leader of the nation, supreme commander of ‘the rmed forces, chief of government, supreme holder of excutive power, supreme lord of justice and leader of the ational socialist party.” Shucks! Why, we used to know of a lodge right here re te lowest officer on the list was supreme grand s potentate a E he + vaiverse, chief custodia f the

io Indians, 88 Job

Fair Enough By Westbrook Pegler

NEW YORK, May 9. —These dispatches have geen guilty of an’ error recently, affecting Wendell Willkie, and today’s essay will try to set the record straight. Some weeks ago, When the Communists were trying to promote a political pardon for Earl Browder, their eriminal leader and erstwhile chief of - the pro-axis forces in this country, they quoted Mr, Willkie in a display advertisement in support of this campaign. 'I was deceived by the form of the advertisement, as no doubt it was intended to deceive all readers of the same, into a belief that Willkie had given a statement for this specific purpose. The fact is that Mr. Willkie made no statement for the pardon campaign, but that in March, 1040, in a general discussion of equal treatment of all under law, he leaned to the belief that Browder had been punished for his political beliefs.

Not a Sly Misstatement

MISLED BY THE TENOR of the Communist advertisement, I thought Willkie had actually joined the campaign to get Browder a golitical pardon and wrote that his suggestion that Browder was sentenced in part for his political affiliation was “a sly misstatement and quite expectable from a man who could say, as Willkie did, that one of his utterances against participation in the war was deliberately insincere and only campaign oratory.” 1 would like to withdraw the assertion that will kie'’s remarks on Browder were a sly misstatement. 1 think he was mistaken and that Browder was sentenced under law for an act which was the more offensive to the nation whose laws he constantly invokes because it was committed in contemptuous hostility to this nation, in the interest of another. But I concede to Willkie the right to his opinion that this t was a political prosecution.

Both Used ‘Campaign Oratory’

AS TO HIS REMARK about “campaign oratory,” I went too far in saying that he admitted that the utterance in question was “deliberately insincere.” myself, still think there was an implied admission of insincerity in the phrase, “it was a bit of campaign oratory.” But Willkie did not say so and I should not have said he did. The occasion was his testimony before the senate foreign relations committee in February, 1941, following his return from England. Senator Nye reminded Willkie that, during his campaign, he had said: “On the basis of his ((President Roosevelt’s) past performances with pledges to the people, we may expect to be at war by April, 1941, if he is elected.” Nye asked, “Do you still agree that that might be the case?” and Willkie replied, “It might be. It was a bit of campaign oratory.”

tractive argument, but it seems to me that if the remark, itself, was sincere, then the “bit of oratory” couldn’t have been. : However, I believe both candidates in that campaign realized that sincerity would have destroyed at once the election chance of him who had been rash enough to confront the people with a fact which they understood with good dread in their hearts, but would not admit to anyone. Our people knew then that Hitler was bringing the war to us and the candidates both knew it and all their pretenses to any hope of escaping war were “campaign oratory.”

Phil Murray's Shirt

By S. Burton Heath

CLEVELAND, May 9.—“I would lose my shirt today,” said Presi- | dent Phil Murray of the C. I. O., “to help the president win the | war.” Almost simultaneously William L. Batt, head of the WPB’s materials division, was quoting Rudyard Kipling, writing out of the collective mouth of World war British war dead:

The battery is out of ammunition; If any mourn us at the shops, say We died because the shift kept holiday.

Murray is willing to lose his shirt to help win the war, but he insists upon a $l1-a-day pay raise for 180,000 steel workers. His union is working “unceasingly, untiringly and relentlessly” for labor board elections on the basis of which a closed shop campaign will be waged. Only the most reactionary deny to unions or individual workers the right to ask for wage raises or even for the closed shop. But no realistic observer believes either will be granted without a struggle. When the struggle comes, then what? Will there be slowdowns, sitdowns, strikes? . Will the shifts keep bargaining holiday while ships and planes, tanks and guns wait for the metal that doesn’t come?

What Is the Story?

ONLY PHIL MURRAY knows how far he is willing to go to enforce his demands. Probably not even he can predict that such a campaign will not get out of hand, and sabotage the war effort. Whenever the effect of union activities upon war production is discussed, there is somebody in Washington ready. to prove with figures that strikes are 99.97 per cent non-existent.

observers claim they do not tell the whole story. For instance, there was the shipyard whose man-

One registered actual production, the other indicated “What We Might Have Done” The second came down promptly. Union officials objected that it was an attempt to speed up the workers.

