Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 10 March 1944 — Page 16

The Indianapolis Times

Secret Wea pon 7

iday, March 10, 1944 1: Tey PAGE 16 - Friday By William Philip Simms | WW HOWARD YuTER EON Manager | WASHINGTON, March 10.— residen Deliberate starvation—especially of women and

(A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

Price in Marion County, 4 cents a copy; dellvered by carrier, 18 cents 8 week. |

Mall rates in Indi | ana, $5 a year; adjoining | states, 75 cents a month; others, $1 monthly.

Member of United Press, Seripps-Howard Newspaper Alliance, NEA Servce, and Audit Bureau E A Circulations. Pecmrns —wowannl] @x RILEY 5551

Give Light and the People Will Find Thelr Own Way

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PRODUCE, OR ELSE—

is good news for the city of Indianapolis that the board of public safety is going to insist on rigid enforcement of the city's anti-smoke ordinance. It is good news, too, that Mayor Tyndall has backed up the board with a pledge | that “politics will not be permitted to impede your efforts.” | | Merely promising to do something, however, will not improve smoke “conditions in Indianapolis. .The promise | must be supported by action. We hope it is. | For we disagree emphatically with the mayor's state-| ment yesterday that: “This seems to be a poor time to | raise this issue. . . . Wartime needs have made impossible | a crusade against smoke.” That view was answered effec- | tively, we believe, by Robert W. Bidlack, chairman of the advisory smoke abatement committee, when he said: “Smoke is waste, and waste in wartime is criminal.” | x = =» » THE MAYOR and the safety board apparently have convinced the members of the advisory committee that | they mean business. The committee has said that it is “satisfied” by the assurances given by William H. Remy, safety board chairman, and has agreed to" give the smoke abatement staff, whose dismissal previously had been recommended, another chance to prove that it can, and will, enforce the existing ordinance. We believe that the com- | mittee acted wisely in making this agreement. If the pres- | ent staff can get results, there is no reason for muddying | the waters and delaying the program with a wholesale | shakeup. The committee, however, has reiterated that its report “still stands.” Thus it makes clear that having “smoked out” the administration, it is in no mood to | tolerate chair-warming, buck-passing or politics in the | smoke abatement program. The smoke abatement staff must produce, or else—. And in that stand, the committee will have the full support of Indianapolis citizens.

HE INVITES IT

AT this critical juncture the busy President of the United States has to take time to attempt settlement of a controversy over whether the C. I. O. as well as the A. F. of L. shall be represented in the top delegation at next month’s Philadelphia meeting of the International Labor Office. Philip Murray demands it. William Green objects. Such is the political and economic power of the C. I. O. that the President apparently has decided to appease Mr. Murray and his cohorts. Mr. Green may have to yield. But, since he regards the C. I. O. as a rebel organization, he’s obviously going to be unhappy if the A. F. of L. is not allowed to monopolize the honor of nominating a representa“tive of American workers. ” - What is involved seems to us to be a jurisdictional dispute—and a petty one, at that—which the rival labor factions should be told to settle between themselves. If they insist on making it a public issue, there is a secretary of labor who ought to have enough authority to decide a matter of this sort. The reason why she doesn’t have, and why a far abler secretary of labor could have no real authority, is simply this—that the President insists on being organized labor's personal patron, and permits the Murrays and Greens to come to him over the heads of his theoretically responsible subordinates.

BATTLE OF FRANCE

E hear so much of factional strife within the provisional French government that we are likely to forget the unity, the bravery, and the growing strength of the underground within France itself It was something of a surprise, then, to read of a report presented to the French consultative assembly in Algiers in which it was disclosed that it is the underground now, and not the occupying Nazis, that is presenting ultimatums. After patriots blew up a powder factory and Germanrequisitioned hotel in Grenoble, the Nazis seized 300 hostages. The patriots told them to release the prisoners or expect reprisals. The Nazis refused, and the patriots then blew up a German barracks, killing 220 and injuring 150. This is as encouraging as the squabbles of De Gaulle, Giraud, et al, have been disheartening. And it lends strength to the appeal uttered by an escaped member of the underground to the assembly: “We want you, too, to be as united as we are.” With the French patriots accomplishing so much pgainst frightful odds, it seems little enough for their provisional government to give them assurance of appreciation pnd common aim,

: Pickering will be adjourned until the great coming battle won.

