Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 23 August 1944 — Page 12

e Indianapolis Times PAGE 12 Wednesday, August 23, 1944

WALTER LECKRONE MARK FERREB Editor Business Manager

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: ROY W. HOWARD President

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Give Light and the People Will

. DEWEY WAS READY Tue incident which brought about the meeting of Secretary Hull and John Foster Dulles is revealing as to two facets of Tom Dewey's character. One is the evidence that the Republican nominee was not indulging in idle campaign oratory when he raised a warning against permitting the Dumbarton Oaks conference to operate on the basis of power politics. Had Mr. Dewey been talking just to hear the sound of his voice, or to make a political impression, he would have been caught flat-footed by the astute Hull counter proposal to discuss foreign policy with Mr: Dewey. But Mr. Dewey was not caught unprepared; he readily and eagerly accepted 1 Mr. --Hull’s-invitation—for his adviser. Second is the evidence that when Mr. Dewey had a job to do he had a good man to do it. The choice of Mr. .Dulles to state the Republican position on foreign policy “inspired confidence. lle is a man of wide experience and known progressive views in international relations. Those two qualities—of knowing what he is talking about before sounding off, and of having around him men splendidly equipped to follow through on his policies—help explain Mr. Dewey's excellent record as governor of New , J York. And they are testimony as to the way he could be expected to handle that larger job he is seeking, should the people elect him.

A COMMUNITY ACHIEVEMENT URING the last two weeks, it has been stated frequently that the smashing successes of the allied armies in France have handicapped the war effort in this country. The home front, it is said, is slowing up, is becoming apathetic and is letting down the fighting men whose sacrifices have brought victory near. Perhaps this is so. Perhaps we are overoptimistic. But we find no evidence of this state of mind in the waste paper collection of last Sunday. That one-day campaign produced 1500 tons of paper salvage—a record-breaking total for cities of this population class—in an inspiring example of almost 100 per cent community co-operation. Credit for that achievement should be spread widely— to the individual householders who ransacked their homes for all available paper, bundled it and placed it on the curbs; to those who donated trucks to pick it up; to those who drove the trucks and handled the paper, and to those who planned the campaign and supervised its execution. The list is too long to name each individually, but all served faithfully and well, and thousands gladly gave their day of rest in order that a pressing national need might be met. Congratulations, then, for a good job, efficiently done— a demonstration that Indianapolis still is alive to the urgency of war and is ready to shoulder its full responsibility to speed the day of victory.

FOR AN ARMY-NAVY MERGER

PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT and his running mate, Senator Truman, are now both on record in favor of merging the army and navy, although Mr. Roosevelt emphasized to his press conference that nothing would be done about it until the war was over. Strong sentiment in the war department for such a consolidation was brought out in recent testimony before a congressional committee, particularly by Lt. Gen. McNarney, deputy chief of staff. Secretary of the Navy Forrestal, on the other hand, is cool to the project, and most of the admirals seem cooler still.

Fair Enough By Westbrook Pegler

NEW YORK, Aug. 23 —1t I have any ear for the language of the .U. S. A, Rear Adm. BH E. Kimmel is calling Mr; sRoosevelt'’s running mate a lar when he writes a letter to Senator Harry Truman saying: “Your innuendo that Gen. Short and I were not on speaking terms is not true. Your statements alleging failure to co-operate and co-ordinate our efforts are equally false.” Any way you read that, Kimmel is accusing Truman of intentional falsehood. He doesn't say Truman is mistaken or misinformed. And when a man trained in the code of either of our service academies as Kimmel was, tells another man that he lies that means that he is willing to go to the floor with him. In. this case, of course, Kimmel is not expecting a fist fight with Truman but he certainly does put it up tp him to submit to a public examination of his statements and the facts.

| ‘Bold Conduct for an Admiral’

THIS IS very bold conduct for an admiral, He knows he is addressing a man who hopes to become vice president of the country and who is now a member of the senate, If there is any precedent for such “impious language to a senator from an officer of our army or navy, I have never heard of it and you have Kimmel daring not merely Truman but President Roosevelt to open the record and let the public judge who was most at fault in the greatest naval disaster in all history. He is willing to take his chances in a court-martial, knowing that if he were found guilty he might be disgraced forever and deprived of his pension,

self, appointed, to make a quick survey of the case, did not excnerate the President, and although it was shrewdly restricted in its mission so that it could not accuse any ofthe high civilians, its report leaves both the late Frank Knox, as secretary of the.navy, and Mr. Stimson, as secretary of war in a doubtful position. Certainly, in the findings of his own commission, the President. as commander in chief, as he is so fo of calling himself. must. have some responsibility for the kind of orders that were sent to Kimmel and Lt. Gen. Walter C. Short. Their orders were to take precautionary action and to avoid alarm and publicity and the program which they did adopt was the only one that could meet that restriction.