For lack of ships and planes and tanks We lie here where we fought in serried ranks Because too little and too late The shift made six instead of eight.

That is Big Bill Batt's suggestion as to what a 1942 Kipling may have to write as the epitaph for thousands of American men who never will come back from Bataan, Batavia, Burma, India, Australia, and later from the continent of Europe. It i$ good news that Mr. Murray is willing to lose his” shirt for a victory over the axis. But how about our American expeditionary forces—will they be satisfied if we send them the C. I. O. chieftain’s shirt to wave at Japs and Germans?

So They Say—

An allied victory would be meaningless unless we drive from Germany the breed that tends to militar-

-. * *

give the war effort this $50.—Josip Loncaric, St. Louis WPA worker, to internal revenue collector.

L |

Some have said that Willkie showed sincerity rather than insincierity in this remark. That is an at- |

In the absence of complete, authentic tabulation, | it is difficult to refute such statements. But the best |

agement had two thermometers painted on a wall.

ism—Dr. Ernest A. Hooton, Harvard anthropologist. |

I don't want any stamps or bonds, I just want to |

THE DIAN Time for 4 \ Change of Stance!

TO DOT THIS 1S A DRIBBLE

Just

10

The Hoosier Forum

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

“CITY SHOULD DO SOME /HOUSECLEANING OF ITS OWN” By Ivan E. Wilson, R. R. 1, Box 588 Here is one to place alongside the city’s Kelly st. alley dumping episode. Each morning I pass the city's works board garage etc. on 8. West st.- At the work hour this is one of cur heaviest (raveled streets. Almost every morning you can see one of the city’s trucks or cars pull out of their driveway at the rate of

stopping. One also sees quite frequently along this street a cycle policeman arresting a traffic violator who has exceeded the speéd limit by 5 or 10 miles. © This morning the man

into a loaded cement mixer truck | that had pulled out into West st.’ iabout 15 miles an hour without | stopping.

little housecleaning or if the voters should do it at the elections.

” ” “EVERYONE BUSY—WORKING CALMLY AND EFFICIENTLY”

By A Worker at Table 58 Tomlinson Hall Your editorial, “That Long Count Again,” and Mr. Nussbaum'’s “Inside Indianapolis” column of « May 7 sound cruel and unfair to the men and women working on the counting tables. This writer went to work at 10 p. m. Tuesday; at 10:15 our table was counting. and tallying votes; as I looked down the long row of tables everyone seemed to be busy at their respective jobs, functioning calmly and quietly—certainly not with confusion and inefficiency, as you claim. The fact that the counting staff is made up of appointees of the two county chairmen does not hinder the speed or efficiency of the count and also if you will take the time to check the staff you will find there the same men and women who last week. were out knocking on doors for bond pledges for MacArthur week, and the weeks before doing the same thing for the Red Cross drive,

15 or 20 miles per hour without |

driving ahead of me had to slam on’ his brakes to keep from plowing’

I wonder if the city should do a'

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

and the weeks before that going to the blood donor center, in fact doing anything that will help our city apd country. How many doors, Mr.. Editor and Mr. Nussbaum, have you knocked on, and as far as the vote count goes, if you feel that you can do a better job than is being done, I am sure the election officials will be

glad to give you a trial. » ” ” “BREAKDOWNS FAR GREATER

IN PIECE-WORK PLANTS” By D. J. Danforth, 1157 Eugene st After reading Mr. Kraner’s article in Monday’s Forum, titled, “Put All, Workers on Piece Work Basis,” § just can not agree with him. I have | spent 35:years in the machine in- | dustries; so I feel that I am qualifiled to write on that subject. First the argument about hours

but that would not put that machine back into service. It has been my experience that the machine hours lost on account of breakdowns are far greater in piece work plants than those that operate on the hourly rates. One would think that the man working piece work would take the same care of his machine that the one working the hourly rate does, but that isn’t a fact. The man working piece work has his mind on only one thing and that is to get out as many pieces in the shortest time possible.

