Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 24 April 1943 — Page 10

SHOWDOWN

"ROY W. ‘HOWARD President

1anapolis: Times ~~~ RALPH BURKHOLDER Editor, in U. S. Service | (A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

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Po RILEY 5551

Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way

paper Alliance, NEA = Service, and Audit Bureau of Circulations.

SATURDAY, APRIL 24, 1943

SUNRISE SERVICE NE of Indianapolis’ finest traditions is the annual Easter sunrise carol service. : Begun 20 years ago, with a tiny group of singers and a small audience, it has grewn in favor until tomorrow 800 persons will participate, and many thousands will attend.

It is a ceremony rich in drama and beauty, and richly |

. symbolic of the hope that sustains us through these dark ‘days. There can be no finer community expression of the spirit of Easter than the presence of reverent throngs at _ this service, which is so typically a part of our city’s pattern of life. Plan to attend the carol service tomorrow.

NOT IN VAIN ON CE again—perhaps more violently than by Pearl Har- : bor—we have been shocked into realization of the utter bestiality of the Japanese. Our angry words don’t hurt our enemies. Only deeds, “hard ‘any relentless, can answer the barbarous murder of American fliers who fell into Japanese hands after the Tokyo raid. Whatever we have failed to do must now be done. Whatever there has been of complacency and grumbling - and greed and hoarding and profiteering and striking and loafing and wrangling must end. One hundred and thirty million Americans owe an obligation of blood to unite as we have never united before, to sacrifice as we have never sacrificed, to work as we have never worked, until our heroic dead are avenged and “the shameless militarism of Japan” is blotted from the earth. If we buy bonds and raise the food and build the ships and planes and make the munitions, millions of gallant American fighting men and their allies will do the job. But - they can’t do it without US and WE have not been doing enough. : : : Let us resolve, in Lincoln's words, that “these dead shall not have died in vain.”

HE soft coal wage dispute is at last where it should have been sent long ago-—before the war labor board on the way to a showdown between John L. Lewis and

IT Franklin D: Roosevelt.

Labor Secretary Perkins had tried hard to arrange a ace-saving way out for the mine workers’ leader, but she ave up yesterday and took the controversy out of the | hands of the union management negotiators who had been i deadlocked for six weeks in New York. Mr. Lewis has threatened to defy any war labor board award that does not meet his demands. The president has ordered the board to disapprove wage increases beyond the “little steel” formula except where clearly necessary to corvect substandards of living. The soft coal miners have already had all that the formula allows. A wage award meeting Mr. Lewis’ demands would mean swift collapse of the precarious line that holds back inflation. That line cannot be held against other labor leaders, nor against “arm bloc pressure for higher prices, if Mr. Lewis is allowed 0 break it. : ~~ Mr. Lewis has vast power, which this administration has helped him to achieve. He can order half a million ‘miners to strike, and a strike successfully maintained would Haralyze railroads and utilities and close hundreds of war plants in a few weeks. . The day may be very near when the president will have

10 convince John L. Lewis that, powerful as he is, the gov-|

crnment of the United States is more powerful—that he must not call a strike, must not insist upon having his vay at any cost, must not place what he may conceive to "-e the interest of his union above the best interest of all Americans. That will require more firmness than Mr. Roosevelt as displayed in other confests with Mr. Lewis, but this’ i3 a time when failure to be firm would mean disaster.

ORK LEFT UNDONE HE house of representatives would have had a better right to its 10-day Easter vacation if it had done its duty on pay-as-you-go taxation of incomes. . Now there can be no action until May 3. Then, it is omised, the Democratic majority of the ways and means mmittee will submit a bill of some sort, the Republicans will be given an opportunity to amend it in accordance ith their own ideas if they can muster enough votes, and e whole issue will be fought out again on the floor of e house. Gn That should have béen done many days ago, and could ave been done if the Democratic leader had been willing let the house members use their own judgment. The y is costly. Forty-four million taxpayers are left in bt. The senate can do nothing about taxation until th se acts. The possibility of starting to collect incom es at the source by July 1—generally agreed to be absoy essential—is endangered. But some of the lost time y be made up if enough congressmen spend the recess their home districts. : For we believe they will return to Washington cond that an overwhelming majority of the people demand pay-as-you-go law along the lines of the fair and sensible al-Carlson bill, and want no phony substitutes.

XT WINTER'S COAL HIS may seem a strange time for an editorial advising you to buy now the coal you expect to burn next winter.

