Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 7 April 1943 — Page 14

The Indianapolis "Times

ROY W. HOWARD RALPH BURKHOLDER President Editor, in U. 8. Service

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_«@Ep RILEY 5551

Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 7, 1943

G. 0. P. PLANS HIS is a somewhat significant meeting Indiana Republicans have called together here today to discuss a post-war program.

‘Not many, if any, of the sponsors could by any stretch of verbal license be called professional politicians. They are just good citizens who have done some serious thinking about the problems of peace and the place of the United States in the world after the war. Primarily they are try“ing to crystallize enough sentiment behind a policy of sane international co-operation to influence the ¢hoice of the candidate and the platform of their party, which they confidently expect to be in power after 1944." |

As an isolated discussion in a single state it could, of course, do nothing of the sort. But this seems to be typical of a trend which may reach important proportions, a trend so far most marked in the Middle West, toward a calm and objective appraisal of the problem of world peace.

So far it is spontaneous, largely unorganized, and aimed apparently at a middle course between sentimental _ globaloney on the one hand and narrow isolationism on thé - other. In that direction it will strike a responsive chord not only for Republicans, but for Democrats and unaffiliated voters as well. In it, at least, is the possibility of the beginning of a positive policy which has been the great lack of the Republican party organization for the last decade.

. WHAT IS THE ADMINISTRATION GOING TO DO ABOUT TAXES?

HE administration is in the tax saddle. It had the votes to beat the Ruml-Carlson pay-as-you-go plan, despite overwhelming evidence that a great majority of income taxpayers favored that plan. And—as represented by the published views of Secretary Morgenthau and Chairman Doughton of the ways and means committee—it seems quite gleeful over its victory.

Indeed, Messrs. Morgenthau and Doughton have proclaimed that the taxpayers will get no pay-as-you-go law this year.

So, the question: to do now?

Forty-four million taxpayers are entitled to know how much more in tax payments will be expected of them this year and next.

Those who, on March 15, met the present law’s requirements and paid one-fourth of the taxes on their 1942 incomes, still owed, as of that date, taxes on nine months of 1942 income plus taxes—at rates not yet determined— on two months and 15 days of 1943 income. As of April 7, they owe taxes on 12 months and 7 days. If one of them dies today, he will leave his widow that much in debt to the government for income taxes.

What is the administration going

HE taxmakers, as bossed by leaders of this administra- % tion, have never been very considerate of the taxpayers’ need for early information about tax debts. Each year for ~ the last 10 they have ou at least one new tax bill. Each year they have proceeded slowly—so slowly that not until May, or June, or August, or even October, have the taxpayers known how much of that year’s income the government would take from them.

i The 1942 tax bill, imposing the present high rates, be- ~ eame law on Oct. 21. By then almost ten-twelfths of the /income to be taxed had been earned, and most of it had been - spent. The taxpayers cannot be blamed for disliking this retroactive taxation, or for wanting pay-as-you go. They don’t enjoy being forever in debt to the government, most of the time not even knowing how much they owe.

The treasury is insisting that congress increase taxes by 16 billion dollars this year. That means another new tax bill, at still higher rates. But, on this seventh day of the fourth month of 1943, nothing has been done about it. Nothing, that is, except that the administration has won a “great victory” by defeating the Ruml-Carlson plan, for which it hasn’t yet thought up any substitute acceptable to ‘congress.

The tragedy is that no progress can be made toward getting those extra 16 billions, or even toward definite assurance of actually collecting all that the taxpayers owe at the rates already levied, until some kind of pay-as-you-go, eollect-at-the-source system is established.

HOWARD C. MARMON

JqovasD C. MARMON was not an old man, when he : died in Florida this week, but his active professional career had spanned the whole transition from the horse-‘and-buggy era to the age of motors.

: In this transition, in fact, he played a leading role. As motor cars were developed from early experimental ‘stages his designs were continually among the more advanced, and again and again his theories were tested gnd roved sound, on the Speedway, on the highways, and at negth in the air as well. He contributed largely to the deelopment of the Liberty engine, one of the outstanding nechanical achievements of the last war, and to the imrovement of the private automobile afterward—contribuons that were recognized by American engineers with the ost honors Shey were able to bestow; Hisy was one of the

By Peter Edson

Price in Marion Coun-

ered by carrier, 18 cents’

| Nimblefinger—who could peel four bushels of tomatoes

"$5000 a year and up and are feeling no pain. But the

By Stephen Ellis

ups and downs.

