Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 3 August 1943 — Page 12

PAGE 12 The Indianapolis Times

ROY W. HOWARD

President Editor, in U. 8. Service MARK FERRER WALTER LECKRONE

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TUESDAY, AUGUST 3, 1043

THE MIDDLE CLASS ASKS: WHERE'S ALL THEM APPLES?

SAYS Senator George of Georgia, one of the sanest and strongest men in our public life: “The virility and strength of any civilization depends upon the middle classes. There is no other way to pull together the very poor and the very rich. The middle class is the liaison.” We are glad to see some such figure as George step forward with a recognition of the one who, after all; is the forgotten man in these times. The middle class is not easy to define. Unless you are dirt poor or filthy rich or afflicted with a social register complex you choose to call yourself one of the middle class. But, trying to be specific, the middle class is the class that's not represented by a bloc or a pressure group, and the bne therefore which is hardest hit by severe changes upward in taxes and prices. “White collar” workers are of the middle class. So are small businessmen. So ave skilled craftsmen. A rough range of income would be from $2500 to $5000 a year. But the middle class extends both below and beyond that range. To most in that class all the present talk about excess spending power sounds hollow. Further talk about lowering our standard of living, likewise, sounds the same because the standard has jolly well already been lowered. For pay increases that have gone to some who have taken up weldihg haven't been in the middle-class ken; nor can they be now,

under stabilization.

o » = » LETS take two examples as of 1939 and compare with 1942. Each married with two dependents. One, $2500 a year; the other $5000. Pretty good jobs as of 1939. For the first, federal income tax in 1939, nothing. For the second, $61.20. As of 1942 income tax for number one, $32.40. For number two, $603.40. Cost of living has gone up 26.6 per cent in the period. So $2500 will buy today $665 less for example number one; $1380 less for number two. For purposes of simplification we'll leave out voluntary bond buying, and other war calls. We'll just confine ourselves to what a letter writer to the New York Times said recently, speaking on the popular though loosely employed theme of “siphoning off excess purchasing power” : “Well, if any of these gentlemen can discover any excess purchdsing power in my salary check, I will gladly divide it evenly with the government. However, there is an enormous excess purchasing power among the thousands of defense workers and if the administraticn and the congress continue to ignore it, inflation is inevitable.” IERE’'S the rub.

= = = TT! National income has doubled since "* 1939. Now, that income is 140 billions, according to Senator George's figures, and he if anybody ought to know. But the middle class of the type to whom we have referred aren't getting their share. True, they have their breaks when prices and taxes go down, assuming they hold their jobs. But it’s tough going for them now and we can’t blame them for getting a bit cynical when they ask to see where all this mountainous tide of money may be. Even a congressman at a fixed 10-thousand per year is entitled to make the same inquiry. And so as not to offend any of our plutocratic or richsob clientelle, if any, we hereby append what has happened to the living standard of the guy who gets $50,000 a year. Same formula—1939 as compared with 1942—married, two kids: For 1939, income tax, $8621. For 1942, tax $24,845. - And add that 26.6 per cent to the cost of living.

HITTING HITLER'S GAS TANK N a war dominated by airpower, in which hew exploits by planes occur almost daily, the Ploesti raid stands out &s one of the most remarkable of ail time. The 2400 miles covered were probably the harest mission yet attempted by heavy bombers, though the American raid a week earlier on Soerabaya, Java, was almost as long. The Rumanian oil field is believed to be the best protected in the world; it has everything that German inventiveness and thoroughness can contrive in the way of camouflage and anti-aircraft defense on the ground and in the air. As one of the returning American pilots said: “We were looking down gun barrels all afternoon.” Despite that defensive arsenal, the Yankee raiders chose to attack at low level—at smokestack height. There were a few misses, and those who overshot the mark the first time came back to smash their targets. The raid was extremely successful. Most of the large refineries and: pumping stations were demolished or left burning, besides the 51 enemy planes shot down. - Qur losses were heavy. Of soméwhat more than 175 planes, 20 were lost over the targét and an undisclosed number of others failed to return to base. But the damage to the axis war machine from this one raid was greater than that of many battles. That field not only produced more than a third of Germany's total of petroleum, but most of her hightest aviation gas and high-grade lubricants. : Therefore, staff officers of the ninth U. S. air force, which made the raid, are not exaggerating when they say wit may have “materially affected the course of the war.”

