Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 27 May 1942 — Page 14
PAGE 14
The Indianapolis Times
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Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Wap
WEDNESDAY, MAY 27, 1942
OPTIMISM THAT'S NOT DANGEROUS
ANY warnings against optimism about the war have come from high places in recent days. They are sound. The only time to be optimistic about a war is when it's won. But that shouldn't foreclose us against looking for gilver linings elsewhere. So, all hail to the volatile Thurman Arnold when he ghows us a chance to cheer up. Usually a viewer with alarm. Mr. Arnold is actually chipper about the economic state we will be in when the war is over. Ie sees prosperity unprecedented; glimpses vast new horizons; actually strings along with Hoover about that two and two combination, chickens and cars. We will find ourselves in a new age—the plastics and licht metal age—as distinct as the stone age, the bronze age or the iron age. It will be a time of real mass production, he says, unhampered by trade restrictions, monopolies and cartels. He foresees an era when individualism and ingenuity and inventive genius will function unhobbled; when competition will bring forth to full fruition that magic crop which ig in the seed of capitalism. Mr. Arnold’s views are set forth strikingly in an article by William Bradford Huie, June American Mercury.
= = » ~ » HURMAN ARNOLD, rated generally as an arden? new dealer, is an unpredictable sort of fellow. Every now and then he crosses up some of his companions, many of whom regard capitalism with a cold and fishy eye in which a glint of warmth may be observed only as it casts its gaze over the far reaches of communism. But interpreting Mr. Arnold, the article says: “Capjtalism dying? Hell no! Capitalism is what we've got to fight for; it's wonderful. In spite of the finagling of some of the capitalists it can give more good things to more people than any other system ever devised”—if it is really allowed to work. Predicting that the war's end will bring the greatest boom in history, Mr. Arnold sees this kind of a picture— we quote from the magazine: “The sacred gods of price structure will crumble into dust. “First, aluminum will cut prices. Then magnesium will cut under. Copper and stainless steel will get in their licks. “There will be a grand, price-cutting dog fight, with each side struggling for new and cheaper methods of production. “The new metals will become so cheap for, say, plumbing fixtures, that everybody can afford two bathrooms. “Every man can have a new house pre-fabricated out of magnesium for $2000 and he will need a double aluminum
=»
garage in which to park his two cars, which Henry Ford | will be stamping out of soy beans and selling for lower |
prices than ever.”
e 2 » » 2 . that, come the end of the conflict, we'll be swamped with unemployment and surrounded by vast vacant factories. inherent in rehabilitation. Many of the great growths of history have followed great destruction. San Francisco after her supreme tragedy of 1906 is as good an example as any. So, maybe, we'd better let our imaginations play on the brighter side of what may happen when this world, now torn by destruction everywhere, has to pick itself up, dust itself off and get going again. Such optimism at least is a pleasant and harmless substitute for the optimism we must deny ourselves in our
immediate view of our war effort.
STUDENT HARVESTERS
T is nothing new for students to go out as individuals in vacation time to take jobs as harvesters. But today the nation needs more than that. We are confronted with the need for unprecedented quantities of food for ourselves and our allies at a time when there is a serious farm labor shortage. So colleges might well turn their manpower and womanpower out en masse to gather the crops. Harding college at Searcy, Ark., of which Dr. George S. Benson is president, was quick to see this need, just as it saw the need for governmental economy ahead of the procession; just as it saw that the need for NYA had passed. : Some 125 Harding college students went to the strawberry fields and picked a crop which would otherwise have gone to waste, and the fruit was canned in the college kitchen. The college and the nation are the gainers. An example has been set for other colleges.
BARGAIN HUNTING
RATIONIN G chiefs, from Leon Henderson down, are doing their best to emphasize an important difference between price ceilings, which we have, and price fixing, which we do not.
