Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 12 April 1945 — Page 18

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EPI rE Ton ee TE

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REFLECTIONS— “| Now to Get

(BEHIND THE FRONY=

i |

8ky--back again at the kind of life I had known so long.

~The Indianapolis Times

Thursday, April 121945

WALTER LECKRONE -- HENRY W. MANZ Editor : Business ‘Manager

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WHAT BLACK MARKET? V E can't seem to get as much alarmed about food black markets as some OPA officials and a few investigating senators seem to be. To be perfectly candid, we've looked, and we haven't been able to find any, around here. We don't believe the full-time investigators of OPA have been able to find any, either, because if they found them, presumably they would break them up. There have been a numberof very positive statements made during the senate investigation of the meat shortage | to the effect that 90 pér cent of the meat sold in New York City is “black market,” and 80 per cent in Washington, and so on, with the inference that this explains why meat is in-Indianapelis, where there isn't a black market In meat? Of course a lot depends on what you call “black market,” which is a term very loosely used these days. An Indianapolis meat dealer was in court this week, on a black. | market charge that Judge Niblack very properly threw out. This man had been following a custom of long pre-OPA | _standing, of buying beef cattle on the farms, butchering it | “himself and offering the meat for sale in his own market. | The prosecution admitted that he charged no more than | OPA ceiling prices and that he collected red ration points | for all meat sold. The only accusation against him, in fact, | was that he dealt in meats that had not been federally | inspected, which appears not to be illegal—although at last | accounts OPA officers were trying to drag the case into | ‘the United States courts anyway. Indiana farmers and | Indiana meat dealers have been retailing meats that way for the last 100 years or more—and whatever may be said for or against the custom, it certainly isn’t “black market.”

8 » " 5 » . » AFTER ALL, “hlack market” sales can only be sales without ration points, or sales above OPA price ceilings— and nothing more. The meat doesn’t just disappear. Even black market beef goes eventually to a consumer. much of our total supply goes through black market channels that there is none left for legitimate markets—who gets it? Well, OPA has an“answer, of course, but frankly we're just a little skeptical about those mysterious, sinister characters who buy all this, and live on a diet of three-

off everything for himself?

| ‘of Claude G. Bowers (rah! rah! rah! Shortridge!).

If sof

inch sirloins with rich gravies. There'd have to be millions of em to consume all the meat that is missing—and some- | how they never manage to produce even one. | " There is a meat shortage, all right, as every housewife knows too well. It is caused principally, if not wholly, by ill-advised federal tinkering with production, prices and distribution. ‘No doubt some meat is sold, and bought,

by chiselers at higher than legal prices and without ration |

points, and that may properly be called “black market.” But it should be plain that this affects only the distribution, and can neither increase nor decrease the total supply available. The “black market” "hullabaloo is a convenibnt smoke screen to hide the bureaucratic bungling which has artificially and needlessly reduced this nation’s supply of food in the midst of emergency where every ounce of food is urgently needed. ~~ - : %

TOO MUCH POWER | A MONG those mentioned for possible appointment as = federal loan administrator are— Harold D. Smith, whose long experience as director of the budget has not included the use of black ink:

| men!

Clifford Durr, lawyer, palpitant New Dealer and mem- |

|

ber of the federal communications commission, and Emil Schram, a native of Peru; Ind. and formes chair--| man of the Reconstruction Finance Corp., now head of the | New York Stock Exchange. : No one of these men—and we are not here comment- | ing on their general qualifications—should be vested with the power which existing law gives to the federal administrator. It is more power than should ever have been given to Jesse Jones. It is more power than should have been | passed on to Fred M. Vinson, Mr. Jones’ successor. It is | more power than should be given to any man. |

» o s ” ” BY LOANS and investments from a 14-billion-dollar | revolving fund, the RFC and its subsidiaries have put the government into all manner of business—into banking, insurance, railroads, manufacturing, building and loan, mortgage, disaster loans, commodity credit, housing, financing of municipal, state and county public works, loans to central | banks of foreign governments. And they're looking for new places to use this money. of the taxpayers. The RFC was created back when Mr. Hoover was President. It was to be a temporary agency, to help check | the depression. But over the years there has been one | emergency after another. It is time for congress to take | a long new look at this gigantic lending agency, decide that some of its activities be liquidated, and prescribes strict limitations by law on the remainder of its operations,

