Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 10 May 1943 — Page 10
PAGE 10
a— . .
The Indianapolis Times,
ROY W. HOWARD RALPH BURKHOLDER President Editor, in U. S. Service
MARK FERRER | WALTER LECKRONE Business Manager Editor {A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)
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ef» RILEY 5551
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MONDAY, MAY 10, 1943
R STREET STUFF N the structure of every tragedy there is injected from time to time what drama scholars call the comic relief. The knocking at the gate scene in Macbeth is as good an example as any. ‘ In the sustained tragedy of this war the nation is now being regaled by the happenings in Washington's big red house on R st., the doing of the bombastic James Monroe (born Kaplan), and the comings and the goings of the great and the near great who supped at the Monroe table. The episode may not turn out to be altogether comic, but it’s that up to now. To the nation’s readers it is as yet a pleasant interlude in the grim strain of military news. Many a moral could be drawn. First, let us say that no one, no matter how much he has been around, ever achieves complete worldly wisdom or gets altogether dry behind the ears. There is no such thing as 100 per cent sophistication. That, we philosophize, is all to the good. If we all were fool-proof it would be a pretty drab and | arms-length world. So when we see a banker fall for the gold brick, or a hard-boiled lawver contribute his bit to the distribution of a chain letter, let's just say, “There but for the grace of God go 1.” Life didn’t intend for us to be too smart. get too keen cut themselves.
THE R
that ha
Those who
n » » » ” » st. occurrences have all the earmarks of a saga s been going on since “You were a tadpole and 1 was a fish.” It has been said that there is no such thing as a new story. They are all warmed over. So, with that hoary trick attributed to. Mr. Monroe of having the butler notify him at his dinner table that the White House was calling. If true (we weren't there), it was laying it on a bit thick to tell the butler to plug the phone in at the table so that the host might talk with somebody named Harry while his disinguished guests listened to the host's end of the conversation. Crude, yes—but too much subtlety doesn’t always take. That old gag is a variation of the Oklahoma real estate promoter’s stunt of getting a customer just about hooked, having the while arranged for a confederate down the hall to phone in a higher offer. Stephenson, the Ku Klux boss of Indiana back in the mid-twenties, worked it thusly: He'd buzz for a secretary and shout in the presence of his callers—"Get the White House on long distance!” Then he'd give the president hell, actually talking, of course, to a stooge in an outer office. A tin-horn lawyer politician in the first world war worked on Newton D. Baker for a short while, though Mr. Baker very soon got next and had the caller bounced. Mr. Baker, at 12 noon each day, would see business callers in a big reception room. The Ohio politician, who | naturally had acquired a speaking acquaintance with the | former mayor and first citizen of Cleveland, would bring his | client to the reception room, tell him it would take only a few minutes to fix up the deal, and seat him far from the gpot where the secretary of war stood. Then the tin horn would go up to Mr. Baker, inquire as to his health, warn him against overwork and depart. Later, out in the hall he would assure the client that everything was set.
2 » ” s ” e and mule buyer for the army in world war I
s BIG hors once said: pull my hat down and barge right on through to the elevator. If anybody stops me, even to say hello, I know I am going to be sued for a commission,” And so it goes. One-a-minute, with enough J. Rufus Wallingfords always around to take care of the sutker crop. But isn’t it kinda fun? Isn't it -a relief? Wouldn't life be dull without it? And let’s all watch our step. But not too carefully, or we'll all have to turn hermit,
STILL ON THE CAMPUS OWLER V. HARPER LL.B, one of the New Deal's illimitable caravan of pedagogues, has resigned in a huff, He was deputy chairman of the war manpower commisgion, But be not dismayed. It’s au revoir, not goodby. The professor will still feed at the taxpayer's breast. He is going where all good doctors go, to that New Deal Valhalla, the board of economic warfare, : Dr. Harper got sore because he was pushed below the galt by a guy who had met a payroll. Says the news story: “Harper's office, which adjoined McNutt's, was shifted down the corridor, with Appley taking over.” Appley (Lawrence A.) being president of Vicks Chemical company, a payroll meeter. The professor interpreted this as a swerve “to the right of center.” So, dusting off his amour propre he packed up, but not to leave town.
