Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 27 July 1942 — Page 10

AGE 10

he Indianapolis Times

‘W. HOWARD RALPH BURKHOLDER MARK FERREE sident Editor Business Manager ° SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER) :

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Give Light and “the Feople Will Find Their Own Way

MONDAY, JULY 27, 1943

| ‘COVENTRY WAS CHILD'S PLAY

T'S a question we have heard many times since this newspaper started printing the Stokes series outlining the possibility of a joint Anglo-American bomber offensive to wipe out Germany's war industries. We mean: “If Germany couldn't do it to England in months of trying, how can we do it to Germany?” For the answer in, detail, read today’s article by Mr. Stokes. But here is the gist of itr 1. Coventry, whose name became a symbol of destruction from the air, teok only 400 tons of bombs from the Germans—in two nights. 2. Cologne took 3000 tons of British bombs—in a single night. : If the Cologne bombing can be duplicated night after night, on one German industrial city after another—and American mass production is making that possible—Hitler and Goering will wish they had never heard of Coventry. “The war cannot be lost by such an air offensive. - might be won that way.”

It

CRIPPS ACCEPTS THE HULL PLAN

HE British government favors Secretary of State Cordell Hull's declaration for postwar equality of all nations with respect to the trade and raw materials of the world. Sir Stafford Cripps, lord privy seal, in an address, supported the Hull statement with a warning that economic warfare must be converted into economic welfare. This is significant, because Prime Minister Churchill originally qualified the fourth point of the Atlantic Charter, making it read: “They (Britain and the United States) will endeavor, with due respect for their existing obligations, to further the enjoyment of all states, great or small, victor or vanquished, of access on equal terms to the trade and to the raw materials of the world which are needed for their economic prosperity.” Since “existing” British and American ravwanaterial monopolies, credit controls, and trade and tariff barriers, have been among the chief reasons for lack of equality, that reservation clause amounted to nullification of an effective pledge. ” o ” ” ” » HREE months later President Roosevelt, in quoting this pledge, dropped that nullifying clause. So have other ‘American spokesmen since, including Secretary Hull last week. But until now London officials have not publicly given the same emphasis. Hence the significance of this Cripps - statement: “The spirit of cosoperation and ruthless insistence that we should make the common goods of humanity the overriding principle of all our policies is essential. . . . “One thing is sure—that the united nations must, at ‘the end of the war, undertake the international regulation of the production and distribution of essential raw materials, ‘both in the interest of immediate rehabilitation of the devastated countries, as well as with a view to attaining that steadily rising standard of living throughout the world which is one of our objectives. . . . “Neither we nor any other nation must attempt to erect ourselves, as Hitler is striving to do with Germany, into a privileged people living upon the labor and efforts of others.” So it appears that the British government and expert British opinion support the Roosevelt-Hull postwar plan for guaranteeing equal access of all nations to trade and raw materials in order to preserve a just peace.

WHITHER ARE WE DRIFTING?

Crisis piles on crisis at Washington, and now arises an issue that sure enough is an issue: Shall the name of the U. S. board of tax appeals be changed to the U. S. court of tax appeals? There is an unfortunate tendency to subordinate this | = ‘momentous question to the exigencies of war, The Amer"jean people do not seem to be sufficiently aroused about it, perhaps because they have not been adequately informed. We hasten, therefore, to perform a duty of public enlight:mment. : For 18 years—ever since congress created it—the _ board of tax appeals has been a board. This fact, in the opinion of some of its 16 ‘members, has been a source of embarrassment, both professional and social. It has created deplorable doubt and confusion, for there is no proper title for a member of a board. ” ” ” : . 5 » A MEMBER of a commission is a commissioner. Is a member of the board of tax appeals therefore a boarder? Perish the thought. But to call him just plain “mistpr” is hardly in keeping with his official dignity. And to . pddress him as “judge”—as many people do—puts him in “a false and uncomfortable position,” since he is not a judge. However, he would be a judge if the board were a court, Taxpayers insist on approaching the board informally ‘with their problems and complaints; they would be more ‘formal with a court. Board members find difficulty in borrowing federal court rooms for their hearings in various cities; court judges might anticipate a warmer welcome. These are among the arguments submitted in memondum form to the house ways and means committee, and he committee has looked with favor on the proposed thange. But Atty. Gen. Biddle, contending that the board an administrative rather than a judicial agency, opposes “particularly during this time of national emergency.” This is the flaming issue, and your congressman, havy practically nothing else to worry about just now, might i Bleazed if you would welte bin a Bice, long letter: de-

wey ~ A

states, 75 cents a month;

