Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 16 July 1943 — Page 12
PAGE 12
‘The Indianapolis Times!
ROY W. HOWARD RALPH BURKHOLDER | President Editor, in ‘U. S. Service | MARK FERREE WALTER LECKRONE Business Manager Editor
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FRIDAY, JULY 16, 1943
NOT SO BLACK HE “surprise” air raid blackout Wednesday evening proved a considerable disappointment to civilian defense authorities, in that it was neither quite a surprise, nor wholly a blackout. Naturally they began immediately to study what happened with a view to correcting errors and improving techniques in preparation for the next one. They should not be too much disappointed. After all this was the first attempt at blacking out the city without specific advance notice, and as such it was certain to be somewhat less than perfect. Somehow the time of the test had “leaked,” and large numbers of citizens who had no connection whatever with the office of civilian defense knew quite accurately when it was coming. One of the biggest hurdles the authorities had to over- | come was the fact that virtually no one took it seriously. There are very few persons in Indianapolis who believe there is even the most remote possibility of an enemy bomb ever falling within hundreds of miles of the Circle. The city is not now within flying reach of any known bombing plane from any ‘known enemy base—and even if it could be reached, the enemy bombers would have to pass up a great many equally tempting and far more accessible targets to get here.
= ” = = =
= ! O THE air raid warning did lack a note of realism that | no doubt contributed to faulty compliance with the | regulations. But against even the most unlikely possibility it is well | to be prepared. We should not forget that the people of Tokyo felt just as secure and just as confident that they could not be bombed right up to the moment when Gen. Doolittle’'s bombs crashed into their streets. A great deal of work, and a great deal of planning | went into this practice test. If it failed to produce a reasonable facsimile of a blacked-out city it may be consoling to recall that other cities—and cities that seem to be in far more danger of bombs than Indianapolis—also had some pretty disappointing performances in their first tries.
THE PROFESS! AND ROUND STEAKS [ou R. MAXON'S depiting outburst against the professors, lawyers, red-tape artists and slide-rule boys of OPA—if it accomplished no other purpose—brought from Administrator Prentiss Brown a pledge to clean up | that mess along lines laid down by congress. Specifically, said Mr. Brown, after August 16 men | without business experience cannot continue in positions | where price policies are formulated. A liberal sprinkling of professors should be good for most any government agency. Our country might have | profited enormously had we had a few of them around | Washington in the Harding-Coolidge-Hoover days, when B | the government was run by men trained in business and | politics only. Many large private businesses have utilized | the talents of scientists and theorists with great success. n ” = =” = UT no enterprise, government or private—or for that | matter even universities of higher learning—are likely | to succeed if the professors run everything. As Mr. Maxon | said, “their thinking, under the unaccustomed glow of | authority, takes wings and soars through the clouds unimpeded by the facts and unhindered by actuality.” he academic mind functions best when salted down | by the considerations of men of the workaday world who “never taught a class.” | The OPA became topheavy with college professors, economists and bright young men from the law schools who vaulted to positions of authority without wasting any time hanging out their shingles and offering the law for practice. Mr. ‘Maxon suggested that one of the best things that | could happen to OPA would be to fire 50 per cent of the | lawyers, and hire only attorneys who have actually tried a few cases in court. 5
=
” = » ” HE OPA has a difficult; yea near superhuman assign- |
ment—nothing less than the task of repealing, or at
least temporarily nullifying, the law of supply and demand, | &
in respect to such necessities of life as ham and eggs, | overalls and underwear. The price of bread may get out | of hand, but apparently there are some at OPA who can | serenely devote their time fixing things up to let the | people eat fruit cake, securely wrapped in red tape. Congress will reconvene Sept. 14. So Administrator | Brown has two months time to introduce what Mr. Maxon called “common horse sense” into the operation of OPA. The members of congress are back home, among their constituents, the prdoucers, distributors and consumers of the things that have to be eaten and worn. They are finding out about how the OPA high-fliers started out to roll back the price of beef, and ended up yolling cattle back onto the range. The OPA exists under a law which expires June 30. 1944. But if some round steaks and rib roasts don’t show up in the butcher shops pretty soon, the congressmen won't wait for the law to expire. They'll just come back in September and knock OPA in the head.