8 “There is no shortage of coal supply. There will be distribution troubles if too many people wait until

Fair Enough By Westbrook Pegler Si

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Caldwell, as he man in a number of the American Federa suaded Michael Sa

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demand an accounting of their money. "There is no way of ascertaining how much Cald-

earning around $25 a week on the average and the initiation fee was $25 and the dues were $2 a month.

International Protective association.

Accused of Many Crimes

CALDWELL'S RECORD contains no intimation that he ever did a day’s work in his life. Before muscling into the clerks’ union he had been a bootlegger and divekeeper and business agent of the waiters’ union. : Before that he had been fined $200 and sentenced to six months in jail at Crown Point, Ind., for bootlegging, but although he did pay the fine there is no proof that he ever served the six months. In October, 1832, he was accused of shooting a man, In 1934 he was charged with beating up a waiter in his role of business agent for the uni but acquitted by a jury. : And in 1936 when a joint that he operated, called the Show Club, burned out, a fire marshal reported that his men had smelled kerosene and had found two empty tans. The attorney for the fire department questioned Brother Caldwell about the fire but nothing came of it all.

Find Wealth in Strongbox

HIS RACKET, or union, was finally thrown »ut of the Chicago Federation of Labor in February, 1940, but not because he was thieving from the toilers. That is accepted union pracitce, as Justice Felix Frankfurter might say, but Caldwell had tried to muscle into the territory of another local recognized by the federation and that, of course, was a serious offense because the A. F. of L. is very sensitive about strict observance of the territorial rights of its component rackets. . After the heat was turned on and the union treasury was found to contain nothing but a couple of old rubber stamps and a blackjack, Caldwell was discovered living under an alias in the Stevens hotel in Chicago. When his safety deposit box in the hotel strong room was opened, the yield was $1200 in cash, $5900

| in governmental securities, jewelry of an estimated

value of $30,000 and papers showing that Frank Nitti’s $50,000 home in Miami Beach had been knocked down to him for $25,250.

Induct Draft Dodger

SAVACHKA DIDNT come up with the union books when he finally was caught as a draft dodger in Miami where he was hiding under an alias, so in all probability a little vacation away from it all on the draft conspiracy charge will be the total of Caldwell’s inconvenience, Notwithstanding the flagrancy of the conspiracy to duck the draft and thwart the investigation of Caldwell’s graft, Federal Judge William P. Campbell of Chicago, permitted Cavachka to be inducted into the army like any decent young man. He was delinquent from Dec. 17, 1941, until October, 1942, during which time a lot of other non-delinquents unconnected with the defense of labor's gains were killed in action. Caldwell has all the gall in the world. Do you know what he was doing in Miami after the racket blew up in Chicago? He was a publisher running the kind of sheet known as a “boiler room,” meaning one that generates pressure and heat to obtain advertising, a common form of journalism in the union racket.

In Washington

By Peter Edson

: WASHINGTON, April 24—As American army forces advanced eastward in Tunisia toward Sfax | and Sousse, American relief supplies were administered to some 50 families in the western Tunisian town of Kassarine near the bitterly fought -over Kassarine pass, and to some 30 families in the village of Sbeitla. Distribution of some food, clothing, medical supplies and soap to these 80 families, however small the quantity, is important, because it marks the real beginning of field operations by Governor Herbert H. Lehman’s office of foreign relief and rehabilitation. : Tunisia will be the first country to be liberated from axis armies, the first country to receive fullscale American relief, and is worth watching because the pattern worked out for Tunisia will be followed in other countries as they are freed.

Relief Quickly Organized

ALL THIS 4nd other similar relief was organized quickly after the American forces landed in Africa in November. Governor Lehman's office of foreign relief and rehabilitation organization was not even in existence at that time, did not begin to get organized till January, and never has been able to get ahead of the Algerian situation, But toward the end of January, the organization’s Fred K. Hoehler arrived in North Africa and with a staff of about a dozen picked men began to lay plans for the Tunisian relief. A small part—approximately 5 per cent of the $25,000,000 worth of lend-lease supplies arriving in North Africa was set aside for relief.

Estimates Held to Minimum

IN THE EARLY stages of any of this relief and rehabilitation, it is inevitable that everything will have to be done under the control of the military commanders. v * But in the case of Tunisia, the army has put Mr. Hoehler to work and as the military situation gets nailed down, the responsibility for relief will be shifted to the organization, as a move to help maintain order and prevent the spread of disease behind the lines.

The union was local 1248 of the Retail Clerks’

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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.

“COUNT US IN ON ERNIE PYLE FUND”

By A Number of Us at Citizens Gas and Coke Utility, Indianapolis.

