Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 27 April 1943 — Page 12

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Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way

TUESDAY, APRIL 27, 1043

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WHERE THE BLAME BELONGS

THE senate’s Truman committee will turn its spotlight ‘this week on the latest outbreak of rubber trouble in Washington. Rubber Administrator Jeffers, War Production Boss Nelson, Undersecretaries Patterson and Forrestal of the war and navy departments and Petroleum Administrator Ickes will testify from their various viewpoints. We hope Senator Truman and his associates will place the blame squarely where it belongs, which is not on Messrs. Jeffers, Nelson, Patterson, Forrestal or Ickes, but on faulty organization of the war government. Mr. Jeffers has been ‘“bulling through” the synthetic rubber program. That's what he was ordered to do, and he was told in the Baruch report that failure to do it would mean both military and civilian disaster. Undersecretary Patterson and Mr. Ickes want the Jeffers activities curbed. They charge that synthetic rubber plants are using scarce equipment desperately needed for production of aviation gasoline, thus handicapping allied airpower and delaying victory. But Mr. Jeffers apparently is determined not to be curbed by ‘anyone less than the man who gave him his orders—President Roosevelt himself. This damaging controversy, like so many other Washington muddles, rises from lack of what the Truman committee described accurately two months ago as the primary need of our domestic war program— “Clearly defined authority centralized in a few officials—each solely responsible for the administration of certain activities—who in addition to doing their administrative work should meet frequently to eliminate all conflicts of jurisdiction and be ready to advise with the president on important questions of policy.” In other words, a war cabinet instead of the present jumble of vague and clashing authorities which compels good men to waste time and energy fighting each other because they have no swift, sure means of bringing their jurisdictional controversies to the top authority, the president, and getting them settled.

“LEGAL,” BUT NOT SOUND

FEDERAL Judge St. Sure of San Francisco holds that an agreement between a painters’ union and contractors barring use of spray guns is not a violation of anti-trust law, even though it “indirectly” restrains interstate commerce. 3 The judge sustained the union’s contention that use of ~ the spray process instead of the slower brush method-—in this case on a government housing project—would reduce employment opportunities for its members. He based the ruling on a recent U. S. supreme court decision that J. Caesar Petrillo, czar of the musician’s union, has a right to enforce a ban on the making of records for radio. stations and juke boxes. Congress shows no disposition to assert that the courts are wrong in their interpresation of the law, and so unions apparently are free to forbid labor-saving devices. This is a liberty valued by limited-membership unions which want - to monopolize the available jobs. . We doubt that it ever has been a benefit to workers as a whole. The appearance of each new machine enabling a few mien to do as much as many men formerly could do has made workers fear that fewer jobs would be available. But _ over the years machines have created far more jobs. They ~ have enabled industry to lower costs, widen markets, vastly extend use of its products, and the result has been employment for more people at better pay ang with higher living ~ standards. ~The principle represented by Judge St. Sure’s decision may be law. It is not sound public policy—certainly not in ~ this time when the country is short of manpower to produce ~ what it takes to win a war. Suppose this principle were now extended whever labor- - saving devices are multiplying the productive effort of hu- ' man hands. We should have employment opportunities ~ without limit—more jobs available by far than there are people—but only a fraction of our present output, only a

fraction of our present wage scales, and not even a a fraction

of a chance for victory.

HELP FOR CIVILIANS 1 0h

APE D. WHITESIDE, president of Dun & Bradstreet, has been named vice chairman of the war production board in charge of civilian requirements. Announcing the appointment, WPB Chairman Nelson omises “quick action” to insure the most adequate posble supply of goods for consumers on the home front. The amount needs of the army, the navy and lend-lease, of urse, will make that supply a restricted one at best.

