Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 28 January 1943 — Page 14

RALPH BURKHOLDER Editor, in U. 8. Service "WALTER LECKRONE . Editor

(Aa SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

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Mail rates in Indiana, $4 a year; adjoining _states, 75 cents a month; Others, $1 monthly.

> RILEY 5551 Give Light and the People Wa Pine Their Own Way

THURSDAY, JANUARY 28, 1043

Publishing Co, 214. W. Maryland st.

_ Member of United Press, Scripps - Howard Newspaper Alliance, NEA Service, and Audit Bureau of Circulations.

‘GET ON WITH IT SECRETARY WICKARD is out with a warning that more and stricter food rationing is probable. The nation, he “thinks, is “still too complacent” about food. “Civilians should understand,” he says, that rationing

is “part of the price of victory”’—necessary to get full effecr= from our human and military resources.

"Mr. Wickard must not be meeting the same sort of “civilians we do. ; : Those we meet are not complacent about food. They -aren’t against rationing. They realize that the need for feeding our fighters and our allies means an increasing -drain on our supplies. They know it isn’t safe to gamble . on the weather and other factors which may upset all plans for increased food production this year.

They wish Mr. Wickard would tatk less about rationing to come, and do more about rationing now. Food distribution is getting badly out of joint. The meat situation, for instance, is pretty terrible. In some sections most people can buy hardly any meat. In others J “some people, who have meney or a stand-in with a butcher, can \buy plenty, while many others go short. Many a “housewife could tell Mr. Wickard that the price ceilings are meaning less and less as ways are found to get through them. 8 # #» 2 » » tJ : ALSO, a lot of quiet hoarding of canned food is going on. Nearly a month ago Mr. Wickard anmeunced that rationing of that would start in February. The explanation that the time lap=e was necessary so that consumers could be educated up to the new point-rationing system seemed reasonable then. But we haven't noticed any great educational efforts, and we have noticed that some folks are laying by more than their fair share of the canned goods now on sale. When demand for the necessities of life far exceeds supply, prompt and effective rationing is the only way to insure a reasonably equal division of what there is. It's ‘also one of the ways that must be taken to keep prices : from going out of sight via the black-market route.

Mr. Wickard: should waste no more time proclaiming ‘the obvious truth that there'll have to be more rationing. : He should get on with the rationing.

OPA'S CHINESE PROBLEM

JG oyERNENT questionnaires seem to have reached the apex of something or other in New York City, where office of price administration forms distributed to 5000 ‘Chinese laundries have been printed with Chinese charac‘ters alongside the question in English. 5 The Chinese Benevolent association helped the OPA in ipreparing these forms, which demand answers to 26: ques“tions, including the average weekly bill from wet wash ‘wholesalers, and the retail prices charged in the first week ‘of March and December last year for laundering such items Tas shirts, collars and sheets. New installments of this in-

formation are supposed to be submitted every two months.

-

3 Now the OPA regional office, having no translators on 3 its staff, is wondering what fo do if the laundrymen write “their answers in Chinese. We have no suggestions to offer.

But we have, vivid recollections of what happened that time

we lost our laundry ticket and tried to find out how to get sour shirts without it. And we submit that the OPA will _ prove y itself a better man than we are if it extracts from + Chinese laundrymen any information at all that they don’t _care to give. \ : |

Nd . THE WRONG APPROACH SOME Americans in foreign trade are reported receiving a ‘ sympathetic Washington hearing for an ultimatum (to Argentina to break relations with the axis governments or take an allied boycott. | : We doubt that the administration will fall for any such ‘idea. It would play directly into the hands of the pro-axis minority so far responsible for preventing full Argentine co-operation in hemisphere unity. ’ If we are patient, there i is a chance that overwhelming popular pro-allied sentiment may force the Buenos Aires government to conform. But a boycott threat would nat-

urally be resented by the people, even as it would be by us..

Anyway, Argentina is well aware that she will get He little end of allied trade and preference under present conditions, for the obvious reason that there are not enough ships and priorities. to go around among those who are

So-operating against the axis.

