Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 23 December 1943 — Page 14

LAght end the People Will Find Thetr Own Woy

a story. ‘there was a traveling salesman — Oh, I've told that one? . . . Well, then, it seems there was a busy little ant; who worked hard all summer in his victory garden and canned beans and tomatoes and saved his money to pay the income tax and buy Christmas presents and winter groceries for his family. ~~ And one of his neighbors was a grasshopper who sang all day and played pinball machines and didn’t save a cent. ,Often he passed by the home of the ant while his neighbor was out in the hot sun hoeing his tomatoes and waiting for Helen Ruegamer to come out and measure the vines. “It’s a beautiful day, neighbor,” the grasshopper said to the ant. “Come, sing and dance with me.” But the ant always shook his head, for his mother and father and his great-aunt ant had taught him that you must keep working all the time and must always look ahead and prepare for the future, “Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today,” they told him, and he never did. ti ea 8 @® . ® NOW IN the land of the ants and grasshoppers, they have a Christmas just as we do. And three weeks before Christmas, the ant said, “I must go and buy a Christmas trpe, for I hear they are going to be very scarce this year,” And as he started out, he saw the grasshopper, and said: “Come along, neighbor grasshopper, let us go buy a Christmas tree.” But the grasshopper said, “Oh, pfooey, Christmas is a ~ long way off — why hurry? There's a lot of time, and be- _ sides there's a new pinball machine down at the tavern and I must hurry down before they switch to the heavy balls.” So the ant went to the store, and said, “lI want a Christmas tree.” 2% And the storekeeper said, “I don’t have many, Mr. Ant, | and they aren't very nice because the railroads are busy hauling tanks and guns .and Mrs. Roosevelt. But you're welcome to what I have, neighbor, because you have always * been a good ¢ustomer and paid your bills. Help yourself.” And the ant did,’ ; And the storekeeper said, “that'll be seven dollars.” The ant didn’t have seven dollars on him, but he went to the bank and drew out all his money and bought the tree because he had little boys and girls just like you and he | didn’t want them to be disappointed on Christmas day. But the lazy, happy-go-lucky grasshopper just sang and danced and had a good time, . ‘|e 8» 0» » . ” THEN ONE DAY, just before Christmas, the little grasshoppers said, “Daddy, buy us a Christmas tree.” : And the grasshopper had just turned on all the lights on the pinball machine, so he went downtown jingling his . nickles, and when hé wert to the Christmas tree lot there were trees stacked up everywhere — for everyone had shipped in carloads and carloads of trees because there weren't going to be any this year, And when he said to the man who had the lot, “I want a tree,” the man said, “Sure, brother, take what you like — I've got trees growing out of my ears, and here it is Christmas already. Anything on the lot for fifty cents.” And so the grasshopper picked out a great big tree and as he was lugging it home, he met the ant, — And the ant said, “Neighbor, I never borrow nor lend, and always save my money and look ahead, but could you kindly lend me four bits to buy a Christmas tree? “For all the needles fell off mine.”

ONLY FACTS CAN LICK RUMORS THE President, in paying a nice compliment to the ~ American press for guarding its advance information on the Tehran and Cairo conferences, expressed disappointment “that such loyalty should have been penalized by failures elsewhere.” : The whole mishandling of the war information problem is becoming a very serious issue. Nobody has stated the issue better than the President: “The American people <want promptly all the news which can be told safely, and they are entitled to have it without the interposition of ~ artificial barriers.” But talking about it is not doing it. Even after the costly kickbacks from the administration's fumbling of the Patton slapping incident and the Tehran and Cairo episodes, the administration continues to repeat the same mistakes. The latest example is the attempt to suppress the fact that the Luftwaffe on Dec. 2 : caught our defenders napping at Bari, Italy, and sank five ; American ships with 1000 casualties. If the facts had been stated after the Germans had made their propaganda broadcasts, instead of two weeks late, there would have. been adverse reaction here. : "8 0» . # » AS A RESULT of the government's inept information there is a growing suspicion among Americans. : ly lamentable because it is so unnecessary. sly unjust to the armed forces, whose over-all 50 heroic and effective. If the governmept will prompt. publication of the occasional blunders, along ie successes, it will not invite this silly public suspi-

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rible things may be happening behind the news

nt is paying another price, which it 0 news delays and suppression. It is crece. Hardly a day goes by without some

legance. What is that sorcery and to become more dazzling, more It certainly sounds like as if somebody figures we got a lot of loose women around here to get them to douse themselves over fume and rouse the boys until they just ain't responsible,

Ah, Sweet Mystery of Love!