But there is growing feeling that civilian interests

ve not been adequately represented on the WPB. It is flected in Senator Maloney’s bill for a new, independent . Civilian supply administration. Mr. Nelson opposes that measure, contending that production for military and givilian uses is really one problem, which should continue be handled by a single agency—his own. Sentiment for the Maloney bill has forced Mr. Nelson

move for stronger representation of civilian interests

‘the WPB. Mr. Whiteside is, by all accounts, an able forceful man, and we hope he will prove Mr Nelson’ 8S t for him.

FORM = an BILL just introduced in the Missouri legislature would

‘bar from that state all motion pictures in which divorced |

or actresses. appear. Oh, well, Missourians‘ could

Mail’ rates in Indiana,

NEW YORK, April 27~1 have collected sore more information on the subject of margarine and “the restrictive taxes thereon, state and federal, and, while the case seems not to contain the ingredi~

ents that crusades are made of it

‘plainly amounts to a grade B out rage and calls for relief. As 1 told you some time 280, the federal government collects a tax. of one-fourth of a cent a

pound on margarine at the factory and a license tax |- of $6 a year from each dealer in the uncolored prod- |

uct which looks like lard and is unappetizing to the eye, and 19 states have various taxes, some as high as 15 cents a pound. That is the rate in Wisconsin, which is a dairy state and was the source of much of the strength of the lobby against margarine many years ago. In addition, Wisconsin. taxes-the manufacturer of margarine within her borders $1000 a year and the wholesaler and retailer $600 and $25, Teapeciivel y. :

insincerity of Law Plain AND THE federal government collects 10 cents a

pound on margarine colored before sale to the con- | .| sumer and a license tax of $48 from retailers of pre- |

colored marge. This tax on precoloring has an obvious purpose. The idea is to make margarine unsightly and discourage people from using it. : There would be just as good reason to forbid the coloring of butter because natural butter most of the

year is very pallid and that rich golden complexion is.

a cosmetic effect achieved by the use of the same kind of vegetable dye that is provided for margarine. The insincerity of the law in this respect is plain in the fact that when you buy uncolored margarine

you can get a little shot of that yellow dope with it

without having to pay the extra tax. If you color your own, you may do so free, and this means that oongress and the state legislatures were not worried about the people’s health but about the dairymen’s profits. These dairymen are not little two-cow farmers whose wives churn up a small crock of butter and take it down to the store to trade for soda-crackers and calico. ‘They are big business. As to the food values of margarine and butter you can pick a fight with a ma e man or a dairyman any time. However, the Margarine people are proudly publicizing a report on butter substitutes: by the committee on public health relations of the New York Academy of Medicine which claims that margarine, fortified with vitamin A, is nutritionally equal to butter and recommending that all restrictive federal and state laws be suse pended for the duration “of the butter crisis,” mean. ing, no doubt, the duration of the war.

Who's Doing Imitating?

. A MAN who says he spent six years campaigning for margarine says I may have a national scandal by the tail in. reporting as I did scme time ago that the federal government has been buying margarine for the army because, says he, for years and years the dairy lobby has stuck into every war department appropriation bill .a rider forbidding the use of any funds so appropriated for the purchase of oleo. Well, just the same, Thomas E. Wilson, president of the Wilson Co., packers, told me in Chicago a few weeks ago that he delivered 25 carloads to the army in the last week and that the government was expecting to buy from 100 million to 110 million pounds for all purposes this year. Moreover, he said his company could supply only about one-fourth of the orders available. . Well, and then an advertising man who represents two of the butter “accounts in the country says the trouble with the margarine people is that they have

‘always tried to represent margarine as a substitute

for butter, which, he says, it isn’t. He can take that up with the Academy of Medicine, because the term “nutritionally equal” doesn’t mean that margarine is a substitute I don’t know my words. He also complains that the margarine people imitate butter by coloring it yellow and asks why they don’t color. it-red. Well why ‘do tHe butter people imitate - by - coloring - it yellow? Why don’t they use red? or Eh

