Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 25 May 1943 — Page 13

The Indianapolis Times

RALPH BURKHOLDER Editor, in U. S. Service MARK FERREE WALTER LECKRONE Business Manager Editor (A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

ROY W. HOWARD President

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Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way

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’ TUESDAY, MAY 25, 1943

CRACKING AT THE SEAMS HE office of price administration, currently reported “cracking at the seams” and seeking a new and more hardboiled boss to forestall complete collapse, is undeniably in a bad way. Washington spokesmen and economists are complaining that the newly issued price ceilings on food are higher than the old ones. Indianapolis grocers, finding some of their new ceiling prices lower than the prices they have to pay, are talking of closing their doors. Labor leaders are demanding higher wage scales on the grounds that living costs are up. Comparisons reyeal that in Indianapolis, at least, under OPA regulations food prices generally are substantially higher now than they were in 1917-18 without any regulation. ; That OPA should have been less than a complete success in the role of King Canute is not difficult to understand. There has been no real trouble with the execution of OPA policies out in the field. The trouble has been in the basic inner policies themselves. First of all they simply bit off more than they could chew. To the superhuman task of regulating the price of everything OPA brought something less than superhuman equipment. = = = 2 F, ON Dec. 8, 1941, before the echo of bombs on Pearl Harbor had died away, OPA could have frozen all prices; incomes and supplies and begun to ration everything. there might have been a bare chance for holding back inflationary rises. That was the proposal of Bernard M. Baruch; who probably has had more experience with wartime control of materials and suppiies and costs than any other living American. It was politically inexpedient to do anything of the kind at that time, and it was not done. Thereafter whatever chance freezing orders had to hold the line against the upward surge diminished in an accelerating ratio. The alternative, and probably the only one that might prove workable at this late date, was to undertake ccntrol of a very few necessities—and let all other prices find their. own level. Under such a plan, ceilings might be fixed on bread and meat and potatoes, for instance, and all nonessential foods let strictly alone. If Tobasco satice rose to $12 a bottle, or hot-house strawberries were $1 a pint— what of it? They are nice to have, but anyone could live without them. There never was any justification for attempts to control the price of jewelry or fur coats or perfumes or any of the other hundreds of luxury items to which OPA has devoted so much time and energy. Left alone they would find their own price ceilings, which would be high, but which would not be inflationary because no one would have to buy. Profits made from their sale could easily be recaptured by taxation. The money and manpower saved from futile attempts to enforce unwise, unnecessary and inenforceable restrictions alone could have gone a long way toward making price ceilings on essentials workable. OPA has chosen neither course. It has not, discernibly, chosen any course.

= 5 4 = 2 2 T LEAST a part of the responsibility for food and other shortages that plague the nation and hamper the war | effort today rests on the fumbling and faulty policy of price control. And prices it has sought to keep down have | gone steadily up. Congress obviously sensed this when it forced Leon Henderson out of office. But Prentiss M. Brown, who sue- | ceeded him, has so far been wholly unable to deal with the bureait Mr. Henderson constructed out of men and women of his own mental makeup. OPA is still trying to do everybody's thinking for him, on the old “papa knows best” theory that has characterized it from the day of its inception. Maybe it does need a new boss. new philosophy.

Certainly it needs a

UP TO CONGRESS FFICIALS of seven administration war and labor ageneies have sighed a round robin urging congress not to pass the Connally-Smith bill. Congress should consider their objections, which ave, in general, that the legislation would promote labor unrest, interfere with war production, and lessen the effectiveness of the present machinery for settling industrial disputes. But congress should use its own judgment. The administration and the labor leaders have always objected to legislation intended to promote safe, respongible ise of organized labor's vast power, and heretofore congress has not acted. The lack of legislation now enables John L. Lewis to abuse his power dangerously and irresponsibly and to threaten that, unless he is permitted to defy and go destroy the present machinery for settling industrial disputes, he will stop war production. If other labor leaders intend to use their power properly and to live up to the no-strike promise—as they say they do—they need the support of wise legislation to prevent abuses by Lewis and other trouble-makers. Rank-and-file workers need it and, we believe, want it. Certainly the country needs it. The Connally-Smith bill is not in all respects wise. It ean and should be improved. Its best provisions are those which would require democracy and responsibility in union affaire—regular elections of officers by secret ballot, financial accounting, public statements of fees, dues and assessmente—in short, management of unions by aud for their members. There are many well-run unions, but there are others that prey on workers and the public. To contend that congress must leave labor leaders free to do as they please,