WELCOME, INVENTORS \ HE welcome mat is out for invehtors. Richard P. Brown, chairman of the board of the Brown Instrument divigion of Minneapolis Honeywell, points out that there are

1500 flew plants, built with the taxpayers’ money, that will

be available after the war to make new types of civilian

RALPH BURKHOLDER |

Fair Enough

By Westbrook Pegler

tine ago, while Mrs. Roosevelt was in Séattie on another of her many journeys of urgent national neCoE cessity, her attention was caught Bo by a remark of an unnamed au8 thority, an engineer, who was quoted in a San Francisco paper to the effect that the rules of cer tain unions were restricting the production of some of the workers in war industries. “Sometimes I wonder whether we have a right to indicate a whole group of people without using our own names so that they may answer directly,” Mrs. Roosevelt wrote. This wondering is consistent with the first lady's speculation of a few days earlier as to whether the American people were really ready for popular selfgovernment, or, as she calls it, democracy. If we are not ready for it, then, of course, it is quite all right to suppress anonymous expressions of opinion, although some of the most effective voices against tyranny in the historic development of our freedoms have been those of writers who adopted pen names because they knew they would be killed and their protests stifled if their identity was known,

What of New Deal Aliases?

INDEED, SOME of labor's fighters against oppression in days gone by went underground for this same reason and today, by contrast, some of our industrial ‘'mahagers feel that it is perilous to voice opinions against the domestic administration and policies and some of the personalities of Mrs. Roosevelt's government. As Frank Knox once pointed out, they are aware of the threat of “investigation” by New Deal | committees of congress, castigation by Harold Ickes | or harassment by the belligerent bailiffs of the in- | ternal revenue. | But Mrs. Roosevelt's wonderment about the pro- | priety of anonymity, indeed her doubt of a citizen's right to take precautions against undeserved punish- |

ment, moves me to wondér whéther she has ever taken exception to the use of aliases by publicists of her own political wing, because if so, I must have missed her contribution to the sum of human wisdom | ont that day. T have in mind instantly two writers | who for years have presenfed in very aggressive lan- | ghage, reminiscent of Virginio Gayda, arguments, dis- | tortions and denunciations along the New Deal party line under names other than those which they were born with. Why they do this I have no idea because they have never stood in danger of punishment from Mrs, Roosevelt's party and one, in fact, was rewarded for | his vigorous, regularity and ingenious casuistry by a | profitable engagement on the radio. |

Maybe He Had a Reason

BEING MUCH more liberal and tolerant than Mrs. | Roosevelt and more confident of our capacity for popular government, I would not deny any person of Mrs. Roosevelt's wing or her personal political following the right to use an adopted name for any purpose, provided, of course, that the laws be complied with. I don’t even mind complete anonymity, as in the case of the engineer whose remark evoked Mrs. Roosevelts doubt. . The name or the lack of any name of an idea or an argument or allegation cannot affect its validity. The question here was not who said it but whether the charge was true, but if it would help to get ah honest decision on the merits of the thing I would be glad to take the affirmative in the place of the timid engineer, who could have very good reasons for his anonymity, and present facts in support therefo. Unlike some journalists of Mrs. Roosevelt's following, I have always put my own nameé and no other on top of my pieces ever since I was given a by-line with three exceptions.

Then There's John Durfee

ONE WAS a deathless autobiography of Babe Ruth, 80,000 words written in four days, flat. Another was a series of essays on New York, the modern Gomorrah, written under the name of the Rev. JJ. Frank Norri§, then of Ft. Worth, and known as the Texas Tornado, which iS a vaccum entirely surrounded by wind, all based on one chicken sandwich and a bottle of near-beer in a speakeasy and an orange drink at a stand oh Broadway. And the third was an unwritten series by Maurice Maeterlinck. Mrs. Roosevelt's OWI also has been zuilty lately, or, rather guilty for quite some time but only lately exposed in, a flagrant job of ghosting whereby opinions and other propaganda usually of reddish tinge were radioed to the enemy countries in the name of a fictitious savant called John Durfee, billed to the Europeans as “the voice of America.” To that I might objéct but for a hope that the accumulation of such impudence and effrontery presently will so affect the people whose capacity for seltgovernment Mrs. Roosevelt has impugned that they will take appropriate action at the polls.

