Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 1 December 1944 — Page 20
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"PAGE 20 Friday, December 1, 1944
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could not work and 49. openchearth furnac down. A strike by 1800 supetvisors at five Wright Aero- |
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Ah, Tomorrow!
4 - . ROY W. HOWARD WALTER LECKRONE MARK FERREB President Editor - - Business Manager ie (A SCRIPPS-HOWARD NEWSPAPER)
Price in Marion County, § cents a copy; deliv. ered by carrier, 20 cents a week. Mail rates in Indiana, $5 a year; all other states, U. 8. possessions, Canada and Mexico, 87 cents a month,
<i RILEY 8551
Give Light and the People Will Find Thelr Own Way
lishing Oo. 314 W, Mary- B land st. Postal Zone 0.
Member of United Press, F=
ice, and Audit Bureau of
JAPAN'S MURDER THREAT
GAIN thé Japs threaten our fliers with murder. The Domei news agency in reporting another Superfortress raid on Tokyo warned that any of our airmen who parachtite “or land on Jap soil will be “killed on the spot by angry Japanese people” A Domei commentator called our fliers \e» The purpose of this seems to be twofold, Obviously it is an effort to stir up the Jap people to slaughter any American airman who falls into their hands. Also there is doubtless the vain hope that this will so frighten our military authorities or fliers that the bombing raids will cease. This is not the first such panicky threat. After the Doolittle raid Tokyo in an English-language broadcast to
.the American public boasted that “every flier that comes
this way has a special one-way pass to hell,” adding that Japan would bomb the United States every time we bombed her. That earlier warning has not prevented the -United
States from resuming the bombing on a much larger scale. |
Very few of our planes have been brought down there.
And Japan of course has not been able to get within |
bombing distance of our shores. . 8 = ~ 8 x BUT THE NEW. THREATS cannot be dismissed as bluff. We know. the Japs are capable of such murder, if any of our men do bail out and get caught. The Tokyo government officially confessed that it had “executed” an unspecified number of the Doolittle raid fliers who were caught. This despite the fact that those prisoners were not spies, but uniformed soldiers captured in open warfare, subject to the decent treatment which is accorded such military prisoners by all nations making any claim to civilization. In reply to the latest threat of barbarism, we repeat the solemn words of President Roosevelt after the fiendish murder of the Doolittle raid prisoners: “It will make the American people more determined than ever to blot out the shameless militarism of Japan. . . . The American government will hold personally and officially responsible for these diabolical crimes all of those officers of the Japanese government who have participated therein, and will in due course bring those officers to justice.” That stands for the past, present and. future,
CONGRESS STINTS ITSELF
(CONGRESS, that much maligned body which is the key to our form of government, seems about prepared, after prolonged hesitation, to spend the munificent sum of $5000 to study ways and means of making itself an up-to-date branch of the government. The house rules committee is clearing the way for action on the Maloney-Monroney resolution, already ap« proved by the senate, which will authorize a study designed to bring about reorganization of congressional committees and adequate staffing with people who can give congress more light on what it is doing. This reorganization is long overdue. The ever-growing executive departments, when they want something—and they always want something which runs into millions or billions—descend on congress with a swarm of experts, legal, economic, technical and political, These experts present a bewildering array of figures and statistics to make out a case for themselves. The average congressman, if he fights back at all, fights only weakly because he has few figures and statistics. ® =» .» a 8 0»
FOR TOO LONG, the executive branch has been riding
herd on congress.
The Maloney-Monroney résolution is the first indication that a change may be coming. The trouble with congress is that it has been cowed by the overwhelming superiority of the executive branch in numbers’ and in vociferousness. It is afraid to do anything for itself, for fear of starting another “Bundles for Congress” movement. g We think the country would be glad to see congress get up on its hind legs and make something of itself, A dime well spent in congress can save a‘buck squandered in the sprawling éxecéutive departments—er a million bucks. ;
STRIKES AND STATISTICS
"THE U. 8. labor department has just réported on strikes in October, Here are its figures: 440 strikes, by 220,000 ‘workers, costing 690,000 man<days of idleness — less than one-one-thousandth of the available working time. As often before, we wonder about the useftilness of such government statistics. Of course, labor leaders can point to them and say that after all the no-strikes-in-war-time pledge is being fairly well kept. They may lead workers to feel that strikes have little te do with the weapon shortages which are said to threaten to prolong the war, and thus they may tend to encourage strikes. But do they tell anything like the whole story? 25 We think not. We think-a great many people might be shocked if the government measured and reported the total effect of strikes, not merely in idleness for strikers, but in time and production lost by others. Consider a few recen news items: | : : :
A walkotit by five strip-machine operators at Goodyedr
Rubber’s Akron plant made 1500 other workers idle and
interrupted output of critically needed military tires. Because 39 crane men struck in the world’s largest steel plant, the Carnegie-Illinois mill at Gary, '5500 other employees es ‘were shut
New Jersey resulted in a three-day
3
By James Thrasher
ment we read the other day the world stands on the threshold of ! an astonishing age. A truly won"derful tomorrow, it said, is about to shape up.before our eyes. Among tomorrow's wonders will be television. Television will carry new thoughts and. hopes ints millions -of homes, the ad continued, It will stir men’s hearts and minds in a matter of moments. Then came a challenging sentence: “Television is ready—are YOU?" Well, that's a hard one to answer, Through the years the world has thought it was ready for so many things that would stir men’s minds and hearts, and bring new, thoughts and hopes. And while television has th8 power within itself to open doors, hearts and minds, precedent doesn’t offer much cause for sanguine hope.