L. Strauss & Co., Inc., has the right idea. The EPFFSC (Ernie Pyle’s Fund for Soldiers’ Cigarets) strikes a responsive chord with us, too. Maybe for even more than $5. We're willing to take up a collection with a great dehl of enthusiasm, How about doing something useful and starting a movement like the boys and girls at Strauss suggest? And if you do, count us in. ° ” tf J ” “HOW CAN SUNLIGHT GET THROUGH DIRTY WINDOWS?” By H. W. Daacke, 1404 S. State ave.

In reply to Mrs. H M. W., 1 might say that since, the Indianapolis city council so graciously disposed of the controversy regarding smoking by passing an ordinance last Tuesday evening, the incident is a closed matter. We can, of course, continue along other lines and your article convinces me that packing houses would be interesting for one subject. Since streetcars

jand husses are mentioned, let’s in-

clude them. Are packing houses so necessary as you assume? In earlier days we slaughtered our own hogs, rendered our own lard, made our own soap, etc. Then came the packing plants with inspection labels, ete. but also the added hazard to face, the celebrated “embalmed beef” of the Spanish-American war is a definite illustration of my views. Why they always trample on little me instead of going ofter the real culprits is always a wonder to me. Supposing you should write to the editor of The Times as follows: / : “We all know that sunlight is a great purifier of air, but how can it get. into a streetcar through unwashed windows? Why are well-dressed men and women obliged to sit in seats (if able to get one) that are filthy enough to leave marks on their clothing? “Why should they be annpyed by a motorman conductor who still

(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.)

insists in a loud voice, ‘Move to the rear, please,” when the rear is already packed beyond ordinary capacity?” : : Of course, should you write along those lines, they might have you shot at sunrise, but why worry? Although the cat has nine lives, you have only one, but at that you should willingly give it for all humanity as our boys on all fronts are so valiantly doing. If the companies that are operat-

‘ling this equipment should put up

any defense, they would cite the fact that this is an abnormal situation—war ways and days, manpower shortage, ete. I ask you, were the conditions mentioned any better in pre-war days, in spite of millions of unemployed? While this condition does not necessarily mean all lines and all times. : Proof? We all know that lines running north and east as against west and south are given preference in cleaning and washing. I wonder why? » “NEW IDEA ON PAY-AS-YOU-GO” By B. P., Indianapolis

I have been reading with great interest your editorials and believe this idea that I have advanced may have some merit. Practically everybody I know is discussing the tax situation, and unquestionably the feeling is that the Ruml plan in some form should be adopted. But since the controversy seems to be around the forgiveness of last year’s taxes and particularly forgiving the rich, I would like to make the following suggestion:

Forgive all 1942 taxes except the

Side Glances—By Galbraith

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first quarter which has already been paid on net income of $35,000 per year or less. Tax all 1942 met incomes in excess of $25,000 per year, but reduce the tax by 50 per cent or more below “what it was. And start the check-off collection system.

It seems to me this would overcome the objection many people in the lower brackets have to forgiving the taxes on very large incomes. And if we do.not have a check-off such as the unions use to collect their dues through the employers, you know, perhaps much better than I do, that many taxes will go unpaid; thus materially interfering with the quick pick-up after the war, * 8 8 “SMOKING ON BUSSES NOT JUSTIFIABLE” By Richard L. Ewbank, 3456 Salem st, |

As to the communication by Clarence F. Goodyear relative to smoking, I would like to ask whether or not his seeing-eye dog saw any smoking. Or possibly he puts in all his time on streetcars and busses in reading the paper and never looks up except to reach a seat or to get off. - For if he is not blind, reads the paper when riding public conveyances, or so exceedingly seldom rides them, he might be inclined to cause others who ride public conveyances habitually and observe what is going on to question his veracity, which one does not wish to do in view of the presumptions of innocence. E If he has not inquired of his see-ing-eye dog, if blind, or will forego his otherwise cause of lack of observation, or if he only rides the streetcars or busses about once a year and will give any credence to the observation of others, he can easily understand why people who do not like second-hand tobacco smoke are protesting. Personally, I never smoke, and tobacco smoke is not particularly objectionable to me, but I know of people who are made sick by it and it seems to me that one who is not such an addict that he cannot do without a smoke for the short time he is on a public conveyance which does not have smoking compartments, that ordinary civilization should suggest that smoking under such conditions is not justifiable. » tJ 8

