Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 13 November 1942 — Page 23
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rate 10 days didn’t satisfy him.
le Indianapolis Times|
RALPH BURKHOLDER Editor, in U. 8. Service WALTER LECKRONE Editor (A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)
Price in Marion Coun«(except Sunday) by - ty, 3 cents a copy; delivIndianapolis Times : a week. Mail rates in Indiana, $4 a year; adjoining states, 75 cents a month;
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"Alliance, NEA B= 2 vice, and Audit Bu- BE or Chine
Give Light and the People Will ‘Find Their Own Way
FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 1842
“IT CAN'T BE DONE!”
I AST Fourth of July the new Henry J. Kaiser shipyard at ~ Vancouver, Wash.—which had been a marsh and a dairy farm just six months before—Ilaunched its‘first victory ship. The ship had been only 80 days a-building, which ‘chopped 25 days off a world’s record.
“Only” 80 days, we said. That “only” would make {
Kaiser laugh today. A few months later, at his Portland, Ore., yard, he launched a victory ship int 10 days. That achievement was
: ‘80 ‘spectacular that the Rome radio branded it a lie and
haughtily cautioned Kaiser “not to launch ships before starting construction on them.” Ten days for a ship of 10, 500 tons, from keel-laying to champagne busting, did seem preposterous—to those who
knew nothing about Kaiser.
Maybe it seemed preposterous to Kaiser, too. At any Yesterday, at his Rich‘mond, Cal, yards, another 10,500-ton liberty ship was launched just 4 days 1514 hours after her keel was laid. Let Mussolini's microphones laugh that one off. The new ship may very well be used one of these days to help supply an A. E. F. in Italy. Congratulations again, Mr. Kaiser, and many happy returns of the day.
LABOR’S HOLIDAY
N the Forum on this page appears the Building Trades Unions’ official explanation of the “holiday” that took
~ 5000 Indianapolis workmen off vital war construction jobs
on Armistice Day, and to it we invite your careful attention. After reading it we are more than ever convinced that there was not the slightest justification for the refusal of these men to work, and we begin to believe that they now realize it themselves. The very regulations and contracts which they cite in their own defense also stipulate that work shall continue
-in case of dispute over wages, and provide machinery for
the fair and equitable adjustment of any such dispute. No amount of legalistic quibbling over interpretations of vague or contradictory government orders can explain away the fact that they did demand time-and-a-half pay and that they did stop work when the federal government refused to + pay it.
UNCLE SAM, MERCHANT?
HE government seems not unlikely to find itself in the mail-order merchandise business before long. A War Labor Board panel has recommended that Montgomery Ward & Co. accept a maintenance of union membership clause in a contract with the CIO store employees union. The company has announced that if this recommendation becomes a board order it won't comply, asserting that such a contract would be illegal and would require the surrender of principles it considers fundamental. Wayne L. Morse, a public member of the board, has denounced the company’s attitude, asserting that— “There is no question at all as to the power of the government to enforce decisions of the board.” The government has enforced various WLB decisions by taking over munitions plants and putting army and navy
; z officers in charge of them. Heretofore, however, manage-
ments generally have complied—though in some cases un-
|| der protest—with orders to accept maintenance of member-
ship clauses which require that employees who withdraw
from unions must be fired from their jobs.
” » ” » » ” IT is true, as Montgomery Ward contends, that congress has never voted legal authority for such orders. No
- court has upheld maintenance of membership, because no
employer as yet has gone to law about it, industries accept-
{ ing it rather than interfere with war production or lose
control of plants. Montgomery Ward asserts that its operations do not affect war production, but the board has overruled this ob_Jection, and anyway President Roosevelt's recent executive
order undertook to give the board jurisdiction over civilian | 4
E well as war industries. ~ Mr. Morse has suggested that the country might better au along without Montgomery for the duration than permit it to defy the WLB. ‘But if, as the board has ruled, the
company is part of thé war effort, closing it up would seem}
“more of a’ public figure, with more speeches and more
hardly sensible. If, on the other hand, it is a civilian business, putting army and navy officers in charge would be difficult to justify. There are, of course, plenty of surplus workers among the government's: 2,600,000 civilian em- : / + But suppose Montgomery Ward is turned over fo be un by one of the federal departments. Much complaint is d -:now about the inefficiency of government. That's ng, we suspect, to what will be heard if the bureau7 attempts to handle mail orders from millions of cus3 all over the country.
