Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 6 November 1942 — Page 23

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_ Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way

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FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 6, 1942

~ LABOR’S MANPOWER MUDDLING

AUL McNutt has submitted to the White House a report on the nation’s manpower situation which he describes as equal in scope to the Baruch rubber report. We don’t know what's in it, or even whether President

| Roosevelt will approve of it. But if this report, drawn up

by the war manpower commission’s joint labor-management committee, does anything like as much to clear away con-

‘ fusion in the field it covers as the Baruch report did in rubber, it must be, indeed, a remarkable document.

For the manpower muddle has been allowed to become wery bad. C. I O. President Philip Murray described it accurately last week in his statement to a senate committee. There is, he said, “no co-ordinated, planned program.”

~ Various agencies, frequently conflicting, attempt to deal

i

with various phases of the problem, and the manpower commission “merely co-ordinates the confusion.” "Mr. Murray and President William Green of the A. F. of L. offered proposals which deserve serious consideration. We agree with them that many things, short of compulsory labor service, can be done to bring about more intelligent use of manpower. But they failed even to mention organized labor’s own large contribution to manpower waste and ineffectiveness. 8 HE average work week in British manufacturing industries is 56 hours. In Germany, 60 hours. In Russia, 66 hours. But in the United States it is less than 43 hours. Unquestionably the American work week is being

8 8 ” 8 2

~ kept short by laws and union contracts that were designed

3

to discourage overtime in a period of widespread unemployment. But organized labor refuses to consider suspending or modifying these laws and contracts for the duration to meet the conditions of total war. Organized labor—especially the. A. F. of L. branch— has long victimized consumers, business and industry by imposing artificial restraints designed— To compel the hiring of useless and unnecessary labor;

to prevent the use of cheaper materials, improved equip-

ment or more efficient methods; to enforce illegally fixed prices; to enforce systems of graft and extortion; to destroy established systems of collective bargaining. These practices, bad at any time, are intolerable now. As we say, we don’t know what's in the report Mr. McNutt has sent to the White House. But if, like Messrs. Green and Murray, it. ignores organized labor’s part in

creating and intensifying the manpower muddle, it won't

be a complete report. It won't deserve mention in the same class with the fearless Baruch report on rubber.

~ A CHAMPION IS DEFEATED

some it might have seemed more fitting if Senator Norris of Nebraska had voluntarily stepped out of public life as a “retired undefeated champion”—and he was indeed a champion of democracy. Yet to do so would have been

out of character.

The senator has been a fighter during all of his full

3 and fruitful career of four decades in house and senate—

a career in which TVA was only one of many milestones. That he should now, at 81, go down fighting rather than strike his colors is testimony to the courage and tendeity of one e of the giants of our time.

HIRING POLICY

ENRY KAISER’S labor recruiting office in New York is = being closed Dec. 1. Thereafter all hiring is to be done by the A. F. of L. Boilermakers’ union through the U. S. employment service. The day before this announcement appeared, the Boilermakers union’s secretary and business agent, Tom Ray, ‘openly threatened that the union would “take matters into its own hands” unless Kaiser revokes the promotions of

_ eight Negroes from common labor to skilled trades.

The federal government has been very insistent that.

employers not discriminate against, among others, Negroes.

What is the U. S. employment service going to do when ~ the boilermakers ask for thousands of men for the Kaiser

plants with the stipulation: Negroes for menial jobs; no |

skilled Negroes accepted?

HILE fervent youngsters have been tossing beloved bicycles into scrap piles; while men have been taking

the brass rails from home bars and veterans of the first world war are donating cherished souvenirs, the National

Park Service has been building a steel fence around “Ickes Garden” i in the national capital.

F any other demagog, looking for an easy ride to power, ®™ has been toying with the idea that prohibition might

2 a popular issue, let him first ponder the fate of Joshua

Lee of Oklahoma.

Fair Enough By Westbrook Pegler

NEW YORK, Nov. 6.—If these .dispatches have given an impression that Mr. Joe Fay, the hood-

lum of the Frank Hague mob and |

the New Jersey chapter of the party of humanity, who doubles as union boss and contractor on

some of the biggest war jobs, is |.

strictly a lug at all times, that is incorrect and unfortunate.