» ” ” ® 0» » F ALL the pedants who have festooned the nation's bureaucratic frieze Prof. Harper came nearest to having all the answers. His technique has been the quintessence of government by schoolmasters. As Paul MeNutt's righthand man he did his big bit to make the manpower commission the No. 1 problem- child of our whole vast and expensive institution for governmental defectives, With him gone maybe Paul will have a chance. The professor's resignation symbolizes one of the outstanding characteristics of the New Deal, You hear of this or that or the other of the faithful quitting. But few if any ever miss a stroke, so far as the payroll is concerned. You'll find 'em on the tax bill gomewhere, whether it's an ex-senator or an ex-professor, pr any other of the lame duck species. : The sanctuary is always open, The featherbed is always made up, with an especially loving pat for the incoming guest who has written a book or taught a class. ‘If
“Whenever I go through a hotel lobby I|™
Fair Enough By Westbrook Pegler
TUCSON, Ariz, y 10.—At this point, while the Truman committee of the senate is taking bows left and right and pretending to be a great, fearless and patriotic investigator of incompetence, greed and graft in the war effort, I should like to point out that this committee has been faking from the very start. 1t has let the union racketeers strictly alone althéugh. they have siphoned off hundreds of millions of dollars which the whole people will have to pay through taxes this year and in years to some. Moreover, whereas excess profits of war contractors are drained back into the treasury, this fabulous loot of the unioneers is free and clear, exempt from all taxes and even from accounting. The Truman committee had John L. Lewis in for a visit a short time ago and you would have thought he was sitting there with a couple of guns, so scared they were of him,
Lewis Questioned Mildly
WHY DIDN'T they order Lewis to bring in the books” of the Mine Workers’ union and show them how many millions he has collected and what he has done with the money? Why didn't they slam him up against the wall and make him reveal the dictatorial method by which he runs his union, how the officers are elected, who levies assessments and how much money he and his daughter and his brother and his other relatives draw out of the union business in pay and expenses year after year? Why didn’t they send out for Joe Moreschi, the boss of the shakedown union called the Common Laborers, who has his office right there in Washington, and show up the foul corruption of this filthy racket operating under a free charter from the New Deal party? Why didn’t they call in Bill Hutcheson, the president of the Carpenters, who has planted his son next in line to succeed him. Or old man Franklin, the president of the boilermakers, who has rounded up victims as Hitler gathers in slaves in the conquered lands and compelled them to pay personal tribute to his son in the form of premiums on the union's compulsory insurance coverage?
Rackets Left Alone
WHY NOT Joe Padway, the general counsel of the A. F. of L, who often dictates to congress in the name of labor with an upper-case "L” although he is only a lawyer grown rich out of union practice in cahoots with the union bosses. And why didn’t they call in Phil Murray, the | president of the C. I. O, and make him repeat and | elaborate the speech he made to the C. I. O. conven- | tion in Boston last winter in which he told of a plot | to take hig life, called Lewis a Hitlerian despot and a | notorious liar and described his methods? You know why, as well as I. The Truman committee is letting all such rackets strictly alone although it has the power and the opportunity to arouse the whole country with the enormity of the graft taken at public expense, the profiteering in the people’s blood and sweat and tears, the persecution and robbery of countless poor devils.
Businessmen Pilloried
THE HOUSE of representatives cannot be included in this criticism. The house has made a decent effort to bring the swollen dictators and the common underworld scoundrels of unionism under legal restraints. But all such attempts have been blocked by their accessories in the senate in servile obedience to the White House, The Truman committee has had the power, all right. They could yank in a contractor or some commission chiseler and make him show his books, contracts and profits and nail his hide to the door and that they did. They had the same authority to go into the finances of the Mine Workers and the electoral and governmental machinery by which Lewis keeps himself in power, but you will have noticed that they did nathing of the kind. And never, in all the history of this devouring racket created by the New Deal, has any union heen forced to come before any body of either house or any administrative agency and submit to any examination similar tn those which acquainted the people with the corruption of hig business and big finance in the early days of the Roosevelt reign.