Under the ceilings system, housewives still can shop |
for bargains. The price range on any particular commodity
is less than it used to be because the markup margin has ¢ aa
been cut. Nevertheless, the more
Price in Marion Couns |
And perhaps we have overlooked the possibilities
Fair Enough
By Westbrook Pegler
NEW YORK, May 27-Some good surely must come of the recent outburst in congress against criticism in the press which some members of both houses denounced as the operation of a design to undermine public faith in the national legisiature. The outery showed that congress at least has become aware that fit has lost to some extent the confidence which it should have been diligent to deserve and I think we may expect a revival of this body's sense of public duty. But while the subject is still warm, direct attention should be paid to two decisions of the supreme court whiecn are more sulting to congress and more harmful to its prestige than all the criticism that has been expressed by all the opinionarians of journalism. These were the decisions in the carpenters’ case and the teamsters’ case, accompanied by opinions written by Justices Frankfurter and Byrnes, respectively. The opinions together imputed to congress an intention to parcel out to certain private organizations a special right to act in bad faith, to commit crimes and to publish slanderous falsehoods harmful to innocent victims.
Taken It Lying Down
I DO NOT BELIEVE any United States congress ever had any such perfidious intention and yet cone
| gress has taken these degrading decisions lying down
and they have become the law of the land by decision of the supreme court. I should say, however, that the house of represen-
| tatives has been more alert and sensitive than the
senate and has twice tried to remove this stigma but has been blocked by the senate. Again, a few days ago, in the house, a subcommittee of the judiciary committee recommended another legislative proposal which would have disavowed this congressional connivance at crimes committed by privileged groups but precedent indicates that if this one should pass the house it, too, will be blocked in the senate. The senate then, in this most grievous instance, must be blamed for a loss of public confidence which some members have attributed to disrespectful comment by the press. For surely congress cannot expect to retain the respect of the people when, by the negative process of smothering repudiative measures, it permits the charge to stand that the law-making body of the
nation intended to confer crime rights on any group. |
Did Congress Ever Sink So Low?
DOES IT OCCUR to you that I might be exag-
gerating or distorting the meaning of these opinions? I wish that were sa because a personal error, however humiliating, would be trivial by comparison with the indisputable meaning of these opinions.
Justice Frankfurter admitted that the carpenters had violated their agreement, that the employer, the Annheuser-Busch Co,, was blameless and helpless in a fight between the carpenters and another union and that the company was not guilty of unfairness. Yet he delivered the shocking dictum that the picketing of the company with false statements and the creation of a national boycott of its products was “a familiar practice in these situations” and said that Congress, in the Clayton act, intended to legalize such plainly dishonest harmful conduct. In the other case, where it had been shown that the teamsters had practiced brigandage and extortion on the highways, Justice Byrnes held that for a truck owner to reject an offer of service by a union racketeer whose services he does not need amounts to an overt act on his part even though “in several cases the jury could have found that the defendants refused to work for the money when asked to do so.” He thus inferred that congress intended to legalize the extortion of money from employers hauling food from country to city as the price of immunity from harm even though the employer refuses to accept an extra and unnecessary guest driver and no service is performed for the money. . Did any congress ever sink so low as to entertain any such vicious intent?
The Best Sellers
By Stephen Ellis
FTER all, most of us have been going on the assumption |
WHAT ARE PEOPLE reading these days? That question is asked so many times that it's about time we did a little finding out. And the books I'm going to mention are not only the best~llers here but all over the country. It's a sort of “big ten” of the moment. Just tag along now: 1. “The Moon Is Down,” John Steinbeck (Viking). 2. “The Last Time I Saw Paris,” by Elliot Paul (Random House). 3. “Victory Through Air Power,” by Maj. Alexander P. de Seversky (Simon & Schuster). 4. “Dragon Seed,” by Pearl Buck (John Day).
And Here Are the Rest
FIFTH ON THE list is “Only One Storm,” by Granville Hicks (Macmillan). 8. “Islandia,” by Austin Wright (Farrar & Rinehart). 7. “Flight to Arras,” by Antoine de St. Exupery (Reynal & Hitchcock). 8. “Oross Creek,” by Marjorie Rawlings (Scribner's). 9. “The Song of Bernadette,” by Franz Werfel (Viking). 10. “Past Imperfect,” by Ilka Chase (Doubleday, Doran).
by
Editor's Note: The views expressed by columnists in this newspaper are their own. They are not necessarily those of The Indianapolis Times,
So They Say—
WEDNESDAY, MAY 27, 1942
The Hoosier Forum
I wholly disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.—Voltaire.