OR, “ESCAPE: The sudden, imperious springing of a lock. A vista of skies immense and free, a new perfiame that defies imprisonment. If she is waiting for a magic hour of unfettered joy, this scent is for her.” Now that certainly is really pretty writing about the vista of skies immense and free but what about the rest of it. That magic hour of unfettered joy? Does she squirt herself over with his high-octane barber-water and then sit around sniffing herself and go nuts like a mouser with a catnip ball?

of love, captures the essence of romance,” and others called Risque, for the daring, Dulcinea for true love's sake and a group of several, bewitching blends for her loveliness, as the copy says, than which “nothing can make her feel more beautiful, more desirable,” as they mirror her quicksilver changes of mood.

It Is a Very Nice Feeling

FAR BE IT from me to go around knocking love, which is a very nice feeling and sometimes when I get a haircut and a barber-shop shave I have the fellow splatter me with a stout dash of bay rum because it smells good to me, personally, although I must say it does not have a pleasant effect on others because people generally just say “pew!” But when a perfumer says he has something for her to wear when her heart is on fire to set your heart on fire; how does he know it won't start a general conflagration and a commotion in the Stork club, with Billingsley and the waiters and prominent authors all out of control and knocking over tables and chasing the poor dame ragged until somebody has the presence of mind to throw open the.windows and air out the place? Aren’t things bad enough these days without people deliberately mixing up smells that arouse sensations of sweet danger and set hearts afire and get poor innocent ladles to hoping for a magic hour of unfettered joy? Fist fights every night in El Morocco, girls running away from home and Commissioner Valentine tearing his hair out over stabblings by jealous lovers and all like that.

And the Names of These Perfumes!

AND ‘THE NAMES they give these perfumes. Danger, for instance, and Menace and Surrender and Indiscrete, Possession, L’Ardente Nuit, My Sin, Tail Spin, Cobra, Tabu and Chichi “the perfume that whispers ‘love me.” Witchery in fragrance, “to quicken the pulse and lift the heart!” Then if some poor stranger gets a chance whiff in some saloon and starts to arch his neck and leer a little, all involuntarily because he is under the bell of sorcery and witchery, she lets out a squawk that she has been insulted and her fellow bats him across the features with a bottle and six bartenders give him a treatment and he lands up against a fire plug. You know what I think would be better? With food so hard to get now, even in the best hotels, my idea would be Attar of Sirloin Steak or the haunting fragrance of roast lamb, or ham and eggs. Couldn't they set their chemists to work on that and turn out something really wholesome and helpful to the war effort?

We The People

By Ruth. Millett

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~' THE HOUSEWIFE as an employer is a peculiar person. : i When she had a maid, she used i to tell her friends what an easy - job her maid had —and how she | didn’t appreciate her “luck.” Now that she is doing her own "work, with considerable help and co-operation from the other memsbers of the family, she has changed her tune. ; h The: kitchen, she suddenly has : decided, is a torture chamber, with the sink too low, the shelves too high, the stove too far from the sink, and the light poor. . Furthermore, she has made all kinds of substitutions and taken all kinds of short cuts to make the work | easier,

Housewife Changes Her Tune

IF AN old friend from out of town calls an hour before dinner time she suggests having dinner out— whereas once she would have told her maid to whip up some hot biscuits and bake a pie and get out the best dishes because there would be a guest for dinner, To Dimer ’ And yet with all the short cuts and help from other members of the family, she is terribly proud of doing “all her own work.” And she has convinced her husband she is a wonder. Yet if she gets a maid tomorrow, what do you want to bet she doesn't decide within a month that the maid is leading the life of Riley and doesn’t appreciate her “luck” in having such an easy job in such a convenient home?

So They Say—

OUR ATTACKS on the heart of Germany will continue to be as heavy as at any time this year. These attacks will go on the whole winter —British Air Minister Sir Archibald Sinclair,

WE MUST NOT allow ourselves the luxury of believing that the war is already won. The tough part of the war lies shead—Ma La Guardia of New York. :

Fiorello

There is another that “expresses the sweet mystery |

he Hoosier Forum

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

“WHERE 18 LIBERTY AND JUSTICE?” By John Sawer, 035 Lexington

Where is liberty and justice? It can’t be this labor trap known as the war manpower board. For it is for the protection of the company. Now we get our job. First you get your release and then go to a company for a job. The company says {we will hire you as & lathe man | They now collect your release. Now we go into the plant. So sorry but we have no openings on lathes now. So we will put you on the burr line. | You are now trapped. You didn’t hire in for the burr line but try and get out of it. You can't quit because you can't work for 60 days if {you do. Now ask the war manpower {board what reasons you can use for { quitting. There are none, outside of a doctor's permit showing you can’t stand the work. Well what can we suckers do now to feed the family? Sixty days are not so long;

| si» »

| “NEW, DIABOLICAL { MORONIC SETUP”

