Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 7 July 1944 — Page 12

"PAGE 12 Friday, July 7, 1944

ROY W. HOWARD WALTER LECKRONE MARK PERREE President «Editor. Business Manager

(A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)

Owhed and publishsd Price in Marion Coundaily (except Sunday) by ty, 4 cents a eopy; deliv. Times Pub~ ered by carrier, 18 cents + lishing Co. AW. May. a week. Zone " sd roa) Ee Mail rates Ba BE ana, $5 a year; ado Member a Des res, : states, 75 cents a month; A oy others, $1 monthly. jce, and Audit Bureau * of Circulations. «B= RILEY 5851

Give Light end the People Will Find Their Own Wey

CLAPPER ON OUR LIBERTY READ and heard a lot of inspiring Fourth of July articles and orations, but the best Independence Day comment in our recent memory still stands in a column by the late Raymond Clapper. It appeared in this newspaper

on July 4, 1942, It dealt with the deep-rooted nature of our ‘reverence for self-government, and that of England, as contrasted with the similarly deep-rooted but opposite instinct in such a nation as Germany. There the urge is to be ruled by the state. It is the long tradition of German history, with its kings and kaisers and fuehrers. Here and in England the tradition is the reverse. It is that the state is made for “man, not man for the state. Centuries of momentum are back of that. So we quote the cheering philosophy that Clapper expressed: “You hear people say that we shall lose our democracy as a result of the war—that this country would be transformed into a totalitarian state. . .. “Men who have always had freedom are going to breed true to type. They won't give up their freedom as long as they have the force to prevent a conqueror from taking it away from them. “America was born out of the instinct for individual freedom. You see that instinct burning in the men coming over on the Mayflower. When they drew up the Mayflowef Compact, they said they were binding themselves together to take such action as would be thought best for ‘the general good of the colony.” You see this instinct in the early patriots. In James Otis writing on the rights of the colonies. In Samuel Adams attacking the stamp act and laying down the principle of no taxation without representation, and in his resolutions to the Massachusetts house of representatives on resistance to tyranny, with the challenging call that ‘No people ever yet groaned under the heavy yoke of slavery but when they deserved it." He foreshadowed the language of the Declaration of Independence when he championed the rights to life, liberty and property. There were many others—John Adams telling the colonists, ‘Let us dare to read, think, speak and write,” and Patrick Henry standing in the Richmond church and shouting his defiant ‘Give me liberty or give me death.’

a

a 8 = # ” 2 : . “OUT OF those roots grew the Declaration of Independence, dedicated to the principle that the people had certain inalienable rights, among them the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. “Those ideals live deep in the bones of America. They have been defended by struggle time and again. Crises have made it necessary to ignore them temporarily but they are always alive, always demanding expression with the persistence of the deepest human instincts. They give a light that is not dimmed, even in these dark days.”

SERVICE MEN FIRST E hope that Rep. Erret P. Scrivner (R. Kas,) is correct in'his information that the Office of Price Administration is going to liberalize the gasoline rations granted to _ service men on furlough. Present policy allows a service man only 5 gallons, regardless of the length of the furlough. As has been pointed out in several letters to the Hoosier Forum, this is, in most cases, entirely inadequate. For a service man

"a day; or for a 10-day furlough, 715 miles a day. Many of the men thus furloughed are home for the last time before going overseas on a mission from which they may never return. Most have relatives and friends in nearby towns whom they wish to visit—yet that is impossible under the existing regulation, The average civilian would gladly accept further restriction in his own mileage ration if that would make it possible for the boys to have extra gas for their rare, and all too brief, holidays. But we doubt if that will be necessary—there seems to be gas to burn, if we may judge from the volume of highway traffic on Sundays and holidays. The nation can afford to be generous with the men who have given up their civilian comforts to protect it. None, certainly, are more deserving of extra consideration. It has taken the Office of Price Administration too long to recognize the almost universal wartime policy: “Service men first.”