2 NE a little tonic for your faith in the American spirit gt e home front? You might find it in information giver ih by the war departments office of dependency benefits, ‘which administers allowances and allotments to

: This office is receiving hundreds of letters from sol- * diers’ parents and other kinfolk who write that they don’t want the money to which they are entitled by law. Some gay they feel the government’s need is greater than their own; others, that they would rather have the funds invested in war bonds for their boys in service; still others, at all they ask is assurance that Uncle Sam will take good of the soldiers. Here is one typical letter: “T am not depending on my son for SUPpORt because 1 1 able to work yet so far. So I thank you all very much ‘the offer. Myself, also husband, are willing to work to support for Sursgives and that will release the gov-

Fair Enough By Westbrook ‘Pegler

NEW YORK, Jan. 28—The lighter side of the solemn winter consistory of the Federation of Labor which, by happy coincidence, is always held in Miami, has been dimmed this year and Havana has been denied the lavish and cheery company of the union racketeers and the tramps who uses to go along to help them drink up the dues and fees of the faceless stiffs back home. °° Sam Nuzzo, a hearty celebrant of labor’s victories and extravagant defender of the workers’ gains, will not be going south at all, except, perhaps, as a lammister. Brother Nuzzo has been sentenced to 10 years of penitential meditation on his errors and his sins. That is a pity from the social standpoint. He was a high roller when he had it and generous to a criminal extent until the law chopped him down for stealing from his local of the laborers’ union or shakedown on the aqueduct job at Newburgh, N. Y.

Took Along a Bodyguard

WHEN BROTHER NUZZO took off for Florida and Cuba, eclat was something that he had nothing

‘else but. He took along fot only his love interest,

whom he sprinkled all over with imported and strictly high-class perfume and draped in silver fox, but also” his bodyguard, one Andy Wallace, a punchy ex-fighter

from the Frank Hague and Joe Fay country on the Jersey side. Eventually, his love interest told all in court ad Brother Wallace, at last reports, had found the heat too oppressive around Newburgh and was racketeering on a big army job at Orangeburg, N, Y. ‘When on his trial, Brother Nuzzo insisted that Brother Wallace was not his own phenomenon and said the punchy one had been dropped in on him by Brother James Bove, one of the international vice presidents, to keep watch over the collection and distribution of the take from the saps.

There's a Class Distinction

BROTHER BOVE, of course, was in no way embarrassed by the testimony and he was one of the mob, in fact the traffic manager of the mob, which shoved off in three Pullman carloads on Jan. 10 to legislate and celebrate for labor in the land of the criminal scum. He is an international man, as they say in the union racket, while Nuzzo was a local man. There is a class distinction between the two comparable to that between a state senator and a member of the august senate of the U. S. A. No orthodox A.. F. of L. official would think of taking a local racketeer’s word against an international man. A skeptical district attorney mighty want a little more convincing. In fact he does. All happy days eventually come to dusk and the high noon of the criminal scum of the union racket struck that week in 1938 when Georgio Scalise, of the building service racket, ran a party for his mob from Miami to Havana and back by Clipper.

Among Those Present Were—

THERE WERE PRESENT among his guests little Augie Carfano, alias Pisano, a New York gunman, Charlie Faschetti of Chicago, a cousin of the illustrious Capone boys, and Brother Tom Burke, a vice president of Georgio’s racket and president - of a racket held in his own right known as the Chicago theatrical business and amusement building janitors’ union. It is one of the ripest privately held union rackets in the country, including among its suckers a lot of elevator operators employed in public buildings in Chicago and subject to persuasion from the Chicago chapter of the party of humanity. The boys had what could have been temperately described as one hell of a time and came back laden with souvenirs and hangovers seven layers deep. But the sun was well over the yarderm for Scalise when he got home and Havana, being out of bounds for tourists, will not see his like until the cruel war is won.

In Washington

By Peter Edson

WASHINGTON, Jan. 28.—Secretary of Agriculture Claude Wickard’s refusal to take into his food administration organization some 50 or so dollar-a-year men transferred with various food industry branches from the war Et production board is in line with | recommendations which the Truman and Tolan congressional committees have been making for over a year.- Despite these recommendations, the number of dollar-a-year men in WPB has, if anything, been increasing instead of diminishing. ” 2 » One thing is noticeable. The type of dollar-a-yearling is changing. Two years ago many of the appointees were chairmen of bodrds of directors, corporation presidents and top finance officers. Now the tendency is to name operations men, general managers and praetical production experts. * » f ”» Correct name for paratroopers is “The Airberne Command,” but the newest nickname for the hundreds or thousands of army and navy: officers holding down desk jobs in Washington is, “The Clairborne Command.”

