Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 20 July 1943 — Page 12

PAGE 12

The Indianapolis Times

ROY W. HOWARD RALPH BURKHOLDER President Editor, in U. 8S. Service MARK FERREE WALTER LECKRONE Business Manager Editor

(A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

Price in Marion County, 4 cents a vopy; delivered by carrier, 18 cents a week.

Owned and published daily (except Sunday) by Indianapolis Times Publishing Co., 214 W. Maryland st. Mail rates in Indiana,

$4 a year; adjoining states, 75 cents a month; others, $1 inonthly.

esme— cto RILEY 5551

Give Light and the People Will Find Their Gwen Way

Member of United Press, Scripps - Howard Newspaper alliance, NEA Service, and Audit Bureau of Circulations.

TUESDAY, JULY 20, 1943

BOMBED ROME HE military necessity for bombing Rome is regrettable but clear. There have been plenty uf advance warnings. The astounding thing is that this was delayed so long. The reason was allied fear that Catholics in the allied countries might misunderstand. That fear was unjust, in our judgment, to the intelligence, fairness and high patriotism of Catholics generally. Catholics naturally would object to the bombing of the Vatican City, and so would non-Catholics. But they know that the only deliberate danger to the Pope and the Vatican is from the Nazis and Fascists. Any who does not know that should take notice now of the official allied warning, spelled out in the pre-raid leaflets dropped on Rome: “It is possible, moreover, that in order to lend plausibility to their lying statement, the Fascist government or their German accomplices will themselves arrange that bombs should be dropped on the center of Rome, or even of Vatican City.” The allies have proved their good faith. By refraining go long from bombing Rome military objectives they have sacrificed many allied lives. From the Rome airfields, freight yards, war factories, munitions dumps, and military headquarters have gone the orders and the weapons to sink allied ships and to kill allied soldiers and civilians. Hiding behind the skirts of religion, which the allies respect and which the axis leaders despise, Hitler and Mussolini have used Rome as the center of the entire South European an Mediterranean war of barbarism. ® = = ” = HE allies, still leaning over backwards in this raid, gave advance warning and bombed only in daylight—thus taking unnecessary risks for our fliers. After this can any honest person question the allies’ attitude? Of course axis propagandists quickly made their expected false charges that the allied targets were churches, cultural monuments and civilians. The allied populations will not be fooled by such enemy lies, and the Roman people were told by the allied leaflets in advance to check the facts with their own eyes. It must be admitted, however, that not even the greatest of care in bombing Rome—where military objectives are in the midst of civil areas—can prevent occasional unintentional destruction of nem-military objects. That is one of the terrors of war. London and scores of allied cities have guffered much worse. Mussolini and Hitler started the bombing, the allies will finish it. When the Italians get tired of taking a far more discriminate bombing than they inflicted on others, perhaps they will overthrow their Fascist-Nazi masters. Until unconditional surrender, there will not be less but more bombing of military Rome and Italy.

WEAKEST LINK ON HOME FRONT

HE tax experts of the treasury and of congress, who are working on revenue legislation to present to the ways and means committee when congress reconvenes in September, are reported to be proceeding toward a disagreement —as usual. The government's fiscal policy—or rather the lack of a fiscal policy—is the weakest segment in the whole disordered home front. Development of a hard-boiled tax and borrowing program is the only hope of closing the socalled inflationary gap. The president's hold-the-line order on wages and living costs hasn’t a chance to succeed, unless the excess of spending power is siphoned off, unless the money which civilians have to bid for goods and services is levelled down more closely to the value of the things people can buy. The pressure for higher prices and wages is still building up. The directives, ukases and subsidies of the OPA, WLB, CCC and WFA, at best can only postpone the workings of the law of supply and demand. ” = » = » = T IS said indeed that more than 19 months after Pearl Harbor the government is still groping tor a wartime fiscal program. The reason for the groping has been, and continues to be, the inability of the treasury and congress to get together. The treasury has persistently failed to develop an adequate program, and just as persistently has obstructed every major effort in congress toward that end. Except for the treasury’s blind opposition, the pay-as-you-go reform in our tax system, clearing the way for allout war taxation, would have been accomplished a year earlier. Except for the treasury’s opposition, enforced savings and a sales tax or stiffer income taxes would have been approved long since. The president apparently is trying hard to put the home front in order before congress returns to Washington. On fiscal policy, the least—and the most—he can do is to develop a program which congress will approve at once. That means the president will have to reach an early and definite understanding with the Capitol Hill leaders who carry the necessary weight in congress on tax matters. The alternative is to let the experts continue messing around.

