Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 15 April 1944 — Page 6

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PAGE 6 Saturday, April 15, 1944

" WALTER LECKRONE MARK FERREE Editor. Business Manager

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Give Light end the People Will Find Their Own Way

THE SPECIAL SESSION ADJOURNS HE special session of the Indiana General Assembly

adjourned sine die yesterday after enacting the program outlined by the Republican majority caucus Monday. | In four days, it" considered and passed a bill to facilitate voting by Indianians in the armed forces, as well as a measure exempting military personnel from poll taxes for the duration of the war and protecting them from the penalties of tax delinquencies. A joint resolution creating a nine member committee to study for completing the Indiana World War memorial also was passed. The soldier vote bill should enable nearly all, if not all, Hoosier soldiers who wish to vote in the November election to do so. They will be able to vote for all state and county officials and not merely for President, U.S. senator and representative in congress. Hence their votes will carry weight all the way down the line to their home communities where their greatest interest lies. This is as it should be. Furthermore they will vote in accordance with the basic principles of the secret ballot, and they will vote constitutionally, There is no possibility that their votes will be challenged in court and thrown out, as might have happened had the legislators made the political gesture of authorizing the so-called. federal “bob-tailed ballots.” No one can quarrel with the tax exemption hill. Certainly the men who are fighting tg preserve our homes should be secure in their homes and property while they are in service. That is only right. The %egislators have done what they set out to do, without yielding to the pressure to take up numerous measures which, though desirable, were: hardly urgent enough to justify prolonging the session ‘unduly. It was a business-like session and a job well done.

TELL THE PEOPLE ONCE; THEN SHUT UP

N the manpower front these days there is a constant barrage of complex and conflicting statements. If it isn’t the President announcing a new policy (which remains in effect about 24 hours) it's McNutt, And if it isn’t McNutt it’s Gen. Hershey. Senator Taft of Ohio, who has a talent for clarifying muddled situations, has moved in on this one with a com-mon-sense four-point solution: “l. Develop a long-range draft plan for the armed services based upon probable manpower needs, with agreement among all the executive heads concerned. Make the classifications clear and definite and permanent, . . , “2. Annotnce it to the public as final except as some great emergency clearly requires a change. 0 “3. Stick to it once itis adopted so that those in the various categories can plan their lives accordingly, at least for a few months. “4. Stop confusing eyery person in the country between 18 and 38 and let the people get down to the serious business of winning the war.” i : What's wrong with that, Mr. President? Mr. McNutt? Gen. Hershey?

WE HOPE HE'S RIGHT

AMES F. BYRNES, director of war mobilization, echoed in his New York address this week the recommendation of the Baruch-Hancock report thal congress enact in wartime, and keep on the shelf until the end of the war, a tax program designed for peacetime. War taxes, he said, are “not at all suited for an expanding peace economy.” He warned that it often requires six months for congress to draw up and pass a tax bill, and added: “We must avoid this delay. An interdepartmental committee is now working under the direction of the secretary of the treasury upon proposals which he will submit to the congress at the proper time. Congress is also studying the problem, and I am sure that with the coming of peace the government will quickly provide .a system of taxation that will enable us confidently to build for the future.” We hope such optimism is justified, but we are not sanguine. If the treasury’s tax planners exert no more statesmanship in preparing a tax formula for peace than they have done in handling the great problems of war revenue, the prospect is somber. And as for congress, Chairman Doughton of the ways and means committee has remarked tartly that it's too early to think about post-war tax schedules, Any dilly-dallying on this problem will be a mighty poor contribution to the realization of that “adventure. in prosperity” which Mr. Baruch and Mr. Hancock have assured us is feasible if our adjustment to peacz is ‘“handled with competence.”

WE’D DO IT, TOO

RNIE PYLE tells in his column ‘today about being saluted by a brigadier general who passed him on a road near Nettuno in the Anzio beachhead. Ernie was so flabbergasted that he returned the salute with his left hand, and he adds: “I don't know why he saluted—maybe he thought I was the secretary of war.”