Note to Fraternities

MORTGAGES ON hundreds of college and university fraternity houses may be paid off at government expense as one unexpected result of the armynavy program of specialized education for uniformed personnel. There are Greek letter fraternities in only 125 of the 1700 U. S. colleges, and Jbractically all of the fraternity houses may ,be taken over for use as dormitories for the student soldiers and sailors. The services will make prime contracts with the colleges for dormitory facilities, paying the colleges at the rate of approximately $120 per bed per year.

Most of this money will be passed on to the frater- |

nities as sub-contractors, and in addition the armed services will pay costs of heating.light and water. If g fraternity-house has a dormitory capacity of 50 beds, that will mean that the fraternity will get up to $6000 a year, apd since there is no upkeep, all this money can be applied to reducing the mortgage.

Horrible Example! GOVERNMENT officials interested in checking in-

flation and the black market are pointing now to |

Puerto Rico as the horrible example of what happens when price and rationing controls get out of hand. One recent report to the Puerto Rican chamber of commerce lists these retail prices: : Cigarets, 75 cents a pack; tomatoes, 40 cents a pound; potatoes, 35 cents a pound; local poultry, $1 a pound; ham and bacon, $1 to $1.50 a pound; goat meat, (60 per cent bone), 75 cents a pound. So short is the meat supply that old-fashioned

rustling of livestock has broken out in some parts of |

the island and the authorities have been faced with a formidable black market. £3 A senatorial investigating committee under Dennis Chaves of New Mexico, on the islarid now, will return

The Hoosier Forum

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

“WE DON'T NEED JAPS IN OUR WAR PLANTS” By Mrs. Nellie Rogers, 1241 King ave.

No, we don’t need Japs in our vital war plants. A Jap is not to be trusted and not in good old Indiana.

What is the matter with our gov-| ernment? It hasn't been long ago|

they couldn’t trust them on the coast but now they have got so good they can work in our war plants. Well, the war workers should refuse to work with them. It isn’t right to let them come in here, make big wages'and send it back to aid the Japs. I think the war worker should feel highly insulted. I think we can put out enough production so we do net need the Japs’ help... ,. This is a serious situation. I have written to my senator, you should do the same. . . . Washington should be. swamped with i Write and tell them, do not wait until a Jap stands beside your Work bench. \ ” on “FARMERSSPAYING BACK DEBTS ON GOVERNMENT AID” By C. M. Jacoby, Reuie 6, Lebanon

Am sending you this article which is a subject interesting to farmers. In The Indianapolis Times I saw an article on a letter written by a farmer, O. B. H. Miller of Winchester, Ind. sent to Senator Raymond E. Willis in regard to food shortage and the farm program, to which I cannot agree. According to Mr. Miller, we would have more food without the farm program, which is a sad mistake. If farmers had 'to raise corn on a 12-cent basis, 35-cent wheat and $2.35 hogs, the land would have been so poor that you could raise very little. Ninety per cent of the farmers never had pasture enough to make stock raising profitable. Even since the farm program farmers don’t have pasture enough. Nevertheless farmers have built up their farms until they raise more on 20 acres than they did on 25 acres before. Mr. Miller goes on to say that farmers had their farm payments spent before they got them. If 12cent corn, 35-cent wheat and $2.35 hogs wouldn’t make a farmer spend his money before he got it, I would like to know what would.

I would advises Mr. Miller to look’

back over these years that he mentions and see if his neighbors haven't paid the debts that accumulated on his 12-cent corn, 35cent wheat and $2.35 hogs. On the government planning and aid, farmers have paid their taxes and back debts, in fact a large per cent have made substantial payments on principal. As for Mr. Willis thinking that Mr. Miller's letter reflects the calm

|keep their feet on the

(Times readers are invited to’ express their views in these columns, religious controveries Make

your letters short, so all can

excluded.