§ | “LET'S HELP THE BOYS

WIN THE WAR” By’ Mrs. A. T., Indianapolis. Let’s help the boys win this war. Let's do it now by buying bonds with all the money that we can possibly spare. ‘Why waste time and worry over this or that ration? I'd like to go riding, too, and how! But as long as Hitler and Tojo are on the loose there isn’t much chance, so let’s buy and buy bonds until our heads swim. : Hitler's idea may have been to divide and conquer. Let ours be: Unite to win. And when Americans really unite they can’t lose. So, let’s go. Let's cut the length of the war drastically with bonds. Buy until it burts and then buy some more. This is America, God’s country. Let’s put our ideals before vur lust We can spend our money after the war in comfo

§ | Why wait in darkness £

1 freedom of ‘action is cramped by

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Dixie In Dither By ‘Thomas L. Stokes

magnified by: conditions growing from the A ‘restrictions imposed by Washington that are necessary in war Old Order Is Desperate

BUT IN ITS dark hour there is one cheering sign. 'In its desperation the old order is encouraged by victories of conservatism op other fronts—in a congress which has become cold-hearted to President Roosevelt on domestic matters, and in state legislatures which are beginning to act on their own to curb or moderate, locally, reforms won on a national basis by the New Deal; particularly in the labor field, The sources of this revolt of the “haves” are obivous and easy ‘to discover, and the motives are basic and simple. ay } We find it in the .big farmers and plantation owners, who are watching anxiously the exodus of their cheap labor to the army, to war plants, and, what is most painful though not new, the transfer of one-time tenants by the farm security administration to land of their own where they can become © independent citizens. We see it in the mill owners—not all, by any means—who still don’t like the breaking up of their paternalistic system by labor unions and who are egging on their representatives in congress and state J legislatures, not to seek moderation and needed re« v Women Blame Mrs. Roosevelt

forms, but to destroy unions. WE SEE IT in such everyday matters as “the servant problem.” Women who used to leave their household chores and the children to the Negro cook or maid who got four or five dollars a week, can’t do it any more. Some Negro women have got jobs in war plants Some have just quit work. Their husbands have good paying jobs, or they have husbands or sons in the service and get remittances enough to keep them, House servants are scarcer and so come higher. The women blame Mrs. Roosevelt, and listen symse pathetically as their menfolks pan Mr. Roosevelt. Don't overlook the women in this Southern rumpus, All these irritations and annoyances steam up to the current discontent in the South. It is not by accident that Southern conservatives

in congress are lining up with Republicans. Their

new boldness is a tip-off to the plot that is being hatched back home by their better-housed, better« clothed and better-fed sponsors. All this is partly responsible for the great political hullaballoo now going on in Dixie, in threatening statements and speeches about the South bolting the

Democratic party in 1944, about a Southern third party, and so on.

Some Grievances Are Real A BUT THE SOUTH does have some real grievances, economic and political, and its leaders are using political threats to try to get justice, to get removal of discriminatory freight rates which hold back ine dustrial development, and to get more war industry, Like all political and economic disturbances, this one is a compound, drawing from many sources. OPA is a big bugbear down this way. Small businessmen and small farmers complain about the complicated processes and red tape, about the papers they have to fill out. The South has had its share of small business wiped out by the war, and here, too, you hear complaints about the failure to distribute subcontracts among small industries. These things may give more body to the rebellion of the ruling caste in the South, spread the disaffece tion wider and deeper, so that its political effect may be more serious than now appears likely, There’s one thing about these people down here, They don’t take too strongly to people from outside, White it be Washington or elsewhere, trying to run ves.

We the Women

By Ruth Millett

THE MARINE, lately back from Guadalcanal, entered a jit~ terbug contest with a pretty girl as his partner. They won the contest and the. . marine was so proud of the ace complishment that he rolled up i trousers to show an artificial

His dancing partner was shocked and angered at the sight — and went straight home. There probably aren't many girls that lacking in understanding, compassion and gratitude. But there may be many who are squeamish about injuries that cripple and 1 ' They should be doing something to get over that For many of our finest young men will come back from this war badly injured. = , We who have sat safel

Must Become Used to Shock

FIRST, WE must realize: so deeply that the wounds of our men were Pulled peciue they were protect that we are humble before them. : But there is something else we should do. We should get acquainted with the world of the sick and injured, 50 Heat we accept them without shock op orror. ? The best way to go about that is to become nurses aids, to work in hospitals, until sickness an no longer shock us. 3 aR The silly little girl who turned % marine when she found out he had lost a tle could never have been a nurse's have known anything at all about sickness and fering—and then act as she did.

To the Point—

SPRING HAS started a lot of you