In Weshingion

By Peter Edson

WASHINGTON, April 27.— When this year’s negotiations for a new contract between John L. Lewis’ United Mine Workers and the bituminous coal operators goes off the tipple and into the cars to be hauled away to the dumps of history, it will reveal an uncomsmonly high percentage of not only run-of-the-mine dilly dallying, but an overweight of flinty stube bornness on the part of all negotia» tors.’ It is apparént that this particular biennial trouble could have been settled weeks ago. It was not just Lewis’ demand for a $2 increase. that was pure stubbornness, either. Representatives of the operators have been as resistant to a settlement as any rock trace that blunted a miner’s pick. The government attitude has been unyielding, too, perhaps rightly so, if freeze orders are to mean what they say and inflation is to $e prevented.

Lewis Asks for an Offer

THE REAL story of the negotiations since April 1, when a 30-day extension of the old agreement was granted so that negotiations might continue, is that they have not been negotiations at all. They have been nothing but stubborn, formal meetings of labor and management, morning and afternoon, at which the only word to any and all proposals has been “No!” “A thousand times, no!” John Lewis’ original demands for a ‘$2 a day increase have been what all such initial demands from organized labor really are—a starting point for bargaining. Lewis has repeatedly told the operators to make him an offer, after restating his original demands and receiving the expected “No!” The inference is that Lewis would take less than his original

offer. ; The apparent reasons for the operators’ refusal

to say anything but “no” is that it was to their advantage to get the case before the national war labor board where, perhaps, they. believed they could get a better bargain than in direct ‘negotiations with Lewis himself. Lewis, in turn, did not want the case to get before the WLB because he has stated openly that he cannot get what he considers a fair settlement there. More stuobornness. '

Operators Quote Roosevelt

LEWIS AND WLB Chairman Willlam H. Davis have no love for each other and that goes back to the captive mine dispute of two years ago. Davis. has

taken the position that Lewis should be treated the

same as anyone else in a labor dispute. But the government, Sprough the president's March 22 telegram to Lewis and operators, has pro-

ceeded to treat Lewis ‘differently, and the operators | : have used cele telegram as their excuse |:

to refuse to te with Lewis. The question is, can the public interest in war-

Sime Zt Io wilh [he Siw) of 5 Sou) en if ] labor

faecy TiN

U.S.

The Hoosier Forum

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

“ONLY ONE INDIANA CAN RE-ELECT IS A PRESIDENT” By Alma Bender, Zionsville Please tell “Haze Hurd” we can’t re-elect Governor Schricker for him. Sorry, but the Indiana constitution is almost the only one limiting the governor to one term. And Indianapolis limits the mayor and even the councilmen to one term. The only thing we can re-elect around here is a president. The founding fathers put no limit at all on re-elections there. » » » “MEANING OF LETTER IS CORRECTED” By Voice In the Crowd, Indianapolis In my article that appeared on Thursday, April 22, an entire line was left from the next to the lgst paragraph. This changes the meaning, or rather loses it, and it can be badly misconstrued. I wonder if you will reprint that paragraph as a correction? It should be: “Americanism does not guarantee that the world owes every man a

living, but it provides the best living |

in the world to those who will earn it. ”» As it appeared with the missing line, some folks may think that a man could earn a living and yet pe | denied it,

EJ 8 2 . “PEARL HARBOR TECHNIQUE CARRIES ON” By James Bornman, 345 N. Post rd. Watching the game from the sidelines probably is not where one should be if he be critical. So regardless of our feelings this is an attempt at some constructive criticism.