KIRI LEAVES FP HE ways of propaganda are strange and wonderful. 7 Hitler has demonstrated that apparently ridiculous stratagems often do work. But we still feel that the OWI was indulging in fantasy when it showered kiri leaves from bombers ot Japs in the Aleutians. The Nipponese, we are told, are superstitiously afraid of prematire shedding of kiri leaves. So colored paper mit ations were dropped from the skies. The record of Jap esistance on Attu will demonstrate that one medium-sized Bomb would have done more good than all the ifuitation kiri leaves the 0 Owl 1 sent to Attu,
| try, | appease Stalin by dealing generously with the Com- | munists.
| pro-Nazis,
Fair Enough
‘By Westbrook Pegler
NEW YORK. July 16.—Now that the Communist international has been dissolved again and the United States has comrade Stalin’s generous permission to eliminate traitors without hurting his feelings, why don't we? Because the new deal won't. That our Communists are traitors there is no possible doubt. They are, as Mr. Biddle, the attorney general, has said, not that the obvious truth needed confirmation from him, enemies of our government and of our form of government and of our capitalistic system on which it is based. Their method is Violence, riots growing into civil war, and their objective is a dictatorship of a minority of the people over the majority under the rule of a small committee or one man. There is proof of all this in their literature and their history and if we accept the proof, as we must if we weigh the facts honestly and without cowardice, then we should realize that they are as dangerous to the United States as the Nazis and Fascists in our midst ever were. In fact they are more dangerous because they have enjoyed the special favor of our government for 10 years and have been helped into a position of threatening power in our sea commerce, our radio communcation, our propaganda and our bureaucracy and government.
Nazis, Communists Alike
IN THEIR ETHICS, morals and purposes they are equivalent to the Nazis as two nickels are equal to a dime and the intense, arrogant nationalism of
| the Nazis does not constitute a material difference
because the Nazis were trying to spread national socialism, under Hitler and from Berlin as the source, just as the Communists, worked to spread communism, Like the Communists, the Nazis used internal discord as the preparatory poison and, when their victims were thoroughly confused and fighting in the streets or too badly at odds to make a united resistance, they moved in. France was a victim of disunity created by both Nazis and Communists but the wotk of the Communists was the deadlier at the fatal moment because they continued their sabotage in the factories and their treason in the army up to the
hour of Hitler's triumph.
They did this because Stalin was then still Hitler's
| ally through a treaty which touched off the war and
they were able to do it because the French, then. like us, today, foolishly continued to regard the Com-
| munists as liberals.
Needed Rough Treatment
IT WAS A mistake to do so but we, in this counwho never took any lip from Hitler, did try to
He would have had more respect for us and the two countries would understand each other better today, if we had let them go just far enough to identify themselves unmistakably and then given
| them the works as we gave it to the Bundists.
That, of course, would have left at large that
i element of sneaks known as the fellow-travelers who
associate politically and otherwise with the avowed Communists but cannot be convicted under our laws of being actual members of the party or conspiracy. They would be a problem still but not dangerous if
| we were to treat them just as we have treated those
who ran with the Nazis but didn’t actually join them. But the pro-Communists are not only all at large but busier than ever and are cultivated, consulted
| and encouraged by the national government.
Well, there is absolutely no hope that they will
| be rebuffed, to say nothing of their being ostracized,
as long as Mr. Roosevelt is president. Mrs. Roosevelt,
| Ickes and Joseph H. Davis and others among our
rulers, who show a healthy detestation of Nazis and find these pro-Communists, or fellowtravelers very attractive. None of these individuals
| ever left anyone in doubt where a pro-Nazi was
concerned.