Fair Enough By Westbrook Pegler

LOS ANGELES, May 25.—Bill Moon covers the Hall of Records for the Los Angeles Times. He has been a newspaper reporter for more than 40 years, mostly in Peoria and Des Moines before he got his present job 15 years ago. He was a friend of George Titch, who wrote the memorable Siwash stories about Knox college, the typical Midwestern freshwater school of the Midwest, whose hero was Ole Skjarsen, the Swede janitor, hired for fullback, who ran the wrong way in the big game. We were sitting in the park outside the Hall of Records and Bill was saying that he went down to see the admirai here just after Pearl Harbor, hoping to be sent to sea again, but that the admiral told him no, he was too old. Bill is 64 and he never was bigger than a jockey. He had served in the old navy on a boat that was a veteran of the civil war and in 1917 he went back as a chief boatswain’s mate and was given command of the armed guard of 13 enlisted sailors aboard the U. S. S. Navajo, a 3000-tonner bound for Le Havre, not in convoy, but on her own. She was one of the first four or five armed American merchantmen.

Four Pups as Super-Cargo

AS THE tug tied loose from the Navajo, which was very low in the water, a fox terrier which had been romping on the tug jumped aboard her and the

tug’s captain waved to Capt. McDougal and yelled “We'll get her when you came back.” Four days later she had four pups and a few days

after that she went crazy from shock when the gun!

crew fired on a submarine, jumped overboard and was lost. The navy nursed the pups on condensed milk fed through the rubber bulb of an eyedropper and the Navajo made Le Havre all right, then returned to England for a load of clay and started home. There were a lot of empty barrels aboard, too, and when she was 1100 miles out fire broke out below and the barrels went up like a box of matches. There was nothing to do but abandon ship and the last man over the side was the gunner’s mate, who slid down the fall with his dungarees in his teeth. One leg was knotted and the puppies were in there. A Norwegian picked them up, 40 men and four pups and a few days later put them on a Greek ship carrying wheat to Limerick, Ireland. From there, the consul shipped them to Liverrool, where they were put aboard the S. S. New York of the American line, as passengers, although the captain insisted that the pups couldn't be kept in the a and made Bill Moon move them to the ennel.

Disturbed Over History Education

ALL THE way over, the gun crew stood watches over the pups and when they landed in New York they shot dice for them. Bill made several other crossings before the war ended and came out as chief warrant boatswain and one of those rather offensively patriotic and nationalistic Americans. He believes in Americansim in the sense of the word that is most unpleasant to the Hollywood "and Washington intellectuals and in the Americanization of alien immigrants as distinguished from the assimilation of Europeans coming here. Lately he has been disturbed to hear that some advanced educators have been tampering with American history as he learned it and low-rating it as a subject for study, anyway, and substituting the eontemporary radical or despondent poets for the whiskered New Englanders of his own school days around Peoria. He is certainly out of tune. As we sat on the park bench, a friend of Bill's came along and they shook hands and Bill asked how his boy was getting along in the air force.

At 64, He'd Like to Go Again

“WE LOST HIM,” the friend said. “Over in New Mexico. He got separated and flew around until he ran out of gas and had to land. He fractured his skull. No fire, though.” Another friend, an army captain much younger than Bill, came out to give him his hand and say goodby. He had just got his orders. When he had gone, Bill Moon lit his pipe again. He said he could see, of course, that at 64 he probably couldn't go to sea again but still he knew a lot that some of the younger fellows would have to learn and why wouldn't it be possible to put him in some school as an instructor? Not that he particularly wanted to quit his job and break up his home and store the furniture. But, after all, there had been members of the Moon family in every American war since the revolution.

We the People

By Ruth Millett

THE HIGH school kids had been worried for weeks. It looked as though there wasn’t to be any junior-senior dance. And the junior-senior is the social high spot of the year. It is even more than that. Pupils look forward to going to it from the time they are freshmen, until their first time actually arrives, the spring of their junior year. Finally the principal over-rode the protest of a group of parents that a junior-senior dance wouldn't be patriotic and gave the go ahead sign. So the high schoolers had their big moment. Most of the boys at the dance would soon be in uniform and the girls looked forward to jobs, or nurses’ training, or college, streamlined to three years, with most of the fun cut out.

