Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 10 July 1944 — Page 10

£5

Semen a

Soe

an

A i Eh

chances?

Pe

10 Monday, July 10,1941

ROY W. HOWARD WALTER LECKRONE MARK FERREE ROY W. HOWARD mditer, ©, Business Manager

ty, 4 cents a copy; deliv ered by carrier, 18 cents a week.

Mail rates in Indlana, $5 a year; adjoining states, 75 cents a month; others, $1 monthly.

- RILEY 5551

Give Light end the People Will Find Their Own Way

IT COULD HAPPEN HERE HE nation was shocked last week by the death of more than 150 persons, most of them children, in the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey circus fire at Hartford, Conn. Local authorities at Hartford have arrested a number of circus officials on charges of manslaughter—causing death through negligence. Whether these charges have an adequate basis will be determined by the courts. It is possible that there were extenuating circumstances; the fact that the big tent burned like tinder may have been due to wartime makeshifts, inability to obtain proper fireproofing materials, or a shortage of manpower to operate firefighting equipment. Nevertheless those responsible for collecting a crowd are under obligation to provide all possible safeguards. You cannot take chances with human lives; if you do, you are answerable to the courts, and to your conscience. - Yet, evén if there was negligence and all responsible should be Thade to pay to the limit of the law, it would not bring back a single one of those laughing children who died “in flames. ‘Hindsight, and punishment, cannot resiore a single lost life.

. * 8 8 } } s =» NEGLIGENCE HAS an ugly sound—particularly when it involves the death of a child. And Marion county is living in the shadow of that charge. Not for failure to take proper precautions with a circus crowd—if the circus should visit Indianapolis now, after the Hartford catastrophe, it is safe to assume that every possible fire-prevention step would be taken. Rather, to our shame, this menace is in one of the county's own institutions, the Juvenile Detention home on West New. York street. ; That home has been officially condemned as a fire-trap. It is all of that. And yet children still are crammed into its rickety rooms, far beyond a normal or decent capacity. A spark, or a carelessly dropped match, would touch off a disaster of nearly the proportions of the one in Hartford. Only chance prevents it. Those who are responsible for the delays and obstructions that have blocked the removal of the children to more suitable quarters should take a long look at the pictures coming out of Hartford. They should ask themselves: Do I want to be responsible for something like that? Shall I let selfish considerations, or group issues, or politics, or

- indolence, jeopardize the lives of little children? Am I that

petty, that small?

Isn't it time that Marion county stopped taking

OVER THE TOP

FOR the fifth successive time, Marion county has met its quota in a war loan drive. It was no easy task, and there were only a few hours to spare when the community reached the $79,000,000 goal in the fifth war loan Saturday. But, by that margin, Marion county kept faith with the men fighting overseas, and it will continue to keep the faith until the day of victory. To William H. Trimble, county war finance chairman, and to all who aided him in the present campaign should go congratulations for a job well done. And it was a job worth doing.

SHADES OF COIN HARVEY!

A TTRIBUTED to Frank Vanderlip, famous banker, is this line: “Anyone who tries to understand the money question goes crazy.” . : So if you are following the details of the United States monetary conference and you suddenly start to see spots before your eyes and begin to talk in tongues, don’t blame the heat. The issues are already being complicated by the not unexpected appearance of the Do-Something-for-Silver bloc, that ubiquitous delegation of 25 western senators, represented in this instance by that high priest of inflation, Senator Elmer Thomas of Oklahoma, Trailing clouds of the glory that was—1896, bimetallism, 16 to 1, William Jennings Bryan, Coin Harvey, the Populists—this movement echoes: “You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.” . Which recalls what another Oklahoma senator, Thomas Gore, said about silver—"It has all the attributes of money, except value,” " a BUT SILVER Woods, N. H. John Maynard Keynes, the so-called English economic theorist, is present. He is showing up as the star in the cast, which includes Henry Morgenthau, of our own treasury, and that other great financial expert, Senator Robert F. Wagner of New York. : Whether Keynes, the spark plug of the affair, is just a theorist or may more properly be classified as a practical man, may be debatable, though we doubt it, since he is the one who set up most of the house rules in this great international poker game. Those rules call for the United States ante-ing three and a half billions to the ten-billion pot and

