Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 21 June 1943 — Page 10

he Indianapolis Times

EN Bowanp, RALPH BURKHOLDER | Editor, in U. 8. Service WALTER LECKRONE Editor

# Price in Marion Coun1] ee Sunday) by ty, 4 cents a copy; delivafiapolis Timés Pub- B= Gos aad W. May: : aw Mail rates in Indiana, $4 a year; adjoining states, 75 cents a month; others, $1 monthly.

bg RILEY 5551

Give Light and the People Will Find Their Own Way

“Member of United Press, Sctipps - Howard NewsAlliance, NEA: Service, and Audit Buzeau of Circulations. :

MONDAY, JUNE 21, 1043

’ THEY'RE GAINING ON US

MONG the indictments which the framers of the Declaration of Independence drew against George IlI was this one: - “He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent ‘hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out ~ their substance.” ; Scan that again, then turn to page one and read the article by Senator Harry F. Byrd. Ponder the startling | figures which the Virginia senator brings to light— + Ohio runs its state government with 25,000 employees, but the federal government has 90,000 employees in Ohio; ~ 15,040 state employees in Indiana, but 31,036 federal payrollers; 1100 working for Wyoming's state government, but 6200 federal workers in that state. The figures tell graphically what we have permitted to happen to our once proud concept of home rule. Wash- - ington sends out among us from three to six times as many People to tell us how to run our business as we employ to govern ourselves. Not counting the army and navy, there are more people on the federal payroll than on the payrolls of all the 48 states, plus all county and municipal governments, which include all our policemen, sheriffs, deputies, firemen and public-school teachers. : * = . OT so long ago most Americans had no contact with the central government except through the congressmen, postal employees, the federal judge and the U. S. marshal. That was only a bare dozen years back, before it * became the fashion to call on Washington for help every time the water main sprang a leak or a new tree needed planting in the public park. Now: we have federal offices and officers everywhere, telling us when to reap and sow, telling us what to buy and sell and at what price, how long to work and at what wage, what to eat and how to cook it, what to wear and how to make it. Sure we're in a war and have to submit to a certain ‘amount of regimentation. But, as Senator Byrd points out, 55 per cent of federal employees are engaged in activities not connected with the war effort. This is a larger and tougher war than the last one. We have to have a much larger army and navy, but do we “need one civilian government payroller for every 215 men vhen in the last war the ratio was one civilian 8. five in uniform? ik ; . a gh WE HAVE 2700 lawyers working for the office of price’ administration. Britain has only 10. lawyers: ‘in its

price and rationing agency. Maybe that Helps: explain why 2 ‘| Who Took Care of Poletti?

Britain’s price control is succeeding where ours isn’t. Well, the government still belongs to the people. Every two years, through the ballot, we have something to say about it. We elect the congress, which controls the purse- - strings and provides the tax money for hiring all these “swarms of officers.” If we don’t elect the kind of congress that will cut down the taxeaters to a controllable size it will be our fault that they take our government away from us. The number of taxpayers still exceeds the Biinber who are making a career of being on the government payroll. We cannot be sure how long that will be true. Senator Byrd discloses that since two years before Pearl. Harbor the number of payrollers has increased 50 per cent every -g8ix months. They’ re gaining on us.

; ALL OUT OF STEP BUT BILL AND PHIL?

JRGING President Roosevelt to veto the Smith-Connally bill, William Green of the A. F. of L. calls it “unAmerican” and “Fascist-Nazi legislation” which “strikes at the heart of democratic processes.” Philip Murray of the C. I. O. terms it a product of “anti-labor venom” . . . “inspired by the very forces which . geek to prevent the all-out offensive against the axis.” If these charges were true this country would be in

Congress would be, by a tremendous majority, “unAmerican,” “Fascist-Nazi,” venemously “anti-labor” and opposed to an all-out offensive. For this legislation passed

in the senate by a vote of 55 to 22, and in the house by

~The American army and navy would be: similarly tainted. Sentiment for preventing wartime strikes undoubtedly is overwhelming among soldiers and sailors.