SYMPHONY OF WORDS OR our money there's nobody in the business who can write like Ernie Pyle, Sometimes Ernie outdoes himself. For instance, this description of a night on Okinawa, taken from his column which is printed today on Page 17. “Not long after dark the rifle shots started. There would be a little flurry far ahead, maybe a dozen shots. Then silence for many minutes.

“Then there would be another flurry, way to the left. |

Then silence. Then the blurt of a machinegun closer, and a few scattered single shots sort of framing it. ¥hen a . Jong silence, spooky. : “All night it went like that. Flares in the sky ahead, the crack of big guns behind us, then of passing shells, a few dark figures coming and going in the night, muted Voices at the telephones, the rifle shots, the mosquitoes, «the stars, the feel of the damp night air under the wide

“Thd old familiar pattern, unchanged by distance or te from war.on the other side of the world. A patfern mbedded in my soul that, coming. back into it again, to me as I lay there that I'd never known any-

| for Germany, an enemy country whose recovery it is are inherently seasonal, will call for

| politics, makes strange bedfellows.

{ Rhineland,

. ~ “

Cheery Note TAR

By Anton Scherrer -

THE CHEERIEST NOTE thus far this spring, comes by way of the “Statistical Bulletin” (Vol, 26, No. 3) of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. which, as a rule, is pretty dreary reading. This time . the insurance people dismiss death and disaster and "give all their attention to babies. Believe it or not, the Met people are so yorked up about babies ‘this spring that they're down on both knees coaxing the kids to enter this war-warped world. " The Met people radiate contentment because of their discovery that nine out of A0 American babies are now born to native parents. This is In distinct contrast to the situation only a quarter of a century ago. In 1915, for instance, something like 41 per cent of the births were to parents both of whom were foreign born. By 1930 the proportion had decreased to 19 per cent and In 1940 only a comparatively small number of American babies had both parents of foreign birth. The implication is, of course, that pretty soon the raisin’ of the current crop of babies will be a strictly American affair free of all foreign entanglements, : » » » Dialog Voice: How do you know Stalin is going to grab Answer: Because of a sneaking suspicion that I'd do the same in his position. " sn

Suspense

Be GR Hy AF RY . “PHENO «that might. Tomard. boos DR ——————

study is the present -topsy-turvy practice or TeMtng* gpm story backward. The latest case to turn up was that x

Ten years ago Mr. Bowers brought out his “Jefferson in Power,” a brilliant performance covering the period of Mr. Jefferson's term as President. A fortnight ago, the same brilliant author submitted “The Young Jefferson” in the course of which he divulged Mr. Jefferson's birth. The period between Mr. Jefferson’s birth and his ascendency was developed in “Jefferson and Hamilton,” a book that Mr. Bowers wrote back in 1925 which, when you come to figure it, was exactly 20

years ago. To wait 20 years to learn of Mr. Jefferson's birth is expecting too. much of readers, even of seasoned readers of. serial stories. They can't possibly wait that long unless, of .course, the author has a big surprise up his sleeve. The surprise must justify the | suspense. Which is the same as saying that a 20-year-long suspense calls for a mighty big surprise. Did Mr. Bowers deliver a big surprise? He. did not. Instead of wrapping Mr, Jefferson's birth in obscurity as seasoned readers had every right to expect, Mr. Bowers records a birth no more mysterious than that of the kid next door. » » ~

Job's Wife '

There's a nifty line in Robert Frost's latest contributich, “A Masque on Reason,” which as you probably know, is a blank verse extension of the 42 chapters of the Book of Job. * Well, no matter whether you know it or not, Mr. Frost quotes Jub’s wife as saying: ‘There isn't pay a score due the big boss for any universal reason; and no one but a man would !some prétty lousy treatment. think there was” -to which she adds, “You don’t | » as catch women trying to be Plato.” be Rr -. Mebbe so. But, Lord, how the gals can Plato the | 11 POESN'T SEEM . CONSISTENT TO ME”