Here Wis the Miracle
TAKE THE CASE of radio. Anybody who ever brought in Havana on a crystal set in the small hours of the morning can remember that feeling of awesome wonder which seemed to prophesy the dawn of world brotherhood. Here was a miracle that was going to do miracles for humankind. The novelty wore off, and in time radio brought us not only globe-circling conversation, but also Doc Goebbels, the propaganda specialist, and Doc Brinkley, the goat gland specialist. It brought great music, and the singing commercial, and the poisonous oratory of Adolf Hitler.
to every home, the character of mankind might suddenly be ennobled. But we have a sneaking suspiclon that with television we shall be seeing as well as hearing the singing commercial and the soap opers, and that girls will be able to sit home and slide to the living room floor in a dead faint instead of having to stand in line before a theater for the same privilege.
‘Better Nature Hasn't Kept Pace
THERE REALLY haven't been many new devices that have stirred the minds and hearts of the world to any great and lasting good since the invention of printing. For the most part, man’s better nature hasn't been able to keep pace with the scientific discoveries of his mind. ’ And so, in spite of the telephone and telegraph and radio, in spite of electricity and motor cars and aviation, we still have wars, cruelty, ignorance, and poverty. Too often it seems that new inventions simply have a way of refining and intensifying man’s innate cussedness. ; : Probably we shall buy a television set when everybody else does. But we ‘shall do it in the conviction that the shape of things to come is going to depend entirely on the intrinsic qualities of men’s minds and hearts, whether those qualities are communicated by electronics, woodcuts, or tribal drums.
WORLD AFFAIRS—
Peace Weapon By Hal O'Flaherty
GERMANY 18 RIPE for a blast of propaganda that will break its will to resist. -At this juncture in the last war, Wilson's Fourteen Points did the work. Today, there is only unconditional surrender. Nothing now can be substituted for the military submission of the Reich but, for propaganda purposes, there are the fruitful fields of post-war planning that contain a universal yearning. The Ger man mind, poisoned though it is by Nazi venom, still can be reached by reopening the hope of a better world to come,
German Suspicions Aroused
SHORTWAVE BROADCASTS are jamming into Germany daily the line of propaganda which is aimed
“During past weeks, this effort has aroused suspicions in the German breast as to the very existence of Hitler. 1f, by some stroke of inspiration, the Germans
including themselves, it should prove as decisive as the leaflets containing the Fourteen Points dropped behind the lines and scattered over Germany in 1918. Enough real progress has been made in the direc
a picture of a peaceful, secure era in which they will have a part. The meeting early next year of
currency situation, are things which the German mind could absorb with eager hope.
Desperate Condition Revealed
inside Germany is leaking out through the cracking frontiers.
the true nature of Germany's desperate condition, new deal.
a complete break with the past, This has been demonstrated in Greece. The factions now in control in Athens want no puppets of the old order to con trol their affairs. Both Russian and British influence Is being cast aside In thé search for an administra tion that will properly interpret Greek aspirations,
Urge to Break With the Past
ANYONE WHO HAS-had the rich experience of living with American men in the éombat sones either In Butope or the Pacific eanfiot doubt the existenos of an all-pervading urge to bréak with the past and erect a new world structure. Slogging through the mud of Holland, are men who wonder if their children will have to repeat the miserable business. Someé have seen the crosses over their own father's graves in northéfn France. From them and others scattered over the whole face of the earth has come én endless demand for a change. In this ‘yearning on both sides of the fighting lines rests the germs of a lasting peace. Properly interpreted, showing & break with the past, a res
their immediate humiliation in surrender, a chance, at least, for resurrection. With such & vision, their will to go on fighting might
T o The Point— .