runs smoothly. This is what usually happens, he gets so eager to make more money that he will hold off oiling just a little longer, then jam, something has stuck. You ask him, “how romes you failed to 0il?” His answer will be that he had oiled but f you Have the goods on him, nine times out of 10 his answer will be “H—, I am working piece work, they are not paying me to oil.” I have heard that same story a ‘great many times. Mr. Kraner states, “That the man who is working piece work and loafs or kills time on the job is the only one who is the loser.” Not so, for when a man lays down on the job he is

to be worked in defense industries depriving the employer of a full has already been settled to the sat- | day’ s production. I have never seen isfaction of the workers and Mr. the shop yet that a man that does Nelson of the WPB. ‘not produce ever lasted very long. What the WPB wants from in-' Mr. Kraner states that he has dustry is that every machine be op- had many years’ experience in

erated 24 hours per day, seven days handling men, also 20 years in ora week. They do not want the machines speeded up to the point that they burn up the tools and produce a lot of scrap and more than likely wreck the machines. That is what you get from piece work. Other words all they ask for is an honest! day’s work for an honest day’s pay. Now the most important thing to keep a machine running 24 hours per day is oil, the proper amount at the proper place at the proper time. It only takes a fraction of a minute to freeze a bearing and maybe wreck the machine to the extent that it would be out of service for days to come, just because one oil hole was overlooked. Now you could fire the operator for a a {hing of that kind,

Side Blancas) Galbraith

ganized labor. Well that statement makes me scratch my head. How in the world one with so much experience with men and organized labor can.advocaté such a thing as

{ piece work is beyond me.

» ” ” “HE USES THE WRONG BASE TO FIGURE PERCENTAGES” By James R. Meitzler, Attica

Mr. George O. Davis thinks my “figures on time and one-half are a little misleading.” He would think so naturally, for he uses the wrong base to figure his percentages. He uses the 40-hour week as his base instead of the hour. 'Thé hour is always oonsidered the unit in fixing wages. Look at any demands for wages or decisions fixing them and it is so: much an hour. Therefore the hour is used for fixing the increase called overtime. For example: He works 41 hours at $1 per hour, his regular wage for the 40 hours and pay .and one-half for overtime. He received $1.50 for the overtime hour. If his weekly time or pay was used as a’ base to figure overtime pay he would get half of $40 or $20 for overtime. Or the other way round, he could divide the 50-cent overtime by 40 and claim it was only an increase of 1% per cent. By the same phoney reasoning he figures, “Five $1 articles for $5.50 is only a 10 cent raise on each of the five articles.” But the 50-cent raise is only on the fifth or over fourth article just as the half pay raise is only on the hours over the 40-hour week. The smart shopper would buy only the four articles and tell the

. | profiteers to keep the fifth. And that

is what should be done with labor if we were not at war. Pay 40 hours and send them home. As it is, the law, the president and the war all force us to hand over a 50 per cent holdup to the profiteering’ unioneers.

DAILY THOUGHT

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet, and a light unto my path.—

In Wostirgicn By Peter Edson

WASHINGTON, May 0. —First ( act on arrival in ‘Washington for one of the many oil company executives now holding important war Jobs in government was to call up ‘the department of justice. + “I want to give notice,” he is reported to have said in effect, “that I'm going to have to break every anti-trust law in the books, and I want you to lay off till after " : the war ends. The day war's over, you can indict me on every count and. I'll plead guilty. You can then send me to Alcatraz or Atlanta. I don’t want to go to Leavenworth, that's too hot. Any place but there, I'll be needing the rest, anyhow, so you can make the sentence as long as you like. But to solve the petroleum problems of this war, we'll have to do a lot of things that we've never done before and I just want you to know about it in advance.” That 8 a dramatic statement of the case, but probably is not much of an exaggeration. Breaking a few laws is perhaps the least of the changes that must be made in the gigantic oil industry, for as Harold L. Ickes told a congressional committee the other day, the problem is to shift the economic base of the industry and to do it in weeks instead of years.

It's Above Consumer Level

YOU ARE FAMILIAR with the main events of the background—the tanker shortage, eastern seaboard fuel oil shortages, gasoline rationing for a'third of the nation’s motorists, the rubbes shortage reducing the need for gasoline, increased haulage by railroad tank car and tank truck. Those are the points where the petroleum industry touches the public at the consumer level. But above this consumer level is where revolutionary things are happening. Refinery technique must be changed to cut down: the production of regular gasoline, while the output

4

\

is increased for 100 octane aviation gas, fuel oils and

heating oils. These changes involve a major industrial revolution, but they are only a beginning.

