Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 22 May 1944 — Page 10

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@- RILEY 5551

YOU'RE RIGHT, MR. MURRAY

ONGRESS wants to recess soon. That's understandable in an election year. The plan most members apparently favor is to leave Washington about a month hence, to return briefly after Labor day, then to take off again until

the fateful Nov. 7 is past.

The Murray-George bill for fair and speedy settlement of canceled war contracts has a good chance of enactment before the recess. It has passed the senate, unanimously, and is moving, too slowly, toward consideration by the house. It is vitally important. Other demobilization probJems can’t be solved unless the war industries are enabled to collect the money owed them by government, to clear their plants quickly of government machines and materials,

and to put people to work producing civilian

goods.

That's why we disagreed with the big labor organizations when they wanted to hold back the Murray-George bill until congress got ready to act on omnibus legislation designed to cover contract settlement and all the other

problems,

BUT WE AGREE with Philip Murray, president of the C. I. 0., that the other problems call urgently for attention by congress in the few weeks left before the recess. They concern the demobilization and re-employment of millions

of war workers, soldiers and sailors.

They demand the

best answer wise government policies can provide for the question of “whether we return to an economy of scarcity or go forward to an economy of abundance.” As Mr. Murray says, passage of the Murray-George bill will not automatically insure a “fine and dandy” future. Much more is necessary to achieve “an expanding economy and an orderly transition to the post-war world,” which he proclaims as organized labor's goal,-and which is our goal, too. We're not convinced that Senator Kilgore's bill, for which the C. I. O. is fighting, would carry the country to that goal, or even surely toward it. Indeed, most of these other problems are terribly complex, and most of the proposals for solving them are controversial. But that is all the more reason why congress should be hard at work on

them.

For Mr. Murray puts it mildly when he says that if congress delays action on the bulk of them until November or later, wholesale cutbacks of war production following the defeat of Germany may catch this country “without any adequate preparation” to deal with conditions of extreme

difficulty and danger.

THE LOW-WAGE FREEZE

S millions of hard-pressed Americans can testify, nothing at all has been done about the recent recommendation of a senate subcommittee that wage controls be abolished insofar as they apply to heads of families making $200 or less a month and single persons making $150 or less. The war labor board, which passes on all proposed raises in the low-wage groups (and makes a practice of saying no), has not considered the matter. Nor, apparently, has it considered simplifying those formidable blanks that have to be filled out when & boss wants to raise somebody's

pay.

Senators Claude Pepper and Elbert Thomas, of the subcommittee, are now planning to put their recommendations in legislative form, which will give congress a chance to do something about the difficulties of the numerous white-collar workers who have been trapped between the

millstones of fixed income and rising outgo.

There is no doubt that real injustice and real hardship are involved here. Something should be done about it, particularly since the senate subcommittee asserts that relief for the wirite-collar workers would not have infla-

tionary results.

THIS DOESN'T ABSOLVE SWEDEN

HE government, after investigating, announces that American subsidiaries of SKF Industries will not be seized, and that the SKF plants in this country have

“excellent records for war production.”

Recent talk of taking over the plants, in retaliation against the continued shipment of ball bearings to the German war machine by SKF’s great Swedish parent company, appears to have had a damaging effect on the morale of the thousands of workers at the SKF plants in Philadelphia and New York. It is to be hoped that the clean bill of health reported by the treasury and the alien property custodian will restore the esprit de corps of the workers, whose output is acknowledged by the army and

navy to be “vital to the war effort.”