Fair Enough By Westbrook Pegler

ed

NEW YORK, July 27—There

Sepins 45 bea gdod deal of exment over Jimmy Petrillo’s de-" wi that amdteur musical talent must get off the air and his verboten against the further manufacture of canned or recorded

NDAY, JULY 27,

music for use by radio stations |}

and in saloons and restaurants. James L. Fly, the chairman of the federal eommunications commission, wants an inquiry into

the facts and the laws applying and says the situa- |.

tion is grave, as, of course, it Is and ‘has been for

‘| some years.

But, apparently, no law does apply, because Pe-

trillo’s union is one of those privileged organizations |}

which have been fostered by the labor policy of the New Deal and his unjon in particular last winter received special encouragement from Mrs. Roosevelt in the operation of a picket line which was a plain racket. To call Petrillo : a czar or a dictator is not to exaggerate or misuse a term which has lost meaning with overuse. The constitution of his union says that he, the president, may suspend or revoke any portion of it at will and substitute therefor any order that he deems necessary which shall become the law of the union. Judge Ferdinand Pecora, coming on this provision in a perusal of the constitution in a court proceeding, jerked his head up, startled,- and exclaimed: “Do you call THIS a constitution?”

The Inner Affairs in New York . . .

BUT THE DO AND it is their constitution and anything that Jimmy says goes within the union and there appears to be no law of the United States which would restrain him in any action which the supreme court regards as “ordinary union activity.” The inner affairs of the union, and particularly of local 802, which governs in New York, are very bad. Heavy taxes are levied, fines and fees run high and the common membership constitutes a serf class serving the union bosses and serving, in New York, the political aspirations of Jacob Rosenberg, the local president. A few years ago the head of another local up the state charged Mr. Rosenberg with patronizing, on his summer vacation with his family, a hotel in which nonunion musicians were employed, but, as Jimmy

explained later, it was all a mixup over nothing, 50 |

nothing was done. Mr. Petrillo is not punctilious about such things, for he, himself, when in New York, as he often is, stops at a hotel which is nonunion from cellar to roof except for the musicians.

"Am | Permitted & Faint Snicker?"

MR. ROSENBERG got himself nominated for the New York city council on the so-called American Labor party, idolized himself in the union's journal at the members’ expense, exhorted the members, also at their expense, in the same journal and finally polled a total vote which was only a fraction of the membership of his own union. They repudiated his ears off in the secret ballot of the public election, as they might do in a union election if allowed to. The rank-and-file musicians can be booted around even for thinking ill of their masters and they know it and give no interference, because the union card is a license to work for bread and is revocable at will. But Jimmy's attitude toward amateur competition and the employment of standby musicians is nothing new and Mr. Fly certainly should have known what it was all along. I hope I will be permitted a faint snickér, for Mr. Fly, an appointee of the party of humanity, and thus, I assume, a stout defender of labor's gains, has only now discovered something which I pointed out some years ago, only to be denounced as an enemy of labor. If any New Deal bureau can overcome the political aversion of the whole administration to embarrassing truths, his inquiry into the facts of this

case will reveal information that will knock our citi- |e

zens for a series of widening loops.

Bomb Them!

By Major Al Williams

r——.

NEW YORK, July 27—The Nazis undoubtedly have been busy for the last two years in setting up the latest types of ground defenses on the European coast against offense land forces, and they should know something about this business after their varied experiences in trying to solve the Russian and British layouts. So it becomes apparent that there will be a systematic, thorough bombardment of Nazi land fortifications before a major land invasion can progress. There’s no other known method for softening up such ground defenses. By systematic air bombardment I mean: continuous and sustained bombardment of the type the Nazis applied to Sevastopol—one bomb every 10 seconds, day after day, night after night. (Just what Tom Stokes is talking about!).. Even thought this represents a stupendous air effort, which before it happened would have been termed fantastic by the mouse minds, it did happen. But is it the highest peak of air bombardment power—the last word is applying airpower to ground fortifications? Certainly it is not.

Airpower Can Win This War!