HARD UNDERBELLY T'S time to stop talking about that “soft underbelly of Europe.” It was a wonderful phrase when Winston Churchill first used it. That was after our first successes in North Africa. It was true then. The Nazis had not yet had the cause or the time to fortify heavily that underbelly, for their forces in North Africa had been a sufficient shield. But don’t tell our Yanks who are going up against concrete and steel in Sicily that they are merely taking a poke at a “soft underbelly.” Softer it probably is than the axis defenses in northern Europe, but it isn’t soft, except as our daring air force has softened it. To call it soft now is to belittle the fierce struggles in which our men are enzojed and the glorious victories

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

NEW YORK, July 20 — Throughout the long fight to drive underworld criminals out of positions of power in unions of the American Federation of Labor the cry has been sustained not only by the rascals themselves, but by William Green, the president, and Joseph Padway, its general counsel, that the proportion of crooks to honest men among union officials is very small and that their importance in relation to the whole body is exaggerated with intent to injure the cause of the workers in their dealings with organized industry. The proportion of crooks to honest men in commanding positions is not small but appallingly large, but having made that stipulation I will pass on to another phase of the argument. My proposition is that Mr. Green has shown himself to be a friend and defender of bad men and should be disavowed for the good of the cause and Padway with him for the same reason, I do not give either of these men the benefit of a doubt. I do not excuse Green on the ground that he is a weak and placative politician or Padway on the ground that, as a lawyer specializing in labor union law, he has a right to counsel crooked unioneers.

Green Is Not Weak :

GREEN IS not weak, but if he were that would be a disqualification rather than an excuse. Padway has every lawyer's right to sell his counsel to any client but not to work both sides of the street. By which I mean to allege that he has worked for enemies of labor within the union movement while pretending to speak for the mass of workers. These two men have power and influence in the

A. F. of L. equal to scores of obscure and honest local officials of unions. Yet, Green has repeatedly sided with criminals and with other union racketeers who were plainly exploiters and oppressors of the rank and file, although not legally convicted of crimes, to the detriment of the workers. And Padway's clientele has included unions ruled by -some of the most disgraceful rogues in American history, including the stagehands of Bioff and Browne, and the building service employees union of George Scalise.

Cites St. Louis Case

IN A ST. LOUIS case in which a suffering group of workers tried to break the power of John P. Nick, who was a vice president of the stagehands’ union, Green ordered the central trades union council of the A. F. of L. to exclude the rebels’ delegates and recognize Nick's delegates although the local courts had sustained the rebels and had held that Nick was a grafter and extortioner. Green ruled that the rebels’ delegates were not in good standing with their

international union, of which Padway was general counsel for a large price. But the reason why they were not in good standing was that Padway’s friends in control of the international were villainous crooks who saw to it that the rebel delegates were rejected in favor of Nick's agents. Nick later got five years in prison for racketeering. John C. Knox, judge of the United States district court for the southern district of New York, devotes a chapter to racketeering in the A. F. of L. in his recent book, “Order in the Court,” based on his experience in the trial of Bioff and Browne and similar cases. In that chapter he reveals further proof of Green's moral and civic unfitness for his position of trust and power. Following the conviction of a band of thoroughly vicious criminals who had resorted to “bombing, slashing, beating and acid throwing” in a campaign of “unbelievable viciousness,” Green nevertheless went to Judge Knox to intercede for them on the plea that they had done “much good work” in opposing communism in the fur trade.