Hoosier Forum

“MY HAT'S OFF. TC JIMMY BYRNES”

By Lillian Dinehart, 3920 Cornelius ave. My hat's off, with a deep obeisance, to Jimmy Byrnes. We have

innocently swallowed many a bitter Rooseveltian pill, so thanks, Jimmy, for giving us a glimpse at the label on the bottle of this latest nostrum, that little line in very fine print, “For “domination of workers during reconversion,” certainly gave our trusting congress a jolt and got quick results. Methinks also our Jimmy helped

(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.)

around employment’ movement, if be considered together with the it is to be on a large scale, must more serious problem of preventing

By K. Hahn, Indianapolis d ; This concerns the pronunciati epressions, and having enough pronuncis) 0 jobs for ‘all who need them. In

“lI wholly disagree with what you say, but will defend to the death your right to say it.”

.~ WORLD AFFAIRS—

Austria By Wm. Philip Simms

WASHINGTON, April 12.—The future of liberated Austria, like the future of liberated: Poland. is beginning to cause serious concern in united nations circles here. Reports onthe Yalta conference indicate that #. Austria is to be occupied regionally by the Big Three, |“SACRIFICES ' MAY . with the British- in the west, the Russians in the BE NECESSARY” east and the Americans in the middle. f : : i By Edward W. Kellogg, Indianapolis | thing

of the city of Berlin. ge I have often wondered why the what Henry Wallace talks of as sixty million jobs.”

radio commentators take such pains | to give the correct German pro- | nunciation of the various small by the allies and the very casually | STRment,

and matter of factly mispronounce |

{long-term basis, we must find

namely BEAR-LEAN, not BER-| LYNN. ° : Jt Seay Seem consistent to Me. rove willie or alked os 11 it

would be easy, but we had better

If this plan is carried out, Austrians and others | hay 35

fear, it would almost certainly doom the country : : ; i politically, economically, “financially and socially for esting and jnformative series of prepared 0 Jyske oma seriices. a long time, if not permanently. Even if the Big Three agreed on the fundamental laws governing the occupation, inevitably. the rules : i would be interpreted and applied in .each- zone in have little doubt that efforts along Is 0 be realized, accordance with the ideological conception of the these lines will increase since the| y 2.8.9 occupying power. This would tend to set up, or | 3dvantages to the employees are ob- “WE LIKE TO intensify, national stresses such as Austria never |V10US: and benefits to employers in| g Now THE TRUTH” before experienced. low turnover, improved relations and building up a forte of particularly | BY Mrs. G. Mobley, 4411 Evanston ave.

around

Austria Is Not an Enemy Country

REGIONAL OCCUPATION might be a solution [these benefits in. industries, Which | oo wiordsville ii : : {April 5: I am glad there are such : . |a diversity of products, if not by a|* intended to regulate, y = ’ oa Toma e. Austria, however, s nol an |single employer, at least within a!people who can still do their own enemy country. 1It-is occupied territory, like Czecho- |glven community, ‘and correspond- | thinking. It sure is time for people slovakia, and to put it on the same footing with |ingly, versatility on the part of the to wake up and be on the knowing Hitler's reich would deal a severe blow to Austrian |workers, with scheduled and sys- end of some things before all things pride. Moreover, the injustice would encourage Pan- |/6Mmatic transfers. {of our country have been given Germanism. All of this means, however, that away, while our own people do As a solution, it Is proposed that France occupy |UPless there is a healthy over-all without. Our country is the best Austria instead of the Big Three. It is too much to |°MPloyment level, the year-around and I love it very much, but the

| expect that either Russia, Britain or America would {employment movement will tend | servants of this great country are withdraw in favor of one of the other ‘two, but it

toward giving full employment to corrupting it, which is not what a favored part of the country's/the American people want. We like workers, leaving others out of a|to know the truth of everything as job a still larger part of the time, we are a strong people and can and we may well question whether endure it. But we don't want a that would not be ‘a step in the country patterned after any other. minimum of friction. wrong direction. Thus, the year- | Ours was the most wonderful