It is a military tradition that you salute the uniform, |’

not the man. But generals are human, after all, and we suspect that the unknown brigadier quite consciously was saluting a man—Ernie Pyle. oe

NO BOX OFFICE MUSSOLINI told an interviewer that Americans had in-

~ tended to exhibit him in public and charge an admission fee. He needn't have fretted anything but the competi-

tion. Our parks are full of strutting pigeons. The zoos have f snakes. A sideshow barker can put on as good a

The Indianapolis Times

Fair Enough By Westbrook Pegler

NEW YORK, April 15—~Unfortunately, I am not quite: up to the moment on the status of Harold Christoffel, president of Local 248 of the United Automobile Workers, C. I. O., and of the C. I. Os county coungil in Mil waukée. However, the fact that until two months ago, well ovar two years after Pearl Harbor, this lusty young member or fellow traveler of the Communist front, : was still deferred as an indispensable civilian prompts me to review one of the most revolting acts of sabotage -against the lives of patriotic young Americans in the whole evil record of the Communists’ collaboration with Adolf Hitler prior to the assault on Russia. : On Jan. 19, 1941, within the period when the Communists of the C. I. O. were picketing the White House and exerting themselves everywhere to cripple this nation’s rearmament program, Christoffel’s union, embracing some of the employees of Allis-Chalmers of Milwaukee, called for a vote on a strike. It failed when fewer than half of the workers expressed themselves.

'Case Against Union Not Even Disputed’

TWO -DAYS' later, Christoffel and other officers of the union held a fraudulent election at their union headquarters, under their own control. A company official said he counted only 4547 persons entering the place. The union certified 6759 ballots and a majority of 5958 in favor of the strike. The Wisconsin Employment Relations board then authorized an examination of the ballots and John F. Tyrell, of Milwaukee, and Clark Sellers, of Los Angeles, handwriting experts, proved that more than 2000 of them had been forged. This conclusion was accepted by the board and the case against the union was so strong--that it was not even disputed. The board ordered a new election to be held under its own supervision, but this never came off. Instead, Frank Knox and Gen. Knudsen, of the OPM appealed to Allis-Chalmers to resume pro-duction-of -equipment-for the navy and other de= fense arms and the case eventually came before the National Defense Mediation board. Meanwhile, as loyal Americans tried to resume production in response to Knox's appeal to their patriotism, they had been beaten up at the ga.es and Governor Heil had been mobbed. )

"Production Choked Off in Other Plants’

THIS WAS the period when the United States was “tooling up” for war production. Allis-Chalmers, one of the most effective plants in the country, was building machinery required by other factories to turn out mechanical parts for war equipment, much of which subsequently has gone to Russia and helped to turn the Nazi tide. It was making machinery for destroyers and submarines and for 76 days not a wheel turned; moreover, production was choked off in other plants which were waiting for equipment from Allis-Chalmers: plant in the entire United States and one of the most important in the world. Subsequently, a crew of Communist propaganda minstrels sang a song, reproduced on phonograph records for use at organizing rallies, which ran “And out at Allis-Chalmers, here's what -they done,” cone cluding, “Take it easy, boys, but take it.” The mine strels were hired by the office of war information after the United States was drawn into the war and were fired only after they had been denounced as Communist propagandists. How they qualified in the first plac’ for the OWI, considering the pretense that Communists are unwelcome in government agencies and that the personal history of each employee is examined, was never explained. Christoffel, 31 years old now, was only about, 27 at the time of Pearl Harbor. He is married and has one child, but his wife works, and for the government, at

“that. :

Deferred in Draft as Union Official

NEVERTHELESS HE was deferred in the draft on the ground of essentiality as a union official until last Jan. 5 when he was reclassified 1-A. For five years he has not been employed as a workman but exerted himself solely as a union representative, The day after he was reclassified, subject to immediate call, he got back on the company’s pay roll as an electrical tester, his old trade. In this new status, the company was compelled to certify him for an occupational deferment. However, on Feb. 1, an official of the company disclosed that this had been only a ruse to escape military service as ChristofTel was working only 30 hours a week as a tester and ‘spending the remainder of his time In union activity, So his occupational deferment was revoked. Of course he can still appeal to Washington. Two other unioneers, of the Communist front, who engaged in similar sabotage before June 21, 1941, when the war suddenly ceased to be an imperialistic war of ugrression against peace-loving Adolf Hitler and became a people’s war against the aggressors, have had succeess in evading the draft in this manner. Nobody was punished for the fraud or for the loss of production, except those Americans, Britons and the Russians whose death in battle was due to the lack of fighting equipment caused by 76 days’ shutdown at Allis-Chalmers,