© TWO MORE WRECKS J TE Fourth of July wreck of the Santa Fe Chief, like the Labor Day wreck last year of the Pennsylvania's Congressional Limited, is a reminder of the tremendous pressure under which the railroads have been operating in wartime. This reminder was again underscored when many soldiers were killed in the derailment of a Ft. Harrison troop train near Jellico, Tenn., last night. Theré will always be railroad accidents, until Utopia arrives. And anybody who takes an occasional ‘train ride nowadays is likely to wonder why there aren’t more of them. Roadbeds seem rougher than a few years ago. ‘The hand at the throttle seems less skilled—at least there are too many- jolts on some runs. But major accidents are still fairly infrequent. Whether they will become more numerous as. the war continues is another question. Deteriorating equibment and manpower present a challenge to the roads. 1t seems to us that it would be a good idea to slow down the schedules of some of the faster trains where roadbed rolling stock ‘cannot be maintained at normal stand-

early for breakfast i in the next. ”

1e Indianapolis Times|

with a 30-day furlough, it amounts to 21% miles of driving |

{doreign country

Speed is useful, but “better late for dinner in this ;

Fair Enough By Westbrook Pegler

impression, left by a reading of the text, that Adm.

gravity of orders from Washington in anticipation of war.

neglected to or co-operate,

{on the cottrnry, 1 eae ib Sate ot oo More-

ever, on -Feb. 27, 1942; one month after the- report

| member of the committee, was quoted in the San Francisco Examiner as having said: “The impression has been created that the relations between Short and Kimmel were so estranged that they passed to

‘| opposite sides of the street to avoid meeting each

other, The exact contrary was'the fact. A careful reading of the report will show that’ Kimmel and Short conferred for three hours on Nov. 27, that they conferred again .on Dec. 1, and again on the 2d and 4th and consultations between the army and navy were at the fullest. You can make that as strong as you want to.” :

quotations are not testimony. However, newspaper quotes are not inferior to the Roberts’ report, itself, for this committee had absolutely no standing as a court. Moreover, the report admits that the two commanders did confer ripesngly and does not charge non-co-operation.

"Instructions Concerned Internal Troubles’

THEN WHAT, precisely was the charge brought against Kimmel and Short- by the committee on which Rear Adm. Standley was a member? The report said they were derelict in failing to consult “respecting the meaning and intent” of warnings from Washington and “the appropriate measures of defense. required by the immediate imiminence of hostilities.” "But even that is just an Informal opinion, not a legal verdict. “Immediate imminence” occur immediately.” ; Neither commander had received any warning that hostilities were immediately imminent, On the contrary, up to the moment of the attack, they had been warned not to take any measures that would alarm the civilian population and only to take precautions against sabotage, espionage, propaganda ‘affecting

their personnel, and other subversive ‘activities, Their

information and instructions concerned internal troubles, not attack from the outside, and Short was specifically ordered to take no “illegal measures.” His “protective measures should be confined to those essential to security so as to avoid unnecessary publicity end alarm,” the report sdid. That was why his planes were concentrated, not dispersed. They could be better guarded against sabotage by fewer men.

‘Ordered Not to Take Offensive Action’

ADM. KIMMEL'S warnings were about the same. On Nov, 27, he was ordered not to take offensive action until Japan had struck the first blow. No further message was received by Kimmel prior to Dec. 7, raising the degree of alarm already recorded. Messages received between Nov. 20 and Dec. 7 only told him that the Japanese were “believed” to be destroying documents in certain consulates, authorized the destruction of confidential naval papers and suggested that the Japanese navy was bound _elsewhere than the Hawalians, In violation of his orders, Kimmel had been drop-

submarines on invis fact, the attack by

e contact for some months. In e destroyer Ward and a naval

f patrol plane in which a Japanese midget submarine

was sunk outside Pearl Harbor about an hour before the aerial bombardment of the naval base, was a violation of Kimmel’s latést orders ‘from Washington, It was an overt act. He should have let the submarine fire a torpedo at the Ward, first. It is possible that Kimmel and Short were remiss or derelict and should be dismissed without honor. But the fact is that up to this hour they have never been charged officially with the slightest offense and

.} are, legally, no more guilty than any other innocent

American walking the streets with a clean reputation.