MOUSE MINDS in brass hats mutter that “airpower can’t win a war on its own.” Can any of them prove that the effort has been made? Aren't they the very people who fought the development of American airpower beyond that of a status auxiliary to land and sea forces? Of course you can’t win a war with two-thousand-plane air raids every 30 days or so, any more than you can win a land or sea battle with a few shots. It's the element of continuity and mass application of weapons which wins any battle and any war. The British thousand-plane raids devastated Cologne and Bremen as Germans devastated Coventry. But these were isolated stabs. Neither the British nor the Germans have bombed any town with the systematic continuity and pattern used by the Nazis against Sevastopol.

Suppose the British had maintained their ‘“housand planes each hour—-day and night—against the entire system of major Nazi towns, How long do you think this war would last? But no such major bombing effort has thus far been even threatened by either side. Nothng is ever done until somebody tries to do it. Airpower can win this war—but not until someone tries it on a scale in proportion to the size of the objective desired.

So They Say—

Sooner or later—Hitler thinks—we should be ready to call off the war as a bad job. Then a brief truce while he fooled us into neglecting our armaments, a new war—and world domination would really be his. —Edgar Ansel Mowrer, office of war information. * - *

If rioting takes 'place I shall feel helpless ~—Mohandas K. Gandhi, Indian leader.

Politics are as the scaffolding to the cathedral. — : | John Dre

former Hudson jousiy

I wholly

. - sier Forum th what you say, but will de fend to the death your right to say it.—Voltaire.

disagree ui

“WE'RE CONSIDERED CRANKS, BUT I HOPE U. S. WAKES UP” By M. B., Indianapolis

Since the tragic accident that took place at the crossroads of America on July 20th I see by the papers that something will be done about the laxity of obtaining driver's license. Why not. do something about the real but indirect cause of this accident, the liquor traffic? . .. The Times published an article a few weeks ago about a terrible kind of war gas that the axis powers might loose on their enémies. This gas would render the body helpless by affecting the mentdl capacity. More recently I read that our government is conducting research work to combat such gas. Yet the same government legalizes poisonous liquors which this case proves without a doubt can wreck a human hody if you give it time. Those of us who have tried to point this out are considered to be cranks but I only hope America wakes up

to this great evil before it is too late. ,.. 8 8 “SENTENCE OFFENDERS TO PAY ALL THE BILLS”

By Geo. C. Joslin, 525 N. Colorado ave. I have sent the following letter to Gov. Schricker: “Judge Niblack recently had a man up before him for the fifth time on a charge of drunken driving. . He had injured five people in the last accident. The maximum fine of $100 and 180 days in jail was imposed. ‘Why should there be a fifth time for any such offender and how far would $100 go toward paying the expenses of the five people who were injured? Anyway, the court gets the $100 and 180 days don’t help pay the hospital bills. “My boy, like yours, is in the service of his counfry. He is an aviation cadet and was recently riding in an automobile which was in a headon collision with a drunken driver. Seven people were injured. My son’s flying career is postponed for six months and he will wear nasty face scars the rest of his life. Does the drunken driver pay for the damage? Is there any fairness in this sort of thing? “And now we have this horrible

(Times :=aders are invited 5s their these columns, religious con‘excluded. Make your letie s short, so all can have a ch:

to exprais views in

troversie

‘nce. Letters must

be signet)

case at I. &. Ayres corner. Life cannot be rzstored to those two people . . . and who will pay the expenses of hose who were hurt? “Ohviously’, new drastic laws must be enacted fuickly. You are the chief executive of this state. It lies within your power to correct this situation. You A . have a duty to perform. . “Obtaiping a driver’s license should not i: left merely to a man’s honesty whin the lives of other people are . stake. . “Driver's |icense laws, of course, must be revised but the only remedy will be encing of the offender,to pay #il of the hospital bills, medical exp nses and damages for loss of life, joss of limbs, ete. Don’t tell me this cannot be done because it can be. | “The 20+ ernment has recently done a lot 7 things which nobody thought cid be done. There should be &1me priority on life. “If a gui: v driver is required to pay half ¢i his salary until every one of the :xpenses are fully paid, that will Tet ult only in fairness. “Drastic, lterhaps, but a soft rubber mallet wil never drive this nail. ”» § » ” 2 “BIRTH RE! CORD: ADVICE