Sweden, however, must not construe thi

s domestic | |

development as a sign of any slackening in the insistence of the allies that, its exports of ball bearings to the Nazis

~ =who need them more than ever since our heavy bomb-

ers wrecked bearing plants in Germany—must be shut off. If Stanton Griff fails in his ¢urrent mission—he is in Sweden to negotiate if need be the purchase of that country’s entire output of ball bearings—the unpleasant next step will almost inevitably be economic pressures by the

-allies against this already hard-pressed neutral. On the

eve of invasion we can hardly be expected to play Alphonse-and-Gaston with a country that is peddling a crucial war

necessity to the enemy, —— resin

PROTECTION FOR GI JOE

is has already made plans g veteran get his ment loan.» nendable move that similar

groups ‘would

SSUMING that the “GI Bill of Rights” will be passed ‘by Congress, the National Association of Real Estate to see that the real estate

money's worth for his discharge

“feller. se

¢ labor draft law for war industries. Mr, Stimson favors one, too, and Donald Nelson, chairman of the war production board, a) with Forrestal and Patterson, said there was now a desperate shortage of men in foundaries which are producing weapons.

‘These Men Are Not in Politics’

IT 1S IMPORTANT to note that there men are not in politics or concerned with unionism, one way or another. Forrestal has had an interesting personal experience in that his wife was held up and robbed of jewelry a few years ago by a New York mob which included a union official who had the efirontery to try to levy on his subjects for a fund to pay for his appeal. However, none of the men who are thus directly and solely engaged in such duties Has ever expressed an attitude on the closed shop, the union security or the maintenance of membership issues. They just say they need more industrial manpower than they are getting and hold that the only safe solution is a labor draft. President Roosevelt also has proposed a labor draft but with provisos which were obviously inserted with an eye to the political campaign, and Mrs. Roosevelt has taken such a serious view of the labor shortage that she has suggested a draft of women as well as men.

Not being in politics, Stimson, Forrestal, Patterson, Nelson and others who have asked for a labor draft, have ignored the question ‘whether men so drafted should have to join unions and, in most cases, under coercion, contribute to the Democratic party's campaign fund. They surely have their opinions and considering their background, it may be assumed that they are against such compulsion. The President has said nothing on the subject.

‘Subject to a Political Tax'

YET OBJECTION to compulsory union membership for drafted labor is the most serious obstacle in the way of the proposal in the popular mind. Nowadays, even discharged servicemen are beginning to report resentfully that, having served their country in a horrible war, they find that their right to work for its preservation is subject to a political tax for the campaign fund of the party in power and for private organizations, having, on the whole, a bad record of lawlessness. In Washington, Thursday, Mr, Patterson told the senators that the rate of strikes had been abnormal in 1943 when there were more than 5000 of them, and was continuing high. On the other hand, the President, in his lecture to the press on the Montgomery Ward case a few days ago, said that the total percentage of strikes had been on the whole, low, which is a statement so vague as to be almost without mean= ing. But it certainly does not mean that the percentage, or rate, has been abnormally high; and in this conflict of statements someone’ is either exagger= ating, or minimizing. Patterson has no political motive to serve by exaggeration.

Fear Showdown on Membership

THERE IS further strong objection to the labor draft from the union bosses of all three important groups with the exception of the Communists of the C. I. O. The Communists are for it. However, the A. F. of L. and the non-Communist elements of the C. I. O. are against the draft for a number of reasons, some of them not plainly stated but concealed.

o

Their chief stated objection is strangely idealistic

coming from men who use compulsion constantly. They say the labor draft would institute involuntary servitude, meaning slavery. Their strongest reason, however, is that they fear that the labor draft would bring a showdown on the question of compulsory membership, campaign contributions and other taxes for private organizations: and that, in the showdown, the people would win, which would be a great blow to their cherished closed shop and its variations. Is the strike rate abnormally high or is the “percentage,” on the whole, low? If it is abnormally ‘high then the President was incorrect and the famous nostrike pledge of the A. F, of L. and C. I. O. has been flouted so often that the privileges granted to the

unions in consideration of that pled e hav - itor pledge have been for

We The People

By Ruth Millett

A RECENT ISSUE of “Yank.” the army weekly, shows a picture | of a WAC acting as second to a | soldier contender in a boxing | tourney. It makes an odd picture. But there's nothing really unusual about a woman's acting as a man’s second. That is every wife's job. The husband has a verbal fight with his boss, and though his wife isn’t Johnny-on-the-spot to sponge off her man’s fevered brow, or to wave a cooling towel in front of him—she steps in as second the minute she hears about the fight.