Why Take Away All Fun?

80 THEY really needed that junior-senior dance. After all, they are just children and yet the boys are facing military service and the girls are having a pretty insecure time of it themselves. Why ean't parents see that youngsters ought to have some fun—and that if possible they should still be able to count on the important high=lights of their lives? If it is necessary to have dances for soldiers, isn’t is just as necessary to have dances for teen-age boys and girls? We know that juvenile delinquency is rising fast and steadily. Why encourage it by taking all the fun out of the lives of high school children? As one 17-year-old puts it: “Our generation sure got it in the neck. Just when we were old enough for drivers’ licenses—there wasn’t any gas or tires for us. Just when we were ready for dating—they started telling us it wasn’t patriotic to have dances in

wartime. And just when we were thinking of pairing

off and ‘going steady’ the boys started being drafted.”

To the Point—

YOU'RE MORE likely to get there safe and sound if you limit your speed rather than speed your limit. * * * THE SUNBURN season will at least stop some people from giving themselves so many pats on the

back, - * * = TEA IS en the shortage list, so this summer lemon added and th

we

and that legal standards of decency for unions would cause

may have ioe tea ten

The Hoosier Forum

I wholly defend to

“PEOPLE CAN'T SEE WHERE THEY ARE GOING” By J. R., Kokomo

Your scratch and snarl Forum is a very good gauge to measure the depth of the minds of the dear people. To some, the greatest problem confronting the American people is a bit of second-hand smoke on 8 bus, or femininity wearing long pants, or some nasty people making $25,000 a year. If tobacco smoke is the worst | smell they ever run into, this coun-| try is still good to live in, and long; pants are better than none, and why | run such high temperatures because a man makes $25,000 a year, he has to give over $17,000 of it up for income taxes plus other taxes; if a man makes a million he gives it all away but $112,000 for income tax, making it just that much less for the complainer to pay taxes.... For 10 years Mr. Roosevelt has been . , . making the masses a bed of flowery ease, giving them plenty of time to learn to think, but your Forum shows that they still lack powers of penetration. . . . Millions of these well intentioned people, now sitting in clover, can't see where they are going. Truly, there is none so blind as the blind. | These millions can’t see that they | have lost their supreme court of | the U. 8. One day, a court where an American, however so humble, could present his troubles with con-=| fidence and respect. A court of men with brilliant records of learning, sincerity and integrity. Today, a court of New Deal appointees, all ‘yes men” to Mr. Roosevelt. . . . They can’t see that Pegler is the | best friend labor has today. Weigh Pegler's assertion of facts and truths against the actions of Mr. Roosevelt. . . . It is amazing how perfectly nice people can't see how the New Dealers are using labor to get a death clutch on the masses exactly as Hitler used his gorillas to gain power, later to discard them, as Mr. Roosevelt has already tossed out many of his close aides in the days of the young New Deal.

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Side Glances—By Galbraith

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

jobs that our boys expected to come back to as they were told when they were inducted that they would be able to get their old jobs back when they returned. We also know that after the war all these same prisoners will be turned loose sn us and the only persons who will benefit by this act will be the big interests who make Your Forum friends are sitting it a practice of hiring cheap labor around calling one another names, | and of course John L. Lewis or demanding definition for fascism someone like him will step in and and communism of one another, organize them into some sort of a while Mr. Roosevelt is quietly lacing union so they can prey on the boy them in a straight jacket every day that at one time took them as under the guise of inflation fear, prisoners. war necessity and post-war neces-| Of course, these perscns who are sity. {rying to put across this idea of Nice people are sitting around in) bringing these foreigners into the this war prosperity and like ado-|gountry as farm labor are looking lescents letting Mr. Roosevelt take| ahead to their own interests. They away their freedom . .. the people inow once here, for the most part like Hitler will hear what and when | they will be allowed to stay. As an Mr. Roosevelt wants them to know. axample, look at the Japanese and It's practically all over J Eh TOW ather enemy aliens now in this The people have all but definitely try, Have we been able to get

lost their freedom. . . . them out? Em . g phatically no! Let Mr. Roosevelt bait them along These prisoners of war will not with a “cradle to the grave” lullaby. |

o. only stay and take our boys’ work, Nel i» Pegler Yay ly u SY® hut will be allowed to learn things