And the American people would be for stabbing demo- |:

eratic processes to the heart. For public opinion polls have shown repeatedly that the people—including a majority of

the wage earners—favor wartime anti-strike legislation

even stronger than the Smith-Connally bill. A Gallup poll just completed reports 81 per cent of foe questioned want a law to ban strikes in all war nd lustries, not merely in plants taken over by the government ; 78 per cent want penalties for persons inciting strikes in plants under government operation; nine out of every want a cooling off period before strikes can be called in ‘plants. And, even before the 1940 election, Gallup s showed public sentiment 2 to 1 for a prohibition i nst political contributions by unions. 3 # » ».... 4 - # w UT, of course, the charges of Messrs. Murray and Green are not true. Congress, the army and navy and the can people have not gone “Fascist-Nazi” or “anti-

; The labor leaders are merely indulging their old habit extravagat language—of calling names and hurling

-all proposals to hold labor leaders | le for decent, public spirited use of their The

‘ered by carrier, 18 cents |’

with a soldier suit and all.

Fair Enough.

By Westbrook Pegler

NEW YORK, June 21.—Now to show the direct political connection between the governing party of the United States and the crim-

other quarter. You may recall that during his brief term as interim governor of ‘New’ York last winter, Charles * Poletti, who was elected lieutenant

out Lehman's term, turned loose a number of dangerous union criminals without con-

‘| sulting the parole board.

Among these was a firebug and stink-bomber with a bad record named Alexander Hoffman who was let go after serving less than eight months of a sentence of from four to eight years. Hoffman runs with the Communists in the left wing of New Deal unionism in New York and his union. His cleaners’ and dyers’.local of the C. I oO. is a. subsidiary of Sidney Hillman’s. \ Hillman was selected by President Roosevelt as the appropriate man to direct the war labor of the United States early in the war emergency and was one of those who interceded with Poletti to sneak this cowardly criminal out of prison in the dark of the moon. There was absolutely no doubt of Hoffman's guilt,

Lehman, before he left the governor’s office, had considered the facts and refused to let him go.

"American With Mixed Accent”

Democrats who run with the European element known as the American Labor party, which is American with a mixed and heavy accent of the old world and represents labor only in the sense that if includes a lot of legally naturalized but unassimilated Europeans who control unions largely composed of immigrants. It is Social-Democratic in tne old world manner and frankly Communistic in two unequal wings, the Social-Democratic being the larger. The so-called American Labor party has supported Poletti in politics, and, of course, has supported the Roosevelt party consistently, Fiorello La Guardia also runs with this element, and several stories that have been waiting a long time to be revealed may come out of the pending investigation of his reign as mayor and out of a trial that is about to start in New York.

These stories concern the terror in the needle ‘trades some year ago when La Guardia was working

‘with Hillman as attorney and racketeering was rife

on both side. Newspapers and magazines have nibbled at them, but’ the people who know where the bodies are buried, so to speak, have choked up. But, after all, reporters have no authority, and official inquiries of the kind which the New Dealers love so well, except when Martin Dies is heckling Communists, can develop parallel information.

Heat Doesn't Last Long

POLETTI SAID that Hoffman, the firebug, had had an excellent reputation, which was absolutely untrue, as Poletti well knew. ' He had a rotten reputation. He was 2 terrorist of a familiar European type and he had threatened to cause “more fires” in cleaning and dyeing plants unless the employers signed agreements compelling

the workers to come into his union against their will and pay tribute to him and to President Roosevelt's

Ariend, ‘Sidney

“The heat lasted: only a short time, however. The war is the big story and these little glimpses by the rocket's red glare of a national government conspiring with criminals and maintaining political relations with them to the impairment of the rights of the

& permanent impression.