An Ever-Ready Second

“YOU DID exactly right, honey, to tell him off,” she says. And then adds, “He doesn’t half appreciate how smart vou are and how hard you work, and it's time you told him a thing or two.” And when he gets in an argument with anybody she is right there ready to needle him into getting even madder. “The idea of his saying that to you,”

she says. “What in the world does he think he knows about it?”

Every time her husband runs into a good fight his

little woman is egging him on, patching up his battered ego and quieting in him any doubts that he might possibly have been in the wrong. Any wife worth her salt is her husband's everready second—ready to pitch in at a moment's notice

and-make-him- think there-is nobody and nothing

in the world that can lick him. And if, in spite of his wife's faith, he does get licked she is there like a him on his feet,

So They Say—

PARENTS TODAY are certainly not in their

homes where they belong, no matter what socio= be]

economic group they come from. The youngsters feel that their parents are not primarily interested in them but rather in having a Grafton Abbott, educational Social Hygiene Association.

consultant American

INCREASINGLY WE are going to need the raw |

materials of our neighbors and they their 130,000,000 population vast pot for the manufactured goods of the Co-ordinator of

represent with

United States.— Inter-American Affairs Nelson Rocke-

Mee SE 3 GERMANY 18 fully to meet.

good second ready to help |

g00d time—Mrs. T. |

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be dear at 30 cents, and & gladly pay $100—if we had

We Must Have Refunds:

by Mr. Linet's yardstick, we must have some substantial refunds due us, Anybody know a good lawyer? This may séem to be a simple action at law tween an outraged customer and the purveyors books. But there is a larger issue at stake, for which we would gladly start a

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The Hoosier Forum

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

“BACKBONE OF OUR FREE GOVERNMENT”

By Walter Scott, Indianapolis I have never been much to state my ‘thoughts or opinions to the public. However, a ‘few days ago, I read a letter written by a Mr. Benjamin Stevens in which he re{plied to a Mrs. Haggerty. Mr. Stevens implied that if Mrs. Hag-, gerty wasn't satisfied to live with the Constitution of the United States, then she should leave the country. Perhaps he was too strong in his implication, who knows? And, if he was, that did not give Mrs. E. E. any right to ridicule the Bill of Rights, or the Constitution of the United States. However, it may

scripts and cannot enter cor(be that Mrs. E. E. and Mrs. Hag- She keeps saying that our men in| | gerty do not know what the Con-

responden i . . | | BETLY espondence regarding them.) [service won't get to vote. The bill] { stitution really is or perhaps they {has been passed by congress, allow-

| would rather discuss the Nazi Mein | is ridiculed and slurred by someone ing servicemen to vote on a state controlled ballot. Does she dare to

{Kampf or the Japanese Samauri who does not know or does not care! | code. (What it actually stands for. I geny this and call our newspapers | { Mrs. E. E. spoke of her two sons | wonder if Mrs, E. E. realizes there! : {and a grandson who are in service. Would be no free speech, or free {Has she ever stopped to think they Press or any other types of freedoms [are defending with their lives that | for us if it were not for our [same document which she so un-| cherished Bill of Rights. Therefore, | | wittingly ~ slurred and ridiculed? it is the actual -backbone of our {Does Mrs. Haggerty or does Mrs. | free American form of government | |E.E. know what it is like to be in and should be held in honor and| and would like to have a few Jones! | active combat? They do not. I do, | esteem above all else, even our flag. | ang Smiths and what have you for! |and it is plain hell. You lie in the Our flag is but an emblem of our|, gioht change of diet. Don't you! Imud with your rifle ready for in-|freedom while the Bill of Rights | ooree with me, neighbor? [stant action; suddenly you receive has actually given us-all our free-| ’ a command and you are running to-| dom. The Bill of Rights is actually | ® 2.2 ward the enemy. They jump up to the foundation of the greatest na- “WHY DON'T THEY meet you with their bayonets, blood | Flog on She face of ihe epiize ealth| COME TO EARTH?” spatters your face and hands. One an ow disrespect for or to slur po; your buddies beside you has been |at the Bill of Rights is the same » 4 Auetican, Indiakapoits hit, riddled. You taste his blood,|as doing those things to the flag or] I'M almost as fond of the New

mingled with mud as you wipe it|the nation itself.