Roads Would Be Choked
THEY WERE against them, But neither do they
leave us in doubt as to how they stand on pro- -Com-
| munists. They like them. Therefore we shail never be rid of the Communist and fellow-traveler under the new deal, but Tom Dewey, for example, or Taft. or Bricker or Jim Farley or Harry Byrd, if elected in 1944 would start the damnedest scramble of vermin out of Washington that this country has ever seen. The roads would be choked with them and, whatever else a new president elected from that list might | do, and none of them would be pro-anything but proAmerican, he certanily would go through those
| bureaus with tons of bug and rat powder and no | Communist leader of any big union would ever be
received With ceremonies at the White House and the officers of the army and havy would be relieved of the humiliating necessity to treat them with deference as they have to now. Willkie you can cross off. On communism and pro-communism he can't be trusted. He may be gullible, but it is safer to suspect that, like John L. Lewis, he thinks he can use them up to a point in
his business or that. like Mr. Roosevelt, he likes them,
We the People
By Ruth Millett
AS HEAD of the American Legion, Col. Roane Waring has recently traveled 60,000 miles, much of it in this country. He says he has never seen anything like the way women and small children are going about the country—and he says flatly that he thinks they ought to stay home. He believes that if they don't the government is going to have to crack down on civilian traveling. Look, isn't there something wrong in Col. Waring's reasoning? He thinks it is perfectly all right for him to jaunt from coast to coast, addressing rallies, speaking on such subjects as “The War Effort on the Hone Front.” But is it really essential for a aan, even if he is head of a great organization like the American Legion, to travel over the country making speeches? Is there enough difference between what he would say about the war effort and what a local thinker would say to justify a man’s taking up train space to say it?
It Is Important for Wives
IS IT AS important for the people of a town to hear another speech on the home front effort than for little Mrs. Brown, who is making her own effort, to take Johnny, Jr. and go to visit daddy who is at an army camp and may be out of the country any time? Even in war time isn’t the family relationship more important than speeches? ‘The women with children whose husbands are in service lead hard, dreary lives. And a trip to see their husbands is the most important thing in their lives. If Col. Waring wants civilians to do something about the travel situation why doesn’t he ask eivillans not to take vacation trips; ask organigaticns that are essential only to themselves (and that takes care of a lot of them) not to have state or national convene tions; ask omen whe Sull nave heir husbands ith them hot to ta ov
working out of Moscow, |
THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES
Now, Then, All Together! OT INE RVEs Jt ME. JANGLe
The Hoosier Forum
I wholly disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.—Voltaire.
“WHY CAN WAR INDUSTRIES
GRANT WAGE INCREASES?” By A Reader, Indianapolis For obvious reasons I cannot sign this letter. I hope, however, that you will print it, because I believe | it is an expression of the feelings of thousands of our citizens. It seems that government agencies and war plants can give salary increases without much difficulty, while business institutions are prevented from doing so. A certain
woman of my acquaintance recently.
moved to another city. As an inducement to keep her here, the war plant in which she was empioyed| offered her a very nice salavy in-| crease. Why can the war industries do this, while others cannot? As manager of an office, I am, | because of the wage freezing oiner, | unable to grant salary increases which my employees would normally have expected and received. I do not expect to compete with the war] industries as to salaries paid, but I do believe my employees are entitled to a decent living. I have begun to wonder why employees in business offices are ciscriminated against in favor of war workers. Are they not human beings and American citizens? Or, does the administration want to ruin all private enterprise, by driving iis employees into war industries? If this happens, who will pay the war debt, in the form of taxes? Will we have communism after the war merely because we owe the war debt to ourselves? It's about time those who have no bargaining agents, and who have been given no consideration, began to speak for themselves. I, for one, am doing so. ” ” » “VANNUYS A STRANGER TO FORMER NEIGHBORS” By Guy D. Sallee, 5801 Woodside dr.