. » 2 8 is only one of the intricacies at Bretton

; Great Britain one billion, the rest of the world pitching in with the remainder. Which indicates nothing too starry--eyed as to Keynes, the “theorist,” but on the contrary that

3ritain is running true to form. Without going too deeply ints the performance, and by risking insanity for ourselves, we venture to say at at least two things will conie forth from Bretton

"Woods; (a), That something will be done for silver; (b),

Uncle Sam will pay the lion's share of the check.

and trade can be brought about, the what will obviously turn out to be a very expensive

ianapolis Times

Westbrook Pegler

By

of negotiations with Japan.”

tify Secretaries Knox and Stim

flippant, We are speaking of the living. 'Possible That Pepper Was Sounding Off'

of the second part was quicker on the draw, the coroner always said “self-defense.”

the Pepper announcement and apparently never heard of it. There is a temptation to discount what Pepper said as an irresponsible utterance by a man who may have hoped that his own peculiar reputation among those who knew him would reassure the Japs that he was just talking bombastic nonsense. Still the possibility cannot be Sumigeed that the Japs rere thus persuaded to hit first. Yn Pepe lied and on his own responsibility, he should hive been disowned by President Roosevelt

responsible for a great, historical disaster and the ro of thousands of American lives, If he told the truth, the guilt, of course, is higher up, for Pepper could not have made the decision himself,

‘President Did Not Repudiate Pepper’

BUT AN IMPORTANT peculiarity -of the committee's authority forbade it to inquire whether statesmen or policitians in Washington were culpable. As the committee said in its report to Mr. Roosevelt, by whose order it was created, its mission was to examine the conduct of army and navy personnel, not civilian officials. } Anyway, President Roosevelt did not repudiate Pepper. Far from that, he gave him the Small machine support in the Florida spring primary and, at the climax, Pepper received a most cynical demonstration of political Javor. 5 In that campaign, down to the closing day, Pepper was hard pressed and he went into Pinellas county, which includes Tampa, where about 25,000 war workers are employed in the shipyards, fighting for renomination. On that day, in dramatic fashion, the federal government rushed to completion long legal proceedings against the private owners of the great Gandy bridge and causeway, connecting Tampa with St. Petersburg, where many of the war workers live, and seized the bridge and abolished the tells. The right and wrong of this action need not be argued here. It may have been justified. But the timing of this great boon to the war workers, and indeed to all the wage-earners of the region, was obviously political. In an instant, a popular fight of years was won and Pepper reaped the benefit at the polls; for he personified the administration which did.the trick.

‘Undoubtedly Got to the President’

A NEW DEAL EDITOR in Tampa writes that Pepper “undoubtedly got to the President at his South Carolina retreat” during Mr. Roosevelt's convalescence and urged him to seize the bridge and lift the tolls. “And that,” the New Deal editor says, “helped Pepper get the narrow margin by which he escaped a second primary, more anxiety and the possibility of defeat.” The Roberts committee said that one of the contributory causes of the Pearl Harbor disaster was Japan's disregard of international law and custom relating to declaration of war and this country’s adherence to such laws and customs. But its authority did not allow it on consider whether, as Pepper had announced, this country had decided to disregard international law and custom and to hold in abeyance the mere technicality of a declaration of war.