DNDON’S BELLS
N American newly arrived in London might miss the _ significance of an event that is scheduled, by anuncement of Winston Churchill, for Sunday morning. He would hear church bells ringing, and a fine sound would be as the great city’s numberless spires joined in gorous song. But then, to an American’s . 88, the d of church bells is no uncommon thing. . What the visitor might not realize is that during tiese - of war the bells of England have been stilled, Sunas well as week days. Sextons have been under orders £ this silence only in the event of invasion. , by way of celebrating the victory in Africa, lis wil peal once more. It ought to be an inspiring or John Bull, even though he well knows there is
ered by carrier, 15 cents
Fair Enough By Westbrook Pegler
NEW YORK, Nov, 13.— Our people don’t know Henry Wallace very well, but he is the man who would be president should any- - thing happen to Mr. Roosevelt, so
his thoughts on democracy, ex-}l
pressed in his’ speech to the Congress of American Soviet Friend- ~ ship, whatever that was, last Sun-’ day are important. This speech ran almost three columns long, so it is impossible to repeat it all and check it against that which we usually call the American way, but that is the only reason why certain of his remarks on democracy are lifted out of context. I think I can do it and still be fair, however,
“The new democracy, the-democracy of the com- |
mon man,” he said, “includes not only the bill of; rights, but also economic democracy, ethnic democs racy, educational democracy and democracy: in the treatment of the sexes. . “Some in the United States believe that we have overemphasized what might be called political or Bill of Rights democracy. Carried to its extreme form it leads to rugged individualism, exploitation, impractical emphasis on .state’s rights and even to anarchy.”
"There Is a Practical Balance"
“RUSSIA,” went on Mr. Wallace, “perceiving some of the abuses of excessive political democracy, has placed strong emphasis on economic democracy.
This, carried to an extreme, demands that all ‘power |
be centered in one man and his bureaucratic helpers. “Somewhere there is a practical balance between economic and political democracy. . Russia and the
United States have been working toward this praajical
middle ground.” It is the disparagement of Bill of Rights democracy which should be most significant to Americans. Vice President Wallace, who was and still is a mysterious stranger to the American people and ‘who would become president in certain circumstances for which the Constitution made practical, foresighted provision, plainly is one of those who “believe that we have overemphasized what might be called political
or Bill of Rights democracy” which, he says, “carried |.
to its extreme form, leads to rugged individualism, exploitation, impractical emphasis on state’s rights and even to anarchy.”
"He Is Not Specific"
AS PRESIDENT, then, obviously in his oath of office he would have mental reservations toward that portion of the Constitution which guarantees freedom of religion, of speech and of the press, the right to petition the government, immunity from unreasonable search and seizure, and scrupulously fair treatment in the courts. The extent of those reservations we cannot know, for he is not specific, but these are’ some of the guarantees of the Bill of Rights which, it would seem, he does not wholly approve, ‘He may know more than most of us about Russia, although it is not easy to recall when he spent much time there. Mr. Wallace thinks, perhaps correctly, that the Russians now enjoy economic democracy, but the economic democracy which he describes is communism. It may be that the demberacy of the sexes is more practical in effect than ours, although he gives no proof that the women of the United States enjoy less democracy than they want,
"| Think He's Half Right"
BUT IT NEED NOT be accepted at his word that in Russia education is any freer or that the races in the minority are treated any better than our minorities: here, We have been reading for many years
about wholesale deportations in Russia on strictly racial grounds and, as examples of that diminution of Bill of Rights or political democracy toward which Mr. Wallace tends, there are the many concentration camps in Russia for the detention of persons who found themselves in disagreement with their government. I think he is half right in saying that Russia and the United States have been working toward a middle ground. That is only. to say, however, that the United States has been working toward a middle ground to the left of the American way, away from the political or Bill of Rights democracy and away
"| from economic democracy and toward the Russian
way. But that Russia has been working toward a middle ground is neither apparent nor particularly interest-
‘ing to a people who have no desire to impose their
habits or beliefs on the Russian people and ask of Russia in this respect only that Russia and her political agents among us let the American people mind their own domestic business.