In Washington
By Peter Edson
ome
WASHINGTON, May 10—Inflation lurks inside the wrappers of even such insignificant items as candy bars and chewing gum —not the pre-war, standard advertised brands which you now have difficulty in getting—but some of these new numbers they try to shove over the counter at you in return for your nickel. Take for an example a cunning confection called—well, call it the “Little Chubby” candy bar, becduse that isn’t its trade name. Little Chubby used to sell for 3 cents, back before the price freeze went into effect in March, 1942. The weight of Little Chubby was three-quarters of an ounce. That figures out af 1 cent per quarter. Comes the war. Supply is down, demand is up, and the alert manufacturer of the Little Chubby number figures he should cash in. He will raise the price, he figures, but to justify his action, he will increase the size of his produczt, maybe renaming it now the Big Chubby, Wateh how he does it. He raises the price to 5 cents. At his old price of 1 cent per quarter-ounce, he should make the new Big Chubby an ounce-and-a-quarter net, Does he do that? Not on your life. The new Big Chubby is increased in size to only an ounce.
Changes in Candy Content
THERE IS inflation in its most pernicious form. That is hidden inflation. It is a 33 per cent increase in quantity for a 66 per cent increase in prige, which would be 50 per cent inflation, But hidden inflation doesn’t come through price and quantity changes alone, There can be changes in the content of a candy bar or a stick of chewing gum. When the candy regulations were drawn up, it was recognized that there would be shortages of sugar, chocolate, flavorings and other ingredients which might in time force some of the confectioners out of business. But the demand was so great for candies of all sorts, that a provision was stuck in the regulations which would permit any manufacturers to produce candies which they might not have made before, setting their prices on these new numbers in accordance with the March, 1942, maximum prices on the most closely similar candy made hy any other manufacturer.
Nation-Wide Black Market
BUT LOOK what happened: On the fringe of the established, teputable candy waking industry there came into existence a fringe of unscrupulous operators who began te make closely similar confections out of inferior materials, but for which they
you don’t do well running a truck we'll try you
THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES Warning to Samson!
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MONDAY, MAY 10, 1
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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.
“PREFER PORK CHOPS AT FIXED PRICE”
By Warren C. Middleton, Greencastle The Times editorial, “OPA and the Price of Pork Chaps,” is unbelievably adolescent, if not childish. You can, if you wish, buy your pork chops “without any regulation,” but the rest of us would prefer to buy them at a fixed price. The federal struggle against inflation may have been no better than a draw, but thank God for the “draw.” Yours for more intelligent editorials. ® =» “HAPPY HUNTING FOR THE WOLVES” By Helen M. Eck, 1935 W. 59th si. The lady who so courageously came out for the miners has my
deepest thanks for the dismal truth she portrayed of the life of this underprivileged American. My father was a miner, although a privileged miner, the company's engineer and also a small stockholder. He went Inte the mines once a week, the miner every day. My father made a good salary, the miner a mere pittance ($4 to $5 a day). Before the advent of the chain store in our part of eastern Kentucky, my father and the miner traded at the company store. He received a reduction of 20 per cent and credit; the miner paid in scrip, a slip entitling him to spend next week's wage. The miner received no money, just serip already due at the store. My father was able to educate his children and continue to buy stock, while the average miner seldom had the necessities of life, among which he included, for their sedative effect, doubtless, a little snuff for his wife, some mountain dew for himself and teen-aged miner sons, and a little paregoric to quiet the ever-present baby. I could have cited a greater discrepancy in the American way of
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(Times readers are invited to express their views in these columns, religious controversies excluded. Because of the volume received, let ters must be limited to 250 words. Letters must be
signed.)