In Washington

WASHINGTON, April 7—The idea of “incentive payments” for war industry workers is being toyed with in Washington’s official planning circles as something that will put more money in the workers’ pay envelopes, help com‘bat the big bad cost of living, beat the Little Steel formula, increase war production and in general reduce the public woe in these tough times. This isn’t to be confused with the incentive payments for farmers, which the department of agriculture promoted a couple of months ago and congress kicked in the head. This new brand of incentive payment is to apply to industrial workers only. But the war production board is now reshuffling its management-labor advisory setup, will probably do something about revitalizing its moribund labor production division, will create a new labor office under Robert K. Lamb, former chief counsel of the defunct Tolan ‘house commerce investigating labor migration, to work with the war manpower com-=-mission. Out of all this reorganizing is supposed to come action, one part of which is the idea of selling management and labor on further use of the incentive payment.

Piecework vs. Speedup

AN INCENTIVE payment by any other name fis not as fair. the days before a closed shop became known as “maintenance of membership,” the theory of the incentive payment was known simply as piecework.” Catch on?

Now piecework as such is one of the things that the labor statesmen have been trying to get away from for years.’ Piecework is associated with the speedup, the Bedeaux system, efficiency experts, stopwatches, rate cutting and all that stuff. Consequently, any effort to take workers off hourly or daily pay rate bases and put them all back on piecework, is going to meet with opposition. The trick, therefore, will be to get labor and management to agree that there’s a war on and something should be done about it, so how about adopting incentive payments for the duration This may be one of the first propositions put to the newly constituted WPB management-labor council, made up of the presidents of the C. I. O, A. F. of L., U. 8. Chamber of Commerce and National Association of Manufacturers.

The Case of Miss Nimblefinger

REDUCE THE CASE for incentive payments to a simple example, and you come up with something like this situation which actually developed last summer: The wife of a leading, well-to-do citizen in an Ohio town got pariotic and went to work in the local canning factory at the height of the tomato harvest because the manager simply couldn’t get enough help to handle his war crop. The good lady—call her Mrs. Tiara— was assigned to peeling tomatoes, and was she terrible. One bushel

a day was about all she could do, though working right next to her was a country girl—call her Miss

a day and never cut a finger. But— Under the fair labor standards act, cannery workers must be paid by the hour, not by the Qushel. So Mrs. Tiara gets the same wages by law for her one bushel that is paid to Miss Nimblefinger for her four, and is that fair? The same principle might apply to loading shells, making gas masks, laying bricks, riveting, sewing shirts. As the labor supply thins out, more and more unskilled labor will be used and it will be paid the same wages as the skilled. The advocates of the incentive payment plan say that there should be a minimum basic wage for a given unit of work. But if any given worker can turn out two units of work in a normal shift, that worker gets double pay.

How Russians Do It

THIS IS NOT — cruel capitalism, grinding workers to the bone. If you can stand a little dose of Soviet propaganda—from each according to his ability, to each according to his labor—it might be recorded that the Russians have geared up their war production in just this way. There is a standard unit of daily production for every class of work— plowing ground, making bread, making bullets. The workman who turns out a unit and a half a day gets pay and a half. The extra producers are the Stakhanovites, the heroes of the production line who get their medals just like soldiers, as well as extra pay. That’s the way the Soviet gets production. In the United States, the incentive payment is not unknown, and a number of war industries have bonus plans of one type or another. Most notorious are the records of some of the Cleveland rugged individualists, like Jack and Heintz, J. PF. Lincoln of Lincoln Electric, whose workers make

professional labor unions don’t like the idea and it will be a job to sell them on it, even as a war measure. 8s 8 8

Westbrook Pegler is on vacation.

Golden Wedding

JO PAGANO is an American born of Ifalianimmigrant parents. He has achieved moderate success as a writer of short stories, books and film scenarios. It is well to remember Mr. Pagano’s background when reading his second book, “Golden Wedding.”