SOON THE HEAT cooled and Poletti, one of a whole graduating class of decredited New Deal lame ducks, bobbed up in Washington in the role of special assistant to Henry L. Stimson, the secretary of ‘war. In Washington, Poletti said he hadn't the slightest idea what his new duties would be, which was understandable because the idea was not to.promote the war but to take care of one of the boys who had taken care of one of’ Sidney Hillman’s boys and otherwise made himself useful to the European element and Eurqpean influence in the New Deal. He also said he didn’t owe his job to the White House, which is something else that nobody must or will believe. And then, what do you know, but Mr. Poletti <becomes an overnight lieutenant colonel] in the army

There you have the play. A repudiated politician of the European terroristic wing, as a favor to Hillman, turns loose one of Hillman’s mob, and lands in the war department first as an assistant to the secretary of war and then as an officer of considerable rank. If the White House didn’t take care of Poletti, who would you say did? And why?

We the People By Ruth Millet

- UNCLE SAM is having to work hard to persuade enough girls to get into uniform for the duration. He needs them and in great numbers, so he is trying his best to get them to choose a branch of service and.sign up just as fast as he needs them. It is strange that he is having to work so hard at the job of selling women on serving their country in their country’s uniform. For what better way could the average girl spend

part of the army, the navy, or the marines? Civilian life isn't very attractive to the average girl in wartime. The boys with whom she grew up are mostly gone from home. Her social life, consequently, is apt to be rather dull—unless, of course, she lives near an army camp.

A Part of a Great Endeavor

IF SHE IS engaged and waiting for the war to be over in order to marry her young man, she probably feels a sense of frustration if she is doing nothing to help with the war effort. So, here is the average girl in wartime, the normal course of her life interrupted, having to put off her real plans for marriage and a home until the war is over, yet having to live through the war years, And she has a chance fo get into uniform, to become a part of a great endeavor, to have an experience she will remember all of her life. Joi Would think she youll jump ab doesn’t, in such

inals of the union racket in an- |

governor under Lehman and pieced |

for he had contested the verdict all the way, and |

POLETTI IS one of those left-wing New York |

individual workers and the whole people do not leave |B:

the war yedrs than in being a real and important |

chance. that

_ THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

nt A

Te Seems to Me I've Heard That Song Before’

The Hoosier Forum

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

| “ONE COLUMN

IS WASTED SPACE”

By M. L. McArthur, Bridgeport

The Indianapolis Times is a pretty fair newspaper, but it has one column in it which is utterly wasted space. Westbrook Pegler knows only two tunes—communism, and what crooks the administration and all unions are—and he sings them until I am so bored with his writings that I could scream. Whenever you pick up a Times

you know that that column will be

there, with the inevitable clap-trap about one of these subjects. He has said it all once; why can't he simply’ shut up and quit writing, or find something new each day to talk about

2 “WHAT THIS COUNTRY NEEDS”

W. Scott A 756 Middle dr. ‘oodruff Pla

The soutiseris lieutenant governor who advocates a firing squad for the representatives of organized labor should keep his civil wars down where they belong—in America’s problem No. 1. Those relics of the feudal system of the middle ages down South, who join forces with old guard Republicans in congress to arrange ceilings over-the incomes of the poor and none over the incomes of the rich, should have expected that sooner or later they would be called upon to do some shooting of Americans to enforce that arrangement. Naturally the first call for the firing squad would come from the descendants of southern slave owners, where all civil wars in defense of property rights can be expected to come from. The first families of the .South . « « are never so happy as when they can deprive a worker of his job, or lay the foundation for a first-class civil war for the re-en-slavement of the hired hand sometime in the future. What this country needs, says the president of Harvard university in a magazine article, is a radical political party that will agitate “to lay the axe lustily to the roots” of hereditary wealth so that everyia generation will be compelled to stand on its feet and survive or

2 =»

{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 Letters be signed.) .