have a thance. Letters must

be signed)

judgment of the people in his state, I would suggest that he go a little careful lest we return -to the Republican days, of the good old Hoover days. : I would like to see this printed in the Forum of The Indianapolis Times. Do you dare? ” ” 8 “HUMAN CONDUCT HASN'T CHANGED” By.Mattie Withers, 1525 N. Arsenal ave. It isn’t pleasant to be regarded as a defeatist. Only from strong convictions would one risk being so classed. On the other hand a visionary is praised or applauded even when there isn’t the scarcest hope that his dreams can co true. I have in mind the claims of those who say that we can have a postwar world free from strife and perfect in all its aims and acts. To this I must disagree. : But let's get down to points or cases. Let's suppose that the war is over, the allies victorious. Let's suppose that Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin - are gathered at the peace table. Roosevelt pulls out his four freedoms and demands of Stalin that he grant freedom of religious worship to his people. Stalin counters with the demand that Roosevelt pledge that he will put an end to mob rule in” his country. This would be a natural comeback if they are really intent upon curing the world’s ills. _ Vice President Wallace blandly claims that all differences between the peace negotiators can be easily composed by compromise. But I'll risk saying that anybody who could compose such differences as these could work miracles. : Those are some of the immediate problems that will confront any peace conference. And in ‘taking a long range view of things it is easy to see by comparison that human conduct hasn’t changed in thousands of years. ; It is recorded that Nero fiddled while Rome burned and we have lately been treated to the horrifying spectacle of a United States senate staging a filibuster while the world was afire. How anyone could take hope from such as this Is beyond me. * I would advise those Who want to ound in this matter to read Westbrook Pegler’s piece of Jan. 19.

Side Stances—3y Galbraith

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} J ; \ g BN A ROSE | \ Ay

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“You're the first. fo 5

.| those to} collect $20 a month from a tenant for nine years and then suddenlv| wish to grab when a national emer-| ‘| gency gives. opportunity to do so. |

“MY RENTAL CASE IS : THE ONE YOU REFERRED TO” By D. G. Lucas, 1227 Windermire st. The Hoosier Forum of Jan. 15 carried a 300-word article signed by V. C. Dearbdrn, titled “Why Are Landlords Not Represented on Board?” Briefly (for I would Hasten to that portion of the article offered as proof of the rent board's alleged “gross injustices”) the reason landlords are not represented on rent boards is because this is a democracy and in a democracy such boards are; ipso facto, neutral bodies. Perhaps it will be plainer, dear V. C., if you stop to realize that even our most powerful corporations are not reprssented on our juries and court benches--not in theory, at least. / Now as for the example you cite as proof of the rent board’s “gross injustices,” we both know, since you are my rental agent, that mine is the case you referred to. Unfor-

tunately I must take space to quote

you at length in order that the case may be understood by present readers. You say, in part: “For example, one case in question concerns a five-room modern house in a good community in Indianapolis, but whose owner rented it at a very low price to his friend who had a daughter in college, and who otherwise could not have kept her there. “When she graduated, the tenant of his own free will and accord, and without even being requested to do sO, expressed. his appreciation and began paying a more equitable rent. “Much later, rents were frozen as bf a date prior to that on which the tenant began paying the higher rent. and which he: still wanted to pay, but was denied the privilege of doing. In the meantime, the owner

| Africa or to send Vice Premier Molotov or a

[Russian Enigma

By William Philip Simms.

that President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill and the combined staffs of the United States . and Great Britain ha e met at Casablanca and “completed their plans for the offensive. campaigns more than ever the big ges t enigma of the war. Though cordially in ited to the meeting, Premier Stalin did not attend. Roosevelt and Churchill offered to } meet him more than half-way—at Cairo or somewhere else in the Middlé East—and he still refused, Ho was too busy, he said, fighting the war. Reports are current here, therefore, t Minister Churchill will shortly S roteed where a second conference would be held. This is important—whether he does or he doesn’t. The failure of Premier Stalin to show up in North . nyone else, even if only as an official observer, is widely commented oh here, its particular significance depending upon the individual.

> Moscow,

Stalin Doesn't Like Compromises

ONE INTERPRETATION is that Premier Stalin simply doesn’t like international conferences. He has never attended one. He dosn’t do business td way. In common with Mussolini, Hitler and other dicta tors, he is accustomed to formulating his own policies and having his own way with them. He ) does not like compromise formulas, Another and perhaps. the most freq ently Heard explanation for his absence is that Premier Stalin long ago formulated his war program, and that the more successful Russian arms become, the more intends to adhere to it. That program, or policy—according fo this particular school of thought—is 100 per cent Russian. She insists on sticking pretty close to her own knitting. She refuses to allow the British or Americans to follow the ebb and flow of her operatioy s on ‘the

| eastern front.