Mr. Fay has moments of -re- | social }| Such an occasion interrupted his |

finement, restraint and hauteur as well. career of thuggery in September, 1941, when he gathered several of his friends about him and went off to Bermuda to attend the wedding in St. Pauls church, Padget, of an American young lady to a member of one of the first families of the island. Mr. Fay’s friends included William E. Maloney, the eminent Chicago sportsman, international president of the Construction Engineers’ union, of which Mr. Fay, himself, is a vice president, and who has ac- -| quired through his devotion to the cause of labor, with an upper-case L, a table of thoroughbred racing steeds and a wintering home in Miami Beach near those of his fellow townsmen, Al Capone and Frank Nitti.

Oh, Yes, 'Longie' Was There

THEY INCLUDED also Mr. A. (for Abraham), otherwise known to the police of Newark as Longte, Zwillman. Mr. Zwillman has dropped out of police circles in recent years, having married into the money, but back in prohibition days he was a very active figure and left several memoranda in the memory book of the police department. * Data on “Longie” records five arrests on charges of atrocious assault and battery, including one with the additional notation of “intent to kill.” All but one of these were dismissed with.the notation “complaint withdrawn,” which is about what happened in Syracuse last winter when Joe, himself, was indicted for kicking the face of a colleague in the union racket, a felony charge good for five years in prison, and the victim forgot to show up for the trial as the states principal witness.

That one gave off such a peculiar odor that Gov-"

ernor Lehman recently ordered that the papers be examined closely with an eye to skullduggery to the injury of orderly justice in the state of New York.

'‘Longie' Was Decorum Itself

AT ANY RATE, MR. FAY’'S friend, “Longie” Zwillman, walked out of four charges of assault and as stuck only once, in which case his diploma says he got six months in jail and a fine of $1000 on Dec. 12, 1930. It is also recorded that he was convicted of loud and indecent language and got a suspended sentence on Dec. 10, 1926. But in 1941 Mr. Zwillman was very social, married and wealthy, and sailed to Bermuda aboard the S. S. Evangeline, a terrible old tub which many eastern winter cruise patients will remember without longing, to be with his old chum, Joe Fay, at the society wedding. An American sojourner who chanced to be on the island, and whose occupation has to do with police work in New York, was astounded to see “Longie” among the English dudes of Bermuda society and remarked to a bartender that the encounter put him in mind of the morning lineup at headquarters and his old days on the safe and loft squad.

Just Livening Up Things

TO MR. ZWILLMAN’S credit it should be reported that he conducted himself in a strictly gentlemanly way and committed no atrocious assaults, and that the island was no worse off when he left than when he came. Mr. Fay, too, is said to have conducted himself well up to a certain point and tore up money derived from his service to labor, with an upper-case L, with a dignity which was positively sensational. It has been reported, however, that he finally became bered, and with his traditional cry of “I am; am I?” took a swing from the floor and beat hell out of one of Bermuda's citizens, thus closing the evening with the traditional rite that scuffed up Dave Dubinsky of the garment workers’ union at the New Orleans convention of the A. F. L., half-killed the mugg in the Syracuse case, and, in other times and places, has enlivened the proceedings of various union conferences and grand testimonial dinners.

Frankly Speaking

By Norman E. Isaacs

DON'T MAKE THE mistake of skipping over those. stories about the possibility of a breakdown of city and county government in the two-month period before the Republicans take over control. It's rot e& possibility, it is actually a probability. It’s simple to see why These people in most of these jobs are paid very little. They realize that they're on the way out and theyre all looking for jobs now, ready to jump the reservation the moment they clinch one. In normal times, of course, there would be no great availability of im-

| mediate jobs, but in times iike these the situation calls

for a little hurried sizing up—aud prompt action. City hospital is a situation in ‘specific. Wholesale resignations .there might leave us in a dreadful position. Any big institution like that is dependeni on trained workers and if enough of these trained workers skip out before you can get replacements there is literally the deuce to pay.

It's Not Screwy! And Not Idealistic!