Judge Explains Verdict

“HE SEEMED entirely willing,” Judge Knox writes, “despite the verdict, to give credence to the stories the convicted men had told. In the case of Dennis Bruze Zeigler, of Chicago, an honest citizen, a g ood union man, a brave fighter for clean unionism and the father of 11 children, Green refused to help the rank and file in their fight with William E. Maloney, the head of the gigantic racket known as the international union of operating engineers which is notoriously corrupt and brutal. Following the termination of their correspondence in which Green told Zeigler to go to the racketeers themselves for his redress, Zeigler was murdered on the street. The night before he was murdered he told an agent of the treasury intelligence unit that he had been chased by two of the high racketeers whom he had been fighting and that one of them had yelled “I will kill you yet.” The motive of the crime was not robbery and Zeigler obviously was on a spot because he had given information to the treasury regarding the incomes of certain racketeers in the union. Yet, neither of the men that Zeigler named was even arrested and Green later made an official public appearance at a social brawl in Chicago in honor of Maloney, and praised him extravagantly as a man of honor and integrity. The department of justice showed no interest in the marytrdom of the treasury’s brave, voluntary informant in a tax inquiry.

We the People By Ruth Millett

THE LATEST method of trying to handle the problem of juvenile delinquency in many comnmunities is to hold parents responsible for their children. A curfew is set, and if children or adolescents are found on the streets after that time, the parents are brought into court and either fined or given some other punitive sentence. Parents should be held responsible if they let their children run wild—but it isn’t likely that punishment of a parent will do anything to better the home situation in which a delinquent son or daughter lives. : It would make more sense if the judges who pass sentence would have the lax parents attend a course, designed for just such parents, that would teach them something about adolescents and the responsibility of parents in helping them through that period in their lives. If such a course taught the parents only one thing—that Susie’s headstrong, rebellious attitude is partly due to her age, partly to the confused world in which she lives, and partly to situations at home that could be worked ocut—the parents’ punishment might do Susie some good. And after ali, it is Susie we are trying to help.

Easy to Blame Child

IT IS SO easy for the parents of an adolescent who is hard to handle to blame everything on Susie— to say “She is so headstrong we can't do a thing with her,” instead of seeing that Susie's problems are problems of adolescence, and that probably thousands of parents all over the country are having to cope vith children who act and react in very much the sume way. If we are really going to do something akout jurene Gite Io Rave 1 more

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES And That Ain't Spaghetti, Benito!

TUESDAY, JULY 20, 1943

The Hoosier Forum

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

“IS FURTHER EDUCATION

A BLACKOUT REMEDY?” By Percy Vere, Indianapolis Anent the failure of the recent surprise blackout test, OCD officials suggest more intensive “public education” and further tests to correct its shortcomings. Does not the fact that each test becomes progressively less efficient suggest further education is not the remedy? Most people know that the possibility of hostile air raids on Indianapolis is so remote as to be almost negligible. The pcople are filled with an unspoken but growing resentment against officious persons who are trying to mold us into the pattern of “dear old England” and other communities in Europe where perfect air raid precautions are a grim and everpresent necessity. May we suggest that a better remedy would be the announcement that any further air raid warnings would be the real thing; that no further “tests” would be made? We venture the guess that were such an announcement made and believed, air raid warnings in the future would herald a complete and persistent blackout; and people in general would behave themselves in a manner more fitting to the cccasion, rather than that of mild amusement or half-hearted compliance, all of which adds up to confusion. ® ” “OBJECTIVES OF THE TOWNSEND PLAN”

By Walter T. Woodcock, National Representative for Indiana, Townsend National Recovery plan, 505 N. Delaware st,

There has been brought to my attention a letter that appeared in the Hoosier Forum relative to the Townsend National Recovery plan. I wish to outline in brief what we in the Townsend plan are fighting

for and thereby better inform your readers of our objectives, as our critics seem to be grossly misinformed as to what we are trying to do for this nation and its people. The Townsend plan has always called for adequate security for the

(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.)