“STILL WAITING TO BE BORN WITH A RECORD” By W. J. Z,, Indianapolis
In response to the birth certificate craze: I received a letter from one of our leading defense plants to call for an interview. I immediately went to their office armed with a baptismal record and birth date signed by a Catholic priest and the church seal on official church stationery, and my army discharge] listing 11 engagements with the enemy in World War I and was told by this company’s personnel man I must file for a birth certificate as this paper did not fill the require- | ments. I could not afford the $3] so I went without a job. I went about 100 miles from Indianapolis to the town where I was born and was told that they did not keep a record of births until 1807. I was born in 1835. I am still on a fence waiting to be born with a record. LJ 2 »
“EXPOSE THE BOARDS THAT CODDLE THE SLACKER”
By U. P. Stewart, Westport If the set-up of the selective serv-| ice system was not so rotten, Col. Hitchcock wouldn't be annoyed by §0 many anonymous letters. Any setup that considers secrecy regarding dependency or occupation deferment for one person more important than the life of another without such claims is rotten to the core. The present set-up protects the slacker and jellyfish or dilatory boards by making such claims secret and not open to the public. We have no way of knowing for sure there is fraud but the system has been in operation long enough now for the stench to have become in some cases unmistakable. How about those boards that seem never to send up anyone married since] September 1940? Remarkable, isn't it, that these are all at the bottom of the list? With such secrecy, how is the public to know of some of these haven't lied about their date of marriage? Col. Hitchcock and his boards, at present at least, will see to it that the public don’t find out. But there is a way. Wake up you parents with
boys in the service and others who
| | i {
The stark truth is that the violence preached by | the Nazis is the devil's own religion of darkness.—Vice |
President Henry A. Wallace.
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What ever happened to Hitler's secret weapon? |
It wouldn't work in the Russian snow. It wouldn't work in the mud, either. What kind of a weapon is that?—Undersecretary of War Robert Patterson.
The belief that favoritism exists in certain cases in obtaining commissions is, in our opinion, due to the publicity that has been given a few isolated cases— Senate Naval Affairs Committee statement.
For 300-mile-an-hour planes to depend upon 10-mile-an-hour convoys to get them there is absurd.—
| Maj. Alexander De Seversky, famed plane designer.
We shall cleanse the plague spot of Europe, which
* »
is Hitler's Germany, and with it the hell hole of Asia |
« « + Japan.—Vice President Henry A. Wallace. Sus » LJ
Women have shown that they can do or learn to
(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.)
believe in fair play. Make yourself heard and demand that all deferments be published in the news-| papers together with their classification. Most important of ali, that the records of deferment for dependency or occupation be open for public inspection. Under this system many deferments for occupation wouldn't stand the spotlight. We need more boards like the one in Indianapolis that handled the Olive case. . . . (See Hoosier Legion naire, March, 1942). Incidentally it has come to my attention that some jellyfish, high in the councils of the Hoosier Legion didn’t approve of this expose. Let us have more of it. Expose the boards and their superiors that coddle the slacker. Commend those that puts him in his place. ” ” ” “BRACE UP AND TAKE IT, MR. TIRED BUSINESS MAN" By Mrs. R. W. Ciift, Moorseville
In The Times dated May 22 was an article listing several names of well-known gentlemen, most of whom were connected directly or indirectly with the gasoline trade. These men quite naturally see their businesses on the verge of a slump but what they are too busy to see is a possibility that is far more | alarming than the loss of their business. You raze an old derelict of a building that has been the habitat of rats for years and what do you, get? They move on to new quarters, of course. Indiana and surrounding states are virtually a powder keg as we have all types of war industries going full blast. If the gas is rationed in areas around the coasts the crooks, gangsters and all the riff-raff will flock inland where they can get gas for transportation. Then these same gentlemen who ask us now to write
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'ple has to be considered. The de-
to our congressmen to stop gasoline [rationing in the midwest will be | |asking us to write again to them| {about the crime wave that sprang up like mushrooms. Gasoline and autos made a host of the bad element so by the same token let it serve to break them. How long the conflict will last is a question that only the gods can | answer, but if it only continues three months and folks have to walk a few blocks a day it will be more sunshine and fresh air than they have had for years.