We the People

By Ruth Millet

THE NEIGHBORS don't like Mis. Jones’ chickens. They smell. Nevertheless when these people have dinner guests and there is aj neat shortage, they bring ration poifits with them, forget their loathing of the Jones' chickens and ask to buy some—at less than the market price. ‘They find the chickéns smell fine when they are in the frying pan. : And now the neighbors who think chickens should be born and reared on farms exclusively see by the papers that eggs are going to be scarcer than hen's teeth this winter. Eggs, being a favorite meat substitute, that news hits them hard.

Have Quit Talking

IT IS such a shock to them that they have quit talking about how terrible thé Jones’ chickéns smell. Instead, they have suddenly bécome extremely cordial to Mrs. Jones, - It may be that the neighbors have just come to the conclusion that one family has as much right to raise chickens as another has to have children or a dog. (All are sometimes & nuisance to the neighbors) It may be that their questions are just an effort to show a tolerant interest in Mrs. Jones’ experiment. Or it may be that with the fear of want staring them in the fice the neighbors are thinking less and less of their noses moré and more of their stomachs, It wouldn't surprise Mrs. Jones at all if the whole neigh! took to raising chickens. It wouldn't surprisé hér—but it would give her & laugh. Though she has vowed crow over them if they do.

N A . : To the Point— Hoy ry To To een ver the eas PoBRéts? * » . A SECRET is the shortest distance between two women. :

. .

certainly shé won't

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NEW YORK, Aug. 3.—A short |

Badin ln why LNG hades of Bight Are Taling tet |

_ THE INDIANAPOLIS PIMES __- Only One Road LL

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TUESDAY, AUG. 8, 1043

The Hoosier Forum

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

“MARRIED WOMEN IN TAVERNS A SIN” By H. W. Douson, Indianapolis To the readers of The Times: So much talk about beer taverns. I agree there the money people drink up in these beer taverns could

buy war bonds and have better health, too. These married women sitting] around in these places waiting for| some man to come in and buy| drinks, leaving their children ol shift until the places close at 12 to 1 o'clock at night is a sin. It is] the children who suffer. The law was going to do so much, | why don't they do it? : Maybe these women would stay at home instead of breaking up other homes.

s = =» “AND THEY CRY ABOUT

A LABOR SHORTAGE” By James J. Cullings, 815 N. Delaware st.

I worked at the Western Machine | Co. 1621 Fayette st., Indianapolis. I quit May 25. I rested about two weeks and mailed my former employer a letter demanding my release or separation paper. He has never given it to me. I could not get a job without them. Today, Friday, July 30, I applied to a small shop for a job at my trade (machine tool building and repair). I was offered a job at $1.25 per hour but when I did not have separation papers he said I could hot take the job. However, he did tell mé I could go to the United States employment office and they would get it for me, and then I could go to work for him. I did not know that. Hére is where red tape started that I had to go through that took two hours and 25 minutes and accomplished absolutely nothing. As you enter the employment office you tell 4 man what you desire. He sent me to the back office of the Tth floor. I stood in line there about 30 minutes before being waited on. I told the lady what I wanted and shé gave me a blank form. I filled it and Stood in line about 10 minutes mote. Another lady read it over and told me to go now to the front

words.

(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 must be signed.)

office on the 6th floor. I sat at that office just one hour and a half before I was called. This lady tead my complaint, asked if I had been there before. I said no. Asked

{if T worked since then. I said no.

Then she stuck her nose in my personal affairs and asked what I had been doing all that time. I told her since I could not work without my separation paper I decided to take a vacation and traveled all through the eastern part of the United States. She then said, “If you go out again and ask him for your paper he might give it to you.” I told the lady I had demanded my papers once and that I was ot going out there again under any circumsstances, job or no job. I told her I came there to get the papers because he would not give them to me, She grabbed the telephone like she wanted to break it up and called this man. The person who answered the phone said Mr. Malott was not in and would not be for an hour. She said she would be glad to call him in an hour if I wanted to sit down. I had wasted then about two hours and 25 minutes. I told the lady, “It seems you do not want me to work, neither does he and I don’t believe I do myself. You just forget I was in here and I will take ahother three months and travel through the west part of the country.” And that finished nie as far as I am concerned with red tape. This man that wanted me to go to work for him said he needed mechanics badly and yet I cannot get papers to entitle me to go to work after more than two months, and they cry there is a4 labor shortage.