PSYCHIC RECIPROCITY

AST month the Japs broaflcast to the world the news |

that spirits of their soldiers killed on Attu had valiantly opposed the American conquest of Kiska. And some day soon these same propagandists are going to be forced into the reluctant admission that the ghost of the oft-sunk

American fleet has returned to raise the devil with the imperial navy.

EMPTY BOTTLES

NE of the least onerous of civilian wartime duties is to return empty milk, soft drink and beer bottles to the retailer or distributor. It is necessary, too, if supplies of |. these three potables are to meet the demand at home and overseas. There is an estimated half-billion empty bottles

in American kitchens and basements that should be back |

in circulation. And mére than 150 ,000,000 bottles of carbonated beverages will be Shipped overseas to our fighting forces this year. -

Soldiers and sailors can't bei those 150. million

| Bonney's book, “Europe’s Children.” | than 1000 words, but every one of them is a heart

children—is being used by the Nazis as a weapon of war on a par with tanks, guns and

received here. : The French underground has come into possession of a copy of a report to Berlin by Gen. Von-

Stulpnagel, Nazl commander in ! the Paris area. It is quoted as | saying: ;

~“What does a temporary defeat matter if, through the destruction of people and material wealth in enemy countries, we, are able to secure a margin of economic and demographic superiority even greater than before?”

‘Mistake to Spare Civilians,’ Von Runstedt

LECTURING BEFORE the war academy in Berlin, Marshal Von- Rundstedt is reported as saying: “One of our great mistakes in_the first world war

was to spare the lives of civilians in enemy countries. We Germans must number at least twice the population of our neighbors. Therefore we shall be com=pelled to destroy at least one-third of the<population

| of all adjacent territories. We can best achieve this

Sirus systematic malnutrition—in the end far superior to machine guns. .. . Starvation works more effectively especially amongst “the young.” | France, better thah most, knows the tragic meaning of the Nazi doctrine. The 1914 class of young- | sters who answered the colors numbered 750,000. In | 1939, there were only 450,000. The missing 300,000 simply hadn't been born. Their potential fathers lay dead on battlefields from Flanders to Switzerland.

Leaves More Food for Germans

BUT, AS the Nazi marshal observed, the enemy now has a still better method. Malnutritign is not only superior to machine guns but is less expensive and leaves more food for the Germans. Systematically practiced, Germany may win the next war, 20 or 25 years hence, because her neighbors simply haven't enough soldiers—beeause babies were not born or were starved in infancy. Along this line.there’s a new edition of Therese It contains less

breaker. The main message is conveyed in pictures— | photographs taken by Miss Bonney in France, Finland, Spain and elsewhere, pictures mostly of babies, showing what happens to them in war. There are babies wearing paper clothes in sub-zero weather; | babies with arms and legs no bigger than your thumb; | babies with stomachs bloated in the last stages of starvation. . . . Miss Bonney braved death again and again to | collect this account of what war is doing to the | younger generation in Europe. More than anything | I've yet seen, it makes one understand what the Nazis {'mean when they talk about eliminating their neigh-

| bors by malnutrition,

Army Which May Never Be Born,

BEFORE PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT .s a resolution by Senators Gillette and Taft recommending relief for occupied Eurcpe's starving. It passed the Senate unanimously. Money for the project is already in the hands of governments in exile. There is also available neutral shipping, And the International Red Cross is prepared to supervise distribution and see that none of the relief falls into the hands of the enemy. Experiments in Greece prove the scheme feasible. Unless something is dbne, a generation hence the allies may stand in desperate need of an army-—the army which may never be born.