GERMANS the Yanks
ACCORDING to an advertise- |
We should like to think that when television comes |.
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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.
1 Sal or Tey Ce
Among Friends By Thomas L Stokes :
WASHINGTON, Dec. 1~~The susceptibility of Attorney General Francis Biddle to the influence of his friend and sponsor, Thomas 'G. (Tommy the Cork) Corcoran, lawyer-lobbyist once so prom=inent in the New Deal, is creating a hot issue here in this postelection period when public interest is turned so sharply to a shake-up in the administration. It is not good government. It is question of Mr, Biddle's fitness for his high office. The current Corcorin-Biddle episode—and it is not the first—~revolves about the by Assistant Attorney General Norman Littell that Mr. Biddle tried to get him to settle a case having to do with con« demnation proceedings involving the Savannah Shipyards Co. of Savannah, Ga. which Mr, Corcoran represented, 3
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No Surprise to Washington :
THE MARITIME COMMISSION canceled this company's contract after an investigation by the Tru. man committee which followed an exposure by this writer. Maritime asked the justice department to institute condemnation proceedings. Mr. Corcoran tried to get a settlement at a figure above that fixed by the government, $085,665, and enlisted his friend Mr. Biddle. Mr. Littell refused to go along. This new evidence of the rvience of the attorney general to Tommy Corcoran came as no sure prise to Washington. It has been an open secret for several years. proteges when thes latter was on the inside of the New Deal. Tommy was influential in moving Mr. Biddle up from solicitor general to attorney general, When Tommy left the government in 1940—after a career in which he had been quite a hounder of lobbyists—he went into the business himself, taking up the practice sof what is known here as “influence,” though masquerading—as they all do—as a “lawyer.” He began immediately to capitalize upon the many men in key positions whom he had helped to place, calling upon them in the interest of his clients. The attorney general was one of his top exhibits, though he had contacts in virtually every department. .
%
| Democrats Are Afraid to Touch Him
SOME, GRATEFUL to Tommy, responded readily,
at destroying the Reich's faith in its own leadership. could be given a look at a new deal for the world,
tion of world organization to paint for the Germans
the united nations, the assurance of a stable world
A CLEARER PICTURE of the hérrors existing
After weeks of the most eareful inquiry, talks with refugees, with scorés of persons direct from the crumbling German citadel, Nat Barrows, The Times corréspondent in Stockholm; has revealed
Barrows poignant stories efiphasige the present possibilities of a propaganda campaign aimed at the release of some small shred of hope for better things to come; a new life for Germany under a universal
As liberated nations come back slowly into fresh contacts with a world that has been forbidden. them
or grossly obscured by censorship, they begin a fresh "| struggle for a new déal. Not a political new deal, but
birth of freedom and justice, Germans can see beyond’
Smeg, hy Sp mata tes des 34 =]
“THIS 18 JUST THE FIRST SQUEEZE"
By A. J. Schneider, 504 West dr., Woodruff Place. I have been waiting patiently for over two weeks for editorials or appeals to the public by our newspapers—the long standing champions of freedom of speech and freedom of the’ press—i0 protest long and loud the treatment of Upton Close for his radio attack upon the Communist supporters of the New Deal. But so far I have only seen paragraph news fillers, This is just the first squeeze by the Communist pressure group, which New Dealers wanted to treat with ostrich-like indifference. ‘However, that does not excuse the press from its dereliction in this important duty. Not so many months ago, when the press syndicates were being oppressed by the justice department, I remember the tearful appeals to the public to give unstinting support. And it was only this support that resulted in preventing government regulation at that time. If this Upton Close situation remains unchallenged, it will not be long before the press is persecuted again, The time to strike is now. \ Also conspicuous by its silence on this subject is that ever-ready ¢hanipion of freedom of speech and freedom of the press—the American Civil Liberties union. Of course, the of-repeated accusation, and just as often denied, charge that this organization is Communistic may have something to do with their lethargy. But now is the supreme opportunity to disprove any Communistic bias, If théy will some to the defense of Upton Close, no one can longer accuse them of being Communist. I am also surprised at the spine less attitude of the pén eompany which sponsored the C1686 time. An enterprising organization such as that sponsor surely cannot put its tall between its legs and take die tation from the NBC without some show of resistasice. Newspapers that subscribe to the freedom of the press and freedom of speech shotild réfuse to publish NBC programs until they reverse themselves. 1 urge everyone to write our senators and congressmen insisting
(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.)