The news of the executions of the brave American airmen shouldn't be so surprising or shocking. It is the Japanese hell for us. . , . More than anything ‘this can do to our pride it means they brutally and contrary to international laws of war , . ., ground their filthy heels in murderous maniacal revenge. Sgt. York of world war I fame felt war was against his religion until his minister back there in the Tennessee mountains quoted to him

(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.)

from the Bibfe this—“Give unto

Caesar, Caesar’s due.” I am going to write my congressman now to note and call for the immediate death by being buried alive the Japs that our. men. have taken prisoner on a.10 to one basis. Such a ratio is low. Now the government chooses to wait and punish the war leaders of Japan. Meanwhile our men are made to endure inhuman torture. Tomorrow and until we understand and rightfully combat it, Americans will be again and again tortured to death. The Pearl harbor technique carries on and on! This latest atrocity may have been meant to, through force of American public wrath, force our government to alter its well-laid plans to finish the Germans first, and make for confusion here. Let us think about that just a bit, too. o # ” “RIDE A STREETCAR WHEN STUDENTS GET ON” By Mrs. C. C., Beech Grove Mr. Goodyear would like to ride a trolley where smoking is done. Would he mind riding a Michigan st. car about the time Tech students get on? . You'll not only see smoke, you'll burn. » ” ” “WHO EVER READS ‘MY DAY?”

By Pfc. Victor W. McGinnis, Ft. Benjamin Harrison

Who . , . besides a handful of envious women, ever read Eleanor’s “My Day?” Why don’t you carry some column that can be enjoyed by the masses? The works of W. P. Simms are passable; Pyle offers the people creditable war coverage; Nussbaum

—

Side Glances—By Galbraith

entertains the city populace of Indianapolis. "But can you tell me what purpose “My Day” serves—without being prejudiced? J ” » “WHEN WILL PEOPLE WAKE UP?” By Disgusted, Spencer It-makes me tired when I hear people stand up for the right to drink. It’s easy to tell what kind of citizens they are, even to take children in such places when they are so small they must be carried. Then some day these same parents think they should be pitied when . their children are in trouble. Wonder just how many parents will be blamed as wéll as the children in the judgment day, and the pity of it is the parents are all to blame. How ‘many murders have been committed and paid for when the parent should have paid the price? Oh, just one drink of beer won't hurt anyone! Oh, no! When will people wake up? If you talk that way before your child how do you know he won't get a craving for it and take too much?

It is revealing to see so many whisky

bottles lying around—interesting to note prices and names on the botties, too. If many people who will later lose their homes had the money for this

stuff in bonds it would pay for their | §

homes or py their - kids through school. o » » “TRUE AMERICANISM A PRACTICAL WISDOM” By Ira E. Cramer, 1827 Ohio ave, Connersville. “Voice in the Crowd” says Americanism means “many things.” He crowded 243 words into his dreary |, definition, not counting his three paragraphs of comment. I still think he is trying to say it is capitalism. He “defined” America’s homeland, coastlines, mountains, plains, lakes, streams, green places, rocky heights, customs, legends, system of living, society, system of government; now please let him de~ fine America’s “ism.” I defined in 20 words what I think it is, and I never thought nor said it is Christianity. It lacks as. much of being Christianity “as the moon lacks of being the sun. True , Americanism is not many things—it is ‘one thing, and it is

{not a religion at all, it is a policy

philosophy peculiar to America, a practical wisdom. It is neither Judaism nor Christianity; yet a debtor to both. It reflects their

light as the moon reflects sunlight.

It is born of common sense and branded with a God-fearing na-

rate above money and property. Who say different in public print

Pay THOUGHT And let us not be weary. in well

‘Join: lor Ib dus stasen we shall | faint

i By. on McFeatfers

s and industry aren’t reaping “extortionate” profits from war applies as well to the individuals Who manag

the nation's “corporate enterprises. ‘This war 18 too costly for Uncle Sam to permit ) accumulations of profits, earnings and dividends that

| produced the “war millionaires” of 1817-18.

The man lucky anough to make a million out of this war will be fortunate if he can keep 20 per cent

to qualify as & war m ‘ A Taxes, probably to heavier; represent .4 drain. on income that includes a normal levy ofi8

ie Seth Joou0 of Income to: £2 per set all dis above $200,000. Not to mention a victory : tax of 8 per cent. i" To have a million dollars, a man in the past two war years would have had to receive an income: 4 8 to 10 millions.