ALL THIS ADDS up in my mind to one basic thing. Socner or later, we're going to have to come to sume sort of civil service or merit system for all city and county employees—a businesslike method of

operation in which persons are employed through |

competitive tests to do a job for which they are qualified and who then are guaranteed some semsblance of security.

Leave the policy making to our elected officials, | |

but you certainly ought to eliminate once and for all the spectacie of wholesale turnovers the moment a new party comes in office. 1t would make, better and more wholesome politics. I realize that a lot of people think this is screwy and idealistic. Well, if business tried to operate on the basis we operate local and district government, business would go out of business on the double quick. It's been done pefore, you know. The postoffice is a fairly efficient orgamization. It operates on the civil service basis. When we get around to seeing these things in their proper light, we’ll start getting decent government.

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

Iso They Say—

Our victory, like a large portion of our ships, planes and guns, still is in the making.—Rear Admiral W. H. P. Blandy. *

* *

We want to do something now, so that the society |

of the future will. not have to be an armed camp.— Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs T. V. Soong.

Curtain Time

TORS VE TTRI Jabs 4 Awl HT

J a

. @® : The Hoosier Forum I wholly disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.—Voltaire.

“I AGREE ABOUT SMOKING ON THE STREETCARS By B. M., Indianapolis Now that the subject of smoking on a streetcar or trolley or bus has been brought up in last night's paper by “I Smoke, Too,” I want to put in my 2 cents’ worth. I heartily agree with the person who wrote in your column about inconsiderate people smoking on crowded cars. I have noticed so many who absolutely disregard the “no smoking” signs in the cars, and with the cars so crowded, and the windows closed at this time of year—you nearly choke without having someone smoking, too!

And if people do not have enough consideration for others, or good

breeding not to do this, the street-

car company should and can instruct their operators not to admit anyone with a lighted cigar or cigaret on the cars, also they can put up more conspicuous “no smoking” signs in all the cars. I smoke, too, but there is a time and place for this—but not on the cars.

2 8 = “PRAISE THE LORD AND PASS THE PROHIBITION”

By Paul Hollingsworth, Sunnyside Sanatorium.

Praise the Lord, and pass the prohibition! The local press recently carried

an article with the titie, “Drunken Driving Shows Increase.” Within the article, Don F. Stiver, superintendent of the Indiana state police, blamed “the fast pace of the national war effort” for the increase in drunken driving, saying that “war workers making high wages and feeling the strain of long working hours fail to exercise proper caution in seeking relaxation and the result is many times a serious accident.” Please notice the last three words in that statement. Ominous words they are. They only add weight to the beginning of one of the most decadent eras in the history of man-

the immediate future to stop it. Mr. Stiver placed the blame on the war effort and the public instead of placing it where it rightly

kind, unless something is done in

(Times readers are invited

to express their views in

these columns, religious conexcluded. Make

your letters short, so all can

troveries

have a chance. Letters must

be signed)

belongs, namely, on the poison in the bottle. If this deadly .poison continues to run almost unabated, where will our young people be 10 years from now? What chance have our young tots in such an environment? Do you want the plain unpleasant truth? They will be as a majority, a bunch of drunkards, weaklings, bumbs and deadbeats. Don’t believe me? Take a little trip around to a few of the taverns, honky tonks, sanatoriums, hospitals of our fair city. Then face facts with the truth! While it is true that it would be more difficult to enforce a prohibition law now than before the war, it is also true that the effort would pay rich dividends not only in our present war effort but in the peace to come. Now please don’t tell me that a government that ‘can conscript over four million men into the armed forces, enforce a sugar and other rations on the whole country, and enforce a wage law on almost every worker in the country, couldn’t enforce a national prohibtiion law. In view of these facts, the editorial, “Don’t Repeat That Mistake,” was indeed a mistake.