We The People By Ruth Millett

HAIR DYES and bleaches are scarce in England, so London beauty parlors are refusing to create any new blonds. They're keeping their dyes and bleaches

ported. * That is one case where hoarding seems like a good idea. For the woman who isn’t yet a blond has nothing to lose by being refused a hair dye. But think of the predicament of the women who have been blong for years if they should suddenly find they have to let their hair go back to its natural shade. %

Few Women Will Admit I+

FEW WOMEN ever admit they dye their hair. and even though their friends may suspect it, or feel sure the color of the hair is phony, they have no proof. So think how the artificial blonds would suffer if, at last, their suspicious friends could go around saying to each other, “I told you so. I knew that hair was never real.” And think of the surprise of husbands who married blonds ‘and suddenly discovered they were married to brunets. For men seldom suspect any except the most obviously bleached hair of not being real. A good dye job will fool ‘a man every time. Even if another woman suggests that head of hair is dyed, a man just thinks he is listening to jealous slander. So the “freezing of blonds seems like the most sensible solution to a serious feminine problem. War is hard enough on women without letting the world in on a -secret they've guarded jealously for years, :

To The Point.

>; ’ A WRITER suggests that Hitler go back fo the wallpaper business. We think hanging "is too good for him. i ¥ : 3 Eu

. . -

-

The Hoosier Forum

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

It was the most important |

for their old customers, it is re-.

THE JAP. air force at Hollandia was wiped out. the American fliers: Innumerable hits,

“TIME TO QUIT REVILING BRITISH” By E. M. F., Indianapolis In answer to Mr. Hugh M. Quill— you close your letter by stating real

| Americans await your answer. Herel

is mine:

British-American (note, you say, which name comes first) is an approved figure of speech. Have you ever seen the term in print thus— American-German, American-Irish-man, American-Italian or Ameri-can-Spaniard? What is the British debt? Is it this war we are paying for with blood and money? It is co-opera-tive, isn't it? Hasn't the British Isles turned its homeland into an armed camp to defend democracy (democracy is what Christ died for; peace on earth, goodwill toward men), to defend freedom for all mankind; -so- we will not be made vassals again which Germany and Spain are trying to inaugurate as a new order? Aren't the British making a supreme sacrifice also, shedding blood, taxing its people to the hilt to fight the sneaking axis who were 20 years in preparation? Why did Japan, one of the three, attack the Philippines? Why is Japan fighting India? What would we have done to bivouac our soldiers to attack the enemy if it was not for the colonies of England, New Zealand and Australia contiguous to the Philippines and Japan? Protecting your own interest and paying your own way is self-cen-tered; and while you are looking out for number one, old fox Rommel had he not been headed off by the allies would have marched along the African coast to Spanish Morocco, along the west coast to Dakar, across the Atlantic to Natal, South America, met his Latin cohorts and landed eventually in the U. S. It was nipped in the bud. The British need a little credit for what they have done. I believe in giving the devil his due. They founded this country. The Spaniards were in South America 200 years before the English race settled in North America. The English were brave people who came to this wildnerness and settled among savages and made this great country. They financed the expeditions and spent millions of dollars to start this country 156 years before it was a republic. . . Why did we turn our backs on Hitler when he marched east, you ask. Because there was a howl in

(Times readers are invited to express their views in these columns, religious controversies excluded. Because of the volume received, let ters 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 responsie bility for the return of manu. scripts and cannot enter correspondence regarding them.)

this country of helping Communists; also we had to find out their intentions first. Communism is dead in this country now. It is fascism now hiding behind a ruse. , . . It is the Fascists who fear the Kremlin gremlin. As I understand it, Churchill and Roosevelt met at sea and Churchill was as much a framer of the Atlantic Charter as Roosevelt. Here is the issue in plain English: It is time to quit reviling the Brite ish and revile the Germans.

8 = = “LIBERALS MUST PROTECT OUR GAINS” By Oscar Houston, Ellettsville

I am not surprised at Wendell Willkie’s withdrawing from the race,

for the Republican nomination. I

am more surprised that he would think he could reform the Republican leaders and lead them to stand for something worthwhile, Mr. Willkie is deserving of better treatment than he received in Wisconsin, but his straight world co-operation policy doesn’t gear in with the out-and-out isolationists and others in the Republican party who up to this time have been covering up or using words that can be construed to mean anything or nothing. Have the isolationist and reactionary wings of the Republican party got a program? If they have, isn’t it about time they were advising the public? Tha only thing the public is hearing is their ridicuous efforts to discredit the President and the New Deal,

.land they have indulged in that so!

long without any just cause and without any program of their own that the people are getting fed up