There is a reason why congressmen vote reactionary, while their constituents are progressive, These gentlemen are out of tune with the ma jority of voters, and rely on cor-| respondence, and are seldom seen in | their home districts, and only when seeking nomination and election. | When Senator Frederick Vane | Nuys was elected year ago, he lived in the fourth precinct outside! Washington township in Marion | county. The records in the town- | ship assessor's office reveal he no longer owns his home or other real estate in the country, which is a req-| uisite for senatorial office. At the present time he is a resident of Virginia, and because of this he expects the good Hoosiers to re- | elect him. Only upon two occasions | has he voted in his home precinct, and when returning to Indianapolis
|
|as
(Times readers are invited their
these columns, religious con:
to express views in Because of the volume received, letters must be limited to 250
Letters be
troversies excluded.
words. must
signed.)
. his property is a wardrobe trunk. By senatorial precedent and tradition, he became a member of the | judiciary A committee. Here he | makes many speeches, but during (his tenure of office he has never made a speech in his home district, and has become a stranger to his former neighbors, but loyal to his personal friends. It is reported he has a working alliance with Paul V. | MeNutt and his organization. Such jan alliance should mean the senator's retirement to his Virginia farm. . . . Labor hasn't forgotten that Me- | Nutt held seven Indiana counties under martial law for a period of two years at a time when they were trying to organize under the NRA. Neither has C.I.0O. State Director Powers Hapgood forgot that MecNutt sent him to jail twice be= cause Powers persisted in telling the citizens in the strike zone of their constitutional rights to organize nothwithstanding the intimidation and coercion by McNutt's militia. In a survey, Mr. Hapgood found the civil courts of record were functioning, and the militia was there not to keep the peace, but for regimentation and intimidation. It is now conceded that organized labor cannot elect a candidate without the support of the unorgan= ized—but neither political party can elect a candidate without the organized labor vote. “~twithstanding the fact that labor didn’t vote in the last election. The Smith-Connally act has made labor vote-conscious, and it is admitted by political observers that the key position , . . is held by the C. 1.0. unions with Powers Hapgood acting as state director.
#® » “A SOCIALIST AND A CHRISTIAN" By H. W. Daacke, 1104 8, State ave, Am I tickled pink? It's so strong it's almost red. Such an opportunity “An American” offers for critics.
What he is writing about I really don’t know, does he? First, he mentions a Socialist, then a Christian, then, in hops the/ church, and the tirade ends up with
»
Side Sins By Galbraith
4 don't see any sense in entering
it
s an awful hails of time ith hol the follows sy
a beauty contest, Aunt Hattie—
Communists. But if he desires to see a Socialist and a Christian, but one who does not attend church, he
can come to the undersigned at 11404 8. State ave., Indianapolis, Ind., and I will show him the real thing.
He says he reads all three Indianapolis newspapers and doesn't have to read everything to get his money's worth. I think he is being cheated. He should read all and then some, and by all I inean put a good dictionary on his reading list. He calls himself “An American.” Some of his ancestors may have been founders of this country, but some of my ancestors were here when they landed and the only land belonging to them that was purchased and paid for, of which theve is any historical record, is the sale of Manhattan to the Astors for a barrel of whisky, and the land Wm Penn and his Quakers bought in what is now the state of Pennsylvania. Some of my ancestors may have
| hung on the end of a rope for all
I know, but I still use my name
for what it is worth. ¥ » 0 “FOR WHATSOEVER THY SOUL DESIRETH"
By James R. Meitzler. Attica “Why be this juice the gift of God, who dare Blaspheme the twisted tendril as a snare? A blessing, we should use it, should we not? And if a curse—why, then, who set it there?”