® 2 = “IT WILL TAKE US ALL TO WIN, MRS. JACKSON” By Mrs. R. S., === N. Reisner, Indianapolis. In answer to Mrs. Rose Jackson's letter on Oct. 13, 1942: I am writing this about the man I love and, as you call them, he is an ex-convict. I don’t want him to be cannon fodder any more than

you do your son. He tried to enlist in the army before the war, but they wouldn’t take him. . . He offered his life for cannon fodder,

but if they don’t want him, they

Side Glances—By Galbraith

"There's one good first time in

ow

bask for us in. “this maid ‘situation—for ‘the ears we can say what we-lik

1e-without being.

e in our

. thallow’d day!

don’t want him. He can’t make them take him, you know. You say they are mean, conceited and narrow-minded. Well . just because a boy has had a bad start in life is no sign he'll always be that way, so why down them? They are human just as your son is, and they also have mothers who love them as you love yours. All men are born equal. Is your Hiner s son? I should say he isn’t. I'm only one of 10 children, and I think my mother would gladly offer her sons and even her daughters for her country, to your only son. And have them right on the front line with the ex-convicts. You act as if. this war couldn’t be won without all boys being like your son, when it will take all to win it.

By R. B., Spencer. Just read Mrs. Jackson's letter about convicts. To me this seems like the most unjust letter I ever saw, . . . All people are human. All make mistakes. And I believe there are ex-convicts who would make as

own son will in a few months. There isn’t an ex-con in our family so far as I know, but I wonder if me and mine had had the chances of some of the children I see on the streets of Spencer what would we have been. . . . If IT read my Bible right that isn’t Christ's way. If it is I'm afraid if we all get our just rewards it will be too bad for us on the judgment day. ” 2 2 “THE 1STH AMENDMENT

WAS A STAB IN THE BACK”

By John A. Friend, past national commander, Ex-Prisoners of War, World War I, Greencastle

Did the W. C. T. U. ever win a fwar? The 18th amendment was shoved down our throats while the A. E. F. was still in France in 1918. A stab in the back to the defenders of ‘liberty who fought for freedom and then upon their return to free

eo oo 0

get a drink of beer, etc. Those who put this over didn’t have guts to get

in uniform and put the home fires out for the fellow who liked a bedtime drink. . . . If "you haven't confidence in them, if you think they can’t take care of themselves in camp, that they can’t act like men and be men just because theyre away from home, how could you have confidence that they will fight? Do you want a man to lay down his life for freedorn and then make his buddies become law violators to take a drink? The army is not a

-| Sunday School, it is a group of men

and women trained as killers, to kill and be killed, that our sob sisters may retain their freedom to drink tea and pink lemonade. I say if a fellow is man enough to shoot down the enemy to protect you, he has the right to a drink.

I'li let you into a secret. I do like a bottle of beer once in a while and I'm a member of the Christian church. Still you can’t save a man’s soul by legislation! If you're a Christian just for business or because you fear the law, God will send you downward on the fastest elevator, ‘Trust the boys. Some will be killed whether we like to think of it or not, and if a drink or cigaret is what they crave, are you going to be the one to deny them?

DAILY THOUGHT Remember the sabbath day; to keep it. holy.—Exodus 20:8. .

"HOW still the morning of the| - Mute is the voice of rural labour, hush’d the: ploughboy's

is | whistle; and: the milkmaid’s song.— s Grahame,

son any better than any other|"

good citizens and soldiers as my ;

America had to violate the law tol

In Washington

By Peter Edson

WASHINGTON, Nov. 4 —With five first-line government war agencies now having a thumb stuck in the pie of national food supply, the only plum that can possibly be pulled out by the Good Boy in the White House is eventual appointment of a a food administrator to control not only the growing and processing of the ingredients, but the delivery, the serving and the eating of the pie as well. Unca’ Donald Nelson has had a recommendation to this effect filed with the president for some days now, but there the matter is stymied. In the meantime, the problem of growing enough food crops is in the hands of the department of agriculture, the furnishing of farm labor is theoretically in the hands of the manpower commission, the manufacturing and processing of food is in the hands of the WPB, the moving of food crops is in the hands J Le ODT and distribution is in the hands of the Over all this there is within the war production: board a food requirements committee under the chairmanship of Secretary of Agriculture Claude R. Wickard. The food requirements committee was announced last June and at the time it was assumed this was to be the central] food authority of the United States. Nine agencies were represented on the committee, which seemed to give it the necessary distinction and front to make it the real tops. for winning friends and influencing the right people.