Also to be considered is the increased production of petroleum products from which synthetic rubber ¢ can be made—butadiene and styrene, which in ratios of 80 per cent and 20 per cent, respectively, go to make the Buna S rubber which the government is financing to be produced at the rate of 700,000 tons a year, by the end of 1943. To do this it will be necessary to use less than 150,000 barrels of crude oil a day. Fortunately, the oil is there, though the equipment to do it with is not.

Socialization of the Industry

IT ALL BOILS DOWN to a demand for national program planning on a vast scale. Refineries that can make only gasoline would have to be given that job. Other refineries would have to be allocated to 100 octane gas production, and those that can produce the materials for synthetic rubber would be given that assignment. If you please, this is socialization of the petroleum industry, though another name for it is drafting the industry for war. Whatever you call it, it goes beyond the regular competitive fields of the oil companies. The oil com-~ panies themselves, or the petroleum co-ordinator’s office, or the war production board, or someone so far has seemed reluctant to force the petroleum industry into this step, putting it in competition with the chemical industries. But it may have to'be done. =

A Woman's Viewpoint

'By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

That is fine so long as everything:

. SINCE I HAVE spent half my life fighting for the right of married women to work outside their homes, these words I now put down are hard to write. But they must be said. They must be said because women are moved by a terrible force and may be moved to foolish deeds. That terrible force is war. Its urgencies are upon us; we cannot ignore its demands. But this challenging moment: must be met intelligently. The preservation of democracy depends upon the choices we make today. Therefore women should not permit the pressure of events to swerve them from their fundamental task—the care of homes and children. Work is plenty outside and wages are excellent. With several members holding jobs, the family pay envelope is delightfully fat. There is money to tempt them. The partiotic motive must also be considered. Women, as well as men, are eager to help win the war. Inside they are seething with the desire to do something to shorfen the conflict and overcome the enemy.

The Answer Is Simple

AMERICA’S 30 MILLION housewives must be regarded as the reservoir from which can be drawn millions of new workers who are needed for the war effort. Our own labor department reminds us of the fact. Yes, it's a ‘big economic moment for women. We know that hundreds of thousands will be forced

| to take jobs outside their homes.

Rich wives can afford to hire good servants to look after their homes and babies. I am not speaking of them. I am speaking of the countless poor and middle-class housewives, the women who want and may need extra money desperately and who now face the temptation to drop domestic duty and engage in some new kind of work. The choice is a grave one for them, and very, very grave for the nation. But not for a moment would I

hesitate in. my answer. Somehow, even in the midst

of a war, the children of the United States must be cared for. And the best people for that job are their own mothers. The American home is the of our democratic system. If it is destroyed and the usual moral disintegration follows, what shall we with our armaments?

i

Editor's Note: The views expressed newspaper are their own. They fire of The Indianapolis Times,

by columnists in this not necessarily those

Questions and Answers

(The Indianapolis Times Service Bureau will answer any question of fact or information, met involving extensive research. Write your question clearly, sign mame and Bo stamp. Medical or legal advice cannot be given. Address. The Times Washington Service Bureau. 1018 Thirteenth St. Washington. D. ©.)

sists ae

Q—What was Beethoven's # proplsecy in tn. congisetion

with composing his famods funeral march in the “Eroica Symphony”? A—Beethoven started his Symphony No. 3, “Eroica Symphony,” as a heroic work in honor of Napoleon. Bul. when Napoleon declared himself sipirGe 1. 106 Beethoven, who was a Republican at heart, changed his attitude. When word of Napoleon's death at 8 Helena reached him in 1821, Beethoven said: “I posed the music for this event 17 years ago.” ferred to the funeral march (“Marche funebre’

Q--When is the best Ume to collect senor for%vait? a A—At night with thi aid of o They are usually more numerous during and June. They can be brought to surface in any season, except winter, DY SprsiKing fi wal Vhoooustly in the early evening.

Q—Who doubled for

i

CAERHPTENRERESSNSET RS £1 SE BRS LL AE

eee EE

Sif)