Side Glances—By Galbraith

“LET NO ORGANIZED

BLOCS DICTATE” By Edward F. Maddox, Indianapolis I am just an old-fashioned, home grown, dyed-in-the-wool American citizen who still believes that our American way is the best form of government yet devised to provide for the greatest possible liberty, consistent with individual rights and responsibilities! So, my friends and fellow Americans, you can put it down that I stand for constitutional Americanism, and against what Pegler calls “European ideas.” Well, Pegler is right, but he confuses his “isms” too much! I think Peg hits Henry Wallace below the belt where he links Henry's world “quart of milk a day” dreaming to fascism! But to do Pegler justice, let me hasten to point out that, just recently, he has stated that Henry's New Deal and world order fallacies were ‘taken from Lewis’ book, rather than from Mein Kampf.” O. K,, Pegler, that’s fair enough, so stick to realities and cut the fascist needling. I agree with you, Pegler, that the effect and methods of fascism and communism almost identical, because Stalin, Mussolini and Hitler are all Socialists, so they got

their political, economic, moral and |

“world order” ideas from the same source! The Socialists dream of a Ssocialist world, “Co-operative Corhmonwealth,” totalitarian slavery! If we the people of the Unitéd States are so dumb as to listen to the siren voices, plans, promises, and permit ourselves to be duped by “campaign oratory,” planned Socialist “peace” propaganda, we, yes sir, you and I, Mr, and Mrs. American Citizen, are going to lose our own blood-Bought American independence and individual freedom!!! You had better get an eyeful of socialism—now! The New Deal is a socialist totalitarian trap! Beware lest the siren voice and glittering promises of “peace and the land,” “freedom from want and fear,” “world peace,” and “a quart of milk a day”, lead our people into the misery, horror, suffering and degradation of international Socialism! Listen to me, friends! Put nothing but honest Americans on both the Democrat and Republican tickets as candidates for public office! You can't trust Socialists! Let no organized bloc dictate to our congressmen how to vote! We must maintain a congress of indépendent representative Americans or lose our liberty! . Do you agree? If so, say so! If you are a real American, take your stand now for God and country! “Be not like dumb (intimidated) cattle!” > ont now for Americanism or lose out priceless heritage forever! » ” ” “WHY DEPRIVE ANYBODY FROM SEEING JAP SUB? By A. W. Daacke, 1404 5. State ave. To deprive thousénds of American citizéns, whose meager incomes could not meet the qualifications necessary to seéé the Jap two-man suicide submarine recéntiy displayed in the city, is about as asinine as the turning uhder of wheat and cotton and thé destruction of little pigs to stabilize sé prices. : Why should the citizens, who are the salt of thé earth, and without whom the Ainérican way of life would not be pdssible, have this added to their alr heavily burdened life? Why?

: ernor 3 3

In Washington

By Peter Edson

* 2:

WASHINGTON, Aug. 3.—An ace Washington cotrespondeén just back from a swing around country to feel the public pulsé, reports that he heard people give ing Roosevelt hell every place Ii® weént--but didn't hear Hitler's mentioned once. Pressure is being brought to bear on WAC Director Oveta Culp Hobby to approve changes in thé désign of the WAC millinery, for some army officers—malée—aré convinced that the reason WAC recruiting has fallen off so badly is bgcause the gals don't like that cap, The typewri pounding that women do for the army being about the same as the typewriter pounding they would do for the navy, coast guard or marines, the feminine psychological warfare strategists figure that the out= fit which has the snappiest uniform will get the most recruits, The WAVE hat being more feminine than the WAC cap, some of the male army officers trying to encourage WAC recruiting are now sitting up nights worrying about having some new millinery designed for the soldier girls, as an inducement to enlist and to stop resignations. Recruiting of lady marines is supposed to have gone great guns up to the time the new green vol white striped seersuckér summer uniforms WEF. brought out. Since then, it hasn't been so good. What all this leads to eventually is tHe possibility of season al changes in style for all the women in service, just to humor them. At that, the women would not be proving themselves less vain than the navy, which has switched uniforms from white to khaki to the new slate gray, just since the war began. ¥