He insists that it is not to be construed as autobiographical. But undoubtedly he has drawn extensively from his actual experience, injecting into the story much of himself and his intimate knowledge of Italian-Americans. “Golden Wedding” is the story of Italian-born Luigi and Marietta Simone. Luigi wooed and won his Marietta in a coal-mining town in Colorado. With their ever-increasing family, they move to Denver to Salt Lake City to Los Angeles, weathering a series of domestic troubles and economic

Luigi tries his hand at running a fruit and vegetable stand, at keeping a saloon. Sometimes he prospers; other times he comes close to rock bottom.

Everyday Family Life

THE SIMONE brood grows and thrives. One son becomes a prize fighter, disowned by hot-tempered Luigi and idolized by passionate Marietta. Another son is an artist, successfully so until he finds his ideals threatened by the fascism manifested in the

Spanish civil war. A third son takes up medicine. | | The Simone girls marry and set up their own

Italian-American households. Then in Los Angeles, Luigi and Marietta observe their golden wedding anniversary. They are old and tired, but intensely proud as they look back over their 50 years together. Whether autobiographical or not, Mr. Pagano’s Simone clan lives and breathes on paper. The happenings are not momentous or world-shaking, but everyday family incidents, The book is poignant with feeling and under-

In harsh, pre-war Americanese, back in |§

‘| apolis that wherever we go to look

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

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The Hoosier Forum

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

“IS THAT BUILDING A FUTURE AMERICA?”

By Allen Brooks, Indianapolis

I have noticed in our local newspapers the article reading that! 25,000 layettes are needed in the nation. This is all true, but I wish someone would solve the problem that is facing us here in Indian-

for a house to rent, the so- -called American property owners ask ors fire a question: Have you any children? . .. We rent to adults only: How is that building a future America? Is that American ideals? These property owners forget that they were children themselves at one time. What are we supposed to do with our children, drown them or raise them in a barn? . . . An army should be raised here of renters and protest vigorously. . .

EH “WILL CHILDREN KNOW JOYS OF A REAL AMERICA?”

By Carroll Collins, Indianapolis. To the public, that pays taxes: Honestly, do you as good Amers icans believe in the alphabetic bureaucracies? OPA sliced bread again to correct one of its many mistakes. You waste a cup of crumbs when you slice bread in the kitchen. They cut down the cloth in suits. So good for a grown man, but what about a growing boy? About every three years I buy my son a Sunday suit. Recently they refused to let me put the hem in my son’s pants, also refused to let them be a ‘little longer for his growing. So in three months they are t00 short. I buy another suit that I can’t afford and the government has lost a lot of cloth, no} just a hem or cuff. An employer has the money to give his employees a raise, but first some nit-wit bureau must be consulted. Why? Is this still America? .. . So we live on half and pay twice as much for everything we buy. ... The OPA sure pulled a boner when they broadcast that butterrationing at 2 o'clock on a Sunday. Every store that was open will testify to what happened. . .. We here in Indiana paid men to|En sit in that state house this last session and put . . , more taxes on our budget and then congratulate themselves because they did not pass . . . laws asking more taxes. To \sum it all up, don’t you think the good old American way is the best? ... Our own Quiz Kid, Paul V., wants manpower and plenty of it. Boy,

that makes me laugh. All he has to do is to clean the drones off the

(Times readers are invited to express their views in these columns, religious controversies excluded. Because of the volume received, letters must be limited to 250 words. Letters must be signed.)

public payrolls and he will have an army. Did you ever visit a government rest room Well, try it sometime and you will see how many of these payroll parasites are needed. . . Poor Paul, he has tried to go places but has learned that stepping on people never gets a man to the

Dp. In conclusion, Jesus said, “Weep not for me, but for your children.” And I do, because we older people knew the joys of a real America, but will our children if the bureaus keep going? 2 8 8 “ANOTHER QUOTE FROM THOMAS JEFFERSON”

By W. H. Edwards, R. BR. 2, Spencer

While The Times is quoting from letters of Thomas Jefferson, I wonder if it will quote a paragraph from Jefferson in his debate with Alexander Hamilton over whether this newborn nation should be & democracy or have an aristocratic form of government, which Hamil~ ton finally fastened onto the nation. Quote: “If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of money, first by inflation and then deflation, the banks and the corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of their property until their children will wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.” #® ” s “THIS IS OUR VICTORY THAT WE WIN” By T. McGuire, 1105 W. 28th st.