In Washington
By Peter Edson
WASHINGTON, Nov. 13. — Keep an eye on Lieut. Gen. Leslie J. McNair, now chief of the army ground forces, He's likely to get “a still more important assignment. Gen. McNair, quiet, softspoken, definitely not the dashing, roaring, dynamic type of military figure, is given a large measure of the credit for the tremendous job
of directing the training of the |!
army to its high degree of efii-
The Hoosier ET
“I wholly disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.—Voltaire.
Lu
“I'HE REASON BUILDING MEN DID NOT GO TO WORK , , .”»
By Charles Kern, president, State Building and Construction Trades Department; Carl Vestal, president, Marion oy Building Trades Council, and Roy Cre SeeTeIARY Marion County Building Trades ounc
The reason that many building tradesmen did not work on Armistice day: The Building and. Construction Trades Department of the A. F. of L. entered into an agreement with the OPM, effective on Aug. 1, 1941,
which was intended to stabilize or
make uniform conditions of employment, overtime pay, elimination of strikes, etc. This agreement substanfially reduced the prevailing working conditions for many workmen but was hailed as a proper and patriotic move and has been recognized and complied with by the labor unions of this district. This agreement, known as the Stabilization Agreement, provides in section No. 1, “Where work is required in excess of eight hours in any one day or during the interval from 5 p. m. Friday and 7 a. m. Monday, or on holidays, such work shall be paid for at one and a half times the basic rate of wages.” An executive order, No. 9240, was issued from the president’s office enfitled “Regulations Relating to Overtime Wage Compensation] which does not include Armistice day as a holiday. Thisorder, in turn, was supplemented by executive order, No. 9248, giving the secretary of labor power to interpret and enforce order No. 9240. 3 On Sept. 30, 1942, Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins issued an order, titled No. 29, ®lating to “Determinations Relating to Overtime Sunday and, Holiday Pay” part of which states: The Board of Review of t War Production Board which administers the Stabilization Agreement, me that the agreement factorily in that ind application that the provisions of exe ecutive order No. 9240 shall not apply to war construction work, subject to the said Stabilization Agreement. “Now, therefore, by virtue of the power invested in me by executive order No. 9248, it is-ordered that the provie sions of executive order No. 9240 shall not apply to work on eonstruction projects which is subject to the said Stabilization Agreement.” Any order, therefore, that was
(Times, readers are invited to express their views in .these columns, religious controveries Make your letiers short, so all can Letters must
excluded.
have a chance.
. be signed)
issued. prohibiting the payment of
overtime rate to crafts who have
such provision in their agreements entered into legitimately by their collective bargaining, was improper and not effective. The local leaders of labor are constantly available to adjust any matters relating to labor relations and have established a no strike record that has been repeatedly praised by contractors on all projects in this area. Had this order been received in time to have given the opportunity,
this loss of time would have been avoided beyond any possible doubt. Most of these workmen were in-
formed of the order when they re-
ported for work Wednesday morning or by bulletins posted as they left the jobs Tuesday evening, leaving ‘nothing for them to do but act on their own initiative which would naturally be to comply with the provisions of the working agreement to which each of them is a party. Ninety per cent ot the construction workmen of this city are working 60 hours or more per week and their patriotism and fidelity to our oie is beyond question. » » ” “ARE THE FIGHTING MEN GETTING TIME-AND-A-HALF” By T. C. Witte, Louisville , Today is Armistice day, and I
notice from your front page that) ° 5000 workers in Indianapolis were |«
on strike today because they felt they should get Ume=and-a-half
working today. I would like to ask them one question. Are the fighting men of
Side Glances —By Galbraith
clency: Hard-working, he has not been much in the
limelight, but now the army is “building him up” as
public appearances, presumably to make him more of a front man, He is considered the logical man to succeed Gen. George C. Marshall as chief of staff, should Marshall be moved up to a higher command. Others who would be in line for the Washington job as U. S. army chief of staff would be Lieut. Gen. Jacob L, Devers, chief of the armored force, and Lieut. Gen. Brehon B. Somervell, commander of the services of supply.