Would Promote Austrian Unity : : : OCCUPATION BY FRANCE alone would tend | Side Glances By Galbraith

to promote Austrian unity—politically and economi- | cally—and, (2) prevent Pan-German sympathies | which otherwise would be bound to arise

is thought, the three together might invite France to take on the job alone. French culture and: Austrian culture are traditionally similar. . Tempermentally their peoples have much in common. ‘Therefore there would be a

Misery, like |

Upon the Red army's entry into Vienna. the Moscow radio broadcast that Russia has no territorial | claims on Austria and that she would co-operate in reinstating that country as it was before Germany | seized it. | Simultaneously, Secretary of State Stettinius revealed that France had asked for a more specific definition of the methods, scope and’ purposes of the Yalta declaration for the management of liberated Europe. j France expects to occupy at: least part of the Austria might be added to her zone of occupation with a corridor* across Southern Bavaria to connect the two areas. This would leave South Germany to the United States,” North Germany to Britain and East Germany to the Soviet JLnion.

Tyrol Should Be Returned

AS A MATTER of common justice, it is further contended that Austrian Tyrol—annexed by Italy after the last war and, more recently the victim of a Jdicker between Hitler and Mussolini—should be returned ‘to Austria whose language the people speak and whose traditions and culture they share, Austria, it is recalled, was virtually exterminated by the treaty of St, Germain. She was left with only 32,500 square milés which is about half the size o the state of Georgia. With one of the largest capitals in Europe but with wholly inadequate territory sur- | . rounding it, Austria's economy, like an orchid, had | to live almost on thin air. vie ’ i In 1923, she "came within an ace. of bankruptcy. She was saved only by heroic remédies applied by the |

, League of Nations. The allies, it is observed, will be condemning her to a worse fate now if they split

wo

-

"Every time it's the same—tliey det my favorite hero in an awful

What 1s left of her into three parts and subject each |

-

— mess, then sing about soap! Is it any wonder | get -

oll ray homework wrong?"

We have seen that full employ-| By T. W. Lloyd, Indianapelis ment can be produced by “deficit| It seems as if the country is fowns and villages now being seized | Pending” on the part of the 8OV- slow to wake up to just what the if on a great enough promise of a post-war job for every- | scale, but to put-it on a practicall the’ most important of them all, | some other way than forever piling| ll too true that it means just what! "up greater debts. Many with either it says, and more. They. say for | {economic or political axes to grind economic. reasons, that when once

get rid of shallow optimism, and] approach the problem as some-|Pulsory labor law. That would be]

supremely worth !an absolute fact. You recently published an inter-| While, but for which we must be| turn this country into an industrial |

stable and desirable workers, are|- I enjoyed reading the “Open Let- third of our own people can't, { Worth. a. great deal. To. approach ter” written by Mrs. Jay Zee of, the Forum of)

stances can the democracies offer

MUSIC religlous~heat inspires,

| 60,000,000 JOBS”

place to live in without these enforced, imported ideas. More power to you, Mrs. Jay Zee. 3 = x =» “BE NICE TO

THE GIRLS” By Mrs. P. 8, Indianapolis Don't get the people all upset over eating downtown, Mary Studebaker; the OPA hasn't rationed restaurant stools yet. And, Mary, if you would be nice to the girls, they would be glad to wait on you. I know because I used to be one of those girls and had office girls to | wait on every day, and I had mothers with children also. The office girls were nice, but once in a while we found one like you. We were always glad to wait on the nice girls, but took our time with the rude ones. ” » .