| Of course there maybe is enough
gas to float us Hoosiers but if the | U-boats work on our tankers as] they have in the past, we can run short and it also could be another too little and too late story. Brace up and take it on the chin, you
of freedom by buying bonds instead of expensive get-togethers that won't do you or anyone any good for rationing is due here any time. » » » “LET'S KEEP THE THINGS WE ARE FIGHTING FOR” By Mrs. Harold R. Kyle, Columbus I was so relieved to read in the paper that a committee of men that |knows the situation thoroughly had |been formed to protest against rationing of gasoline through the Middle West. Rationing will not conserve rubber because tires will rot away just as fast as they would in careful driving. After all, a car owner, having paid $2 for his federal stamp (which has to be bought again in June for $5) paid his personal taxes, federal and state tax, paid for his driver's license and license plates for his car, should be entitled to have some pleasure out of his own property. The morale of the American peo-
fense workers, after hitting the ball for eight to 14 hours a day, seven days a week, need diversion and! some relaxation from their usual routine and the way they get it is to climb in their car, drive to the city, take in a good show, or whatever entertainment they enjoy. Now if they will not be allowed to do that, they aren't going to feel like getting in there and putting their best work out for freedom when the biggest part of that freedom has been taken away. Mr. W. 8. Farrish, president of Standard Oil, pointed out on Friday, May 22, that there will he 33 plants in operation, producing synthetic rubber, and the amount will be 1,440,000 tons annually, or about twice as much as the national consumption of natural rubber last year. The rubber situation according to that is not as critical as some of our officials would have the public believe. ‘Of course, there may be factions that I couldn't begin to understand but personally I get tired of crepe hanging news, telling us we are too optimistic. I say let's maintain everything that is possible for our usual way of American life so we will know that we are fighting for the thing we have —freedom.
” ” » “PLENTY OF SUITES IN AUTO SHOWROOMS” By Sal Cale, Columbus There are a great number of auto showrooms, another large number of vacant business buildings that are serving no purpose whatever. I believe that these now empty buildings can easily be converted into living quarters for- our overflow of new factory workers. With little work and material, plenty of much needed suites can come of above-mentioned ghosts.
DAILY THOUGHT Watch ye and pray, lest ye enter into temptation. The spirit truly is ready, but the flesh is weak. —Mark 14:38.
tired business men, and get a share |
In Washington By Peter Edson
WASHINGTON, May 27.—Arthur B. Newhall, rubber co-ordi= nator for WPB, reduces the rub= ber shortage to this simple explanation: A combat tank with
a steel track is 20 per cent less’
efficient than a tank with a rubber track. If any of you would rather have your sons go to war in tanks that are only 80 per cent efficient so that you can go joy- - riding, then maybe this rubber shortage can be solved. But if you want your son to fight in tanKs that are 100 per cent efficient and better than the enemy’s, then youll have to do without the joyride. . . . Clark Gable is now an officer with a desk job in Washington. And one of the common noon hour sights in the army-navy area out near the Lincoln memorial is the number of new civil service stenographers taking their lunch or the noon hour stroll in the vicinity of Gable’s office, just to try to catch a glimpse of the ex-movie star. . . . Lieut. Gen. Brehon Somervell wrote a speech recently in which he quoted several passages from Shakespeare. He showed copies of the speech to four of his staff colonels for a check, and the only revisions they made were to correct the English of Shakespeare.