Side Glances—By Galbraith

| | “would-be” patriots,

on it. They tried the same tactics in 1936 and 1940. If the Republican party should win and carry out their announced policy to kill the New Deal, then where are we going? But many -people can't bring themselves to believe the Republican party would ever kill social security. But there isn't any reason to doubt a thing when it's being told you in plain English by leaders of the Republican party. Governor Bricker, in a speech at Indianapolis recently, said, “I am more interested in defeating the New Deal and its philosophy than in being elected President.” Philosophy, as the dictionary defines it, is practical wisdom. So it

was the philosophy or practical wis-|

dom of the New Deal that gave us the whole social security program, a program that has repeatedly been denounced by Republican leaders as socialistic, un-American and foreign tour way of life, The people of the United States through liberal government have come a long way in the last 10 years. Even before the war our workers had attained the highest scale of wages and the highest standard of living with more home conveniences and comforts than were ever enjoyed before. And, thanks to the philosophy of the New Deal, the dread and hazards of old age have been greatly reduced through social security, It is up to the liberal parties to protect. our gains against the threats of reactionary administration,

- 2 ” 8 “POINTS THE WAY BACKWARDS” By W. E. Clark, Noblesville It matters not to, Mr. Willkie as

[to the results of his defeat in the

Wisconsin primary, as he may yet get a better and more certain job, such as mayor of New York. But the Wisconsin primary was a slap at our soldier boys as it points the way backwards. Why? Because Mr. Willkie and Mr. Roosevelt both believe that great good can come out of this wholesale death and destruction, Both of these gentlemen's foreign policies are well known, and the next man is still an unknown quantity. It shows that a large block of the voters still believes that our soldiers are dying in vain as in the last war, yet they cheer and salute and greet returning soldiers instead of dropping their heads in shame when they meet one. If these people have their way, my little grandson will have a harder fight probably 25 or 30 years from now, a harder fight than my son who is now in the South Pacifio.

‘8 o o “WE MUST STAND UNITED” By Ruth M. Schmutle, 4089 N. Wallace st. I wonder just what our fine boys “over there” would think if they could listen in on the bickering and continual griping that goes on. God forbid that they should ever know.

We must back our government to its every demand and, regardless of

‘| personal feeling, must stand ypited

lest we know failure. Americans on the whole have always lived ‘better than the people of other countries. Now they cannqt and some, I'm sorry to say, will not knuckle down to the fact that the time has come

when just ‘money will not*buy the

gs yo want. These ' gripers + + « I wonder how they will feel when they must face our boys on coming home. They will probably pat themselves on the back and say, “My boys, we put up a fine fight; but we won, didn’t we?” Don’t kid yourselves, brother, our boys are not dumb; and I hope they carry over this fighting spirit when they come hqme and give a punch in the nose td some of these

DAILY THOUGHTS The Lord is merciful and gra.clous, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy —Psalms 103:8. 4 i Hy ” ” ” i

fourth termers who hope to make § * isolation look sillier and sillier.

. laborationist Dewey won without

Arthur and Willkie. :

[The Phony Issue;

By Ludwell Denny

WASHINGTON, April 15. — © With ‘each passing week those ©

a campaign issue of an imaginary : Last week the Wisconsin pri= »

mary exploded the New Deal and = Willkie myth that Midwest Re-

publicans oppqse world co-opera= =

tion. For the ‘international cole

running, and the super-stater ° Stassen placed second over Maes =

cipline—Dr. Robert G. Sp of California. \

® 1 HAVEN'T any new Roosevelt, ~~ |

Now the Nebraska primary—with Stassen winning

easily and an unexpectedly large write-in vote for |

Dewey—underlines the obvious.

A. F. of L. Urges World Organization WEDNESDAY THE American Federation of Labor

urged American participation in world organization

for peace and security. “The conflicts of today have

proved that we can no longer rely on our favored geographical position to maintain our hational safe«

ty,” the A. F, of L. post-war reconstruction committee

reported. .

It approved an international police force or any necessary means to prevent war, and modification of

trade barriers to facilitate exchange of goods and

services between all nations. It opposed expansionism

and imperialism, as well as isolationism, and rejected attempts by any nation to force unilateral solutions

to territorial and other problems affecting peace, I$

stressed the need for international organization to

handle health and welfare problems, and to control

epidemics and drug traffic.