i |

However, if some sort of international stabilization of |- game may be |

We The People

| By Ruth Millett

WHAT IS a dress worth—that old dress you might pass on to some underprivileged girl? In Arkansas there is a blind girl, blind because she didn't have a dress to wear to a clinic - when an eye was injured. And this happened in America. We are all busy these days talking about making a better post-war world. But we women can’t afford to neglect the people who are underprivileged today while we plan to make a better world for them tomorrow. It is necessary to make plans for a. world in which all children have the necessities of life, but while we're planning, let's be practical enough to look out for the poor families in our towns and surrounding country,

| There Is Always a Need

CLOTHES ARE "expensive today—especially children's clothes—clear out of reach of some families. Why don't we women set aside the next rainy day to go through our closets and attics and dig out all the clothes we have stored as too good to throw away, the things we once thought we would make over, but haven't? . And while we are at it, why don't ‘we look to

see if there isn't some baby equipment around that 3

we never got around to giving away, a high chair

or a crib, or a play pen in which a baby would be safe and comfortable?

Men are good at planning better worlds, and it is

right for us to help them plan. But there is always

a need for women practical enough to look around

for people who haven't enough-to eat or enough to wear and to help them along. ve .

If there are any clothes in our closets not being worn, that young girl should be on our consciences. The doctors said that if she had gone into town |. eye was first injured, it could | | ® a dress to in our own

to the clinic when her have been saved. But she didn't have wear , , , and there may be children communities who are just as destitute, - 1

To The Point—

* ABOUT THE only weather forecast

_on-the-cob season is just around the corner. . w $e

THE DRY CLEANERS aren getting in on gravy nowadays’ Too Dusy to bother ties

NEW YORK, July 10~In its “conclusion” on the Pearl Harbor the Roberts

respecting corse and probable termination If that is so, did Mr. Hull no-

son that the United States had ‘decided to shoot on sight, without warning, in the Pacific, if the Japs

Florida, had announced two weeks before Pear] Harpor? If Mr. Hull did so notify Knox and Stimson, there is nothing in the Roberts report to show that the word was passed down the line to Adm. Kimmel and Gen. Short, who, up to now, have been the goats of the disaster. To anticipate remarks that the dead and wounded were the goats, let us agree not to be

IT 1S POSSIBLE, of course, that Pepper was merely sounding off in his statement which the Associated Press carried out of Boston. If so, then Pepper was guilty of an historic offense. For, considering his prestige as a member of the foreign relations committee and as an intimate and political protege of President Roosevelt, the Japs might have regarded his remarks as a warning by authority. and an invitation .to use the same method. In the code of the old American West, if one man announced that he would shoot another on sight, the other man was justified in shooting on sight, too. Then, if the party

But the Roberts committee makes no mention of

for his remarks might have been partly or wholly

you can absolutely depend on is summer, fall, winter and spring. = Rv Co. - .

GET YOUR front 4eeth tightened up now! Oorn- | L567 1848 &v nea seavie, me. vw nen u. 5.

crossed an undefined line, as Senator Pepper, of

2

. 5 } . The Hoosier Forum 1 wholly disagree with what you say, but will delrend to the death your right to say it.—Voltaire.

“KEEP FAITH WITH ROOSEVELT” ; By Mrs. William Shipp, 1520 Roosevelt ave. Once again I shall try to persuade those who are on the fence not to topple over to the side of those: who are slinging mud right and left, regardless of whom it may hit, I plead with all true Americans to keep faith with President Roosevelt. We must stand together and crush those whose policies would create a recurrence: of what happened once before, a collapse where millions of the American population were ill-fed, ill-clothed and lived in Hoovervilles, and worst of all, the soldiers who returned from the last war who were forced to sell apples on the streets for § cents each until President ‘Roosevelt put an end to all of this by providing work for those who were so unfortunate. We must, and I believe we shall, turn out the biggest vote in history, thus electing President Roosevelt for a fourth term. It is then and only then that we shall realize a full and lasting peace and a coniplete victory in this fight for freedom for all the world,

