Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 26 May 1943 — Page 12
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The Indianapolis Times Fai Enough
RALPH BURKHOLDER Editor, in U. 8S. Service MARK FERRER WALTER LECKRONE Business Manager Editor
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WEDNESDAY, MAY 26, 1943
WHEN JOE FEEDS JOE
(CONSIDERABLE fuss was raised not so long ago about the elaborate nature of a dinner to Harry Hopkins and his bride. But as we recall the menu it was a mere snack in a tank town restaurant compared to the 19-toast and 37-tilt banquet given in Moscow by Joe Stalin to Joe Davies. Says a descriptive and mouth-watering dispatch: “The dinner included caviar, back of dried sturgeon, herring with dressing, back of sturgeon in sauce, Englishstyle roast beef, cold ham, gelatin, olives and spring salads, radishes, cucumbers and a variety of cheeses. “Then came wild fowl, chicken soup, consomme, Siberfan salmon, snipe and fried potatoes, turkey and cauliflower. “This was followed by strawberry tarts and vanilla fce cream, candy, nuts and liqueurs. “The main drinks during the dinner were red and white wines—red Georgian wine being one of Stalin’s favorites—vodka with hot pepper and champagne. “Following dinner, Stalin's guests walked into the
sumptuous Kremlin movie theater. Each guest sat in a|
giant, soft white leather chair, and beside each chair was a table on which was a battle of champagne and glasses. “As the golden cloth curtain was drawn back Stalin and Mr. Davies settled in their seats and ‘Mission to Moscow’ unfolded.” There are those of us here, fresh out of potatoes, who would enjoy being included in on something like that.
FOR FRENCH UNITY
FTER months of bickering, London headquarters of the Fighting French announces that Gen. De Gaulle has accepted Gen. Giraud’s proposal for a new central authority for all factions and that the two leaders will meet in North Africa this week. If this is not just another hope, to be wrecked by more partisanship, it can unite French patriots for the first time since the fall of the republic. Of course, it cannot make all French parties agree on | future policy, domestic or foreign—sincere party differ-| ences are the mark of a healthy and free democracy. But unity is required to win a war, especially if the country is occupied by the enemy. Hence, the need of a temporary party truce for the duration, under a coalition regime representing all major factions. ”
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RTUNATELY Gen. Giraud, who is in control of French North Africa under the allied commander-in-chief, Gen. Eisenhower, is wise enough and patriotic enough to make sacrifices for such a coalition. Under his propesal the new central executive committee will consist of three Giraudists, three De Gaullists, and three others to be chosen by those six. It is assumed that Gen. Catroux, the De Gaullist intermediary who is generally respected, will be the third major figure. There should be two determining factors in the French situation. One is the utmost joint effort for victory over the axis. The other is an absolute understanding that the new regime is not a sovereign government, but a temporary trusteeship pending the liberation of France and the free choice of a representative government by the French people themselves. Meanwhile, a Giraud-De Gaulle-Catroux unity authority can be of great service. It can provide administration for North Africa and the colonies. It can hasten reorganization of the French army and navy. And it can strengthen the underground in France for the day of liberation.
FAREWELL NYA (WE HOPE)
ENATOR BYRD'S economy committee has recomniended to congress that the national youth administration be abolished on June 30, its personnel transferred to essential war work, and its request for a new appropriation of $59,304,000 refused. We think the committee makes a strong case for the prompt liquidation of this federal agency, which has spent three-quarters of a billion dollars in the last eight years. The NYA industrial training program, the committee asgerts, duplicates or overlaps programs conducted, in most cases more effectively and economically, by six other government agencies, and by war industries at government expense. = Furthermore, well above half of NYA’s male trainees are boys of 17 and 18, the great majority of whom will be drafted into the armed services before they can become really proficient employees of war plants. Indeed, only about half of those paid to take NYA courses actually go to work in war industries, while the number of youths (the present age limits are 16 to 24 years) willing to enroll for such courses has declined steadily, in spite of recruiting appeals through newspapers and over the radio. As a result, a large part of NYA’s training equipment is said to be standing idle. With 53,000 youths on the training rolls last October, the committee finds, NYA had 11,806 paid administrative employees, only 4771 of whom were engaged in actual shop supervision of trainees. These figures confirm our opinion that the chief urge to keep this depression-horn agency alive, in a period when there is no genuine excuse for it, comes from salaried job-holders who want to maintain their own places on the public payroll. An overwhelming majority of taxpayers, we believe, will welcome the Byrd committee’s report that, having
sought any possible justification for the continuance of
By Westbrook Pegler
LOS ANGELES, May 26— President Roosevelt's unwillingness to sign a tax bill embodying the Ruml plan puts a small minority of Americans in a very inferior position. They are inferior to the rest of the American people, and inferior to the peo--ples of foreign nations who have received gifts of billions of dollars out of the United States’ with no thought or pretense that the debts will ever be paid. This group is composed of executives, professional men whose incomes are derived from fees, artists and a few others of exceptional earning ability unconnected with the war. Most of them have reached and many of them have passed the peak of their earning power, and, unlike Mr. Roosevelt and Henry Morgenthau, have no backlog of inherited wealth from which to pay on two years’ incomes in one, the whole amounting in some cases to more than 100 per cent of their earnings for 1943. They have been paying last year's income taxes out of this year’s earnings from the beginning because congress planned it so in 1913.