NUMBERS XV
“And the Lord spake unto Moses saying ve “Speak unto the children of Israel saying . “And will make an offering by fire unto the Lord . . . “And for a drink-offering thou shalt offer the third part of a bin | of wine, for a sweet savour unto | the Lord.
drink-offering half a bin of wine,
sweet savour unto the Lord.” DEUTERONOMY XIV
“And thou shall bestow money for whatsoever thy lusteth after, for oxen, or for sheep, or for wine, or for strong drink, or for whatsoever thy soul desireth: and thou shalt eat there before the Lord thy God, and thou shalt rejoice, thou, and thine household.” Yes, prohibitionist, we have heard of the Bible. ” » “WHY SHOULDN'T GOVERNMENT SAVE?” By George Q. Bruce, 233 E. Ohio st.
I read in the . . paper that the government needs all the brown paper and box material. A few days ago I was driving along the east side of the state fairgrounds (military reservation) and I saw a truckload of brown paper and corrugated box material hauled from the reservation to the incinerator on the banks of Fall creek to be burned, I think this is a daily occurence. Why should not the government save just as the people are asked to save?
that
. "WW “CAN WE HAVE A LITTLE CO-OPERATIVE DRIVING?"
By A Times Reader, Indianapolis
Will you publish what I saw happen on E. Michigan one night this week? A car had stopped at Beville ave. to pick up passengers with a string of cars behind him. When a man, a war worker with badge, started across the street with his little daughter, a truck darted around the streetcar on the wrong side, going 40 or 50 miles per hour. Just missed them and hit the curb. Every day just such driving is witnessed, Can we have a little cooperation out E. New York and E. Michigan?
DAILY THOUGHTS
All they shall speak and say unto thee, Art thou also become weak as we? art thou become” like unto us?-Isaiah 14:10,
All -Wickedness is weakness; that with God or man
| of the White House. | off, but perhaps it's unsafe to spoof at anything I§
“And thou shalt bring forth a |
soul |
|
for an offering made by fire, of a |
——
FRIDAY, JULY 16, 1943
Heat Wave Politics
By Thomas L. Stokes
WASHINGTON, July 16—Mabe it's the heat and maybe it's the humidity, but some strange political suggestions and alliances are popping up out of the sizzling asphalt on Pennsylvania ave. where it was once the custom, in the lazy days of peace, to fry an egg to prove it was hot. It all goes to back up a grows ing suspicion hereabouts that 1944 is likely to become a scorcher poe litically, and to furnish a hot weather story about hot weather stories for a fellow who usually covers cong gress—which has now gone home. ’ The latest hot weather item is about Senator Aiken of Vermont, a Republican, coming out for Senator Gillette of Iowa, a Democrat, for president. He wants the Republicans to nominate the handsome fowa senator, and the Democrats can join in, too, if they like. The Iowan has sex appeal, says Senator Aiken, He's in the administration doghouse and anyhow, he'll be out of work very likely after next year, for he's talking of retiring because he doesn't think he can be re-elected in Iowa. ' Why not make him president? This carries on, for the sake of soda fountail speculation, a recent story to the effect that Senato: Gillette had been chosen as the fair-haired gentle man by James A. Farley and conservative Democrats to head off Franklin D. Roosevelt's nomination for a fourth term.,
May Be Unsafe to Spoof ’
IT SEEMS strange business, somehow, even though everybody knows how much Jim Farley and the conservatives ache to move the Roosevelts out The story was generally laughed
politics in times like these. The writer recalls how in less disturbed times, back in 1023, a newspaper colleague was fired for writing a story that the late Senator LaFollette of Wisconsin was going to run for president in 1924 as an independent. The reporter made the mistake of writing too much detail and included the name of a Democrat, up for re-election, among sponsors of the LaFollette movement, That Democrat raised cone siderable hell. But the story was true, The senator did run, and frightened some sedate Republicans into conceiving that rather ominous slogan “Coolidge or chaos,” and the New England red head was re-elected. The writer also remembers, with a still queazy feeling, his own assumption of the role of prophet, excusably in his own home town.. At a public gath= ering, in April, 1940, he was asked about Wendell L. Wwillkie's chances for the Republican presidential nomination at the convention a few weeks thence..