The Bonus. Business—
BUSINESS FIRMS which have customarily given Christmas bonuses in years past will be allowed to give them this year and in future holidays during the war, and they wont be counted as violations of the wage-{reezing orders. ‘But if a firm which has never given Christmas
‘bouses before wants to give them this year, that’s something else again,
We're Still Well Off
U. 8, INCOME TAXES, highest they have ever been, are still lower than taxes in Great “Britain and Canada. In the U.S, for a married man with no dependents, federal taxes go above 10 per cent of income for ‘people ‘earning more than $2000 a year. * In Great Britain the 10 per cent tax would apply on incomes of $1500, in Canada, $1000. Top U.S. tax rate is about 5 per cent for incomes of $1 million or more. : ! In Canad the tx bits 5 per cent an the highest | brackets in Great Britain 97 in 97 par cent,
: Editor's. Note: Tho views eros by sotimatts this
this country getting time-and-a-half in North Africa—or on New Guinea—or in any of the other theaters of war? It seems a shame that so-called working (fighting) men in this great country of ours would put on such a show in this time of our great offensive, Is it any wonder
that the people of this country ‘are
getting fed up with this type of operation? Why don’t your local draft boards put these men in the army where they can earn $50 a month? They aren't needed in defense plants—they belong in offense— across the water-—~where they might realize how lucky they were to be on this side and earning good wages, : 808 2 “PROHIBITION, AT ITS WORST, WAS BETTER THAN THIS”
By Mrs. A. Jones, mother of two sailors, 1720 Milburn st. .
I am the mother of two sailors and I think it a great mistake to have booze around where our seldieds and sailors are stationed. We want boys with keen, alert minds and not, drunks to win this war. It's a pity when they are off duty and go into big citiés that they are confronted with electric signs all along the streets of liquor, wine and beer, The only ‘thing wrong “with pirohibition was we did not even - 1y to enforce that law.
Prohibition at its worst was far better than what we now have. A Saturday night in downtown Indianapolis should be enough to prove my point of view. I am sure our soldiers and sailors can relax from. duties and have a good time without getting drunk. I have been told the Japs: have no Saturday night drunks, maybe we should take a tip from the Japs.
2 5 8 ARE ASKING A FAIR
STANDARD OF LIVING”
By George J. Riedl, 4817 Wentworth blvd. The substitute letter carriers of
the postoffice at Indianapolis earn~}
estly ask for the support of your paper, through the Forum, of the general public in a fight for increased compensation. We are now in the middle of a fight for an increase which is progressing none too favorably. A report was erroneously circulated that postal employees had received a 10
{per cent bonus, This report is in-
correct. Generally, few people realize the conditions and salary under which a substitute letter carrier is working. I, being a sub myself, will take
1 | this opportunity to explain a few
| of them. Our salary is 65 cents an
hour. There is no limit to the hours that we work. They may be as little as 40 hours a week or as many as 60 or 70 hours. There is
‘no such thing as time and one-half
for overtime. ' All hours worked,
Frankly Speaking By Norman E. Isaacs =
#
THE PARTY politicians In
zled the citizens of this metropolitian community long enough
around. Yes, I'm off again on this voting machine business.
chines are so devised that you have to vote for parties, instead of for men. Taking a candidate off a party ballot by machine (scratching) is so tricky that this last election made it clear that very few persons actually know how to do it.
of voting machines to teach citizens how to handle these awe-inspiring devices were turned down by the political powers-that-be. Why? They don't want
Both sides want a straight vote. They got it to an’ astonishing degree in the Marion county Yoling,
You'll Get the Idea
THE POLITICOS have invented all sorts of trick:
“| arguments as to why it isn’t préctisable to loan out | voting machines. One, the machines have to be
worked on by mechanics to put them in working
the machines; three, there's a transportation problem, and so on and on. Well, these ‘machines are used only once every two years. One day every two years. For, let's say, the two months preceding each election, the machines are dusted off and worked upon and put in condition
the election they've got to be sealed and locked up in case of recounts and such. That makes three months when the machines aren’t available. There are 21 months left in which
dust and wait. Startin g to get the idea?