Allen of the Ist Division

MAJ. GEN. Terry dé la Marre Allen, commander of the 1st division, which has cut such wide through the enemy in both North Africa and Sicily, is now rated as one of the mdst colorful of all the U. S. army commanders, not even excluding old Blood and Guts, Green Mantle Patton, Allen's superior commanding the U, S. 7th army. He dropped out of West Point after three years to study philosophy at Catholic university in Wash= ington. Then was commissioned a second lieutenant from civilian life. He is bitterly resentful of other army organizations calling themselves ‘First’—I1st armored division, 1st marine division, and so on, “There is only one ‘lst’ division,” he storms. All his orders to his troops in the North African campaign | end with this characteristic sentence: “Nothing in hell | can stop the 1st division.”

Whiteside's Pants

THE PANTS of Arthur D. Whiteside, vice chaire | man of the war production hoard in charge of civilian | requirements, provide one of the more intriguing topics of gossip around WPB headquarters. Whiteside, president of Dun and Bradstreet, is one of the most energetic and dynamic executives in Washington, and his pants are characteristic, As he paces up and down his office, hands stuck in. his anil

the tails of his coat part to reveal that the pants gof his business suits are laced up the back, sailor fashion, and therefore adjustable, Also, there are snaps on the bottom of his trouser legs. Whiteside has some of his everyday business suits tailored that way so he can fasten the folded cuffs tightly about his ankles, kick off his street shoes, slip into some riding shoes, jump on a horse and go riding off across the hills near his Westport, Conn., homfe, without changing clothes before or after hours in his New York office.

A Rising Star

By Thomas L. Stokes

WASHINGTON, Aug. S.—A familiar political figure is begin= ning to shine with new luster. Senator Robert A. Taft of Ohi has renounced any claim to 1944 Republican presidential nor ination in favor of his friend, Governor John W. Bricker of Ohio, But, before the smoke clears away at the convention next year, the senator may emerge as the cham= pion of Republicah conservatism against Wendell L. Willkie. This is for two reasons. On all sides here it is agreed that the senator came out of the recent hectic session of congress as an outstanding figure, on the counts of ability, energy, courage and skill as a legislator. This was conceded even by those who often disagree with the senator, In the second place, Governor Bricker’s light seems

to be flickering. The governor may have hidden resources that wl cause his candidacy to flame brightly again. In ah event, as boss of Ohio's Republican machine, he will go into the convertion as the state's favorite son. But, should he fade, Ohio would -likely rally behind the senator who was its candidate in 1936 and 1940.

i'May Get Bid Again

HE HAD the support of the G. O. P. regulars in that nip-and-tuck race with Mr. Willkie in 1940, and many of them will be ready, to go along with him-or anybody else—to try to head off the 1940 nomifiee next year’s convention. ATA Mr. Taft's star rose sharply in congress this year because, for one thing, the increased anti-administra-tion strength in the senate gave him & mote favorable field in which to exercise his talents, and, for another, there was great emphasis on the muddléd domestis front to which he has given mueh-study. "~~ He was in the forefront of many major, pattie ‘and always he brought to them intelligence and in- - formation. He stood out above wha” was literally a mob on that one wild day when-the senate got itself twisted into contortions over the subsidy issue, and helped to bring sanity out of the confusion. / Throughout the session the senator was guidl “by basic objectivess-the recovery by congress of i ‘rightful and constitutional place in ouy government, the curbing of presidential authority where it has gone beyond bounds, and the restriction of special agencies which have assumed powers beyond their prescribed functions.

Admittedly Conservative

SINCE CONGRESS recessed he has been preach ing this philosophy in speeches to the people. He has become one of the chief defenders of congress. deplores what hé calls “a smear campaign” to di. credit it. oh The senator is a conservative, admittedly so. He has become a front-line spokesman for enlightened conservatism. For he is neither a die-hard nor reactionary. He knows that the clock cannot be nad back, nor would he turn it back. . He is lacking in one quality, political finesse. He speaks bluntly on controversial subjects when the smooth politician would be evasive or keep quie Coupled with this is a lack of “political handicap in these days of the glamorous figuss though if fashions should change hé might be favorable position as a man who hés particu)a; ents in the field of government. His inability to catch the popular fancy is af [by the fact that though he, like Governor Thohig Dewey of New York, has stepped out of the presic Hal nomination ountast by public profession, Yel

the polls while Mr. Taft

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