Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 10 May 1944 — Page 12

> RILEY 851

Give Light and the People Will Pind Their Own Woy

PANDERING TO RACE HATE E have just been looking over a few copies of a thing which has been appearing in Alabama in the guise of a newspaper—at least it was appearing before the recent primary election in that state. This smudgy sheetlet, which rarely goes to press without at least one picture showing Mrs. Roosevelt in conversation with a Negro, is as prejudiced and provocative on the racial question as anything we have seen. It even outdoes the baser elements of the Negro press, which can be ugly enough. If its editor is out of a job now that the campaign is over, he might try knocking on Dr. Goebbels’ door. We know that decent people in Alabama deplore this sort of moronic, sadistic, hate-making business. To be sure, they are not in favor of any millennial commingling of the races, nor is the rest of the South. But they do want to see the Negro’s station improved. And they certainly do not like to see a scurrilous pseudo-journalism inciting interracial violence. All of the above is by way of leading up to the suggestion, already put forward in one of Thomas L. Stokes’ recent illuminating dispatches from the South, that a senate investigation committee take a look at the recent primaries in Florida and Alabama. A lot of unexplained money appears to have been spent in those states. Possibly not in violation of any federal law, but very possibly in defiance of ordinary public honesty. Where, for instance, did the money come from to

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‘They Gave Him a Bargain’

WE FIRST meet Brother Pross in with grand larceny in Manhattan, & bargain, reducing the charge to petty larceny he got 60 days. Another charge of grand larceny occurs in January, 1928, which was dismissed in March,

The next time we encounter Brother Pross is in July of 1920, when he gave three years and four months in Atlanta upon his conviction under the federal bankruptcy laws. It could hardly be said, as it was said of Willie Bioff’s venture in pandering in Chicago, that this was just a youthful prank because Brother Pross was 29 years old and his swindle disclosed shrewd planning. He and a partner opened a furniture store in Brooklyn which was a dummy inthe operation and ordered loads of furniture on credit from manufacturérs and wholesalers, They shoved the merchandise out the back way in the dark of the moon, shipped it to an auction room which they were operating, sold it and then started

through the wringer as bankrupts, for about $10,000. Judge Fred H. Bryant, who sentenced Brother Pross, said the scheme was dishonest from its inception and frowned upon it severely. Brother | Green's colleague did his time, minug the usual dis- ! counts, and emerged from Atlanta well qualified |

The Hoosier Forum

under the current code of fitness to become a defender of the toiler and of labor's gains,

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

‘Charged With Violating Sherman Law’ IN 1939 our friend is in again, charged with vio-

finance the noisy race-prejudice sheet mentioned above? It would be a service to public morals if the senate could find out, and tell the country, just what happened.

3 ¢& THE FIREMAN TAKES OVER

IN baseball parlance, a “fireman” is an accomplished relief pitcher, He doesn't autograph many programs and he'll probably never land in the Hall of Fame at Cooperstown, but his team-mates don’t quibble about voting him a full share of the series dough, and any smart manager would gladly trade his right arm and a couple of 300-hitters for a good fireman like Johnny Murphy or Ace Adams. This valued member of a ball club spends the bright summer afternoons out in the bull pen, swapping lies with a second-string catcher, until the starting pitcher gets into trouble and the line drives begin to whistle past. the second baseman. Then the fireman warms up hastily, shucks his sweater, ambles in across the outfield, takes a look around the loaded bases and at the dangerous slugger facing him, gives his pants a hitch while he shifts his chew to the other cheek—and retires the side. The fire's out. : » » » ” on » THE INDIANAPOLIS INDIANS are deep in the trough of an early-season losing streak and are at the bottom of the American Association standings with an anemic .133 percentage. So there's a great deal of significance in the fact that Ownie Bush, president-manager of the club, has called in a fireman to take over The fireman in this case is Barney (Mike) Kelly, and he’s a fireman in both fact and assignment. Like most baseball “firemen,” he’s an old hand at the game and knows his way around; he has served as minor league catcher and manager and big league coach and scout. He is a local product and has worked with Bush before; Ownie says he is a hustler, and Ownie ought to know—being a simon pure hustler himself, In succeeding Ownie as manager, he should produce the kind of a team Ownie would if his health were

themselves.

lating the Sherman anti-trust law in picketing New York liquor. stores to prevent the sale of California wines bottled in California. Thurman Arnold, then chief of the anti-trust division of the department of Justice, gave the party. Judge John C. Knox fined Brother Pross $100 on a plea of guilty and, inasmuch as the old judge is pretty severe on union crooks when he can draw beads on them, it would seem that they might® not have given him the brother's pedigree to consider. Last week, Thorn Lord, the acting district attorney in Newark, knew that the brother had paid the fine in the anti-trust thing but didn’t know anything about the bankruptcy conviction or the petty larceny job, marked down from grand larceny, ; In the Sherman act case, Brother Pross could plead that he did what he did to make it necessary to bottle the California wine in New York and thus make work for his subjects. But closer investigation could have shown that he was very close to some operators in the bottling business in the New York area who also wanted a piece of -this work for

‘Speak of Themselves as Labor's Martyrs’

SO THERE is your pin-up boy who has so well learned the angles and the jargon of the union racket that when he was indicted the other day he got out an official statement that it was “absurd to contemplate that I, or anyone associated with me, participated or conspired in any OPA violations” and so forth. They do get that way. They get high-sounding and speak of themselves as labor's martyrs and vietims of employers’ foul plots and of laboF-baiters. Brother Pross has set himself in so well in the congenial company of the New York AFL unioneers that his picture is printed in their publications and he once even had the gall to address a message to labor on economic stability after victory. He also has muscled into a local of employees of department stores and one of the union papers refers to him as the boss of a local embracing a number of miscellaneous unions, a sort of catch-all union racket like District Fifty of the Mine Workers. In January, 1942, Brother Pross petitioned . the department of justice for restoration of his eivil rights, suspended when he was sent to Atlanta, and was turned down. In that petition he gave as his" occupation “executive business manager of the Wine, Liquor and Distillery Workers’ union.”

such that he could take active charge of field operations. s 8 =» . ® x N | INDIANAPOLIS FANS like Ownie Bush, They like | the way he runs the club, they like the brand of baseball he has brought to this city, they like him personally. They'd string along with Ownie as manager if the team never won another game, But that kind of baseball wouldn't satisfy Ownie—and didn’t. So he Stepped upstairs to the front office and called in the best man he could find to run the team—and that's typical of Ownie, too. Indianapolis has a good team, much better than the record to date shows. And we have a hunch that the new Kelly-Bush management is going to prove it, Fireman Kelly, do your stuff. We're all behind you. |’ —_— ONE IS ENOUGH REP. WINIFRED C, STANLEY (R. N. Y.) has put in a resolution Proposing a merger of the house and senate investigations of the Montgomery Ward case, It should be passed. Why waste congressional manpower any more than industrial manpower? Let a joint committee do the Job, with a single set of investigators and a single set of witnesses. Congress might even gave ‘a little money that way—and with better result, ——

THE MOTE AND THE BEAM

HE Moscow correspondent of the New York Times rePorted last week that certain governmental circles in a are concerned because the legation of Finland, a Pn with which the Soviet Union is at War, remains open Vashington. The inference was clearly made that this ’ lack of faith and Co-operation with our ally,

‘the correspondent has correctly interpreted the feel-

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sleep ‘over a husband's forgetting her wedding an-

siggest that the Russians tell it| d p arly to those Marines, who, in| are fighting against the forces of the | Which not only maintains a|

We The People

By Ruth Millett

IN EXPLAINING the advantages of being a “plural wife” one Balt Lake City wife of a polygamous husband said earnestly: “I have often observed how many little things, I have learned from my sister wives that have added to the joys and comforts I can administer to m husband,” x Now there is one side of porials lygamy that should appeal to women—the chance to discuss a husband, especially his shortcomings, with a woman who also has to put up with him. A woman wouldn't worry long or cry herself to

niversary if his other wives admitted he also forgot theirs. : And she could just accept a before breakfast bad disposition with “Well, that's just the way Henry is”—if his other wives complained of the same thing,

Wives Need to Discuss Husbands

IT'S A PACT that wives need someone to talk over their husbands with. Iovelorn columng and marriage clinics are proof of that » But no ‘lovelorn editor or psychiatrist could be quite a8 understanding a lstener as a man's other

“WHO WILL SAY IT WASN'T WORTH IT?” By Ray Sir Burns, Indianapolis

Rose Bud Silver, in regard to your letter, May 3, I think if you are ever told just when and how to use a doctor, it will be for your own benefit. Yes, it's time for people to think for themselves. But how do most of them think? They don’t think there is a gas shortage: they even say that millions of gallons are being poured out on the ground because it’s unfit for airplanes. They think that nothing should have been rationed, that people would have rationed their own coffee and sugar. Oh, sure, but these same. people had their basements full long before rationing was ever mentioned. The people have always been doing their own thinking. When we get to the polls we think and we elect a government to keep us in line when our thoughts would lead us astray. If we had been free to do what we thought, don't you suppose Wel reqouple our efforts to estatitsy would have been found back in the farthest corner with our hands unity and support our government. tight in our pockets, holding our 2 8 = tdx money when Hitler walked in| “THAT IS WHAT THE the front door? I am glad we GOVERNMENT DID” have heen prieq loose from enough By James C. Mohler, 1035 N. Mount st.

(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, end 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 core respondence regarding them.)

condemn members of the Indianapolis Real Estate Board for upholding Mr. Avery of Montgomery Ward in defying the war. labor board and our commander-in-chief. Be is further resolved: That we

government carry out the word of the law on the moneyed group as

well? The only question concerns his post-war policy On « 8 that point opinion has not yet erystalized but this “THIS IS A week 's Bovuist Porn that it won't make much TEST CASE® ones w sisted,

By Rusé¥il Snapp, Greensburg At the beginning of the European conflict, Adolf Hitler, after carefully maneuvering his Nazi ‘stooges into| Possibly go positions of trust as employees of the biggest privately-owned publishing company in Germany, struck without and confiscated the entire plant for, as he said, the betterment of the German nation. The owner's business, eapital and everything he had was grabbed by the Nasi s n. at one bold stroke and the owner himself was —

lucky to get out alive. . . King's Gambit

In this country at the present By Henry J. Taylor

time, C. I. O. members employed by Montgomery Ward have tied up the affairs of this company in such a way that Mr. Roosevelt and Mr. Biddle have decided to take over in the name of the government with the excuse that this company is engaged in war production work. Anyone who has the slightest knowledge of Montgomery Ward knows that this is not so, as their business is entirely retail and nothing more.

money to build an ‘army and navy. : And when victory has been won,| I have read many articles in the Forum about the seizure. of the

who will be so mean as to say it wasn't worth it? Montgomery Ward Company in| Chicago.

® = =a The last congress passed the!

“REDOUBLE EFFORTS TO ESTABLISH UNITY” 18mith, Connally and Harness bill, better known as the “no strike”

Wheeler, Chairman Steward's Be. Local 1001, United Electrical, bill. Under it a union, a group of Radio & Machine Workers of America [Eriasey pes 1ogstnet 1 iv i ur 0 Inclosed is, a resolution Passed | [HO nditions for said employees by our organization. Please Print {ang families—not a big beast that this resolution in the next issue of | takes all the worker's pay as Pegler your paper, land other newspaper columnists inWhereas: Our union and every |sist—that does not do what the

the war labor board, even though union pnd arrest the leaders. But

our members and organization and, |like the decisions of the WLB, they Whereas: We consider the war | promptly tell the WLB, the Presilabor board to have rendered deci- | dent and all the rest of the 130 sions reducing our living standards, | million people to go straight to heil we have in the interests of organ- and do as they please. Umder the ized government and winning the | same Smith, Connally and Harness war, called upon all to abide by bill, the government can take over

stewards’ body representing 4000|government did and now some of Mallory employees, condemn as our so-called Americans shout fase anarchistic dividual who defies a duly appoint- | for carrying out the law as they see ed board of the United States gov- | it. ernment. {and

arrested for not doing what Be it further resolved: That we the

Side Glances—By Galbraith o\ a PEE |

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individual member have abided to War labor board decrees, the gov-| “WHERE AM I the letter of every order issued by ernment has power to dissolve the{TQ LIVE?”

By Behind th. 8 Ball, Indi these orders worked hardships on |if the capitalists decide they do not| * 3 Sail Indianapolis

mean” city agd have worked all my life and have a good reputation and character. thing handed to me on a silver platter and have never been able to own 4 home of my own, although I've

have been an employee of this city any corporation or in-|cism at our government officials > bi = Rng lls Save bs a wife and four nice boys, 18, 11 one group ean be dissolved ;,"s'.. .", “oy tires a bs A (for the last six years is being sold WLB decrees, why can't the , settle an estate; so it isn't the 7 fault of the owners, for they have been very nice and fair to me. 1 know all landlords aren't heels; there are lots of them that are good and patient, any trouble with one, yet, although there are a few who: don’t want children. ‘But there are good and bad children. So, all I'm asking is for some good landlord to see the

Therefore, we can come to only one conclusion. This is a test case between government and business. If Mr. Roosevelt wins out in this case, no business is safe from government seizure. Any farm or any business of any description could bg taken over with the same excuse. Soldiers of th& U. 8. have been sent to Europe to stamp out all isms and one-man rule by government— but could it be possible while we are crushing this rule in Europe that the same thing is sneaking in the back door of our own country?

chiefs of staff board, has ordered ranking naval officers to prepare immediately a program for unification to match the Army's proposal 2s Closely as feasible, . Adm. King’s order directs his officers to form a committee for the purpose of first solving immediate problems of vast dupleation in army and navy equipment and personnel, especially in the navy's new program for land-based bombers and land-based fighters to be built for action in the Pacific. And, secoltdly the new committee is directed to study long-range problems obstructing the ultimate cone solidation of the forces as a whole.

Immediate Unification Not Contemplated

THE WAR DEPARTMENT proposal did not urge complete unification at once and Adm. King’s order does not involve that. The army has been appealing for legislation to pin down only the general principle of ultimate consolidation and in that way permi urgent savings through the hands of the joint chiefs

I was born and raised in this “no

I have never had any-

always dreamed of it. But some-| of staff while the far-reaching questions of a final these decisions, land run the enterprise until. the 4 ” ng q Therefore be it resolved: That the | trouble is settled. That is what the how the breaks” would go 8gainst| nlueprint for unification were left at least until

Now my situation is this: 1 after the European phase of the war.

proposal to the house committee with the understanding that it would have sympathetic attention from the navy. However, Acting Forrestal's flat rejection of the idea when he ‘appeared before the house committee left the war department stranded. Happily, Adm, King, working and Arnold on the joint chiefs of staff board, has now overcome the immediate impasse by his order.

Fear Shocking Duplication in Pacific

And I've never had

human side of this and rent me a| defeat of Hitler and unless at least the immediate | decent house to live in because who-| issue involving the navy's forthcoming duplication ever buys the house I'm in will want| on land-based. air power for the Pacific can be met Hy to live in it, and so where am I to now, members of the committee feel the result will . . “{live and rise my family? be duplication in the Pueific on a scale which will a) ‘ a a» shock the country, oe 71 “HE LOVES LITTLE Adm. King's order canriot go to the roots of the / CHILDREN" problem of separate services, but it can permit the $d BY T. 5. Swan, lndlanepelis immediate needs for consolidation to fall partially

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