Of course the fourth termers have had no chance of fooling the people with a fake crusade against G. O. P. isolationism since the Mackinac declaration, and the Republican votes for the Fulbright and

Connally resolutions,

Unity is Source of National Strength

ALL BUT an insignificant number of Democrats and Republicans support the bipartisan congressional commitment to a Democratic international organe ization. The réal issue is whether President Roose=

“velt can deliver on the American mandate and the

allied pledges, or whether European powers will put another league front on the old balance-of-power

system.

About the only bright part of this plcture is thas there is no party division here on the need for effece tive and democratic world organization. This Amere ican unity in foreign policy is a source of great na-

ional strength and of world hope in this crisis. For

fourth termers, or any other group, to insist on seeing disunity where unity exists is exceedingly shortsighted

partisanship.

In Washington

By Peter Edson

May 9.

WASHINGTON, April Rush D. Hoit—remember?—the boy senator of 1835 et seq., is try ing to do a political comeback in his native West Virginia. He seeks the Democratic nomination for governor in the state primary

| il

15.—

People who can't forget young Holt's violent pre-Pearl Harbor isolationism are trying to make out that this is the first test of

how much isolationist strength

and sentiment therg may be remaining in this coun- - & try after two and a half years of war.

To think that West Virginians would vote for or against a gubernatorial candidate just because qf his America First leanings and utterances that long ago seems at first glance to be a bit farfetched. There are lots of better tests of isolationism coming up

later.

Most important is Senator Gerald P. Nye's

fight for renomination in North Dakota. To a lesser degree, a contest for the seat of D. Worth Clark of Idaho, and to a still lesser degree, the races of Bennett Champ Clark of Missouri and Robert A. Taft

of Ohio.

" When you get this far down in the scale it isnt so much a case of having been isolationist as of having been opposed to many of the administratior Robert R. Reynolds of North Carolina ha: thus far stuck to his determination not to seek re election to the senate, though he did smile coylt when arch-isolationist Gerald L. K. Smith pickec } him as likely presidential“timber a few months ago | Senator Burton K. Wheeler of Montana doesn’t have

policies.

to seek re-election till 1946. That will be the real test,

Afraid He's Eyeing Senate Again

IN THE case of Rush Holt, some of the effort to

pin the isolationist skunk cabbage on him at this time stems from the fear of where he might go from there if he should be elected to the governorship this year Under West Virginia law, a governor does not haw

to resign from office while seeking elegiion to federal office, and in 1946 West Virginia eletts a senator, Holt, it is feared, has his eye on coming back to

Washington as a succ

r to Harley M. Kilgore.

Since he last graced the capital scene, Holt has (a) been married, (b) registered for the draft, (¢) been. elected to the West Virginia state legislature. Others

wise, blackout.

He has kept his trap shut on all the ‘things about which he used to rant—the New Deal,

the war mongers, John L. Lewis and the C. I. O. who helped him to election in 1934 and whom he res pudiated in 1935. Maybe people have forgotten. At any rate, it will be an interesting test of the old theory that the memory of the American electorate

is short. Editorial Grass Roots Opinion

AS TO Holt’s chances next month, and as to the effect which Holt's pre-Pear] Harbor isolationism maj

have on the primary, opinions of West Virginia news. paper editors queried on these points are enlightning: Holt's pre=Pearl Harbor actions haven't even beer mentioned, according to S. G. Damron of the Charles ton Daily Mail. The editor says observers think Ho! will get a big anti-administration protest vote. Holt is an enigma to Malcolm T, Brice, editor ¢ tradition; anti-labor stand while he was in the senate woul’ argue against his getting any labor support in th election, says Brice, but if John L. Lewis told th state’s 120,000 miners to support an anti-administra tion candidate, his chances for nomination would be favorable! This editor points out, however, that all straw ballots indicate the state is going Republican in the fall anyhow, with or withdut Roosevelt, so

the Wheeling News-Register.

Holt doesn’t matter.

From Clyde A. Wellman, editor of the Huntington Advertisér, comes the guess that Holt will be a sure winner in the primary, the basis of his stren the fact that his opponent, Clarence Mea

Holts

A

gth being dows, hag

been tagged, rightly or wrongly, the crown prince of

Governor Neely and all anti-Neelyites are rally Holt. Holts isolationism 1s not considered a bh

ing to ig fac-

tor. Republicans are hoping Holt gets the nomination

so they can beat him with the isolationist label. “ :

So They Say—

FREEDOM MUST always be exercised under dis-

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