‘Kimmel Asks Only a Trial’

AS TO whether they were guilty otherwise of neglect or incompetence Kimmel asks only a trial in which he can present all the evidence and Cross-examine witnesses. In the meanwhile, although this is a very dangerous political issue, Mr. Roosevelt has had all the best of the propaganda. I believe this is one of the very few discussions of the Pearl Harbor disaster which has recognized the possibility that a fair inquiry might-blame the President, himself. Nevertheless, his partner on the Democratic ticket comes out with a magazine story again blaming Kimmel and Short although both men have asked to be tried and no fair judgment can be had without such trials. _Of course, the President can’t be tried, whatever his error may have been, unless you are thinking of impeachment which, of course, is out of the question. The senate could make an investigation but there politics would interfere and the verdict could not be clear and conclusive, But a court-martial, which Kimmel continues to demand, could reveal the degree of the failure and the error in the navy department, the war department, and the White House.

Tawdry Political Business

TO ANYONE who studies fhe Roberts report, it becomes apparent that the committee permitted itself to be used for tawdry political business. It had no moral right to say as it did, in the end, that these officers were gtilty of dereliction when it had refused them facilities for the defense of their reputations and had no legal authority to try them, anyway. Although it couldn't avoid revealing some obvious failures In, o Washington contributing to the disaster, the only men it actually condemned were the two commanders. In this war, it became a political document and now Adm. Kimmel is actually defying the President himself to let the people know the entire truth so that they may consider whether he did his own job well or made a horrible mess of it, in making up their minds whether they want four years more of him as commander in chief. ¢

We The People By Ruth Millett

A CHICAGO couple, ready for

Such reluctance is to be expected. It will be a hard thing to break away from the long traditions of the separate services. But break away we must, if the ex pense of our peacetifife defenses is to be kept within shouting distance of the budget, and if we want to insure ourselves against such a division of responsibilities as that which contributed to Pearl Harbor. Senator Truman, in the current Collier's, uses some strong language. He speaks of “prejudices and jealous rivalries that masquerade as esprit de corps”; of “a dreary succession of wastes, duplications and ugly confiict”—which he documents; of “a stifl-necked contentiousness” that “still marks army and navy contacts in the lower echelons”; of “autocracies of thought and habit” that make government bureaus, including the army and navy, “hostile to change.” Perhaps it is true, as some contend, that to merge the army and navy immediately would slow up the war. But the consolidation ought to be at the top of the list of congressional projects for immediate consideration after the peace.

WAKI THE JAPS have a new war slogan, selected in a national competition. And from our very rudimentary knowledge of Japanese, we should say it's a good one—at least from the American standpoint. The slogan, or college yell, is: Sookekki.” Icky as the Japs’ propaganda line, wacky as their fdeas of conquest, and conked out as they rapidly are becoming, it seems to sum up the situation pretty well. We aren't sure about “Sookekki,” which “is probably among _ the items yet in store for the little buck-toothed men. (Actually, the slogan means: ‘Spirit, harmony, stamina, total action,” in case anyone is interested.)

“Iki, Waki, Konki,

"END OF THE LINE

HE German armies have a habit of slipping out of ops which is not only skillful but very annoying. They have bi done it in Russia and i Sicily and in France, and have embarrassed some-able Ho in the process. But they can’t

to the last trap. , That should be Berlin, whence there will

nowhere to slip except to disintegration and oblivion. Il probably be able to do that, too. ft : no

keep it up much longer. For with every slip they get closer,

the divorce ‘courts, have gone back to living together, after agreeing befcre a judge to live up to two sets of commandments, oné set naming what the wife expects of her/husband, the other setting down ‘whdt he expects of her. Their marriage ought to have a good chance of lasting now—for they both know rxactly what is important to the other, and, after learning it, have decided it isn't too much to live up to. Wouldn't it be a good idea if all couples, after six months or a year of marriage, would come to such an understanding. They couldn't do {it before marriage—because it is marriage that makes a couple finally see what things are important in a life partner who has to be lived with day in and day out.