5 | about our country which will at ore ie lose their freedom | some future time be beneficial to

liberty and pursuit of happiness. | their own country in case of another . war, Of course, I can hear you say

There is nothing like experience to| teach a man. Let them and their|thab is absurd, because we are not kids sweat, fight and give their going to have another war, as this blood to get it back. They do not War is to stop all wars. appreciate their heritage from| Well, it so happens I am old George Washington and their free- enough to remember very well that dom loving ancestors. . that is just what they told us when $4 8 the other war was going on, and “STOP TRYING now here we are 26 years later » fighting for our very existence. . AKES! TO CODDLE SNARES There is but one way to actually By H. E. Marshall, 37 W. 21st st.

win a war from a nation like GerIf we allow German prisoners of many and Italy and that is to let war to be brought into this country

the entire nation . , . suffer the and put to work on farms and in hardship of defeat; a little privaother industries, we all know that

tion and hunger will bring it home as far as our boys who return from/to them that it does not pay to go the battlefield after tha war is over|to war; punish by hanging all the are concerned, their fight was in|persons responsible for this present vaiiu

catastrophe, These last statements They will find that the prisoners

may seem harsh to some people but really won, as they will have all the

(Times readers are invited to expfess their views in these columns, religious con: troversies excluded. Because of the volume received, let ters must be limited to 250 words. Letters must be

sighed.)

if you only knew the race of hardheaded persons you are now fighting you would agree that I was right. . . . Let's wake up, Americans, and

“Wonder if we ought to tell her we used her ration book to buy

these wieners for our fishing trip? Mom hasn't much mca .

stop this groun from trying to coddle these snakes. If we don't, we sure are fighting for a lost cause. Our fight is to keep what we had before this fight started, not turn it over to the enemy after we lick him, Isn't that right? ” o on “CONVINCED GRADE LABELING IS ON WAY” By F. W. V. Prentiss Brown, according to the papers, has allowed the grade labeling plan for canned goods to be scrapped. No doubt this was due to pressure from the canners and perhaps they may have a good argument during wartime with its manpower shortages, etc. But I am one consumer who is firmly convinced that grade labeling is on the way even if we must wait until peacetime before we get it adopted. The power of the consumer in America has never been fully felt because it was never organized but the current practices of some manufacturers in reducing both the quality and the quantity of their product is serving as education for the ultimate user. The consumer has never been as conscious as he is today of the practices

than he is entitled to.

DAILY THOUGHTS

The adversaries of the Lord shall be broken to pieces; out of heaven shall he thunder upon them.—I Samuel 2:10,

$-28 Limm——

that give him less for his money.

_ VENGEANCE TO God alone be-|

»

Our Hoosiers By Daniel M. Kidney

WASHINGTON, May 25. Have ing twice cracked back at Senator Raymond E. Willis (R. Ind.) for making statements he didn’t like, OWI Director Elmer Davis took & similar tactic with Rep. Charles A. Halleck (R. Ind). Mr. Halleck let his name be used in connection with a canned statement from the Republican national committee charging that OWI put out a pamphlet explaine ing tax proposals which belittled the Ruml pay-as-you-go plan ‘and favored the treasury program instead. Mr. Davis, a Hoosier himself, just didn’t like that at all. He read the Halleck statement, which began: “The OWI has again been caught red-handed deal= ing in political propaganda.” To all of which Mr. Davis wrote the following reply: “I cannot understand what purpose Congressman Halleck intended to accomplish by his unfair charge, unless it is to coerce this office into withholding from the American people facts to which they are entitled,

Can't Push Davis Around

“ANYONE READING the OWI discussion guide on 1043 tax problems, ‘How to Raise 16 Billion Dollars,’ would see that it is a balanced and fair presentation of all sides of the question. “In its discussion of ‘pay-as-you-go’ taxation, i$ starts right off by outlining the advantages of that form: of collection. “It includes very fair statements both for and against the Ruml plan and discusses other alternae tives. “Nowhere does it say or even suggest that anyone should write letters to influence congress. “There is not one word of ‘political propaganda' in it.”