(Westbrook Pegler is on vacation. His column will be resumed when he returns.)

We The People

By Ruth Millett

IT WAS probably just human for the Irish to get riled up over the will of Mrs, Bernard Shaw, who left $400,000 to teach the Irish elocution, self-control, and deportment. Nobody likes to have it hinted that his personality could be improved upon. But actually Mrs. Shaw's money, if it buys what she wished it to, couldn't be better spent. In part, her will says: “I have had many opportunities of observing the extent to which the most highly instructed and capable persons have their efficiency defeated and their irfiuence limited for the want of any organized instructicn and training for personal contacts . . and how their employment in positions for which they have valuable qualifications is made socially impossible by vulgarities of speech and other defects easily as corrigible by teaching and training as simple literacy.”

Sad Awakening Forthcoming

THERE 1S really no reason for her neighbors to get thelr Irish up over that, because what Mrs. Shaw says of the people of her husband's country is equally true of the people of other countries. We have a very real example of what Mrs. Shaw is talking about right here in America. Look around you at many of the people who hold good jobs today even though they don't know- anything about the simplest rules of courtesy. They have their jobs now because jobs are plentiful. But when jobs are scarce again, the employees who don't. know how to behave in the business world are going to be out in the cold. They would benefit by a careful reading of Mrs. ‘Shaw’s forthright will,

To The Point—

and to let them know that political |

AMONG THE synthetics the world could get along with less of we might list radio applause. . . - A HEADLINE says .gun-toting is on the increase. Lots of room on the hip where we used to carry billfolds, or something else.

. . *

CONSIDER THE absentee problem in Germany. Every few days a whole city fails to show up for work. . . * A WOMAN LEFT a fortune to her cat and dog. Wonder if there'll he-a cat-and-dog fight over her will? * * *» OUR NAVY saw red at Pear] Harbor, and now the Japs are seeing red, whitednd blue.

and remember that two's company. T . .

WE'LL SOON be sitting on the porch to see who's walking by to see who's Shing ¢ on the porch,

succeed at.

reason for sme of the spring poet written. . * *

Ey

the vest of the winter,

emptiog back and get their depesit We can. It will help.

planes, according to information :

The Hoosier Forum

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

“INNOCENT BABE HAS GROWN UP” By H. M. T., Indianapolis

Mr. Roosevelt vetoed the antisubsidies bill saying that passage of such legislation would cause an increase in prices of numerous articles including bread, butter, milk, eggs, pork and several other necessities. He concluded by stating that such an increase in prices would “force an increase in wages” which would “bring on inflation.” Well, well, well. So the innocent little babe which the financial genius created, fostered and reared for more than 10 years has grown up to be a gruesome, hideous monster to be feared, hated and shunned by every public-spirited American citizen from Maine to Mexico. When they “devalued” the dollar back in the famine-bound ’'30s, what was that but inflation? Oh; I see, that was merely a process to thaw out “frozen assets.” beg your pahden, Mr. Finance. don't know where I got that impression, I really don't. But to get on, the “ceiling” prices on commodities are held down and maintained by government 'sub-

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the candlestick maker, et al. If! this subsidization is stopped, retail | prices will rise from 1 to 10 cents. That can mean but one thing: The government is paying the difference between the established “ceiling” price and the actual retail price, and using the mask of “subsidization”

monster inflation which has been | stalking in" our midst for 10 years or more.

subsidies from funds which are col- | lected from taxation (which they! failed to put a ceiling on). This are paying from 1 to 10 cents to the |

will not charge you more than “ceiling” price!

+ jumping-jacks on that idea.