They Should Know Their Own Minds

BUT AFTER a little experience with marriage, they should know their own minds, and be able to say “These are the things that are important to me in a wife—or in a husband.” But instead of anything that sensible thousands of wives go on being what they think a good! wife should be—instead of finding out what their husbands’ ideas of a good wife are. And thousands of husbands go on thinking they are all their wives ever hoped for, because they have never bothered to find out what their wives want from their marriage partners. They go en that way until one or the other gets fed up with the other's faults and with marriage and starts talking about divorce. From then on it is a short step to a final decree and another wrecked marriage is included in divorce statistics. No business partnership would try to.get along with terms as general as “love, honor and obey.” Marriage partnerships should be more explicit, too.

To The Point—

can return to 100 per cent Production. brides can stop wenving.

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“The Roberts committee which Mr. Roosevelt, him- |

UNCLE SAM says manufacturers of tan openers And June

OUR SUGGREIION that you hand the Japanese beetle the same thing our boys are handing the

TWELVE STITCHES were taken in the head of

A DIARY is an interesting thing until » turns

IT'S EASY to get credit for being sooc—and cass

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The Hoosier Forum

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

“THE PEOPLE REGRET AND CONDEMN” By A. W. G., Indianapolis. The people regret and condemn the appropriation of essential substances, so sorely needed to sustain life and necessary for the successful prosecution of the war, to be used in the manufacture of liquor. Whisky wins at the cost of the war effort. Tires and food may run low, but whisky stocks must be replenished for the enrichment of the distillers and their stockholders. Donald M. Nelson, chairman of the war production board, informed the distillers that their plants would not be needed during the month of August for the manufacture of industrial alcohol. While our men of great courage walked boldly into the jaws of death on D-day in France, we did not realize at that moment that the WPB was releasing the restriction from intoxicating liquors so that 50 million gallons of whisky would be made available for beverage purposes. ” 2 “HONEST APPEAL

TO THE VOTERS"

By Vanishing American, Indianapolis. I am writing this, not as a political argument for or against either the Democratic or Republican party, but as an honest appeal to the voters who this fall will have in their hands the present and future of this great country. I cannot understand why anybody who stops and thinks for one moment can want to continue with the present administration. You, who speak of the hungry under Hoover, seem to want us to think that hunger disappeared in 1932. Well, it didn't. In 1939, seven years afterward, I saw children from 5 to 15 years of age climbing over garbage trucks like flies, looking for something to eat, while their fathers stood in line for half a day at some relief station, trying to get a bite for their families. At the same. time these destitute people were doing this, they were forced to pay taxes that were used to pay packers to burn tens of thousands of pounds of the finest meat in the world—while we imported meat from Argentina. They were taxed to have wheat, corn and

(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 manuscripts and cannot enter correspondence regarding them.)

cotton plowed under. They were taxed to have big sugar coinpanies not produce sugar, as the AAA was afraid there might be a surplus which would cut prices. In other words, destitute people were paying taxes to take food out of their. mouths. And no New Dealer of anyone else can deny this— for millions saw it done or knew it to be a fact. I wonder if Hitler had the Germans burn their food or dig holes and fill them up again as was done on defenses in the Pacific according to testimony over the radio in the expose of Col. Wyman and Contractor Rohl. Of course, everybody knows that our big oil companies, big business and government officials had no idea what Germany and Japan could be wanting with so much oil and steel which they bought here. If they haven't found out, they might ask some GI Joe who is lying in some hospital, waiting for the end of his stub leg to heal enough so he can fit a new modern one to it. Probably he has had time to figure it out anyway. o ” ”

“CHIEF SHOULD BE GIVEN CONTROL”

By Mrs. Marie ford ave. . Although we're harassed with unsolved murders and a series of crimes, burglaries, etc, I feel that we, as citizens of Indianapolis, are placing the blame on the police de-