“WE DON'T NEED

|body really does mean, when it is

{those sixty million jobs get going, | {we can’t stop then with this com- |

Are we: going to|

“lant hill of jobs we can't quit, all articles describing a number of suc-| I hope in another communication directed wl a £, 9 this|

cessful applications of the year-|l0 more fully explain why sacri-|j., "00 00 passed, that is exactly |

employment principle. I|fices may be necessary if success| po. we will have—dictatorship and |

serfdoni’ in the guise of a benefac- | tor, We wonder if the real truth is| beginning to dawn on these ardent | idol worshipers. We don’t need sixty million industrial jobs. | Who will buy our product. 'OneAs some propose, we'll loan the money |

buy it. We don't need more wealth, | as they put it. Nature attended to that. What we do need is to learn | how to use properly what nature gave us. As a start, 10 to 15 million small homes for poor families, with five acres of good farm land to each home, at a price they can pay. Break up these big landed estates, restrict all farm landowners to “operators” and “family-size farms.” Nature will take care of our unemployment problem if we will only let her,” The unequal dfstribution of land is the cause of most strife and poverty. The land is God's own for all to share in, » » »

HERE IS YOUR $64 QUESTION” By The Watchman, Indianapolis In view of the Soviet Union's policy to take over all territory occupied by their armies and to

force communism on nations who don't want it, even starving people into submission, all of which are open and flagrant violations of all the principles and pledges and objectives given in the Atlantic Charter and proclaimed after each Big Three conference, and in line with the humanitarian pledges made to subjugated countries, and the prospect in both Europe and Asia of a whole Communist annexation of territory by the same forcible aggression as that of the Nazis, Fascists and Japs, what alibi, what excuse, what motive and what extenuating circum-

to the rest of the world for their complete and humiliating surrender of all the principles, - justice, fairness and integrity promised and proclaimed as democracy’s obJectives? Here is your $64 question. Answer it carefully, please.’ ’

DAILY THOUGHTS But now bring me a minstrel. And it came to pass, when the minstrel played, that the hand of the Lord came upon him.—II Kings 3:15 7

iN akey the soul, ang. Mts it And wings 1t with sublime desires,

| suckers, and they seem to realize that now.

to foreign countries and they wilt]

msaid to include 100 tons of gold, a larg

[Hard Road -

bs.

By Thomas L. Stokes

‘ROME, April 12—~The miserable | fate suffered by Italy when she followed a_ puffed-up, loud-ypiced dictator is plain to the eye of the traveller who comes by automobile - from Caserta to Rome through the valley followed by the Allied armies. Plain also is the hard road ahead for the Italians to recover from, the rape of their land by the Gers mans with whom they joined in the attempted cone quest of Europe and Africa, and from the devastation caused by the clash of the Nazis and the allies, It is a lovely country through which you ride from Caserta to Rome. The green fields roll away on either side to the mountains. On the sides of the hills and mountains and sometimes on their very top, perch ancient towns and cities, now, almost without exception, shattered and pockmarked. - Some are almost levelled. Thick, ancient walls are gaping and torn, revealing the wreckage within. For these ‘towns were the defenses used by the Nazis in their slow retreat northward. From them, the Germans could command the valleys between and it was necessary for the allies literally to blast the places from the face of the earth to root out the Germans, That was what they did.

‘Close View Makes You Shudder’

‘AFTER A time you become accustomed to these shells of towns, - Then in the distance you sight Case sino, where the armies grappled so desperatgly—or what rémains of Cassino. From a distance it looks like a cemetery on the side of a hill, with the shafts and ‘splinters poking up here and there as ghastly memorials of the homes and buildings once there, The close view makes you shudder. ; :

+ “=i slong -thisroad; almost to Home, aze-tha- wrecks

of tanks, guns afd vehicles, HFS CHEN T saw evel" jg

along the roads in” Germany where the path of wap was much fresher. . But the destruction of the towns, although misery enough, is only a part of the cost of Italy's folly, When the Germans slowly yielded up.the land of their ally they stripped it. Not content with planting mines in towns and cities, they also strewed mines through the farm regions, so that thousands and thousands of acres are out of cultivation until the mines can be removed. And Italy relies heavily on her agriculture, Some mined land has been cleared, and men, women and children are back at work in the fields.