WRONG Al 7D MISLEADING”

Pr ra Gerth 5 W. Wood, 4231 N. Paulina » Chicagp

While visi ting your fair city a short time go, I Fappened to read

an article it. your paper, dated July 13, 1942, Wwihich staied that birth certificates sould be obtained from the Bureaji:of Census, 4 hab of Commer ‘2, Washington, D. C,, for the smi in fee of postage—a 1cent. postce d asking for an application and a 3-cent stamp to Jeturn it. {LF

It seerlt) gentlemen, you have

Side Glances—By G Galbraith. ]

made a mistake. It is apparent you have been misinformed, to say nothing of your many readers. Am . inclosing the form letter I received from Washington upon my request for an application. The article specifically stated that I have to pay from 50 cents to $3 for this service and that I first must try my state and county authorities. (Editor's Note: Mrs. Wood is correct. Readers of The Hoosier Forum were misinformed by the

write to ‘Washington.) ” ” os. . “WE MUST LEARN TO FACE REALITY . . . WITH COURAGE” By W. D. K., Indianapolis We have been .playing a game in America which we must stop playing forever. It is the game of pretending. From it we have acquired the habit of failing to recognize the real world and hard facts when we see them. We pretend that we aren't there. We listened to the isolationists who pretended that we were not part of the real world until those Japanese shells hit us so hard we couldn't pretend any longer, We listened Yo Charles Coughlin and the Christian Front, who told us that they were not anti-Semitic

while we knew that they were using every trick known to the anti-Sem-ites to stir up racial and religious hatred. . . . This folly—this cowardice—this fear of facing the real world and taking a man’s part in it confused us and made us think that softness toward evil was a virtue when, in truth, softness toward evil of any kind is a vice. } We watched the German-Ameri-can bund open its camps, hold its meetings, and set up its organization . . and we pretended that this thoroughly un-Anierican group was not un-American at all because Fritz Kuhn got up in Madison Square Garden, with an American flag and a picture of George Washingt behind him, and said that he was an American, That made the pretense seem real to some cowardly people who preferred their illusions to the hard task of saving America from the bund vultures. Today, with the country at war and imperiled, the FBI turns up spy after spy who was—what?—a member of the German-American bund. Eight Nazi spies, trained in Germany to destroy our railroads, our bridges, our war production plants, our water supply, are brought to America by a Nazi U-boat. Through the excellent work of the FBI they are arrested, and by action of the president they are tried by a military court. All of them—all eight

|of “these spies who came here to

murder Americans for Hitler—were. members of the German-American bund, or the Friends of the New Germany. These = were organizations which, some pretended, were interested in Americanism. The Christian Front ‘oretended so, and joined with Kuhn and the bund in common meetings at which the Nazi salute was given. This pretense of ours, which made up soft toward our enemies, came very close to costing us dearly. It will yet cost us dearly if we do not learn to recog-

‘| nize reality when we see it and have

the courage to call a Fascist a Fascist and see in him an enemy of America.

DAILY THOUGHT

And what nation is there so great, that hath statutes and

judgments so righteous as all this

law, which I set before you this

day?—Deuteronomy 4:8.

letter-writer who advised them to |

In Washington

By. Peter Eden

FECT July “21. Ai drew Jackson Higgins, the big, red-faced, gray-haired; tough, | rough-and-ready Nebraskan’ who became a southérner and was all set to revolutionize the building '\. of Liberty ships, is going through a week of the worst Pansmen anyone ever got.in this hot, back stabbing town. “ “I'm a little older,” he says, “a little wiser, & lot more disgusted than I was when I came up here on March 11. I'm certainly: no dumber.” : When’ he came to Washington on March 11, it was at government request. He:had made a reputation as a miracle shipbuilder; making navy patrol torpedo boats, landing boats, tank lighters and such specialty eraft. The government, through the maritime commission, wanted Andrew Jackson Higgins of New Orleans to make Liberty ships—200 of them. He took the contract on March 16:and proposed to build them his own way, on a moving assembly line principle, They sank perhaps $20 ‘million of government money into making a Start on building the yard. And then on July 18, four months after the contract. was

let, it was canceled by the government,.