How It Works Out.

SUPPOSE IN 1042 he. earned the improbable sum of five million dollars. Let us say he is married, has two children. His initial tax bill then would $3,521,884, plus a victory tax of $116,528. Less a pos

988—leaving him $960,013.

should an executive conceivably receive this amo the dollars he could keep for himself would nate than 80 per cent, leaving him $100,013 after xes. : Yet the charge, usually from labor sources, continues to be made that war millionaires are being created. i The following statement is typical: *

giving the exorbitant: profits they are making to thefts officers and executives as very large ‘salaries ang, bonuses . . . and thus the officers pay a smaller come tax on the same money. that the corpora should have paid a much higher tax on.”

Publicity Discouraged High Bonuses?

THIS DOES not hold true, for several reasons. First is that, on incomes of $80,000 and. over,

as the corporation’s. Second is that the treasury can refuse to accept exorbitant salaries and bonuses as deductible Hemp of corporate expense. Third is that salaries are stabilized and bon are frozen to the percentage rates or cash levels previous years. A fourth and powerful reason is the fact that unfavorable publicity and public reaction to exorbie tant bonuses in early stages of the war have generally discouraged the practice. The cost of executive managément to the nation’s war industries is only a minute fraction of either their earned profits, volume of business or total payroll. As an example, General Motors estimates that ite

represented: 1-cent out of each payroll dollar, 3/5 cent of each dollar of business, and 5% cents of each dollar of profits.

Taxes Easier in Last War

TO SHOW how taxes cut on exacutive'’s ‘income, General Motors’ highest-paid officer in 1941 received $149,328 in salary and $178,240 as bonus, for a total of $327,671. In the year before he received a $100,000 salary and a $186,215 bonus, or a total of $286,215. Yet h net compensation in 1942 was less than that in 194 His net compensation after personal federal ine come taxes in 1941 was $112,705, against $113,602 in 19040. His 1942 earnings were not disclosed, but it safe to say the net compensation would be far less, in view of higher taxes. As a further illustration, the best-paid officer of | the Texas Co. in 1942 received $126,000. Taxes applis cable to this income amounted to $85,200, leaving him$39,800 Taxes were easier in the last war. The maviel man whose income was $25,000 in 1017 paid $1740 as his share of the war bill. Taxes on the same come in 1042. were almost 10 times. as much.

We the Women

By Ruth Millett

THE WAR (is giving women doctors a real chance to make important places for themselves in their profession. The senate has at last passed a bill providing for the appointe : ment of women physicians and ‘surgeons in the army and navy. Many hospitals which have in the past turned up their noses at women internes are glad to have " them, now that young men docs tors go into the armed forces as soon as they qualified, instead of taking one interneship . another. And the general public can no. longer afford to consider whether a doctor is, man or a. woman, unless it is to be glad the doctor ‘is a woman and less likely, therefore, to be leaving the community.

May End Prejudice

IT'S DISGRACEFUL that in a detiverats America it took a war to give women an ‘eq chance with men in so important a profession medicine. 4 But now that they are being given a chante show. their worth, perhaps the public will become used to women doctors that most of the old prejudices against them will disappear. It is high time it did. Yor there Is 50. place a democracy for .prejudice against women in business or profession simply because they are wom And if they are good enough in wartime so si they are welcomed by medical schools (in: 5! being tolerated) and accepted by the army and r and civilian hospitals all over the country i. be good enough in peacetime,

To the Point— _ THIS.OUGHT to be a great season for Some folks think the whole world is nuts.

ADVICE USUALLY can be had for n which is exactly what a lot of 1t is worth.

“Most or all large and small corporations’ alike a"

individual's tax rate is approximately the same :

remuneration to executives in 1042, including bonuses,

of it. Taxes make it virtually impossible for » man

war credit of $1200, his total net tax would be $4,040, A Even a million-dollar gross income is extreme. ‘Bu 3