'Germans Demolished Railroads’ THE GERMANS also demolished the railroads and with devilish thoroughness. Every frong was torn - out of the switches and nearly every rail split, so that when you ride along the line which now has been restored in double track from Caserta to Rome,* it looks as if every rail was only about four feet long, The American engineers have done their usual fine job of putting the rails together again. The power plants were .put out of operation in every city. The Germans did this by removing the essential parts which are hard to replace. Italy is highly electrified. Her railroads are nearly all elece trified. Only recently has Rome been fairly well reequipped with electricity. Still the elevators run in only one of her many hotels, and this type of paraly« sis exists in other cities. ; Transport is one of the chief obstacles to the solution of the food problem. And lack of transport has contributed to the hunger and the suffering in the cities, just as in France. Everywhere the people— whole families—are back in the fields working with their crude hoes.

‘Saw Only One Plow’ :

IN THE 160-mile ride I saw only one plow. It was hitched to two oxen. Agriculture still is primitive in Italy, but there are plows, not like ours, but plows, They cannot be used now, however, because the Gere mans took the oxen as well as other cattle. The Italians are a stunned and dejected people, considering their usual buoyant spirits. Still they seem more philosophical than either the Germans or the French. They are busy, working to restore their wrecked homes, more so than the French in Normandy. They still can smile, Unlike the Germans I saw, they still love to cone giegate, sitting about the square and ‘in front of the outdoor cafes—just sitting and gossiping in the sun, enjoying idleness. The men seem to have less to do than the women. « It is just ag if everybody was taking time out. Their dictator played them for

weer

ty

IN WASHINGTON— _.

Who Gets the Gold?

By Roger W. Stuart

WASHINGTON, April 12—The $100,000,000 ques tion—who gets the gold and art treasures found last week by American troops in a German salt mine?— had the experts scratching their, heads today. Unofficially, however, it was the general impression that if Uncle Sam asserts his rights, the gold at least, will come to the United States. : 3 Following an announcement by Secretary of State Stettinius that the army would hold the booty until the allied nations decide what to do with it, the judge advocate general's office quictly observed thas “all captures and booty belong primarily to the government of the captor.”

Art Treasures to Be Returngd «THE SPOKESMAN was reading from the official field manual, rules of land warfare. Chiefly a come pilation of Hague and Geneva conventions, the manual is the army’s “bible.” As for the art treasures, it is believed they will go back to their original owners—if they can be, located. The problem of deciding ownership would be handled, it was thought, by the allied control commission for Germany. Months will be required to trace ownership of many items. + The loot, which was found in the ‘Merkers sal§ mine in Germany by the 19th infantry division, is quantity of United States currency, as well as considerable Brite ish, French and Norwegian money. Thousands of crates of paintings, statues, tapestrics and othér art objects were sald to. have been stacked in the same mine.

Calls Attention to Rules of Warfare ALTHOUGH REFUSING to state* officially its views about the booty, the judge advocate general's office called attention to the rules of warfare covers ing booty and movable property. ; Paragraph 320 of the manual, which is credited as a direct quolution of The Hague convention of Oct. '18, 1907, states* : “An army of occupation can only take possession of cash, funds, and realizable securities which are strictly the prcperty of the state (Germany in this instance), depots of arms, means of transport, stores and supplies, and, generally, all movable property belonging to the state which may be used for military operations.” : Paragraph 327, on booty, says: “All captures and booty belong, according to the modern law of war, primarily to the government of the captor.” And this was Uncle Sam,

ft THE SAN FRANCISCO conference has nothing in common with the league of nations, This conference does not repeat the. past, but opens a new chapter in world history. Moscow broadcast. x »

JAP GENERALSHIP has helped us in the past,

I know little about land warfare, but I must

say I

am glad to be on the same side with our American

ene Vite Adm, Richmond K. Turner at Guam. THERE WILL be more (post-war) work in the

Li And fits it to bespeak the Deity | United

’

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pertly + slacks, navy wit