Who's Going to Be First
request with the Marion county election board and the Marion county commissioners for the interim’ use of a voting machine. The League of Women Voters could use one. could ‘the Indianapolis Council of Women. Rotary. Exchange. Service, Lions, the list. All of ‘em. we
Right down
And let members of the organization try their hands at working them, and scratching off “John Doe” or. “Henry Smith.” Once.a man or woman has worked one of these: machines two or three times you have an intelligent: voter,
gadgets at any future time. If our politicians have a good answer as to why these machines can’t be used for this purpose, Instead: of catching dust, I'd like to hear it. Where is the first petition coming from?
The Tail Wags
By Major Al Williams
WASHINGTON, Nov. 13—The struggle between the army and - navy for control of thé American air force—now in the making—is -~@ problem that must be faced by "the agency charged with the legal power to solve it, congress. Neither the army nor the navy is to blame for this friction in the general matter of command. jurisdiction, = especially in aviation, ’ Competition between the armed forces in peacetime is healthy. and essential to. keep them on their toes, The trouble is that ‘peacetime competition “is likely to ‘become friction under: the agencies of war. The two orignial services were. allocated thelr functions. and jurisdictional limits by statute, ‘and, aside from a little overlapping, the limits presented a workable scheme, In the meantime the third arm of national defense, from an. humble beginning as the eyes of the fleet and of the army, boomed, to i pitsent dominant position. Bl
The Baby's Grown: Up
THE INFANT STEPCHILD of the ifiiary. ana naval forces began destroying the parse orees. - T tail began wagging the dog, and the dog all over the land and sea. a One of the greatest benefits to be a congressional definition of the responsibility “0 jurisdiction of the three arms would be the fri of aviation from control by the old services. The army and navy leaderships wouldn't be worth their salt if they didn’t attempt to expand the dee partment which has brought the biggest dividends in actual combat to date. Our army and navy reperesent the finest types of Americans. Hence, each wants the air force and is fighting to.get control of it. This is good. But when that contest for cone trol interferes with the progress of the war it is high time for congress. to put each to york a ts own
spedialiy,
We the Women
By Ruth Millett
THERE'S ONE WAY to stop the vicious gossip that hag it that this or that person is in’ fhe pay of ‘the. German government, or is a Nazi sympathizer, or: used pull to stay aut of the army. : That is “for the person to whom it is re- : peated to take a. firm ‘stand. if someone says to.you, “I have good reason to believe’ that Mrs. X
~ think to yourself, “This: person is s malicious yossip”~and go on being polite. = A] S87, £If you have: ‘any. real reason. for Cit duty 10 . y 4
A | whether they be Sunddys or holl-| aging
‘days, are paid for on the same low
hourly rate. We are prohibited by
{law from striking and we woulda’
even if we could.
| We are forced to ask for the sup-| port of, the newspapers and the pub- |:
lic in this campaign for a fair and
just standard of living. ‘The substi- | tutes in this office will be Seely
and the time is ripe for the voters to start kicking these fakers
Marion county's voting mae:
Requests from civic “organizations for the loans
the average citizen to learn how to scratch a ticket,
order; two, the ballots have to be prepared for. all
for election day. Then, for another month after’
the machines just sit in the warehouse and catch.
WHY SHOULDN'T every civic group in Marian’ county and every service club file an immediate formal.
So And’
Just fix up these machines with dummy names,
One who will never be frightened of these
Marion county — Democrats and $b Republicans alike—have bamboo- :
A
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