"Convicted These Men Without Trial’ + -

MEANWHILE, HOWEVER, the: Roberts report, the propaganda of the Roosevelt political administration and the public's. inability to. discriminate between hearsay and rumor and to resist impressions, have convicted these men without trial. The' Roberts report flatly says they were guilty of “dereliction” in their failure to confer on certain matters, although certainly Justice Owen J. Roberts must know that this is a serious charge which only a court-martial couid determine. ) This committee was appointed by President Roosevelt “by executive order” -to report the “facts” and “provide basis for sound decisions whether any derelictions of duty or errors of judgment” by army or navy ComMmZngets, “contributed” to the Japanese success, But President Roosevelt, had been in charge of | still higher affairs, affecting the causes and probability of war; and the directive, limiting the inquiry to naval and military actions on the spot, precluded examination of his own conduct. And the inquiry was so conducted that the two officers could not de-

without trial and the whole story still remains to be told.

We The People

By. Ruth Millett

JEWELERS USED to advertise *You furnish the bride and we’ll furnish the ring.” A better slogan in wartime would be: “You fur= nish the groom and well furnish two rings.” For, according to the president of the Jewelry Crafts Association, § the new trend is for the bride to 8 walk: into a jewelry store and get: TW her own. wedding ring and also day “one for her man. The _.jewelers themselves are ready to explain this trend. They say it is due to the fact that most of the bridegrooms are servicemen. And they add that the reason why the bridegroom wants a wedding ring to wear himself is because it is a “tangible reminder of home.” Now men who deal in anything as romantic as wedding rings would naturally. take that romantic slant on the situation.

She's Staking Her Claim

reason why Mary, when she goes into a jewelry store to pick out the ring that will tell the world she is & nfarried woman, also asks for a ring for the man who is to be her husband.

to know he has been tagged.

superficial H |

was published, Rear Adm. William H. Standley, a|

I submit this remark knowing that newspaper | 3

means “threatening to :

1 wholly dis defend to thed

“The "Hoosier Forum ree with what you say, but will h your right to say it.—~Voltaire.

inn

“HE HAS A JOB TO FINISH”

By Mrs. Ellen Emmelman, ware, No, 2

(Times. readers are invited fo express their views in + these columns, religious cone " froversies 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 responsi bility for the return of manu. scripts and cannot enter core respondence regarding them.)

2051 N. Dela-

Keep up the good work, Mrs. Haggerty, as I am the Mrs. E. E. over whom so much controversy has been voiced by so many people. I am still with you, I am asking Mr. Walter Scott to look back at my letter and read it over. He said I said I had two sons and a grandson. - Well, I am very sorry that I am not that old, but I said I had two sons in the marines and one in the army. And I don’t believe Mr. Scott was ever a marine, as marines don’t talk about their experiences of this terrible war,. They are real he-men, not babies. My son is home on furlough now

ping ash cans on objects suspected of being Japanese,

fend themselves. By result they were found guilty.

' BUT ANY"WOMAN could give a more realistie

That reason, of course, is that Mary doesn’t want’ the girls at the U. 8. O. dances or the girls of any | her handsome husband is | still’ fair game. He is hers—and she wants the world

80 she talks her man into the idea that two wed~ ‘ordinary

after 27 months of not seeing any of us, but will he blow off steam like Mr. Scott does? No, he is a man, not a child. I am asking Mr. Scott to call and visit mé and my son and get his viewpoint on the situation of things. Now, if he is the man that does so much talking, he might like to come and talk to us, This is a challenge, Mr. Scott. I would have written sooner, but as I said, I am a widow with my three sons fighting for you and many like you and I take care of my home and also work in a factory 48 hours a week. I am really ashamed of some of the spoiled people we have here in the good old U. 8. A. There was,not any ridicule of out Constitution and Bill of Rights. My object is and will be other things "have been postponed until later, and why not hold this election over until after the war and then put whoever you want in. I have always respected our Presidents ‘even if we have had some pretty incapable ones. Roosevelt doesn’t want it any more than you do, but he has a job to finish. Who could respect a President if he threw up his hands in a crisis like this? Hope to hear from you, Mr. Scott, and not by newspaper clipping, either. 2 8 “WHICH oy YOU PREFER?” By Charles Ginsberg, Indianapolis