I'm sorry, 1) months

sidization of the butcher, the baker, | excess funds to keep down infla-

(Times readers are invited to express their views in these columns, religious controversies excluded. Because of the volum® 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 responsibility for the return of manuscripts and cannot enter correspondence regarding them.)

had no trouble at all selling the President and th. congressional For newspapers, magazines, flooded with Mr. Bigs antl-living | propaganda. “Your pay envelope is dynamite.” “Don’t ask for higher wages.” “Are you a dollar hoarder?” | Then, there is the crowning phrase of them all, “Drain off the nation’s

| tion.” ‘Then, of course, there is, “Hold the line on the Little Steel formula,” which reduced is simply: Necessities of ‘life plus taxation equals a living wage divided by two.

to conceal the hideous face of the!

Now the government pays these |

means that you and you and you,

So we don't actually have infla- {can they get it?

And so the biggest and most important business in the world, the business of rearing and educating a family must be operated on a red ledger policy by the majority of the | population. . . . Yeah! Wages must be held down

at all costs, because of the danger

of inflation! =

A FEW HAVE

farmer, the merchant, the processor ALL THE GAS” and the manufacturer so that he|By 8. L. Short, Indianapolis

How come these 14 and 16-year-olds need gas for school and how A permit for

billboards and mov'-s have been |

tion at all, because there has been | school calls for school ‘driving only, very little rise in “ceiling” prices. | but you see them all hours of the It's only taxes which have been |night racing the streets. How come rising! (Oops, pahden me, Mr. Big, they don’t have that insurance, too? while IT put my hand over my |Everyone is supposed to have it. mouth. anyone's face. It's just too, subtle, like a canary singing in a and works 10 hours a day has to funeral parlor!) {ride a crowded streetcar or bus be“Such an increase in prices would cause he can't get gas to drive to force an increase in wages.” So! work. It is funny a few have all

I don't want to laugh in {Most of them don’t have a driver's: too license, but a man who pays taxes

se NO POLITE person will quarrel before FOIL

LOAFING is extremely easy ; i terribly hard to

THERE MAY be rhyme, but there's probably little now being

ALL THAT stands between us and a hot time is

There’s your culprit, folks. Mr. Big the gas and the ones who are really

Side Glances—By Galbraith

-| boys. per family'in the service out}

} ladies who wish to stand.

doing something for the cause can't even get enough gas to drive his car every other week. There has got to ibe more than just talking about | this gas, Someone needs to get! i busy. | These 14 and 16-year-olds don't! need gas. -There is not a school in! Indianapolis that can't be gotten! [to by streetcar or bus. Men have] ito crowd on them one hour going to work and coming back, standing all | the way. So, let's see that every(body, not just a few who é&njoy | what everyone should enjoy to-| {gether. More gas! # = “LET'S BE MORE CONSTRUCTIVE” By C. P.'§, Indianapolis { Let's be more constructive in the, { Forum. The housing problem is acute. Defense workers and Vi of military men have made it Why rail on people who found ir very difficult to hold the title to! their homes during the depression?! Our abused people didn't build’ homes, didn’t pay productive rent! didn't keep them in repair and | !didn’t carry the social load of the] community, etc. They weren't here. They had no responsibility here and | many houses were torn down by vandals because the owners couldn’t get good paying tenants. : i I am not trying to place the] blame on these people who need] {homes now and can’t get them, but] {let us be fair. Houses don't grow. | If you are not definitely enough of part of the community to build a house, why the extreme criticism | against people who lost their life- | time savings trying to keep rental | property? Why not limit the gripes | in the Forum and bid for con-| structive suggestions whether the topic is houses, children, styles or what not?

ss ® = “SIDEWALK NEEDED ON BELMONT AVE" By West Side Resident, Indianapolis

May we of the West side ask the city planning board to give us a sidewalk on Belmont ave. from Washington st. to Morris st. We must wade the snow or mud the year round. There is no sidewalk on either side of no cifder path across the Pennsylvania railroad of any kind. We must walk across the tracks or in the street which most folks do. This letter represents the employees of Link-Belt, J. D. Adams and Washington high school girls and boys. May I add that there are more