By Mrs. W. BK, Indianapolis We, the publi¢ hear every so often about the overcrowded conditions of | the insane asylums and sanitariums | for the feeble-minded, and now the poor harassed ‘housewives will be jamming the doors. But first can’t we shove in before us, and save taxpayers’ money, the addlepates who are paid to help us buy our daily | food? = ‘A new game, eh?® How nice! Ten points on each stamp, 10 on eight, 10 on five, 10 on two and 10 on one, What fun! It isn't confusing enough as it is, is it? ; And who gets the order for & couple of million tokens? We have listened—heard nothing else but— and read every day about the short age of manpower and materials, and now they are to be wasted making tokens, and they will be something added to the clutter in our pocket books, to fumble for. Sh So we ‘are to tear them across instead up and down. My, what a saving of time! I hope they are perforated across better than they are down. We have had reds, blues, browns, greens and now this new setup. Ridiculous! 4 This is my first kick against any~ thing to do with the war effort, but after wildly clutching _at ration books three and four, gas book coupons, shoe coupons—trying calms1¥ to buy points of meat, ete, I feel not only justified in writing this letter, but compelled, for I am airing thie opinion of every woman I know on this new, diabolical, moronic setup. What does it save? Who benefits by it? The manufacturers of tokens? Now when I and several thousand housewives think they have mas-

tered ration books, points and

(Times readers are invited to - express their views in these columns, religious controversies excluded. Because of the volume received, letters should be limited to 250 words. Letters must be signed. Opinions set forth here are those of the writers, and publication in no way implies agreement with those opinions by The Times. The Times assumes no responsi bility tor the return of manuscripts and cannot enter correspondence regarding them.)

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colors, along comes a bolt of sadistic, horizontal instead of vertical jabber, that some birdbrain thought

up to keep his sa check com it's just the waste of working days.|,, P ary ing

It's not only ridiculous for highsalaried OPA officials to lower their dignity thinking up and putting onto the public such a twisted and wholly unnecessary setup, using

money, material and manpower. It

is an insult to the busy housewife. ; . . #

“KENTUCKIANS FAR MORE CONSIDERATE” By 8 Native Kentuckian, Indianapolis.

I am writing you about the article you had in your editorial page on

American

|Dee. 15 entitled “Pre-Pearl Harbor

Fathers.” If the editor or whoever was the one that wrote that I want to tell him that was the most insulting and without a doubt the most jgnorant thing he has ever written, and I wonder if he thinks that looked smart? And also ‘I wender if he stops to think that probably the most’ of your subscribers are

young, I think there is an unwritten law or code (call it what you like) that they would rather get married

Side Glances—By Galbraith

{extremes on that Hoosier Forum

at all times for they are far considerate and intelligent than his writings show him to be.

for all the trash you can dig up about Kentucky or Kentuckians you ulways plaster it all over your paper and the other two papers here in the city never do that. I have always thought you go to

column because it is only a lowminded, low class of people that make such remarks as he did and as some do in their letters. .. . . » “THEN DYING THAT GRIPERS MAY LIVE”

By Mary Studebaker, 22 E. 224 sl. There seems: to me a definite menace in the ease and constancy in which ordinary nice people, our friends, go around saying harmful, unfounded untruths, On the phone only today a friend told me that ‘Allison's and CurtissWright are letting workers go, that production is beyond all possible war need, and that the material is stacking up with no place to store what they now have, To me this sounds like a slackening of war effort. And I don't think that is true. But it is very, very bad talk at a time when the pinnacle of victory is not even half attained. This is dangerous talk! With other people unthinkingly repeating this, the final ounce of push needed to win will be lacking. And the consequence then would be defeat! x : I should think the Allison an Curtiss-Wright plants would very much resent talk like this going around, as well as every patriotic citizen who hears such things from their friends with a sickened heart. Good Americans, the service men and women are dying that gripers like these may ‘live! .I sometimes wonder if the service people sometimes ask, “Why?”

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Britons in Key Posts ONLY NOW-four months later—Hhas the usually fast-footed Mountbatten named an air commander, and thé post of ground commander is still unfilled.

presumably an American will be named eventually, Besides these personnel difficulties, political and famine conditions in India apparently have contrib

Ports Must Be Opened ON THE MILITARY side, major ground advances probably must wait on sea and air victories on the Andaman islands and Sumatra, and at Rangoon,

China ports, for the Burma road alone is not a sufficient supply line for the eventual China based offensive. against Japan, 3 All of which indicates that the southeast Asia campaign, after it starts, will be hard and long.

Red Enigma By William Philip Simms

WASHINGTON, Dec, 33.—

Liberator or Conqueror? THE POLES remember that thelr country was invaded by the Red army ‘in September, 1939. At thet time Russia and Germany were partners, bound together by the Molotov-Ribbentrop treaty of Aug. 23 of that year. i

pendous importance. They are vital not merely to the Russians and the Poles but to every member of the united nations, especially the United States. An

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