Voice in the Crowd has asked for proof the “workers could demand and receive all they produced under socialism.” Picking out part of paragraph, misconstruing and misquoting is characteristic of the carping cynics. What I said under date 1of June 3 was: “There is no real union in existence, there can be no

a {mention the Austin-Wadsworth bill

real union until the workers of America organize on class lines in a socialist industrial union as advocated by the Socialist Labor party of Amerka. Then the workers will be in a position to demand and get everything they produce.” Whoever owns the industries likewise owns the product of the industries. Today the industries are owned by the capitalist. - The paragraph from which the Voice in the Crowd used the last sentence, trying to give it another meaning, points out what the workers must do under capitalism in order to get socialism. After they have established socialism the industries will be the common property of the workers who today constitute 87 per cent of the population and they will not demand and “receive” all they produced. They will be in possession of all they produce. If they are in possession, who Will they demand of? You stated in yours of June 13 “If you want socialism and to be told where to work, what to wear and eat, if you want bicycles instead of automobiles, if you want scarcity insteady of plenty, if you want security for the drone with individuality for no one, let me say we are well on the way.” Where do you get such information about socialism? Come on, tell the readers of the Hoosier Forum or admit you have falsified. Socialism has never been tried and is guilty of nothing. The above conditions are the fruits of capitalism, the system prevailing today. © You failed to

for the conscription of labor which is ‘a violation of the 13th amendment to the Constitution of the United States which the President

Side Se, Th

and congressmen have taken a

LE

acclaimed by all kin Po and irreconcilable factions within| |

solemn oath to defend. If this bill becomes a law, we will have the yoke of industrial feudalism placed on our necks. In’ Germany it is called naziism. In Italy it is called fascism. We are nearing the crossroads. One leads to industrial feudalism, the other to socialism. Which do you prefer? Ciel WE “WE HAVE MANY SILLY CREATURES” By Benjamin Stevens, Indianapolis Silly world, is it? No, Mr. Cutter, I disagree with you.. But we do have many creatures roaming over this old world; and to my opinion, the most silly of them all is

still enjoy the freedom they ha the privilege of enjoying with ho They remind you of the crawdad, or crawfish some call it. -3-am sure that any person that ever saw a crawfish travel will agree with me; for when you see him going, it appears he is not interested in where he is going, only looking where he has been. He is not a New Dealer, very old, yet he is very much like the New Dealer. No matter what happens there is no hope of either making a ge, and with God's help, may true Americans join hands and make a change for them. They should be pitied more than cursed for they have beyond all doubt proved that point through: their articles which have appeared in The Hoosier Forum,

. . ” “S0-CALLED UNITY BUILT ON SAND” By Elmer Johns, 401 Bd. of Trade Bldg. Despite all the hullaballoo about the Republican party- pational convention being a “most enthusiastic gathering,” etc, many who attended

seen by the writer in 20 years of watching national conventions.”

hailed and of diverse

nomination of Dewey the G. O. P. as a victory for their

true. It is clear only in its objec tive to destroy the New Deal and to defeat Roosevelt. The program is vague, to say the least, and open

issues of foreign and domestic policy. The Chicago Tribune accepts Dewey and the program as a rebuke to the internationalists,” while the protests of the 18 G. O. P. governors and the Willkie forces who sought some form of international co-operation seem to be appeased ,

Dewey, in his message to the convention, emphasized that he is not bound by any commitments, that he is a free man. This is a very fratik statement. In this Dewey differs very much from President Roosevelt who stands definitely committed to the Moscow and Teheran conference decisions for unconditional surrender, for continued unity of the united nations and for a family of nations in the post‘war period. “The so-called unity of the Rearound

= By John Ww. Hillman :

state that it was a flop. Thomas L.|

The program adopted and the|}

views. The Times characterizes the program as a compromise. That is/ 4

to interpretation on the important | oq

have accepted, with some” grumbling, the curtailment Of shy tHiLlEs we anes took Yor granted aa ussentinl to our happiness and comfort. Yet how little, relatively, have we been touched

and is now, for us, only in its third year,

struggled down the bloody, hungry road

War Began Seven Years Ago ~~

attack on the Marco Polo bridge in Pelpifig, In the light of what has come to pass, this “China incident”

Since that day, China has fought-Tought for a while not as we fight, sustained by formidable allies and limitless resources, but alone and lacking all but the will to endure. It has seen its great cities sacked, its women ravished, its coast line occupied, its homes burned, its rich lands overrun.’ : It has fought, with full knowledge of its weakness. Bled white, it has battled with the gallant, incon-

ballad, who wounded, said:

“ “Fight on, ‘ght on, my merry men— Ill lie me down and bleed a while, And then I'll fight again.”