Critics Among Group Punished
THE PRESIDENT and Mr. Morgenthau, with vast inherited wealth, can dig into their capital and make themselves current, as the phrase goes, without serious inconvenience, whereas men and women who
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he Bull’s-eye
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started with nothing but unusual ability and diligence | may be wiped out as an economic class this year. | Thus, the New Deal's tax plan is not a tax to sock | the rich, who can meet it and still survive, but a plan | to punish a group which happens to embrace most of | the party's most annoying opponents and critics. | The administrations willingness to abandon en- | tirely the debt owed by vast numbers of earners in the lower brackets is not only a political appeal for the gratitude of this economic group, but practical recognition of the fact that they arent used to the income tax. Many don’t yet believe that it applies to them, haven't got the money to pay it and can’t be compelled to pay. There are so many of such tax debtors that it is a practical impossibility to run them all down, and indict them and send them to prison or get judgment against them and sell out their property. This process would cost more than it would yield and, more important, would be unwise politics.
High Earning Class Pays
THOSE,” HOWEVER, who have been paying large income taxes in arrears, regularly, for years, do have investments or other property which could be converted, although, at a great loss of value, and they cannot escape.
Ad
The Hoosier Forum
I wholly disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.—Voltaire.
“CHALLENGE TO MADDOX TO PROVE STATEMENT” By M. E. Zufall, 2214 Guilford ave.
In re: Edward F. Maddox letter, May 18, 1943. At different times over the last few years, my attention has been called to articles written by a Mr. Maddox, but I have usually considered them of too little value to merit an answer. However, his last brainstorm which was in your edi-
They are not rich like Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Morgenthau, but they look rich over the years. They have lived well in proportion to their earnings, paying | last year’s taxes faithfully out of current earnings and saving a portion year by year against old age and the end of their high earning powers.
The objection that tax forgiveness would be economic heresy is not applied to the new class of tax debtors in the lower brackets, and is therefore inconsistent and, of course, insincere and strictly political. If it were based on principle, no person would be forgiven for any portion of this arrears as a means of bringing him up to date, but the political plan of the party is not intended to offend or discomfort those who might thus be put in a grateful mood. And few of the upper-bracket debtors would be so overwhelmed with gratitude as to vote for a fourth term in any case.
Last in Consideration
* MEANWHILE, ALTHOUGH the treasury needs the money, Mr. Roosevelt has made it possible for his political following in the union movement to siphon off hundreds of millions of dollars of the whole people’s money into the private, mysterious pools of union finance. Vast amounts of this money have been stolen by thieves, who stationed themselves astride the roads leading to projects and plants built for the war, and shook down hundreds of thousands of workers for a portion of their pay, derived from the public funds. In many cases these extortions would have been sufficient to pay the victim's income taxes which it is now proposed to forgive because they haven't got the money, but the union racket has had a lien on such earnings, prior even to the federal income tax. The earning class in the high brackets, as distinguished from the hereditary rich, come after the Russians, the British, the Chinese and miscellaneous others in the consideration of their own country's government. They must pay, though it breaks them to do so at a time of life when they cannot hope to recoup. The foreigner needn't worry. He has no intention to pay and he won't be asked to pay. It is significant in this connection that Randolph Paul, the treasury’s counsel, when he wished to express his objections to the Rum! plan selected for his medium the official publication of the lawyers’ guild, whose first president, Judge Ferdinand Pecora, resigned his membership on the ground that it was dominated by Communist lawyers.