Needed: Co-Ordinator of Ballyhoo
NEXT NEW department needed in Washington is an administrator of activation, a bureau of ballyhoo, a co-ordinator of campaigns, a director of drives or something like that. For the war has reached the organizing stage and the let’s-do-something about-it-boys are beginning to step on each others’ toes. War savings stamp and’bond drives are here for
the duration. On top of that is the war production drive of WPB. The waste paper drive has gone over. Coming up are more scrap rubber and junk collections. There may be a campaign to get people to sell their extra tires to the government. Not the fifth tires, but the sixth, seventh and eighth tires, believed to be hiding in many cellars, There will be a sum-mer’s-end campaign to save electric power. And a man-power campaign or two to get farm workers. What's missing, of course, is a boss for all this to schedule the campaigns, run each of them for two weeks or so, then saw it off, leaving the public with only one goal and a new enthusiasm every couple of weeks.
Now You See It, Now You...
MAYBE IN TIME the arithmetic books will have to be rewritten, using problems that tie in with rationing, price-fixing and conservation. Here, for instance, is a question posed by Leon Henderson's OPA: Q—A dress manufacturer during March sold and delivered nine style numbers at $14.50 per dozen. Later in March he raised the prices on the three most popular style numbers to $15.50, but actually sold and delivered only two of these three numbers at the higher price. What would be his maximum price on the three numbers raised? A—Only the two style numbers actually sold and delivered in March can be sold at $15.50. The third number raised and the other six must be sold at
$14.50.
A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson
“IF WE ADOPT National Socialism here, while condemning it in the old world, it will be from sheer bankruptcy of statesmanship, coupled with criminal indolence on the part of voters.” That arresting sentence is from the swell new book by Elmer T. Peterson, “Forward to the Land” (University of Oklahoma Press). Could any topic be more timely? When a nation is up against total war it becomes conscious of fundamental needs—and food production tops that list. In the last analysis, everything depends upon the farm, for industry cannot produce armaments and armies cannot produce victories unless the soil produtes first. Daily reports from Washington remind us that farmers must have help from city people if - there is to be enough food for us and our Allies. It is said many women in California have already taken to the fields. . Thus the blandest urbanite can no longer ignore the country hick, for he realizes that his own destiny may depend upon how wisely the farm problem is handled. I recommend, especially to city people, careful reading of Mr. Peterson’s book. He writes about the most serious danger of our present perilous universe, and we'd better think about it, too.
Time to Use Our 'Mother Wit'
SOME NEW DEALERS may wince a bit, but no one can deny the author's common sense, for he proves his point when he criticizes the procedure of the AAA and praises that of the FSA. His book is a living document. He sets down word-of-mouth reports from people who live on the soil, most of whom deplore the bad psychology which has been built up by too much Government aid. In Oklahoma, for instance, an agricultural state where diversified farming is easy, 64 per cent of men on WPA rolls came from the farm. “It’s time,” says Mr. Peterson, “for us to use our ‘mother wit’ instead of so much canned economy. A certain proportion of people will not work unless
they have to and that’s what plays the mischief ]
with federal relief, no matter how great a boon it may have been to some.” “One old farmer said everything when he complained: “Too many people quit working the land. Now they work the roads fer the gov’ment. Roads is all right, but you can’t eat ’em. Round here, seems like all the loose help’s on the gov'ment.”
Questions and Answers
(The Indianapolis Times Service Bureau will answer any question of fact or information, not involving extensive research. Write your question clearly, sign name and address, inclose a three-cent postage stamp, Medical or legal advice cannot be given. Address The Times Washington Service Bureau, 1013 Thirteenth St., Washington, D. C.)
Q—What are Australia’s chief imports from and exports tb the United States? A—Leading imports from the United States are automobile chassis and parts, petroleum products, unmanufactured tobacco, motive-power machinery, electrical machinery and appliances, printimg machinery, sulfur, films and office machines and appliances. The principal exports to the United States are gold, wool, hides and skins, mineral concentrates, pear] shell and sausage casings,
Q—What is the Race Betterment Foundation and who is head of it? A—It is a ftrusteeship established and endowed by John Harvey Kellogg in 1906. The main purpose is to promote race betterment through the diffusion of knowledge in relation to eugenics and biology. John Harvey Kellogg, M. D., Battle Creek, Mich., is the
| president.
@—Please give the name and address of the administrator of the wage and hour division.
© dal e Walling was appointed adminis-
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