For China entered the struggle with no of invincibility. It knew that its ony | hope for victory lay in the rightness of ils cause, and its people. Only 10 days after the War war started, in 1037, its leader. Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, said “Since we are a weak country, th there is only one thing to do when we reach the limit of our endurance; we must throw every ounce of energy into the struggle for our national existence and Independence, ‘When that is done, neither time nor e¢ifcumstances will permit our stopping midway to seek pesce. . . . Let our people realize to the full the of . ‘the limit of endurance,’ and the extent of the sacrifice implied. For once that stage is reached we can sacrifice and fight to the bitter end.”

Bare Hands and Naked Courage

CHINA HAS DONE fust that. None has deserved more of us, none has received less. Yet none has been so loyal, nor so strong in confidence of our good faith, so sure of our victory and strength. China has fought on, cut off, neglected, with her people hungry, with her young men dead, with her villages ye| in ruins, here great ports held by the enemy, her national fabric tattered and torn and trampled under foot. When weapons failed, she: fought on, and still: fights, with bare hands and naked courage.

Hi

fice and fight to the bitter end” prevails: China, bludgeoned by years of war,still sees the issue clear. On the 1a, anniversary of this day of \utamy, Jar leader said: “A perfect understanding between Dations Just as a perfect friendship between men takes root when the parties concerned are helping one another. through difficulty. . . . We—the peoples of the united nations—know that this war is one between justice and brutal force. The Chinese people can conceive of no other outcome than the complete, triumph of the righteous antl freedom-loving democracies. The .~destiny of Ching is one and the same with that of the united nations—so is China's policy.” Brave words, these. And who has a better right to speak brave words?

Willkie Dilemma

By Henry J. Taylor

NEW YORK, July 7.—The Will kie dilemma remains churning in the wake of the Republican con i§. vention. The double-barrelled question still is: How can Mr. Willkie, now help the Republican party; and what good is the Republican party now to Mr, Willkie? Although Mr. Willkie stands “high as a national figure, his ‘ballot box influence is hard to gauge. He controls no section, no state or even a specific county. His personal popularity, too, has a certain will-o-the-

his admirers would vote for President Roosevelt any.

y. . ’ It is among the independent voters that Mr. Willkie could help the Republicans if he campaigns for Mr. Dewey, as Mr. Dewey campaigned for him in 1940. Yet the angle from which Mr, Willkie pitched his pre-convention campaign provides a vulnerable background for this because Mr. Roosevelt and not Mr. Dewey is now the beneficiary of Mr. Willkie's agitations against Mr, ‘Dewey's draft, against the Chicago platform and against his own failure to obtain the on, Woven through Mr. Willkie's arguments for over’ a year and emphasized in his pre-convention cam-. paign in Wisconsin, has been his contention that his nomination and his ideas were .in le. to a Republican victory and that, if the G. O. P. did not accept what he represents, it did not deserve to vin,

Silent Treatment Is No Solution

: ~THE-SECOND POINT in the Willkie dilemma con-. cerns what the G./0. P. can do about all this. Simply giving Mr. Willkie the silent treatment is not a solu-, tion, But a worse question might arise from any alterngtive, In. a political campaign the presidential candidate must have the final word in principles, policies and personalities. The No. 1 man on the ticket runs the campaigh and chooses the issties. He

by a war that is being fought far from our shores,"

FOR IT WAS seven years ago today, on July 7, ui "| 1937, that this world war began with the Japanese :

querable spirit of the doughty warrior of the old

the courage of

only...

And still the flaming fervor of those words “sacrls

wisp quality. It is difficult to estimate how many of ~~ |