elder citizens of this nation. We propose to finance the payments of annuities for this through a gross income tax of 3 per cent, thereby eliminating further indebtedness to the taxpayer, and also providing a ways and means of attaining our objective. We call for an equal division of the collection of this tax among the annuitants, thereby insuring the same amount to each citizen, regardless of financial standing. We believe in the abolishment of all “means” tests. Under our program the average payment to our senior citizens, 60 years of age or over, would be approximately $75 to $85 per month. We are further asking in our bill now before congress that all adult unemployables, those 18 years of age or over, be protected from want and starvation through the payment of

like annuities, as embodied in our old-age clause. This group includes those who are bedridden, those who are crippled, blind or otherwise physically handicapped, and also widows with small children to support. Within six months after the close of the war we are asking in our bill that all of those who receive these annuities be called upon to spend this money within a period of 30 days for American-made goods or services, thereby creating a new market for goods every 30 days. This will keep a constant supply of money flowing through our regular channels of trade, and in part relieve the danger of ruinous post-war deflation and possible financial chaos. Dr. Francis E. Townsend, founder

and president of the Townsend

Side Glances—By Galbraith

720

"| hope it isn't misleading to the neic h bors—all the new things

national recovery plan, has been instrumental in getting the present old-age assistance and old-age insurance clauses included in the present social security act, througn which the states have been compelled to meet the federal government in the paying of these doles. We all recoginze the insufficiency of these payments, nevertheless they do constitute some relief in an otherwise barren desert. He has kept a full Washington legislative bureau functioning throughout the years protecting the gains already made in the matter of old-age security, and this buieau

has kept the pension movement at the nation's capital always a live issue. In the handling of the organizational affairs of the movement, Dr, Townsend has been quick to expel from his ranks those who would use the membership to build state, county or local political machines for selfish interests. Each year a firm of nationally-known certified public accountants audits the books of the national office and gives a full detailed report to the membership of how their money has been used. All paid employees within the state organization and the national office are bonded by a recognized surety company. In the post-war era our program will open at least 10 million new jobs for the boys returning from the battlefronts, through the retirement of oldsters now employed in industry. The buying power released through the forced spending clause of our bill will be a cushion that can save the United States from complete economic bankruptey, starvation and political revolution. ” ” ” “NO TRULY COMMUNIST

GOVERNMENT ON EARTH” By W. H. Edwards, Spencer Now that Pegler and Maddox have abandoned, for the time being, at least, their constant gripes about our government drifting towards communism, someone should stir each of them up on that subject, which neither they nor others seem to fully understand. At the risk of being called a Communist, which I certainly am not, I state emphatically that there isn't a truly Communist government on this earth, not even in Russia. My Webster dictionary defines communism as: “The doctrine of having property in common; socialism.” That doctrine fails to fit Soviet Russia or any other country. Russia's idea of communism vanished when Stalin took over and Trotsky was banished. What Russia really has is state capitalism as opposed to a capitalism of private greed. The people of Russia don’t hold property in common; not all of them receive equal compensation for an equal outlay of effort as they certainly would under communism. There's one thing about Russian government that we here in the U. 8. would benefit by if it were adopted into law and rigidly enforced. that is a ban against speculation such as is now playing havoc with morale among our citizenry here on the home front,

DAILY THOUGHTS

Then Eli answered and said, Go in peace; and the God of I-rael grant thee thy petition that thou hast asked of him.-.Samuel 1:17, ;

THE SAINTS will aid if men wil

OEW Commandos

By Daniel M. Kidney

i

\ ) n

WASHINGTON, July 20—Although the board of seononilyy warfare has become the office 0 economic warfare by presidential order growing out of the WallaceJones row, duties of the new organization wili be the same. To those who might have gained the impression that BEW was Just an alphabetical boondoggle under the direction of Milo Perkins, a former Texas businessman and pioneer New Dealer, both the senate and house appropriations committee reported to the contrary. Mr. Perkins made such a good explanation ofS. BEW'’s wartime functioning that not a cent was cub from his budget in either house. This was one of the few agencies (war and navy excepted) which got by without a cut by an economy-minded congress. Mr. Perkins explained to congress that his organization is divided into three parts. There is the office of exports headed by Hector Lazo, an experienced foreign trader; office of imports headed by Morris S. Rosenthal, a New York importer, and office of economic warfare analysis headed by William T. Stone, former vice president of the Foreign Policy association. : Mr. Perkins’ title was executive director and each of the division heads were assistant directors. :