‘Dynamite’ in His Bag

MR. DAVIS, it seems, is one administrative official who doesn't intend to let senators or congressmen push him around. He frequently appears before’ committees on Cape itol Hill and always gives a good account of himself, His greatest hit was when ghe conducted a press conference before the senate judiciary committee of which Senator Frederick VanNuys (D. Ind.) is chaire man. Senator VanNuys and the committee members were unanimous in their praise of his conduct, A somewhat dour appearing person, Mr. Davis can be humorous also. Going through the halls of the Capitol building with a small zipper bag on the day that Winston Churchill spoke, he was stopped by a guard who inquired: “What is in that bag?” “Dynamite,” Mr. Davis replied and never even smiled. Now both Senator Willis and Rep. Halleck are inclined to believe him. And neither one wants to play with Mr. Davis’ dynamite.

Desert ‘Flying’

By Peter Edson

wo

WASHINGTON, May 25. This is not intended to be a scare story, but—the amazing ingenuity of the cheap chiselers who seek to profiteer on wartime shortages is perhaps most strikingly illustrated by the extra chores which the U. 8. food and drug administra= tion has had to take on to protect the public from adulteration, filth, decomposition and just plain crooked cheating. Coffee has been found mixed with roasted cereals. Dried grass has been sold as tea. Imported spices, hard to get because of shipping shortages, have. been found adulterated with from 20 per cent to 50 per cent cornstarch. Canned sardines, labeled “packed in pure olive oil,” have been analyzed and found to be packed in corn oil or cottonseed oil. Saccharine has been found substituted for sugar as a sweelener. White poppy seeds have been dyed the same color as the better “blue” variety, in order to get the pree mium price which the latter bring on the market, now that imports of Belgium seeds have been stopped. Egg substitutes are some of the most flagrant, Cornstarch has been substituted for egg in pree pared mixes sold to bakers. Artificially colored, the cornstarch gives the same rich, yellow appearance to a cake that a good cook provides through liberal beate ing of egg yolks, but the food value just isn't there. In egg macaroni the standard 5% per cent egg content has been found to be cut to 2 per cent in

‘| soe brands, the yellow coloring in this case being

supplied by a coal tar dye which is considered ine jurious to health.

Cheaters in Minority, But . . .

MAYONNAISE AND salad dressings have been found to contain not the usual olive, cotton, soybean or other vegetable oils which are scarce, but instead contain a mineral oil which has no particular food... value and is, moreover, a purgative. : These are some of the most glaring examples of wartime food adulterations, but it should not be imagined from this list that every canner of sardines, every packer of tea, coffee, spices or processed foodsis guilty of these abominations, Violators are dee cidedly in the minority, and as a matter of fact, many of the reports on violations come from responsible food handlers who are much interested as the pube lic in seeing that the fringe of outlaw operators is” clipped off the carpet of respectability. But the war has brought an increase in the nume per of these cheap cheats, The shortages of staple supplies have aggravated the temptation to use sube stitutes so as to meet the demand and make an ine creased profit, and this has increased the job of the enforcement agencies. ? Food and drug administration officials anticipated this increase in violations, and they got it. In addition to the adulterations, there are numers ous cases of offering for sale filthy and decomposed foods. These are normally the most frequent and most troublesome cases which food and drug adminis tration inspectors have to handle. Loss of skilled labor, plus a letdown in care, are the big! contributing factors.

Know What You Are Buying

THE MORAL of all this for the consumer whe must buy and accept substitutes in these days of wars imposed shortages is to know what you're buying, Read the labels, not only what it says on the face of the label in big type, but what it says in smal, type or in the back. ' In the case of the coffee adulterations, some roasters sought to avoid prosecution by rubber stampe ing on the bottom of the bag, in blurred type less than a sixteenth of an inch high, the words, “with filler,” or “cereal added.” It didn't get by. : The food and drug administration is not primarily interested in price control or rationing. It is ind terested in short weight, which constitutes a mise branding, and it anticipates increased trouble in chiseling of this type. ’ But adulterations and short weight or short mease ure constitute a lowering of the quantity and quality of anything you get for your ration coupon, and. as such constitute inflation. Concealed inflation. Just

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