One dominant note of Mr. Churchill's recent speech was the flat British assertion that the English of Britain were the pioneers of religious freedom. From the viewpoint of Brother Jonathan on the shores of New England, we have a distinct idea that freedom of worship was what caused the landing on Plymouth Rock, Mass. . . . America, the home of the religious refugees, is now a resourceful arsenal and commissary for the

entire world. The heathen Chinese,

beg in our land for supplies to whip the slant-eyed Jap while we lavishly bestow our munitions on Russia. MacArthur, with the help of a forgotten continent, is trying to

Side Glances—By Galbraith

standing, yet its success lies in the fact that it

|win our war while we politicians

are rescuing England. While we are vigorously fighting other people’s wars are we bloody Yanks of the last war going to sit idly, cowardly and silently by while other bigger, better and wiser people prepare to gather the plums of the coming peace for their own pudding? . I for one say—my country, my flag, our home and our land come first in my heart. If my words be treason; then execute me like Nathan Hale. Scandalize me as was Wilson. But sacrifice not one drop of our boys’ blood for the dominat-

.|ing world powers, who laughed at

the Treaty of Versailles. This is our victory that we win and must not be used by spouting politicians, so help us God. j # un. 8

“SMALL FELLOWS

MADE TO SUFFER” By Marvin Walton, 2055 N. Illinois st. I am a small independent groceryman who feels that a large chain store is no bigger than I. The only difference is that he owns more stores than I do. But in these times he seems to know just what to buy and how much. Several weeks ago we (independent grocerymen) were told that we could no longer buy two-pound cartons of cheese. But a chain grocery across the street had bought and had on hand 300 cartons of nationally adverfised cheese. We could not buy any. . . . We small fellows did not have their source of information so therefore we must be made to suffer. . .. One morning our produce man told us we cannot sell seed potatoes unless they are going to be used for ,seed and not for human consumption. We are forced to sell new potatoes which are of a high price. The chain store I spoke of across the street had on hand 18 bags of . potatoes. . . . We cannot buy the kind of potatoes they have because they were not available to our produce man so therefore they were not for us, the small groceryman, . . . Are we small people to be driven out of business because we are small? I would venture to say we do as much if not more for the war effort. . .. * I would suggest these small businessmen unite and find out why they are left out on information that seemingly is available to the chain stores of the country, ” ” ” “DO YOU HAVE TO TAKE WHAT THEY HAVE OR NONE?” By Harry Clemmons, 2153'% Pierson st. I went into a . . . super-market last night to get some meat and the clerk had plenty of meat— wanted me to take a piece that cost $3.30 and would not cut me a piece. Also cheese the same, There is only one of me and I could not use that much. I would like to know if a man has to buy that much if he can’t use it, and why you will have to take what they have or get none. One has to eat as well as four or five. . . . Also he wanted 63 points for the meat. » ” EJ “FIREMEN EXAMPLES

OF CO-OPERATION”

. | By Walter Si Hicks, veteran world war I,

1321 W. I was in spinel house 13 at Kentucky and Capitol aves. about 8:30 Tuesday morning when an alarm came in over the phone. Three

{ Imen jumped to the phone, one

answered it, firemen came running from all directions. The man who answered the phone called out to all comers, “E. O. Atkins.” Ip 30 seconds the aerial truck, pumper truck, hose truck and ‘fire captain were rolling out of the station on their way to the fire. Now that is an example of cooperation, all worked like clockwork. Now why can’t we the people, we of these United States have the same co-operation among our various government agencies in conducting this all-out war effort of ours? Let’s get results.

DAILY THOUGHT

The Lord is my portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in Him.—Lamentations 3:24.

Bricker Buildup By Thomas L. Stokes

CHICAGO, April 7~John W. Bricker, the photogenic governor of Ohio, is seeking to capitalize the currently surging movement in the Midwes among Republican - politicos now entrenched in this area—against centralization of government in Washington. It has become the chief issue in his campaign for the 1944 Republican presidential nomination and that campaign is on very actively, with Bricker agents scouring the countryside and some well-heeled folks ready to toss in money. Governor Bricker seems to be, at least for the present, the chief political beneficiary of this states’-rights insurrection which is breaking out here and there— in state laws restricting labor-union practices, in state assumption of power in the farm labor shortage, in resolutions by four Republican legislatures looking to a constitutional amendment limiting presidents} terms to two.

seek.

Conscious of Bureaucrats

MR. BRICKER will represent the Midwest governors’ conference, just concluded here, as chairman of

a committee which will seek, in co-operation with committees fremy’ other regional conferences, to draft a broad plan for state participation in post-war reconstruction. How deep-seated is the revulsion in the states against Washington, how far down it reaches among the plain people, how effective it may be politically, are questions it is not possible to answer now. - 1t is not new. Republican presidential candidates have harped upon it ‘ever since the New Deal began, and with some effect among many groups. There is no doubt, however, that its potentialities are greater now, largely because of the war controls— rationing, price-fixing, and the like—which make every citizen, every businessman, extremely conscious of Washington and the “bureaucrats” who order their lives. The Midwest is possibly more sensitive than other sections. It is traditionally so. Governor Bricker is the chief political legatee of Midwestern pre-Pearl Harbor isolationism. He has not defined his position on international affairs, if he.’ yet has one. Until he does, he will be identified with that camp.

Handles Himself Well

HE IS LESS vague—though still vague—on tHe states’-rights issue, his chief stock in trade, Which he explores in generalities directed against “bureaucracy” and with anecdotes about the strange things some of the bright young men doin Washington. y He resorted to some of this in a typical speech to the governors here, a ‘pleasant luncheon talk adjusted to the relaxed mental state that accompanies a wellfilled stomach, and he also offered a Chinese proverb, to wit: “If every man sweeps his own doorstep the whole world will be clean.” ~ One of his jokes was about the Ohio woman who applied to the state civilian defense office for a job as an ‘air-raid siren.” He handles himself well. The governor refused to be much alarmed about the possibility of serious unemployment after the war. “I'm not, so sure we are going to have that unemployment that so many of us fear,” he said, adding that industry has developed many, things in its laboratories for post-war production that will make it easier.

Emissaries Already Busy

HIS FAITH is in industry, rather than government, for meeting ‘post-war problems. This faith perhaps accounts, in part, for the support he has among .big industrial groups. The Bricker emissaries already are out. One of them, ex-Governor Myers Y. Cooper of Ohio, turned up in Kansas City last week-end. His excuse was to make a speech to the Kansas City real estate board, as president of the National Council of Real Estate Tax payers. But he sai ade frankly that this was only part of his busine He had come to “sell Johy Bricker” to Missouri. Immediately he set in motion a series of coffin. 3 ences with the politically influential which ran fot, two days. He gave out the usual sort of statement about the Ohio governor’s intentions: “He will make known, in his own time, his de-: cision on whether he will respond to the groundswell now developing to place another Ohio son in the White House.”

\ Ny

We the Women

By Ruth Millett

A WAR WIFE who spends: nearly all of her time with women - friends—as most war wives do— says that if the war lasts several more years she is afraid she will have forgotten how to carry on 8 conversation with a man. She admits ruefully that when she does find herself talking to a ~ man at one of the few parties - she now gets invited to where “~ there are both men and women * she nas to fight the inclination to talk about het children and her housekeeping problems. She has had little except feminine conversation for so long * that by now she doesn’t have much else to talk about Women can avoid getting into that rut if they make a determined effort to keep up some of the .: interests they shared with their husbands, instead of going 100 per cent housewifely during the war,

A Real Problem

WHEN THEIR HUSBANDS were home, they‘: shared their men’s interest in sports, in movie come. dians, in such masculine hobbies as shooting, hunts ing, etc. 2 * They even read some of the books and magazines that their men recommended--things they wouldn't ordinarily have taken to on their own. Well, their men are gone now. And if the wives don’t make a conscious effort to maintain’ their interest in some of those masculine recreationg— they will become oblivious to the things most Das are interested in and find themselves living not only in a world made up mostly of women but of womens ideas and interests, If they do that they will tend to grow dull and uninteresting to men. It isn’t a major problem. But ws. a real ‘one--as any woman who has lived alone six months or » year knows. :

To the Point—

FOX HUNTING is a national sport of the British at home—and they've taken it with them to Tunisia, * *® * EVERY WAR BOND you buy will furnish EY WAR BOND J en Turiigh Si the world. i . » . : a THE ROOM for improvement is plenty big enough » for all of us. ! hoy ® | * a HOT EXTRA innings soon will make the ale fan forget his supper is growing cold.

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