Even Talk Roosevelt-Willkie
HE LOOKED down airily, from an eminence, and dismissed Mr. Willkie as “a cocktail party candidate.” Only to go to Philadelphia and see the miracle come true—and with no cocktail handy., As a matter of fact, Roosevelt and Willkie have » lot to do with this talk of strange alliances. For there are some folks among Republicans, like Senator Aiken, who don't care for Mr. Willkie, and there are some folks among Democrats, like Jim Far= ley, for example, who don't care to see Mr. Roosevelt back in the White House, and so they'll be lighting, like far chickens, on all sorts of strange roosts. A grandiose coalition to stop all coalitions also has been suggested, and even written about seriously. This is a Roosevelt-Willkie ticket in 1944—if one can imagine such a thing. Which recalls the story of how President Coolidge, a bit worried about the Republican progressives,, called the late Senator Borah of Idaho into his office one day and asked him how he would like to go on, the ticket, “Which end"? the senator inquired.
In Washington
By Peter Edson
WASHINGTON, July 16.—You never know what all these gov ernment alphabet corporations are up to till you start digging into their multitudinous activities, The war effort program of the recently much cussed and dise cussed commodity credit corporae tion, for instance, would fill seve eral large books. It is today, with out doubt, the world's largest banker and dealer in agricultural products. First off, CCC is banker and buyer for tha office of lend-lease administration on all food prods ucts.
Even before the lend-lease act was passed, it was '
foreseen that financing would be necessary to help feed the allies, so in the spring of 1941, CCC ad~ vanced money to buy lend-lease supplies. CCC eventu= ally gets paid back for these purchases, but being in the business, it can buy supplies during the flush market seasons and hold tili OLLA wants them. As of July 1, CCC owned about 300 million dollars worth of supplies earmarked for lend-lease.
Huge Foreign Purchases
SECOND, CCC is the sole govergnent agency ime porting agricultural products, conducting these fore eign purchases of strategic materials and civilian food supplies on order of the board of economic warfare, and also through agreement reached at the Rio Pan American conference wnereby the United States pledged itself to support—not subsidize, mind you, but support the economic well-being of Latin American countries whose normal export markets in Europe were lost on account of the war. CCC has made foreign purchases to the tune of about $250 millicn to date, dealing in over 100 items from alcohol to wool and including honey, onions, castor oil, shark oil, coffee, tea, sugar, cocoa and what have they. CCC has gradually become the sole or controlling purchaser of a number of domestic agricultural products,’ ostensibly to stabilize war markets and support prices paid to farmers to insure greater production, but in effect dealing in subsidies as well as come modities by the carload. CCC says to the soybean producers, we'll support the price at $1.80 a bushel. But the ceiling price is $1.68. So CCC buys 'em at $1.80 and sells 'em back for $1.68, to stabilize the price, but this is not a subsidy. Last year it cost $12 million.
Ceiling Prices Cut
ON ALL the oilseeds, like flaxseed and cottone seed, CCC had offered the farmers minimum support prices. Then OPA came along and cut the ceiling prices below the support prices, after the farmers had planted their crops in expectation of higher prices. CCC therefore had to make contracts with the processors to sell oilmeal and cake at prices favorable to livestock fatteners. This meant CCO had to make up a processors’ loss of half a cent a pound. This cost $28 million last year, but it was not a subsidy. Last December CCC announced it would buy all cheddar cheese at 27 cents a pound, Plymouth, Wis, base price. CCC resells this cheese to the factories at 23's cents a pound, the factories being required to pass on the difference to farmers. This has cosy, $10 million up to July 1, but is not a subsidy. Space doesn't permit going into other CCC operations, ‘even in the rough outline form of the examples given above. But Here are * similar programs on ry beans and Beas B : hard fi like |
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