Smaller Nations Express Fear |

. IN SHORT, many believe Russia inten | to fight this war in her own way—at least her part of it—and, later on, when we all gather at the peace table, to make peace in her own way. True or not, there is a growing fear among the smaller nations of Europe that such is the case. That is why spokesmen for these nations, almost without exception, have been hoping and praying fori President Roosevelt, Prime Minister Churchill and Premier Stalin to get together and relieve these fears. Added up, all this does not mean a riff, But apparently it does mean that things will go on pretty much as before. The big three will continue to hammer away at Hitler. In one way or another America, Britain and Russia will synchronize their blows until the final victory.

y . Leg Man’ By Stephen Ellis

‘ «I would like tq be a reporter like Charles Mac Arthur and drive around the suburbs with a gangster shooting out street lights. I don’t do it because the gangsters I know won't go driving with me and because if they did they wouldn't be a party to. shooting out street lamps. { “I've mentioned it to quite a few of don and they always say ‘What, the hell, that’s a good way to land yourself in the clink.’”

~ AND THUS EDWARD McCRAY THOMPSON, former “leg man” for the Star-Times and Globes Democrat in St. Louis, “sounds off” on humorous, yet wistful, story of experiences ered in the course of a newspaperman’s aptly enough called simply “Leg Man.” 1t's not really a story at all but a series of incidents—the little human dramas behind the daily flow of news. Newspapermen and women are bound to enjoy it for much of what he has so sympathetically put down on paper is easily recognizable in their own experience. “Leg Man” is a story about a working ‘newspaperman—the kind of a chap whois “just makin’ a livin’ "—and expects that he’s in a rut—but can’t give it up because he gets such a big kick out of it. There is nothing “white collar” about the story.

life, Tis

had died and the widow had two|

children entering college. “An appeal was taken, and eventually notice was received from the board that the grounds for the increase were ‘insufficient’ and that the $20 rate must contiftue to prevail!” Now the facts are that, prior to Aug. 15, 1941 (the date on which| my rent was increased), I had been paying you rent, as agent, at the rate of $20 a month for nine years {since September, 1932; that I had never even spoken to the owner of this property prior to his renting it to me; that I rented it while mv daughter was yet .in grade school: that I paid an increased rent for

11 months before the rent board

ordered it returned to what it had been on July 1, 1941; and, finally,| that if the owner of this propertv| had permitted me to live here rent free for 10 years, it would still not have been sufficient to. have paid my daughter’s way through college. (It really costs when one tries to keep up with the I. -U.. Jonses.) As to my volunteering an increase in my monthly rental, your por. trayal of my noble character overwhelms me. No, I did not “of my

‘| own free will and accord” boost the rent on myself 25 per cent. And do

you think that $5.3. month more for me would be much of a help in getting the owner’s two: children through college? The rent board undoubtedly de-

| nied your appeal because it was cre|.

ated for the specific purpose of guarding the renting public against who would - be - satisfied - to

I cannot close without: making it

| clear that the owner of this’ house |had nothing whatsoceyer to do in

upping my renf, It was a tra action promoted entirely by the nd son who asks, “Why are landlords

| not represented on. the. board? es

%

DAILY THOUGHT ‘But though he case grief, pu |

if will he have compassion according to the multitude of his mer- |

cles. —Lamentations 3:32.

: : THE CORN that nat makes the holy

initiated” will enjoy—even if the language ¢ is a bit plain. |

Life in the City Room—

HE DEPICTS the up amd downs of the city room life: The city editor who ga haranguing lish literature major from Dartmouth to w

reportorial fervor: couldn’ be dampened; stories written in the John Peel manner into the paper as two-line items. 1 He writes of ‘the times he and others sta for-round at the Greek’s taking the. paper apart firing the managing editor; obliterating the p lish and “putting out a real sheet.” He tells ale ‘days off when the boys got together to di short stories and the books they should w .they would write and they had never written, = But Thompson finally did get around 3 Sob tin ‘one. Sih I think you'll like it.

uc MAN, by Edward McCray Gray Thompon; = ro ‘Co., Inc ,. New. ‘York. $2. :

We the Women 3

By Ruth Millett

article she doesn’t need |in the past year just because a salesman remarked, “When these ai we probably wort be ab 8-40 any more.” But she can’t| un stand that her daughte under the saine comp! she wants to marry a young che has only known forl:a few .. months, before he goes to war. 5 Today, there is a yo ‘who wants fo marry the daughter, FSi ; ‘time ta: get to know him well. = _ It is as though a super-salesman { telling her, “We have some. nice 1A .hand.. But they are going fast ts Jes. 5 a had ‘better . decide ake

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