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Kenton, 5801 Haver-

Side Glances—By Galbraith

COPR. 1944 BY NEA SERVICE, INC. T. M. REC. U. 8. PAT, OFF.

g-23 |

"Ladies, make your dreams come true—a. soft seductive. charm, an irresistible allure will be yours after ying just one 5-cont i ke of this beauty soapl” * :

paign to take the police force out of politics is beyond me. {that a city as large as ours should

|edy, can be nothing less-than. the

partment for this situation, while the real blame lies with us for permitting the situation to continue. Why The Times and citizens of Indianapolis do not start a cam-

_It appears

have a metropolitan police force, independent of politics, where there would not be a shakeup with each new mayor, where each policeman would hold his job only through his ability and be promoted according to his ‘merit, and where our chief of police would be “boss man.” After his many years of faithful and competent service, Chief Beeker should be given complete control and a free hand in running this department. I believe him indeed a capable man, if he were left alone. Perhaps our mayor was & majorgeneral in the army of the United States but, as mayor, he should certainly have his hands full in that capacity without messing in our police force. This is something of a joke. He could be of much greater service to the citizens of Indianapolis if he would do his job as mayor with a hands-off policy for the police force instead of making puppets out of them. Our police force is, without a doubt, short of men, as is every other one in the country, but I feel that, with the proper setup and useage of the available manpower in our police department—instead of their being pushed around, promoted or demoted, according to the wishes of a few political big-shots— we could have an efficient police force within a few months. Why wait for post-war planning to. do something about it? We need it now so that when we arrive at the post-war era’ it will be one of calm instead of crime. I suggest that, as a starter, this newspaper, which is quite capable and unafraid to publish the truth, get started and we~the citizens of Indianapolis, help them carry through. It would be quite a feather in The Times’ cap if it would ¢ome out on an unbiased and complete investigation as it so ably and convincingly did in previous exposures of some disgraceful situations in - oyr fair city and help win for us ‘a police force independent of politics. Ed ” 2 “TIRED OF HEARING COMPLAINTS”: By Mrs. R. C. Spoor, Clermont. I get so tired of hearing complaints about children on busses, in cafeterias, in theaters. Everywhere you go there is something said of being unpatriotic. I'm referring to the letter of “A Worker.” Defense plants, the larger department stores, dime stores and drug stores have places to eat besides all the conveniently located restaurants. Did it ever occur to anyone that. mothers of small children have business uptown and especially now when théy are outfitting them to start back to school? Along with the shortages, there is a shortage of people to tend children. To take them along in crowded stores and busses and even in -restaurants” is no picnic. Like anyone else, they, too, get hungry and the only time to get a decent meal i§ when the food is hot and fresh. This is everybody's war, and, when the boys are finished over there, they are going to have to beat the selfishness and greediness out of their own people. After all, this war is being fought to make a better place for our children to live.

DAILY THOUGHTS . .But he that doeth wrong shall receive for the wrong which he hath done; and there is no respect of persons. ~—Colossians 3:25.

FOR every “social wrong there must be a remedy. But’ the rem-

abolition of the Vio Renty Geo! :

Gobblec

By James Thrasher

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WASHINGTON, Aug. ‘Bh: : reaucratic jargon, or what Maury Maverick calls “gobbledygook” language, has finally proved much for the bureaucrats selves. The social

rived at the conclusion, un, by closed but Soa sound metheds, that security report is as much scientific journal as the scientific journal story magazine fiction, Soisptts Jour Iss its employees, in the name of clarity and economv words, time, paper and public temper, to rhetorical high horses. “We are usually normal when we talk,” the board. wistfully admits, “but put a pencil in our hands or a stenographer at our side and a mysterious change takes place.”

What Makes Them Talk That Way?

THE BOARD doesn’t attempt to explain why, and we don't know all the answers, either. But certainly “gobbledygook” isn’t the invention of bureaucrats, It is a collection of all the pompous triteness ang goldtoothed turgidity of expression found in the working vocabularies of lawyers, economists, businessmen, social workers and the like, And what makes lawyers, businessmen” and the others talk that way? Well, the lawyers may have a thread of excuse, since they have found through sad

| experience that legal documents can be. shot. full.of .

holes if everything isn’t said a half-dozen different ways. For the rest of them, it's probably just a way of feeling important. The ordering of 100 pounds of beans can be accomplished with heavy solemnity by using a few standard phrases which state the simplest thing in the longest possible way, and make the transactions as secret as a lodge ritual.