words. must

perish by its own exertions. In other words, he wants the gradual, peaceful development of a form of society that will reward merit and service instead of the accident of birth. At present we are going in the opposite direction—forgiving taxes due from America’s great hereditary estates when they pass to the heirs. The theory of the divine right of birth should be completely repudiated, whether the power inherited is economic or political. The ceiling over large incomes should be restored from whatever source the income is derived. ” »

“TRY BEING AN

ALL-OUT AMERICAN” By A Times Reader, Indianapolis

This letter is the result of reading in the Hoosier Forum, day in and day out, letters to the editor complaining about this or that petty grievance; and especially letters in which the writers argue back and forth with each other wifh such persistence the advantages and disadvantages, the similarity or dissimilarity of socialism and communism. From my contacts at the large Indianapolis war plant where I work, and from reading the Hoosier Forum, I have come to wonder if there are any plain, common, out-and-out Americans left in this: city. Understand, I don’t questiom, the right of these people to bicker and quibble and air their complaints; I only wonder why they do it. I think it is high time we interrupt this senseless arguing, stop a few moments, .and take stock of lour enviable position as Americans in relation to the rest of the world. “plug” for Americanism is long overdue here anyway. It’s true that I am a sentimental

Side Glances—By Galbraith

American. I love this country and everything for which it stands. “The Star Spangled Banner,” eur flag fluttering against the blue sky, the very sight or sound of the word “America” are all inspiring to me. Sentimental? Yes. But it isn't necessary, nor, I admit, even advisable to be sentimentally American. No sir. The record of this country of ours speaks for itself. From the very beginning, the history of the United States has been one spectacular achievement after another. Starting from less than nothing, the men and women of America have built a nation that is without peer in rapid and original development, industrial, economic and cultural. Consider America’s astounding inventive ingenuity, renrembering that these contributions to world betterment were born of the system

live. Americans invented the cotton gin, the reaper, the sewing machine, steam engine, steamboat, telegraph, telephone, phonograph, electric light and the airplane, to mention but a few of the most important items. Mass production was originated in America. These and countless other products of American genius have helped make other countries what they are today. Yes, America’s history is proof aplenty that we have right here under our very noses—right in our own . backyard—every essential necessity for the most perfect government in the world. And it is just that. In presenting alien creeds in these columns, how, I wonder, in the name of fairness can the writers of such letters so glibly and adroitly ignore these pertinent, indisputable facts? Free speech, of which these columns are ample proof, is glided over. Precious freedom of religion is ignored. Rights of assembly, trial by jury, freedom of the press are conveniently omitted from such letters. You who read this know that except in wartime you are free to work and live where you wish, build or buy a home, own a business, say, think and do what you please within reasonable limits. You know that the American average standard of living is the hope and dream of every other nation. What more, then, do we want? What are we hollering about? We live in freedom so dearly bought and preserved, yet we cry for more, more, more. Don’t you think it about time we awoke to our precious possession of individual liberty, and started working together for its continuation? Don’t you think we should begin to properly value and appreciate the priceless privilege of living in such a country as this? People everywhere are fighting and

|dying for rights and privileges far

less than we enjoy right now. We mustn’t forget that. So come on, Americans. Snap out of it. This is still a free country. Nobody has usurped a single one of your fundamental American rights.

of government under which we now | |

MONDAY, JUNE 21, 1

In Washington By Peter Edson

= WASHINGTON, June 2.—If the army has up its sleeve one of its popular pocket-sized guides for soldiers on how to win Italy and influence Italians, the brass hats in Washington are' keeping mum about it for the time being. . But with a major move against some portion. of Italy now almost inevitable, the expeditionary forces which tackle this job are faced with one of the most peculiar psychological situations that ever confronted an invading army. ple By the nature of things, the Italian expeditionary force will have to. be both British and American. The population of Italy, once out from under the thumb of Benito will, according to well-informed Italians in this country, welcome the Americans, but they won't receive or co-operate with the British any more hospitably than they take to their Fascisti overlords. Italian dislike of the British is so traditional that in the few years before the war a typical Englishman appearing on ‘the streets of Rome wearing a bowler, was apt to get it bashed in. 3 The dislike of the British goes back to the last. war and following the rise of Mussolini, to the British opposition against the Italian dreams of empire in Ethiopia. It has been the British army, too, which has cleaned up on the Italian army all over Africa, in Ethiopia, Somaliland, Eritrea and Libya. Blasted completely now is that dream of empire, and Italians are apt to resent it, even if it was only a doy mirage.