2 x =» “YOU HAVE NEVER FACED THE FACTS” By Uncle Hen, Fortville

A certain Mr. Maddox has been writing the Hoosier Forum for ‘a long time now lambasting the New Deal. His last one, printed July 4, is headed “We Might as Well Face the Facts.” Now, Mr, Maddox, you know full well that in all your articles you have never faced the facts yourself. Your articles have been full of high-sounding phrases and generalities and not one statement has been backed up by a fact. Just one of your statements—for example, you called the New Deal, {and I quote, “a totalitarian world state or dictatorship of the proletariat,” Now, my dear Mr. Maddox, you know full well that you are too much of a learned man to even believe that brain twister yourself. You know, Mr. Maddox, that the first thing Adolf and Benito did was to dissolve the labor unions while F. D. R. was the father of the same in this country. You know, too, Mr, Maddox, that the New Deal ushered in a new freedom for the working man and, to back up my statements, read the labor laws that have been enacted under the New Deal. We factory workers

{Times readers are invited to express their views in these columns, religious con. troversies 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 responsis bility for the return of manuscripts and cannot enter correspondence regarding them.)

know, Mr, Maddox, if you don't, that today we are really free and we know that your dear Republican party is not responsible. Now, Mr. Maddox, since you have not told any of the freedoms that have been taken away fronr us, I will try to enlighten your public

for you by naming just a few of

the shackles you speak of when you say, “Do you feel the shackles? Do you hear the clanking of the chains?” Shame on you, Mr. Maddox; an employer is shackled in that he can't stop you, Mr. Maddox, from joining a labor union, -or did you ever try? An employer is shackled in that he can't force you to -vote eitHer Democrat or Republican or lose your job. The bankers are shackled in that your money has been made safe up to

1$5000. A foreman is shackled in

that he can't fire you without just cause. These are only a few of the hundreds which I haven't time or space to name at this time, so my advice to you is to forget this pipe dream for you are not fooling anybody.

8 o “EDITORIAL I8 MISLEADING” By D. Y., Indianapolis Your editorial “Dewey and the British” is obviously in poor taste and intentionally misleading. If, as you have repeatedly contended, {freedom of speech and freedom of, the press is desirable og an international scale, by what logic can you deny the honest convictions of any people expressing a preference for President, whether it be Roosevelt or Dewey? What William Simms reports from

Jones plays much better gin

sn yay

Side Glances—By Galbraith

| "4 don't know how the army ever ranks men. Dorothy— had*here |

PAT, OFF, -

rummy than the lieutenant ast week!" - =

London is unimportant, inasmuch as Mr. Simms has switched from an objective reporter to a political propagandist. In all probability, Mr, Simms interviewed only those persons whose preconceived ideas he was well aware of and consequently he obtained the identical opinions he sought. Then again, the question arises as to whether or not Mr, Simms obtained anyone’s opinion at all. Your ballyhoo of the Mackinac declaration is about as substantial as your recent statement that Dewey's nomination was a genuine draft. Your local political reporter called it so much “hog wash” and Thomas Stokes, your ace reporter, concurred in this viewpoint by implication as did likewise Mr. Edson. ’ Our allies, being sincere in their aims to establish a just and lasting peace, would fall short of good judgment if they did not prefer President. Roosevelt. His efforts to bring peace to the world are well established. His vision and foresight is unmatched. His struggle to restore the dignity of mankind is unblemished. Would any thoughtful person change these attributes for an unknown quantity? De you think our service men or service women would; or do you, like Mr, Dewey, believe these men and women who are giving their all should have no voice in the selection?