600 Items on Program

WHAT THEY did and still will do, unless the setup is changed by the new OEW head, Leo T. Crowley, was described by Mr. Perkins, in part, as follows: “The office of imports is directing more than 200 purchase programs in 40 different countries or areas. Nearly 600 individual items are included in this list of programs. They are grouped roughly into minerals and metals, foodstufts, textile and fibers, misgellaneous commodities. » “The volume of development and procurement opertions for imports will run to about a billion and a half dollars during the present fiscal year (1942-43). For next year the total will be above two billion. . . . “Today we must go out and fight just as hard to develop the goods we want to buy as we used to fight for the chance to sell goods back in the days when over-production made selling the most aggressive challenge to every business firm. “This part of the job gets tougher as we need more materials and must reach farther out into new and undeveloped fields to find them. Circumstances have forced our men to become economic semmandos, literally penetrating new territory in the jungles of the world, to find new sources of balsa wood for gliders, cinchona bark for quinine, fiber substituics to re« place lost hemp and a long list of vital minerals and metals without which technological warfare would be impossible. . . .

6000 Applications Daily

“IN 1942, WE examined about 1,250,000 export license applications, of which something over half were granted. With the more exact study of trans, actions now required, we expect to have to handle about 2,000,000 export documents in 1943. “That's between 6000 and 7000 every working day. The scope of the export job is staggering. total of 2500 commodities and commodity groups are subject to expert control. These commodities flow from approximately 16,000 United States export con= cerns to more than 140 different country destinations, and there are thousands of individual consignees. . . . “The office of economic warfare analysis must gather all possible information about the economy of each of our enemies. It must gather complete information on the economics of European neutrals in connection with its blockade work. It needs similar ine | formation regarding other nations in the world for the use of our other two offices as well as for that, of the armed services. “With these facts in hand, its business analysts, its engineers, and other technicians must then map outf. the most effective economic warfare program which it is possible to carry out.”

In Washington

By Peter Edson

WASHINGTON, July 20.—ExSenator Josh Lee of Norman, Okla., now a member of the civil aeronautics board, has just returned to Washington from a month's 12,000-mile flying .trip

through Central America and all. -

around South America, to see for himself what makes airplanes operate. He's filled with the opportunity the United States aviation industry has in Latin America, if it can just pry loose a little more equipment, a few more spare parts, to keep the existing local airlines in the southern re publics operating during the war. h Five minutes after the war is over, he says, will’ be too late to start the race for building up the supremacy of American equipment. One of the things that impressed Senator Lee most, however, was a certain type of U. 8. citizen playing an important part in operating domestic airlines in Latin America, building up the good with the American aviation industry for this inevitable postwar development, As typical of these unofficial aviation ambassadors, Lee mentions Peck Woodside, who calls himself a permanent immigrant in Mexico. Peck was a flier in the last war, then an aerial barnstormer. He's a rugged, pock-marked character who today runs a flying service of 16 planes which, he says, he'll be able ° to keep in operation during the war if the supply of baling wire just holds out.

Hog-Hauling Contract PECK’'S AIRLINE, over the mountains, anywhere,

hauls anything—Indians, chicle, machinery. He once

got a contract to haul 150 hogs. It was only a 20-4 minute flight, but to have driven hogs over the % mountains would have taken months and probably" killed all the pigs besides. Peck’s planes could haul * only two porkers at a time, their feet tied together and strung up to keep the load from shifting. : Another of the Gringos whom Senator Lee found doing an exceptional job was Slim Fawcett, who runs several airlines in Peru. He went to Peru in 1929 as ; a mechanic-salesman for Curtiss, liked Lima, and stayed to become one of the leading men of the coun- « try. Not finding the type of plane exactly suited to ' the mountains over which he had to operate, Fawcett set up a factory to build his own. With the help of = an engineer from New York university and a Czech |, mechanic, they redesigned an old straight wing mon oplane of a type no longer in production in the United States, strengthened it so it would carry a higher v horsepower engine. »

Better Equipment Wanted

THROUGHOUT Latin America, says Senator Lee, the aviation policy gradually being formulated is for + each country to develop its own domestic airlines, all J of them tying in with the international airlines such:

: d

»

y

~

as those operated by Pan-American Airways andg, w

Panagra. But cargo and passengers pile up at Panama Canal, so for those lines the South American * countries want more and better equipment. German and Italian interests have all been liquit duted. : For their own use, the American republics wants the ‘smaller planes. In all Latin America there are, not more than 350 commercial planes in operation’

{ on

if *

nasa fa dale