The Well-Known Runaround

IN THE FIVE months of its existence the food requirements committee has in weekly meetings and in "between times boldly tackled such problems as adequate supply of farm machinery, increasing - the capacity of plants to dry milk and dehydrate meat, etc.

It seems, however, that whenever the food requirements committee would make a recommendation on what to do about supplying farmers with machinery, this recommendation would have to go to some iron and steel allocation branch or some machinery branch of WPB, where it would. be held up for some weeks to make sure that this manufacture of more farm machinery wouldn’t interfere with the manufacture of something else. In most cases it did, and a stalemate resulted. Now this may have been necessary, but while it was being done the food programs had to stand still. In other words, this begins to look a little like the wellknown wartime Washington runaround.

A Nice Job for the Right Man

IN THIS PROCESS of shaping up a food administration there is, as you might suppose, the usual Washington push-pull as to who shall run the show. Mr. Nelson's as yet unanswered letter to the president recommended that the food administration be set up within the WPB. It might, however, be given to Justice Jimmy Byrnes’ new office of economic stabilization. OPA has a foods price division, expanding rapidly under A, C. Hoffman, formerly a principal economist with department of agriculture. Department of agriculture men would like to see Secretary Wickard and the present food requirements committee given more power. The food processing industry is building bonfires all over the place to have a man from their industry named to the job. In the meantime, here is a nice job waiting for the right man. Let's see. The last man who was food administrator, a fellow named Herbert Hoover, got to be president, didn’t he?

A Woman's Viewpoint By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

“PRAY FOR ME, Mother, that I may get to come home soon.” So wrote Pvt. Mickey Boschert of Memphis, Tenn., in his last let-. ter to his parents. Next week came news of his death at Guadalcanal. } ~ Pvt. Boschert was one of many young men who have died for country and freedom with brave hearts, because they knew “Mother” was praying for them. How heaven’s citadels must be stormed these days by maternal supplications! Surely, one thinks, God will hear me. Surely this cup will pass; surely I shall be spared. Yet, all the time, reason chants her cruel refrain: “Who are you to be spared? Why should God protect your love? Why should you ask to escape from the univetsal ‘sorrow, the sacrifice humankind now makes for its evil behavior?” : All over the world women are in Gethsemane, passing through a form of suffering only they are ever called upon to endure. Even Jesus of Nazareth could die. But, the mothers of earth must keep their chins up, their hands busy, their emotions in order, their households running, their hearts unafraid, while the fearful work of war goes on. They may not murmur; they must not quail; they can only toil and pray. .

"Perhaps Our Thinking Is Wrong"

AND MOST OF us should riot expect our prayers ' to be answered in the fashion we choose. “God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform.” Our finite minds. cannot always understand those ways nor whither they lead. . Pvt. Boschert of Memphis has “come home,” in another sense of the phrase. Not to his mother’s arms, nor to his community, but to his place in eternity. We who put great emphasis upon the length of life, .and too little upon its purpose, feel that he was cut off in his prime. Twenty years is too short a time to live. according to our way of thinking. But perhaps our way of thirking is wrong, too.. When a man’s job is done, death’s portals may be the open door to a ‘more splendid adventure. And perhaps, when the Pvt. Boscherts of our time are released from their bodies, the prayers of their mothers will echo in. heaven and, by divine magic, become their’ welcome there, by the old loved, familiar voices.

Questions and Answers

(The Indianapolis Times Service’ Burean 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. cangot be given. Address The Times Washington Service Bureau, 1013 Thirteenth St., Washington, D. C.) : ® Q—What is a kilowatt-hour? A—It is a unit by which the consumption of electrical energy is measured. It represents 1 hour's use of 1 kilowatt of power. A kilowatt is 1000 watts. For example, a 100-watt light burning: for 10 hours will use 1 kilowatt-hour, or a 1000-watt light burning, for 1 hour will use 1 kilowatt-hour. One horsepower is equal to 746 ‘watts—about % kilowatt. :

" Q—What pay. is received by a master sergeant in the U. S. army? 'A—Base pay’ for. that rank, when the ian Has less than three years-service, is $138. pe nth, Pay increases: with length ‘of service until a. man: with more than 30 years of service gets $207 per