It's Pretty Tiresome, at Best

ALL" THIS is pretty tiresome under any circum= stances. But when the taxpayer finds that he is paying government employees to obscure and confuse his business and life with a lot of cant about “please be advised” and “pursuant to your request,” when he beholds himself as something at “the local léyel” for whom policies are “promulgated” or “held in abeyance,” he gets sore. For all this we think we have a solution—Basic English. Why not give it a try by issuing one more directive at “the government level” which would compel bureaucrats to write only from this simple vocabu-

| lary. We should then be able to settle the arguments about the merits of basic, and also decide the question

of whether government can function if the employees express themselves like human beings, not abstracts of title,

Campaign Probes By Thomas L. Stokes

WASHINGTON, Aug. 23.—The C. I. O. Political Action Committee is coming under fire and under investigation from so many quarters in congress as to give the impression that the big interests.fighting President Roosevelt and the New Deal, usually well-organized themselves and good for handsome contributions, are being overlooked. , This, it seems, is not true. At least it is the intention of Rep. Clinton Anderson (D. N. Mex.), chairman of the house campaign investigating committee, to have his committee inquire into activities of other groups, as well as P.A C, he announced after a committee meeting. His committee has received reports of expenditures

of money by interests which tried to defeat three

Texas Democrats for renomination—Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn and Reps. Wright Patman and Lyndon Johnson, recognized administration supporters, This is an illustration of the sort of thing the committee also should investigate, in Rep. Anderson's opinion,

No Written Complaints Filed

HE CALLED his committee to meet, in executive session, with members against whom the P. A.C. was reported to be active in pri elections. Only one turned up, Rep. Kleberg (D. Tex.), who discussed the campaign in his district, but told the committee he did not want to register an official complaint. As a matter of fact, the loud outcries in many quarters over P. A. C.’s attempt to organize labor politically to re-elect President Roosevelt does not seem reflected in any such volume befofe the committe. Rep. Anderson said that not a single written complaint about P. A. C. had been filed with his committee. The committee may act on written complaint, Or it can initiate an investigation on its own account. At its first session the house committee began to canvass the field to see where it should investigate and how it should proceed. . Another meeting is being held today, and for Monday the committee has called P. A.C. officials, Sidney Hillman and C. B. Baldwin, and John Abt, P. A. C. counsel,

Dies Subcommittee Active, Alto

C.I1 O. OFFICIALS also have come under scrutiny of a Dies subcommittee which includes two members in whose defeat the P. A. C. was reported to have been influential—Reps. Starnes (D. Ala.) and Costello (D. Cal). This subcommittee was instructed by Chairman Dies (D. Tex.), who did not run for re-election, to investigate telephone calls from P. A. C. officials to government employees, and vice versa. The senate campaign investigating committee, headed by Senator Green (D. R. IL) also is. looking into a matter affecting C. I O, unions—allegations that some New York unions asked for P.A.C. contributions from companies with which they have union contracts, during negotiations for extension of the contracts. Political contributions by unions are forbidden by law. The senate committee thus far has taken no cognizance of reports of large sums spent in the Florida and Alabama primaries in May in an unsuccessful effort to defeat New Dea] Senators Pepper and Hill, no written complaint has been received, it is explained. Nor has either senator asked such an investigation. There are reports that substantial sums also were spent on their behalf. Senator Pepper's most formidable opponent, ‘Judge Ollie Edmonds of Jacksonville, charged during the campaign that the Pepper forces had shaken down war contractors for campaign contributions,

i

So They Say—

I WILL surrender when every one of our. bullets has been fired and every one of our bayonets is sticking in a German belly.—American captain of surrounded battalion in Francs, 10. German officer,

THESE ARE momentous days and complete victory iies ahead and is certain—so long as we do not relax.—~Gen. Sir Bernard L. Montgomery. :

A GREAT day for France Take bur’ wine, take our food. Take anything you want.—Frenchman to advancing Americans. Pe

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than

~ HELL, this is-more of L. Gen. George 5. Pain Jr, 34 army sommasder in France

to get off their -

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