{Deal's indispensable man as they | from your lips, and you curse. Sud-| Destroy the bill of Rights or the are of Herbert Hoover. I do feel denly you slip and sprawl out in the

Constitution of the United States,! mud. A shadow looms over you; |

and you destroy the United States, | 118% any President or First Lady you look up; you see a bayonet, t00. Her people will perish with it.| should be examples of fair play. I smashing for your chest. You try| What more can be said? The Bill think our country is in serious danto dodge, but you fail, and hellish| of Rights and the United States of ger because so many citizens have agony burns searingly through your | America are one and the same. their heads in the sand. If termites

entire body, Then merciful black- 8 = =» eat away our constitutional timbers, | fos Slams iy and relieves you «pgQpPLE AREN'T a large percentage of the people, Tom the hedisn pam, ALL IGNORANT” won't know what about it until they

How would you two ladies enjoy| ; ! ed see it in the newspapers; that is, if ? 's are! By 1 . M. 8, | such a treat as that? Our boys are By Mrs. D. M. §., Indianapolis |the newspapers are not under gov-

going through just such as that, de-| I have heard and read quite a few! ernient control. - fending the way of life outlined for| very funny articles in the Hoosier | If the Democrats want to stay in all American people by the same Bill | Forum since I first began to read it.! wer, why don’t th ome liatk to of Rights of which Mr. Stevens However, I believe that just about | POH iH 0 By s . c spoke and which was ridiculed in| the most ridiculous one I have read pa : Epresenia ve Ludlow sugMrs. E. Es letter. You ask how I|yet is the letter of Mrs. Haggerty 5% > 1 the Republicans wan to know this? Because I saw action|which was in the Forum of May 17. Bey | power, why don't they stop as a marine. I now have only one | Mrs. Haggerty warned the mothers Tn thes and Seluing in Hos sleep? lung; the other was punctured by a| of our men in service that liars were do a oe cru a = umbugs can Jap bayonet. on the loose.and spreading rumors.| ° oo 25 mu amage as terI do not wholly agree with Mr.|I believe that every man woman a” = e next man we choose for Stevens, but I cannot stand by and |and child realized that when they|® coident certainly needs to be one hear a document of such value to|read Mrs. Haggerty's first letter." Would not drive the wedge of our very lives as the Bill of Rights! The people of the United States! CParation any farther into the

heart of the greatest country on Side Glances—By Galbraith

aren't all ignorant and are fully! capable and able to think for themsalves. You know, there is one thing that! has me guessing. How does Mrs. Haggerty find the time to write 80, many letters when there is so much | work to be done? Is it at all pos-| sible that her homework and cooking and so forth is good enough to do itself, or perhaps she is one of the privileged few who has maids! and servants to do her work? If| she does, then why doesn't she get| herself a job in a defense plant, doing something beneficial to everyone instead of writing so many] letters that are always full of poppy-cock, illiterate gibberish and plain foolishness?

(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 responsibility for the return of manu-

and reporters all liars? Perhaps she | would know more about the every-| day happenings if she would: read! some other items in the paper be-| sides her own letters. I believe that] numerous other people are begin- | ning to get fed up with Haggerty!

many people do not know what is good for them so they have a poor chance of getting it. However, this is no time to go to the ballot box with a selfish spirit. Today we need people with the spirit of Barbara Frietche. She was not a politician. | She said, “Shoot, if you will, this old gray head, but spare my counJ try’s flag!”

earth, The pity of it is that so

» 2 # “WATCH OUT FOR NEW DEAL TRICK” _| By Edmund J, Rocker, Indianapolis Watch out for a New Deal trick to pull the four-term wool over the voter's eyes this coming November, 1944, election. My prediction is that

If someone will pay for the stationery and articles of incorporation, we stand ready to establish a League to Preserve and Defend Imaginary Persons. With Ephraim Tutt as general counsel. For some of the most delightful people we have

| known have not been people at all—at least to Mr.

Linet's way of thinking. Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer, Robinson Crusoe, Mr. Toad, Archie and Mehitabel, Mr. and Mrs, Cugat, Sherlock Holmes, Mr. Gissing, to mention only a few, were very real

persons, though their names may not be found in . | any record of vital statistics.

Paging Mr. George Spelvin, American

IF MR. LINET has his way, we may foresee a flurry of similar suits. That promising Hoosier,

| Mary Beth Plummer, for instance, may have to call

in all the copies of “The Collected Works of Mrs.

| Peter Willoughby"—if she can pry them away from

her delighted readers, and Westbrook Pegler may be served with a bench warrant demanding that he produce, ipso facto and sine die, the body of George Spelvin, American. We might even have to rustle ‘around ourselves, and round up Benny the Bartender or a reasonable facsimile thereof. And think what it would do to the comic strip artists, and Walt Disney, forced on short notice to produce in the flesh Superman, Daisy Mae, Alley Oop, Major Hoople, Mickey Mouse and the Seven Dwarfs. We must have some rights left. The courts have done some funny things—especially since Mr. Justice Frankfurter discovered that the law* does not necessarily mean what it says, and vice versa—but we doubt if Linet can make his pleading stick. We'd not even be greatly surprised if, when the case comes to trial, a long man in a tall hat should walk into the chambers, and remind the court of an: obscure statute from the Amended Code of 1878, and 'a precedent from the case of Finchfaddle vs. Knowe, et al. That would be Ephraim Tutt, who has a way of showing up with the right citation whenever his friends seem hopelessly entangled with the law.

| We Can't Deny Our Friends

FOR WE KNOW Ephraim Tutt, and have known him for years. And we say so, fully realizing that this may cause us to be made a co-defendant in Mr. Linet's suit, or haled into court as an immaterial witness. But we can't deny our friends. Ephraim Tutt exists, and he is a very real person. He is the symbol of embodied justice, the spirit of the law rising above the letter of legality. Though he has the mind of a lawyer and a student, he has the soul of humanity. And if that is not real— what is? Years back, someone—probably Mr. Linet—told little Virginia O'Hanlon that there was no Santa Claus, and it remained for Frank Church of the New York Sun to put her right. The enduring words of that famous editorial might well be applied to Ephraim Tutt: “He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy . . . The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see.” And paraphrasing Church's classic, we might -add: How dreary would be the world, Virginia, if there were no Ephraim Tutt. It would be as dreary as if there were no Lewis R. Linets.

Pacific Offensive By Ludwell Denny :

WASHINGTON, May 22. Talk of an attack on the Philippines is no longer wishful thinking. Gen. Smuts, after the Pacific strategy session of the empire conference in London, indicated such an offensive would come sooner than generally expected. Reports from Gen. MacArthur's headquar- - ters leave no doubt as to the goal of his successful leapfrog advance up the Dutch New Guinea coast. The same kind of three-way air assault to which allied planes from England-Italy-Russia are treating Hitler is now being used against the Japs in the Southwest Pacific. While Nimitz’ carriers drive in from the east, and MacArthur's bombers strike from the south, Mountbatten's carriers from the Indian ocean are putting planes over the Dutch Indies. The great naval base of Soerabaja’ Java, was blasted twice by Mountbatten bombers, while MacArthur was capturing the Wakde islands, off New Guinea, . ; Seizure of the Wakdes sets the Pacific schedule

including dhe best big bomber strip in the entire area. ur weeks elapsed between the capture of the Hollandia area and this current 125-

mile jump is welcome evidence of the new tempo. Perfect Triphibian Co-Ordination

weeks, because of its three airflelds—

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