We the People By Ruth Millett
“THE JOURNAL of the American Medical association reported today the first case of human pregnancy resulting from artificial insemination in which the sperm was ‘ransported by airplane.” = 2 =
If the war lasts for several years, perhaps that news item will have a personal meaning to some of the wives of service men in foreign countries. There is Mrs. Jones, whose husband has been out of the country for a year already, and who is beginning to fear that by the time she can have another baby, her 3-year-old daughter may be too old to get much enjoyment out of the younger child. And there is Mrs, Smith, who wishes, now that her husband is seeing foreign service, that she had gone ahead and had a child before he left the country. “If anything should happen to Tom, I would always regret not having his child,” she says. And then there is Mrs. Brown, who is a practical sort of person, and who thinks that having a child while her husband is away would be one way of accomplishing something worthwhile while she waits for his return. :
Something to Think About
ALL THREE of them could have their wish if their husbands could become long distance fathers, in the method described in the Journal of the American Medical association. It is something for wives to think about, how, if this turns into a long war. For it is bad enough for homes tc be broken up and husbands and wives separated, without a couple having to postpone for years having or increasing a family. And it wouldn't be too hard on the wives, having ‘babies with their husbands far away. Already numbers of service men’s wives have given birth to their babies after their hushands left the country—and
any-
tion of the 18th is of such a nature that I feel it only proper to give him one reply so that a few of the people who read his ramblings and do not have time to look up the truth for themselves may be properly informed as to the kind of propaganda he is putting out. In the first part of his article he says, “I will give you the true definition of socialism and communism. Socialism and communisim are an anti-Christian political movement based on materialism, hate, murder and violent revolution to destroy civilization and reduce all people to the mental, moral and ethical level of animals.” He further says, “Well, that's straight facts, believe it or not. And now that that's settled I will answer your other questions.” Right here I challenge Mr. Maddox or anyone else to prove the truth of any such statement, and to quote the authority for any such definition of socialism as he has just given. I have by me a copy of Webster's Elementary Dictionary such as is used in the common schools of our state, and I find that it says on page 545: “Socialism—a political and economic theory of social reorganization, the essential features of which is governmental control of economic activities to the end that competition shall give way to co-operation, and the opportunities of life and the rewards of labor shall be equitably apportioned.” Anything “antiChristian” in that? Funk and Wagnalls says that “Socialism—a science of living similar to and second only to the Christian religion.” In the Britannica, he will find some 15 pages devoted to the subject of which I point out only a few — Laveleye explains it thus— “In the first place, every Socialist doctrine aims at introducing greater equality in social conditions, and in the second place at realizing those reforms by the law of the state.” Further on the same authority says, “Every new thing of any moment, whether good or evil, has its revolutionary stage in which it disturbs and upsets the accepted beliefs and institutions. The Protestant Reformation was for more than
(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.)
a century and a half the occasion lof international trouble and blood- | shed. The suppression of Ameri{can slavery could not be effected without a tremendous civil war. “The fact that a movement is revolutionary generally implies only that it is new, that it is disposed to exert itself by strong methods, and is calculated to make great changes. It is an unhappy feature of most great changes that they have been attended with the exercise of force but that is because the powers in| possession have generally attempted | to suppress them by the exercise of force.” : Further on the same text tells us that “Many socialists hold that their | system is a necessary outcome of Christianity and that socialism and Christianity are essential, one t6 another; and it should be said that the ethics of socialism are closely akin to the ethics of Christianity, if not identical with them.” . .. If these definitions of the Socialist activities are true and their efforts were directed toward helping the poorer class of people, then, by the same comparison all of Christ's work while here on earth was wrong, for all His efforts were expended in the same cause. Also, if co-operation (the aim of the Socialist leaders) is wrong, why are all our big industries who were formerly competing with each other now cooperating, not only among themselves, but with other nations for the downfall of the dictators in Europe? These, however, are only a small part of the affair that is so amusing to one who has made a real study of the movement, i. e—the fact that Mr. Maddox in his own article tells of doing the very same things that were advocated by the Socialist party at that time—namely, asking for price regulation of all farm commodities, protesting against the slaughter of hogs to raise prices (Mr. Maddox speaks as if the whole department were only waiting for his letter to turn this meat over to the people in baskets and does not give anyone else any credit for having any say-so in it), and the oldage pension fund he speaks of has been in the Socialist party platforms for the past 30 years as one of what they called “immediate demands.” Where has he been all these years
hey haven't made any fuss about it or even felt
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"Maybe | won't be the town umpire this year—with all the boys gone, I'm getting in shape so
that he didn’t know that little about the subject before he began to condemn it. To judge from one part of his statement wherein he says that “When the banks were failing and I was still voting the Democratic ticket to try to correct things” I feel that he has unwittingly told his whole story, which sounds to me exactly like the disgruntled mouthings of a dissatisfied politician, who no doubt expected the party to give him a job where he could live good and easy at the expense of the people, but found there were not enough such jobs to go around, so he begins belaboring the party for it. How about it, Mr. Maddox, can you deny it? ... What I am mostly interested in is the manner of his handling the truth in the way he defines things. He had better read up a little before he makes those kind of remarks again. Someone is apt to call him down and make him prove them. ” ” ” “WHERE WILL MAN GO FROM HERE?”
By Marion Priest, 14068 Castle ave.
Mild curiosity has been expressed | to me on why I take the trouble to write articles for the paper, with! seemingly no reward for my effort. | Not in a ridiculing manner nor in a | disapproving manner, just surprise. Some enthusiastic, some critical, but all a little curious. Here is my answer: | In my opinion, this is probably the most critical stage the world has| yet passed into, not through. And since man's greatest trouble, I think, since the beginning of time, has| been his inability to live with other men in peace and harmony, and |
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since in each era in history men §
have devised new methods for trying to live at peace, each seeming to fail . . . anyone having studied history and the Bible with normal intelligence could hardly fail to be interested, vitally, in how the story is going to end. In the settling of the colonies by our ancestors, European people were sufficiently interested in government and religion to take their families and some small possessions and risk their lives by going into a small wooden boat to travel 3000 miles or more to wilderness of which they had heard only fantastic tales, not to secure great wealth but to take up a new life. Some, no doubt did come here hoping to go back rich, But many more came here to escape the prejudices, hatreds, superstitions and ignorances of a wornout system. ‘Historians say, “History repeats itself.” We are reluctant to see, with man’s advancement in science and education along other lines, that history may repeat itself, and the world drift back into a condition from which another war will be inevitable. As we think of what history we have studied and see it all as a picture, or an unfinished story, we wonder why man has progressed no farther in his ability to live at peace with other men. We may have insufficient evidence on which to base a conclusion, but if we reach a conclusion the reason must be that peace has been sabotaged in each era of history by a few individuals. Our inability to cope successfully with a few selfish individuals has caused much suffering and continual hardship. . . . In the beginning, all the natural resources, the soil, minerals, climate, rainfall, vegetation, animals, access to knowledge, everything necessary to make man happy was put here for our use. It is not only interesting, but tragic that for thousands of years man has not been happy, because he didn't make use of these things. And if history does repeat itself, man will continue to grope in the dark when all things to make him happy are still here, . . . In this light, it is not only interesting, but it is the duty of every normal human being to get all information available to read and put in much thought, that he may be ready, when the time comes to put his support tintelligent support) behind any movement which he
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conscientiously thinks will solve this vital problem, “Where will man go from here?”
DAILY THOUGHTS
For the customs of the people are vain—Jeremiah 10:3,
| can get in there "
i
HOY-DAY what sweep of vanity . comes this i.
Inverted Flying
By Major Al Williams
NEW YORK, May 26. — The other day I saw a report on the latest German tactic for attacking American four-engine bombers. Our big bombers are heavily armored and heavily gunned. They are pretty tough customers for the fighter who attacks from on top, from the rear, from beneath, or from the flank. The “stinger” turret in the end of the fuselage takes care of the fighter attacking from the rear. The turret in the belly covers the attack from below, and the turret on top of the fuselage handles the attack from above. Since the lowest concentration of big-bomber fire power is in the nose and head, this naturally attracted the attention of the Nazi fighters. In addition, the nose of the bomber has less armor protection than other vital points. This is the reason for the concentration of Nazi fighters working against the nose of the big bomber. This means a head-on attack. It's a touchy, ticklish job to fly right smack at the nose of a target that is traveling 250 to 300 miles per hour right at you. The natural question that arises is: How to get in the burst of gunfire and still miss flying into the big target?
Fly in Every Attitude
THE NAZI solution was to hold the fighter dead at the nose of the bomber, and turn over to the inverted position just prior to coming within range-— maintaining the same altitude as the bomber and then when within actual range turning loose a burst4 of fire. This maneuver placed the fighter in an excel- - lent position to get in that burst of fire and start a quick dive, This means that the Nazi fighters have been trained in handling a plane upside down. Now should a student combat airman be taught anything about inverted flight? And, if so, how much? Well, I don't want to argue about it. But I do know this. When I was a youngster in this flying game I. counted every attitude in which it was possible to put a plane as a potential crack-up for me until I had experienced the job of handling my plane in that position. The right-side-up tailspin was the first. That solved, I went through every known maneuver involving what we call normal flight (right side up).
Nail Target and Fire
THE NEXT bracket of potential danger was all the plane attitudes involving inverted flight. I had tackled the inverted tailspin and the outside loop and the inverted loop and, in turn, all the maneuvers a plane migth assume in inverted flight. With every attitude covered and a clear picture in my mind as to what put it there and what adjustment of controls was required to bring it back to normal flight, the flying business had been stripped of all its mystery. In a fighter plane there are gunsights ahead of you which must be nailed on the target, and the entire plane must be maneuvered to keep those sights on the target—irrespective of the attitude of your plane. A gun fired upside down hurts just as much as one fired right side up. . If the chase of an enemy plane lands you on your back, and the target comes within that gunsight— that's the time to press the trigger. But no man is going to be able to fly or shoot upside down unless x he has practiced inverted flight.
In Washington
By Peter Edson
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WASHINGTON, May 26.—Certain smart California dealers are credited with a new cute trick to beat the maximum ceiling price on potatoes, but they may not get away with it. The case is interesting though, becduse if unchecked, the racket might have spread to other food commodities. It shows the ingenuity of some of these operators in evading price regulations, and it's a good example of why all bureaucrats are gradually going nuts, trying to keep ahead of the chiselers. The story begins with maximum price regulation No. 271. MPR 271 sets specified dollars and cents ceiling prices on potatoes at the country shipper level, packed and loaded on a carrier, plus specified fixed markups for transportation to market, plus wholesalers’ and retailers’ profits, giving in the end a maximum: price for consumers. But at the beginning, the ceiling is an f. o. b. price at the growers’ shipping point. Out in the California potato country, certain slick citizens read over this regulation and they say, “Hmmm! What's to prevent us from buying potatoes in the ground? There isn’t any ceiling price on potatoes in the ground. So we could buy the potatoes before they're dug, before they're sacked, before they're loaded on a truck or freight car at the country shipper’s f. 0. b. point. We could pay the farmer above the ceiling price. We can bypass the whole salers’ markup, sell directly to the consumer at ceiling prices if we have to, or at black market prices if we can.”
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Within the Law, but Wrong
AS A SMART dodge to beat the price ceilings, this is about as neat a trick as the office of price administration enforcement officials have run into yet. It isn’t legally wrong, perhaps, but it is a technical evasion of the OPA regulations prompted only by greed. OPA enforcement officials hear about this slick? evasion of their order 271. They decide to issue an “interpretation” of the order which will stop further sales of potatoes in the ground at higher than ceiling prices. ) Hooking up their 118 regional offices on a teletype circuit, they send out from Washington their interpretation to the effect that sales of unharvested potatoes above the country shipper’s ceiling price violate the letter as well as the spirit of MPR 271 and should be prosecuted because such buyers are in effect country . shippers selling to themselves as intermediate sellers, and therefore their net costs may not exceed the coun- . try shipper’s maximum price plus the cost of transportation to the customary receiving point. Just to play safe, OPA decides to issue a revision : of MPR 271 to tighten up this and other loopholes in the original potato order, and to incorporate the interpretation. They even put in an example to show how potatoes in the ground may be legally sold by the acre, providing the contract specifies that the ultimate selling price will be the per-acre price, or the ceiling price per hundredweight, whichever is lower.
OPA Stymied by Experts
OPA LAWYERS send this revised draft over to the food distribution administration for their checkup. FDA potato experts keep it a couple of days, then send it back with a lot of reasons why the revised order is no good, too, and a lot of suggestions as to what will have to be done to make the order workable, . i Eventually, a revised potato order will ) which will control these smart guys who are clever at finding ways to evade price regulations. But here you have a perfect example of just of the headaches which daily confront the mi maligned bureaucrats who on the one hand are tryir to keep prices under control and prevent inflation. They may never be entirely ‘but think i%'s fun trying. If they can just contre less-than-5 per cent of chiselers, a good stars will b