Yank-ltalians Welcome

FOR THE Americans, however, the background is all one of friendliness. The five million or more Italians in the United States all have their ties in Italy, and the fact that these five million Italians have not been declared enemy aliens but have been permitted to take their places in the U, 8. army and in the American. war production effort has served to strengthen these ties. Family roots of many of these Americans of Italian extraction go to Sicily, likely to be one of the first big islands on the path of invasion. Any Yank soldiers with Italian names sent into Italian territory with the expeditionary forces are apt to have an old home week welcome that is something to contemplate. There is almost complete agreement among the Italian leaders in the United States today that the Mussolini government is decidely unpopular, particularly in the rural areas. There will be a few Fascist officials in every village, but they are all known and are marked men. They will be the first to flee, to turn coat, or to be ousted summarily in the face of an invasion.

Test Comes After Invasion

THERE IS an effective Italian underground, say the Italian liberals who have fled from Fascist Italy to this country. Its effectiveness is attested to by reports of considerable sabotage to the Italian military effort. How much of the underground movement is militant Communist is of course unknown, but it is thought to be considerable. Real test of the invasion comes after it is accomplished. The welcome will be out, but how long will it last? There is where all the winning of friends is going to count most. The occupying forces will find -a country where the standard of living has never been top high, stripped to downright poverty by the war's demands. The American soldier's $50 a month is a big s in Italy. Throwing that money around, buying up the small store of goods and foods that may be left to the native population, may only cause more hardships. On the other hand, American cigarets, Amer: ican soap can probably be bartered for almost anything available.

‘Fighting French’

By Roger Budrow

THE ALLIED invasion of North. Africa precipitated polit ical conflicts which still are unsettled. It also brought home to many Americans who confined their interests within our shores the vastly complex problems of international relations. The full story of that invasion will take many years to tell but bits of it are trickling in at ‘this early stage. The latest deals with the part the Free French, later the Fighting French, played not only in French North Africa but also in the refugee capital, London, and in humiliated, downtrodden France herself. Naturally, the story. of “The Fighting Prench” centers about that much-discussed figure, Gen. Charles de Gaulle, and the legions who elected to continue the battle after the armistice with Germany by fleeing to Africa to fight under the tricolor bearing the Cross of Lorraine.

-®

Gives Semi-Official Version My

“THE FIGHTING FRENCH” may be regarded as a semi-official version, in popularized form, of the de Gaulle side of the story inasmuch as it was written by Raoul Aglion, a member of the foreign office staff of the French national committee in London. This diplomat was among the first to resign his post to follow de Gaulle. The publishers assert the book was written inJ complete freedom and underwent no censorship. It contains biographical sketches of de Gaulle, Gen. Henri Giraud and others now prominent in the news dispatches concerning the government being formed for France and its possessions. The author has-written several books on French law and thus could not resist including in ‘this book some of the basic documents the Free French exe ecuted with the British government which: Uilerwivie the de Gaulle venture.

Story of the Underground

THE DARING and courage of the French unders ground movement is told graphically<how ‘sabotage and secret radios helped wage the nd megane,

‘against the axis and how underground

published and distributed furtively and rico ie, Kept sive We me of served to counteract the ‘biased “news” Vichy collaborators.

FIGHTING FRENCH, by Raoul at Agion. Henry Holt & Co., 257 Fourth ave, New York City; with illustrations, $3. :

To. the Point— 5