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here than in any other part of the city and we resent very much the huge masonry on N. Meridian st. while we have unpaved streets and no sidewdlk on Belmont. In case you are thinking of building another memorial or monument, please don’t do it. Improve our city first and if you have any money left give the service men a larger bonus. . » s # “USE OF SCHOOL BUSSES RESTRICTED” By Courteous Pupil, Crooked Creek School This is ah answer to the article in your forum on Feb. 3 anticied “When Should Civilians Ride?” and ed “by a civilian.” First of all, I we inform the civilian that school busses are mot permitted: to transport children to places other than schools. ‘There is .an OPA ruling which’ prohibits this using of gas, manpower and ‘tires even for visits to places which are of educational: value. ' This trip was made’ for that purpose, and only one room at a time. The children. from Crooked Creek school were courteous and offered a grayhaired lady a seaf which she refused, thus embarrassing the child. Again we remind you that the children of Crooked Creek school were not responsible for all gray-haired

. DAILY THOUGHTS - But the word of God grew and multiplied —Acts 13:24. 2

: By Sohn W. Hillman

‘

Reflections”

' CAL LYON who used nh newspaper man himself — he sold his birthright for a B —has resigned his job as an C rentp@irector in Ohio with remarks: “If I am able to regain my sense of humor after my exper: : > fence as a rent director, I hope to resume writing a column of humor. If my sense of humor is dead beyond recall, I shall

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by Lee Miller, one of our heayy thinkers in Washington. Says Mr. Miller to Mr. Lyon: 2 “Sir, we have ordered pistols for two and coffee for one and we invited you to name the hour apd

| place for expiating this gratuitous slur.”

All Past Sins Have Been Expiated

NEWSPAPERMEN NOTORIOUSLY are wild swingers, so we anticipate little bloodshed from an encounter that probably will wind up with the principals and seconds singing “Sweet Adeline” in the oak-pan-elled bar at the National Press club, For we doubt if Mr, Miller will insist on-expiation, in view of the fact that during his career as a civil servant Lyon already has expiated all past sins of his misspent life

and has a sizable ‘credit to carry over, ex post facto,

for any high crimes and misdemeanors in the years to come, There is rejoicing in heaven over the repentance of a sinner, and despite his snide remarks Lyon will be welcomed back into the newspaper fold with open arms—we could use a couple of good experienced men ourselves, with or without a sense of humor. And, the manpower situation being what it is, he can be either cosmic or comic, He returns a sadder and wiser man, as have sundry other of us who at one time or another have been lured from the true faith to the fleshpots of industry or the green pastures of bureaucracy. After purification and penance, he'll be.a newspaperman again, griping about the pay and the hours and the company he keeps and making mental notes for the play or novel that he will never write. And he'll feel sorry for himself for being a newspaper man, and even sorrier for everyone else who isn't one.

Proof That "People Are Funny’

BUT IT'S a little stringe to hear Lyon say, “if 1 can regain my sense of humor after my experience as rent director.” For that experience certainly should have proved to him beyond peradventure that “people are funny.” If you don't believe that you've never heard Bertie Reade, who held and relinquished a similar post here, in a reminiscent mood. But possibly there are limits to even the most resilient sense

. of humor—and that's why Cal, and Bertie, quit.

As an editorial scribbler, we'll forgive Cal for his unkindness to our craft—though personally we hold to the copy desk theory that a humor columnist is an editorial writer who can’t spell. After all, Cal has been through a lot and isn't himself and, after having been a clay pigeon so long, it is understandable that he should have a jaundiced view of life in general and editorial writers in particular. So we'll forget and forgive, and hope he will do the same. Lee Miller can have his duel, if he's feeling

bloodthirsty, but we wouldn't want to pink poor old

Cal with a beer bottle. He's suffered enough. And Cal might be right, at that. Possibly what this country needs, in addition to that §-cent stogile, is editorial writers who can laugh and humor columnists who can think, Not to mention bueaucrats who know when to quit.

Nazis Are Tough

By Maj. Al Williams

NEW YORK, March 10.-—-No censorsnip can muffle the facts about what our gallant airmen are encountering Germany and occupied Europe, There's no use indulging in our old-time fault of underestimating the enemy and thus minimizing the courage and skill of our airmen. Whatever the allied losses in men and ships, we can console ourselves with the fact that mortal damage is being done to the Nazi war machine. Recently I heard a radio commentator telling about the excellence of German weapons and how fast the Nazi fighters were. listen to that kind of stuff and recall the time when factual reporting of 1938 airpower developments in Germany was met with name-calling.

Nazi Planes as Good as Any

in raids over

It's pretty tough to |

I GOT my information about the Me-109 from the |

cockpit of that fighter. And I believe I was the only American pilot who got into the Me-109 and got back here to tell our own people about its performance. It's a development of that original Me-109, known as the Me-109-G, ang the Focke-Wulf fighters which our boys now are battling against. These fighting planes are as good as any in the world, and still our boys are shooting them down. The big trouble is we weren't ready. Our airmen finds the Nazis’ anti-air defenses tough as well as their fighter patrols. But they are getting through,

and the amount of damage we are doing day-.and | night to slow down the German war machine will :

never be fully appreciated until the shooting stops.

One Man Sinks Two Cruisers

ALL IN ALL, it's a type of warfare of which the world never dreamed, with swift pathfinders streaking ahead of the heavy bombers, dropping flares to light up. the targets so the bombardiers can see their

targets. Then there's high-flying enemy fighters, far |

above the bombers, dropping flares to identify the position of the bombers for the defense fighters and the anti-aircraft batteries. I saw a headline the other day which read “Lt.

Jones, U..S. Air Forces, Has Two Jap Cruisers to His #

Credit.” single Individual sank two enemy cruisers, Sinking cruisers used to be the business of other warships, with hundreds of men in their crews.

So They Say—

WHEREVER American troops are located, the Red

Just think.of it—this is a war wherein a }

Cross is there helping the wounded and operating J

canteens, recreation centers and rest stations, assisting in the hospitals and serving as guide, counselor and friend of the soldiers.—Gen. Marshall, * » *

NEXT TO the men in the fighting fronts, rallwaymen and the men on trucks have done the most outstanding job in the war. .And we don’t have to provide them with refreshment, amusements and music to keep them working—Willlam M. Jelten, Presint Union Pacific Railroad. . ; DON'T WORRY aos the lawyer's future. But

law practice will be different. More problems are be- ||

ing taken before administrative tribunals—the SEC, OPA and WLB-than ever before. they .get speedier disposition of cases before those groups, with fewer legal technicalities—Joseph W. Henderson, president American Bar association. » THE PUBLIC should ska with alarm the spawn-: ing of SASL It siernstional afetuies WH

People believe i

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« TOMORRO! Republican Edi Hoosier Republi Highlighting . candidates. Ca blast -and Ivan | suite open for James Tucker, 1 atorial candidat: trict congressma

Also very muc be Secretary of ander jand Atty, mert, candidate tion; Frank T. * state civil defen EL an unannounce | state auditor; | holt an Oscar ( canidates, and | .rence county cl candidate for ti nomination; Dr. - perintendent of and Mrs. Marjo reporter of the pellate courts, . nomination, ar Richard T. Jan seek the lieutens ination.

® “Tyndall Ex PLAYING A § party leader wil the G. O. P. st is a definite, t candidate for nomination. Al in their appea: Tyndall and M Wayne, who governorship nc The mystery 1 as far as his fu concerned, is Li Charles Dawso

_ Soldier Vot

THE G. O. tee will meet a legis

publican * invited in to go state soldier we been drafted publican comm _Senator Rob

undercover fig! which station cast the speech remember whe tions showed give them free

Other Legi

MR. GATES day's conferen Schricker and Chairman Fre while he was ir lature taking than the sol

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Gay young for Spring pecially pe

A BUTTOI oo with Red, green

“A LITTLE a froth of

and sweet

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