wv “I CAN MAKE AN HONEST LIVING” , By J. B., Indianapolis f —I-can see why your feelings, Mrs. McGuire, Mrs, White and all ‘other Hoover-haters, are such toward Mr. Roosevelt, If I was unable to make a living and was starving for food and some man came along and fed me with other people's money, I, too, would feel grateful toward him; but I can jnake an honest living under any administration regardless of who is the President. I believe anyone else who wanted to work could do the same thing, providing his health permits. Of course, some people are not willing to work unless conditions, salary and job suit their taste, Others are too proud to do some kinds of work. Personally, I had worked on salary and expenses for several years up to 1932 and my company put me on a straight commission basis. I thought I might have to ask for a basket, too; but I was too proud for that, so I really started to work, and I mean work. Well, here are the restilts of working with a determination. The first 12 months I made myself $5375 while many were crying for a basket. And I fear Mrs. White and Mrs McGuire, you were not willing to really pay the price for success, and it seems to me those are the ones who are squawking the loudest about the depression. Don't blame Hoover for the depression. Blame the men who were in congress. Nor .can I see: why you.should praise FDR for pulling us out of the depression. He didn’t do it. He, like Nero, fiddled while Rome burned. Roosevelt raked leaves with his WPA, and I can’t see much difference between fiddling and raking leaves. Do yon? According to your yardstick, Hitler should have the credit for prosperity. He really did something. He started a war. However, I would rather have a depression. - Of course, you wouldn't, because you're eating now, but think of the many poor devils in’ Europe who are dropping dead like flies from starvation because their godfather started a war. I never heard of one case of starvation in the United States during the depression, did you? : Yes, I will be at the polls in November, but I won't see you because

{IN go early and stay just long

enough to vote and then to work so

11 can have some more money laid up to feed you during the next de- |

pression.

~ DAILY THOUGHTS

pper's 1 arry Hansen

*

NEW YORK, July 10—When Raymond Clapper built a new hi in 1940 the architect designed a pair of HITE for the library fireplace. One was a donkey, the other an elephant. “For the unbiased commentator,” explained the architect. He had caught the spirit of Clapper's articles on public 5 partiality in praise or blame, It was more than a trait; it was a settled ‘attitude, so firmly

. | rooted that when Mrs. Clapper urged her husband

to register and vote he refysed because he thought he

| might be tempted to write in vindication of his vote.

. Mrs. Clapper gives this information in the 30 - pages of biography that she has written for Raymond. Cla memorial volume: “Watching the World,

; ; begrimed City, Kag,, to the time when he could yell to someone on the White House wire: “You know where you can 80. I will release this story in time for the next edition.” : It describes the man who worked hard and pulled held, as reporter, editor

Clapper Worked With Facts % “WHEN THE WORD came of Ray Clapper's

| death,” writes Ernie Pyle in an introduction in

which he stresses Clapper's fairness and human friendliness, “I had to take the day off. I tried to do my regular writing, but nothing would come out. My mind was not on Italy.” He could appreciate Clap per because Clapper, too, was a reporter, not a theo retical dreamer about government; Clapper worked with facts. _And what a tribute it is to a newspaperman te say that he never “wrote a line out of opportunism.” We are more sensitive than bankers to the currents of public opinion; it’s in our bones to feel what's coming, and it, takes strength not make use of it. “More than anything else,” writes Pyle, “he was a crusader for the right’ of people to think things out for themselves and make their own decisions.” But that is about the only way you could call Clapper a crusader; he had no program to push and what crusading he did was by personal example, Sometimes he mystified readers when he praised the administration one day and hauled it over the coals the next, and bouquets and brickbats descended from the same quarter. The reason was that Clapper was a day-to-day commentator and judged acts of public officials by what they accomplished and not as part of a political program. If congress bickered over gas rationing, he condemned its selfishness: if it showed signs of disinterested public service, he mentioned that. This book shows writing.