"What Are We Fighting For?" \

THE OFFICIAL explanation is that there isn’t enough steel] plate to make ships in the yards already producing, so why build more yards. But if that is the case, it is almost axiomatic that the contract should never have been let.’ Somewhere along the long halls of government, somebody pulled the most colossal, $20 million blunder of this whole cockeyed war. Who the culprits are may be revealed through« the siftings of the house and Truman committee hearings, but that’s doubtful. Like the underestimates on aluminum, planes and rubber, I'Affaire Hig gins probably will go down in the history of the war production effort as just another one of the blunders. “When I started this,” says Higgins, “men phoned me from all over. Men from the Clyde. Men who had been fired for making suggestions. came to America and found in the old, conservatively run shipyards here methods just as mossback as they had been on the Clyde. But we listened to ’em and took their suggestions. And when the order eanceling this contract was read to these men, they tried to cheer, but they were cheering through their tears. It made me mad. It made me damn good and mad. “What are we fighting for, democracy or bureaucracy?”

"A Hell of a Way to Win!"

“THIS WAS TO BE one gigantic project run on the ideas of Roosevelt,” he exclaimed. “No discrimination against the Negro. It was to have the largest industrial training school in the country. Twelve hundred and fifty whites and 1250 Negroes. We'll keep that going at our own expense. “I got this land for the maritime commission “for $100 an acre—1200 acres of plant. Neighboring land went for $1400. an acre, and all that will be lost. : “When I told them it would take 170,000 piles, they said it was impossible. We sent men out into the woods. I had been a timberman. We ‘went to these Cajuns. They had big trees, but they wouldn't sell them. But they had boys in the army. And when we told them that the trees were to go into yards te build ships to haul.their boys supplies, they sold, They didn’t ask ‘How much?’ but ‘How little?” What was the lowest price others had taken? And they sold for that. “There's just one thing I want to tell you, and I don't think the maritime commission will: object to

These men }

it. If this type of thing is going to come up all the |

time, we're going to have a hell of a time winning this war. I won't say we're going to lost it. But we’ll have a hell of a time winning it.”

Editor’s Note: The views expressed by eolumnisis in this newspaper are their own. They are not necessarily those of The Indianapolis Times,

A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

MRS. JOHN WHITEHURST, president. of the General Federa= . tion of Women's Clubs, has issued a statement, and as a leader of two and a half million women her statements are important. The organization which she heads de=clares itself opposed to vice in military areas and something is to be done about it. That's swell, because all over the land women are worried about the moral situation facing their boys, and they'll be more worried when their 18-year-olds have to go, which is almost sure to happen after the November elections. : The General Federation’s program of reform ine cludes four items: The setting up of venereal dis ease clinics; repression of prostitution by law enforcement, by eliminating the exploiters of prostitution and by rehabilitation of the prostitutes; education in venereal disease control and provision of wholesome community recreation facilities for young people. Barring the second item—for I don't think ita possible to pass enough laws to stop prostitution— the plan looks good. ‘And perhaps more of its suécess than we imagine hinges upon item 4, which is the most important of all.

Begin the Good Work at Home!

WHEN WE READ what the USO has done, we realize how stupid we were before this war began. 1 say, if the General Federation and other feminine groups had concentrated upon the effort to provide wholesome recreaticnal facilities for the HOME TOWN young folks, all our problems of morals and morale would be easier. And, if we wemen had thought half as much about club houses for the youngsters as we did about getting swanky quarters for ourselves, we could now hold up our heads in pride for a good work accomplished. As it is, we've got to start from scratch. While some efforts have been made in our larger cities, there is endless work to be done in smaller towns and rural areas. Even in congested centers, the facilities provided are adequate to the needs of only a fraction of. the boys and girls. ; I hope also that Mrs. Whitehurst and her aides will take a narrow view of this particular job. Thad is to say, let every group begin its good work at nome, We have failed a thousand times because we took in too much territory. And it might not be a bad idea for every club member with adolescent children to stick to her own front room for a few years.

Questions and Answers

(The Indisnapolis Times Service Bureau will answer any ( question of fact or information, not involving extensive #& search. 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 Servies Bureau, 1013 Thirteenth St., Washington, D. 09

Q—What was the average wage of full time works ers in the United States from 1937 to 1941, inclusive? A—The National Income Division, Department qf Commerce, says that for 1937 the amount was $1293;

1938—$1273; 1939—$1310; 1940—$1350 and 1041—$14

la ie ave LUT Ei