upon an immediate congressional investigation of what is perhaps only the beginning of a well-laid plan to stifle freedom of speech over the air. s 82 8 “THEY ARE GIVEN THEIR EQUAL CHANCE” By Corky Lee, 2041 N. New Jersey st. When the Pepsi-Cola girls’ basketball team played the Franklin U. 8. O. Negro girls last night at Northwestern Community Oenter, Northwestern and 22d st, it was the first time I had ever been in this gym, although I had previously Heard about its merits. When we walked in, the sweet and low strains of “Stardust” drift ed from behind stage curtains, four Negro youths were playing table ténnis in one corner while several watched, some were playing badminton, and still others were shooting baskets at the other end of the floor. We were shown the dressing room Where there was a cage to lock our clothing. THéfe were also four or five showers with individual dréssing rooms. In five years of girls’ - independent sports, I've seen quite a few gyms, all sponsored by white people, yet this was one of the cleanest. It struck me as something the public should know and see. This is one of the few recreation centers for youths to spring
up.in Indiandpolis, keeping them off
Side Glances=By Galbraith
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the streets and doing something beneficial, : Such a project affects not only the Negro youths who actively par. ticipate in the center's events, but also every man, woman and child in the city. While these youngsters and teen-agers are playing basket
coming juvenile delinquents or growing into gangsters or thugs. Instead, they are learning to be good American citizens, raising our city’s, state's, and nation’s standard of live ing. They develop their bodies, their minds, and any talent they might possess, such as music. They are given their equal chance to live and progress in America. . Money being spent on these recs reational centers is Hot spent in vain, It goes for & definite better: ment of the America of tomorrow that we are fighting for today. ss » “THERE IS ONLY ONE SOLUTION” By Sit Behind the Tepes, Indianapolis
Of course the army and navy is no place for the coddled, effeminate mother’s boy, accustomed to a private room and bath, and several to breakfast. Well, Old Sarge, you know a lot about the army and navy and we agree with everything you say, but when it comes to the mother's boy and how they are spoiled at’ home, you must have been one of them or you wouldn't know so mueh about it. “Several calls to breakfast” how well we know and finally resort to a pitcher of ice water, only to have him erawl out and go over to grandma's,
get his sleep out and give him his breakfast in bed. There is only one solution, eompulsory military training, at cehs ters such as the Great Lakes; which we have alréady, where the boys when peeved can't go to grandma. Let them stay at the -centers, take caré of their uniforms themselves, arise when the bugle is sounded, learn how to live the navy way. Then, and only then, will we have a strong and healthy nation, ready to take the lead in the nations of the world. I hope this training will not be giveri in local high schools, it will be money wasted. s » . “JUST A LITTLE
BLACK PUP”
ball or table tennis, they aren't be-|
where she will tuck him in, let him|
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as the history of the past few years discloses, though it is fragmentary and nobody ever has combed it thoroughly enough for the sake.of decent government, For Tommy did favors and chores, too, for members of congress, and Democrats are afraid to touch him. He knows too much. Mr. Biddle has always been most responsive, Mr: Littell, in his statement to the Truman committee, referred to a most flagrant case, He described a conference with the attorney general and James
White House. He said he told Mr. Biddle that acceptance of the settlement proposed : Shipyards Co. case would “break public scandal,” and that the atto turned to Mr.’ Rowe and said Mr. Littell was right,
dissolve patent tie-ups it had with the Nazi I. G. Farbenindustrie, one of the cartel cases which involved, through a subsidiary control of patents, atabrine, a synthetic quinine, badly needed when the Japs conquered Malaya.
Tommy Moved in and Took. Over
TOMMY MOVED right into the department on that one. He hung his hat in the attorney general's office and made his headquarters there. From that office, he sallied out to try to threaten and intimidate lawyers of the anti-trust division who were working on a ‘consent decree. He tried to get the terms modified and, as the decree was drafted, it was far too lenient to satisfy some case, The attorney general point Thurman Arnold, division, threatened to the terms were not severe helped to supervise the drafting of the press release on the case which was termed by experts in the department as “a white-wash.” Nobody in the depart ment had ever seéh anything quite like the way Tommy, a private lawyer, moved in and took over, The Truman committee, which investigated some of Tommy's business, after revelations by this writer, never did touch the Sterling Products Co, ¢aseé, though it was announced that it would, Later, y used his influence with Attorney Gen. Biddle and other officials t6 stop an investigation of the synthetic quifiine monopoly of a Sterling subsidiary which investigation had been planned and announced by the senate patents committee, All of this smacks too much of making government a private affalr mong friends--whieh it isn't. Congress should take time now to ifivestigate the whole business.
IN WASHING TON— Congress Swamped By Robert Taylor
WASHINGTON, Dec. 1-Don't
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