life by comparing the large stock. holder's beautiful mansion in Cleveland and Cincinnati with the
miner's dump in the dust-laden sur- |
roundings of a camp. For, after all, my father took a considerable risk of his life, and had a great responsibility in laying out the mines for the safety of the miners involved. He had their respect; they had his. I have seen him many evenings poring over his maps, working hard. The coupons he clipped were incidental to the mass of profit made by the larger stockholders. Yet he was happy as only a Swiss can be in the mountains-—any mountains. He chose his work early in life, and was educated for it by his parents; the miner, however, is hoisted into the mines without choice. There is nothing available for the mountain boy with ne schooling, no money, no pull. I may add that I personally and inhérently hate all dictators, no matter what name they use. Yet, what is there left to do when a large body of toiling, struggling men are voiceless, faceless, without friend, without leader? Sheep withe out a shepherd make happy hunt ing for the wolves. ® 8 “SLACKS BEST THING FOR WOMEN" By Miss Violet Hicks, 760 N. Kelcham st. I don’t want to make some people sound ridiculous, but this is not the old day when if a woman wore anything shorter than her ankles it was
‘a shame and a sin—this is 1043. I
am referring to an article I read in The Times about slacks. I'll have to give you credit on
Side Glances=By Galbraith
could charge the same price. Quality tion, if ye hidden infla-
y lien
wives
Sa
"You wanted to move to the country te raise vegetables—well,
working in gardens, and
one thing—you are right about safety in war plants, but there is another thing you should know. I think it is the best thing for women to do in war plants, homes, or on the street. Don't you realize how it saves stockings? There are hundreds of women I know that would not think of wearing dresses with anklets, but when thev wear slacks they seldom wear stockings. Another thing, there is a rationing on shoes, but you can get playshoes, and most women will not wear playshoes with dresses, and they will with slacks. ! I'l admit that some women do not “look very appealing «in them. I'll even admit that about myself, but I think they are very service-
Anti-Strike Bill
By Fred W. Perkins
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WASHINGTON, May 10.—Senator Connally won't recognize nis ¥* anti-strike bill when it gets out of the house military affairs commit. tee this week. The senior senator from Texas may not like it as well as his version, which the senate pdszed 63 to 16. The military affairs committee, according to some of its leading members, intends to put “teeth as long as that lead pencil” into the Connally bill. It intends to add to the comparatively mild provisions of the senate measure many of the features of bills that have heen sponsored by Rep. Howard W. Smith (D. Va.), which have been adopted by the house 2-to-1 or more, and which have encountered a refrigerating procedure in the senate committee on education and labor, Senator Connally, apparently getting” wind of this intention, and fearful that the house committee's plan will tie up his bill in Jong conferences with the senate, declared it was “of the highest importance that the house pass the Connally anti-strike bill promptly. It will apply to the present coal situation if enacted before the truce expires. The bill ought to be on the books in anticipation of any future strikes in any war-production plants.”
House Forces Senate's Hand
THE HOUSE committee leadership agrees that far with the Texas senator but wants to go much farther ~(espite a letter from Philip Murray, C. I. QO. president, to all members of the house, that the Conn bill as passed by the senate was “diabolical in intent: What comes out of this congressional boiling-over may be traced back in the end to Speaker Sam Rayburn, also of Texas, who referred the Connally bill to the house military affairs committee. That body, headed by Rep. Andrew J. May (D. Ky.), has given several evidences of anti-union slant, particularly in wartime. Mr. Rayburn might have sent the Connally bill to repose indefinitely in the house labor committee. Thus there impends an attempt by the house to force senate acceptance on anti-union measures which the latter body has never called up from committee, This involves the possibility that disagreement between the two houses may prevent any enactment, Also in the background is the threat of a veto from President Roosevelt for any labor legislation that he thinks would upset the delicate wartime situation,
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Two-Way Revolt Impends
THE PRESIDENT up to now has been successful in keeping all such matters under his control. Now he is faced with two kinds of revolt. John L. Lewis, of the United Mine Workers, has | sympathy from a considerable body of other union leaders in efforts to smash the administration's inflation controls, as applying to industrial wages. In congress the coal crisis brought on by Mr. Lewis, and still containing the threat of a mine strike which would tie up war production in a short time, is being used to encourage union-regulatory legislation which the administration so far has been able to choke off. The Connally bill, intended to place specific congressional authority hack of such plant seizures as the president ordered in the coal case, makes it a punishable crime for any person by coercion to cause an interruption to work in those plants in wartime. The bill also would give additional power, including that of compelling attendance of witnesses, to the national war labor board, provide a legislative basis for that agency now existing through an executive order, and apparently make it more independent of its creator,
Ideas Which House May Add
THE SMITH bill, passed by the house four and before Pearl Harbor, by a vote of 252 to 136, contains many of the ideas which the house military affairs
able things to wear; and about the men being henpecked or they wouldn't allew it—well, my father wants my mother to wear them, He | thinks they look “nifty” as he ealils |it, and I know plenty of men that | think the same way. Try wearing them and see how you like them, Miss Myers . . «
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ro» “WHY NOT OFFER SOMETHING CONSTRUCTIVE?” By 8. D. Davison, Falmouth Yes, Mr. Edward Maddox, we have come a long way, but I don't think you've kept up. Also we are going places. Why not try to offer something constructive instead of
fault-finding? The New Deal is in power by the will of the majority for the third term, after seeing it work for eight years. If we are all “saps” and ignorant who do not believe in your plain “truths,” then the Lord must have loved us as he created a lot of us. We have tried for many years
do net like it, I think you are of the old school—like the time when Uncle Joe Cannon and James Watson dominated the congress and advocated a high tariff to protect our “infant industries.” Then the “infant” outgrew the party and dominated the party, As to the present trend toward socialism, how about our public roads, our public schools, and our postal system? Socialistic, is it not? Would you prefer paying private individuals or corporations to the tune of all the traffie will hear for this gervice? Yet the New Deal did not bring this about. You may charge that the postal department is losing money. Well, so is this war, but we are not going to give up, but will improve on our implements of war until we win it. I think our method of handling departments of government can and will be changed from time to time as the need arises, instead of letting things ride, the G. O. P. way, as they were 50 years ago. Now Pvt. Harry Long—soldier, I hope you will not need to die for
part of being willing, and I'm sure I don't want you to die for me. Rather, I'd see you grow up and learn not to jump on hasty conclusions, with both feet. When you judge me as being one who believes might makes right, you are away off the mark. . As to Pegler, I woiilld like to see a referendum vote taken by “The Times readers as to whethar Pegler is chosen to continue as a columnist for The Times or not. I would expect a landslide of “no” votes.
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DAILY THOUGHTS
Eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot.~—
your Gi. O, P, stuff and “proved” we | i
Pegler, which is very heroic on yourd
committee is expected to try to add te the Connally | pill. In addition, it has another plan—to amend the national labor relations (Wagner) bill to make it impossible for any union to include supervisory per- | sonnel in its membership. This is one item in the | coal dispute. The original Smith kill was intended to prohibit strikes or lockouts in defense plants without a 30-day notice to the secretary of labor, and also without a secret strike vote under government auspices among the workers concerned: to bar spread of the closed shop to war planis where they were not already in existence; to outlaw war strike violence or intimidation through picketing or other means; to make jurisdictional strikes unlawful in war plants; to require registration and submission of detailed data regarding its officers and finances from every labor organization dealing with a war manufacturer; and te prohibit union offices from being held by members of Com. munist or Nazi organizations.
‘We the Women
By Ruth Millett
IF WIVES belonged to a union they would do something about those four baseball players’ wive who are getting Far love hath-no-woman” publicity because they are giving their meat points to their men for the duration of the ball season. That is a dangerous precedent for women to set, What if other husbands feel their wives should do the same? Or worse, what if other wives start trying to outdo the self-sacrifieing wives of the Philly players? Before long they would be saying, “The gasoline coupons are all yours, dear.” ’ And they might glory in using all their own canned goods points for the lord and master's high point favorites—like pineapple and tomato juice, Yes, it could be bad, if the wives started using their ration points to prove their love and their willingness to sacrifice for their men.
Coupon 17 Is Different
LET'S HANG on to our own ration points, and not go trying to outdo each other by giving them up with a smile and a “I really don't like T-bone steak” explanation. That is just the kind of thing women love to start —and then wish forever after they hadn't, But, as for the men—if they wish to give up their shoe coupons, that's entirely different. “You really mean you don't need a pair of new shoes for ages, don’t you, darling? After all, your shoes all look alike anyhow, and you can always have them half-soled. ii : “I'll just take your No. 17 coupon down and get those perfectly diving sandals I've been dying for. You'll be crazy about them.”
To the Point—
PLANTS MAKE a noise while growing, a seientist revealed. We've heard that children do, too.
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A LOT of spring cleaning was prompted by folks seeing the handwriting oh the wall,
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- Exodus 21:24. :