"He Is Not Selling Anything’

_ WHAT MADE Raymond Clapper’s comment so welcome to many Americans? There are several clues in these exhibits. One is Mrs. Clapper’s to Ernie Pyle, when Pyle asked: “What makes his writing reflect his own honesty?” She answered: “He is not selling anything.” Another is the ine formation that Clapper liked to read Emerson, Emerson's essays are American both in their exe pression and the confidence in our country that they radiate. Another is Mrs. Clapper's statement that in his young years Ray read everything he could find about William Allen White and at 17 “made a pilgrimage to Emporia to see Mr. White and came home fired with the ambition to own = small-town newspaper and wield great influence. Plain talk, getting down to essentials, was in the Kansas air. Bill White wrote in his shirt-sieeves and so, it appears, did Ray Clapper. Actually, Clapper was writing signed editorials, He was the country editor come alive in metropolitan newspapers. When the small-town editor wrote edie torials, they were expressions of his personal

stood his point of view, In the complexities of mode ern newpaper making editorial expression has bee come impersonal by necessity. The subscribers no longer know the editor. For many Clapper was the individual American, a man who made no show of academic learning and technical verbiage, who was looking in on government and telling the folks back home about it. Often, no doubt, he gave the reader a sense of personal contact with affairs.

Clapper Lived Up to Ideals

CLAPPER TALKED in general terms. as did Emerson; he was not a man with an armful of blue prints, He made no attempt to peddle inside ine formation; he did not try the hazardous job of soothsaying and he was unable to do stunts, such as cultivating a feverish delivery. As a good reporter he was proud of his beats, notably the one that the Republicans in Chicago had settled on Warren G. Harding for the presidency, but he made no bones about the fact that Charles Curtis tipped him off, as one Kansan to another. As an executive he was uncomfortable—he hated to fire anyone, From the writings here reprinted it is clear that he was best. in keeping in mind that we are all fallible human beings, trying to work toward a dee cent—solution of our affairs, stumbling, but welle intentioned. His reports from abroad—North Africa, Italy, England — were less distinguished than his comment at home and are useful chiefly in showing how eager he was to keep well informed and alert to American life and thought wherever Americans went. The final columns, written on a carrier near the Marshall Islands, just before he took off in a battle plane to observe fighting at- close range, ine Sicate that his primary interest was in the men ous ere. : : . You «can’t read this book without feeling that Raymond Clapper lived up to ideals of newspaper making that every American reporter worth his sal cherishes—that he tried to keep his mind clear of bias, see men and events as they are, write plainly without pretentiousness and get as close as possible to the truth, . :

So They Say—

THERE IS a clear prospect that the home front armies (management and labor) will mobilize and march against each other as soon as the war of libere ation is won.—Donald R. Richberg, former NRA chief, 4 & . - NO MODERN nation can survive and prosper without air power.—CAA Administrator Charles L Stanton. > . ¥ . * * I AM everlastingly convinced that the destinies of the hundreds of millions of men and women who happen to be nationals of the smaller countries cannot be ‘determined for them by the major powers.—Sumner Welles, $i . . * ¥ - “WE SHOULD not think that we have been pase sively attacked but that we have actively pulled the enemy toward us.—Tokio radio, after Japan bombing, x . * Ld »

WE MUST again make it unqualifiedly attractive for every man and woman to work, to think, to invent and to create~—Eugene E. Wilson, chairman Aero nautical C. of C. of America. Sas : ey - UNDER TODAY'S standard of individual conduct there is apparently only one evil—that is getting caught.—FEA Administrator Leo T. Crowley. - Panis. ; THOSE WHO go through life attempting to avoid r share in servation

lose

both phases of his

reply.

opinion, His fellow citizens knew him by sight and under< -

the .

in power ( Party regu to party pr For

Whateve! pects, it al probably w ‘with the p the game | ing some presidency. If he would hav tion from himself to presidency. In this ¢ deal of tal him seekin tion for ti

Lonc

Frc

LONDO! ish autho! tion of mothers |

don today 55,000 sche of the pro The . C launched continued southern day follow tent atta their usu: that dam been repo: Dr. Rud commenta many's se V-2—"will than the | don Sund: new weap: 36 feet lo of explos propelled long and Ni Semmle German | secret wel “strongly . « quite “It car whether or missile! to repeat at the a ree

3 pi

13 Tu

9: