Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 17 December 1947 — Page 20

‘The Indianapol's Times

ROY W. HOWARD WALTER LECKRONE HENRY W. MANZ ] FRO?

President ‘ Editor = Business Manager PAGE 20. Wednesday, Dec. 17, 1947 oe : A SCRIPPS. HOWARD NEWSPAPER -

Owned «~ Indianapolis Times Publishing Co, 314 W, Maryland 8t. Postal Zone § : ‘Member of United Press, Scripps-Howard News. paper Alliance, NEA Service, and Audit Bureau ot ‘Circulations. :

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and published dally (except Sunday) by

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With the Times |

FIGURATIVELY SPEAKING Although personally I have never had any | trouble with figures of speech, I have noted: with. |. | considerable concern the perennial difficulty that most students seem to have in distinguishing between them. What is needed, obviously, is some- | 6ne who will define them in clear and simple

*| do not agree with a word that you say, but | vill defend fo the death’ your right to sey. ih” Wallace for President

Mail rates in Indiana, 85 a year; all other states | lerms.

1f a man comes home at 2-a. m., obviously in

{ his cups, and his wife says, “A fine husband, you

are!” and accompanies this with an application

*| qf the stove poker, that is Irony. Sarcasm is that | which if printed in newspapers brings numerous

Do We Need Pe Law Sve or Don't We? letters of protest from readers who have taken

it literally and is nothing at all like Satire, which

HE ink was hardly dry on the injunction that knocked out our city law to curb lottery rackets when the crying need for just such a law was demonstrated again down in Municipal Court . . . as it has been so many times before. In this case a man was arrested with all the paraphernalia of a big-time lottery in a place of business notoriously used for that, among items seized being wholesale lots of lottery tickets which can’t be used for anything in the world except to violate a law. The Indianapolis Municipal Court turned him loose. “No _evidence, the judge said. It seems nobody had actually seen this fellow sell a lottery ticket to a sucker, and then hold a drawing to pick the lucky number and then pay off the winner, Anything else would be “circumstantial evidence.” A man can be convicted of murder on circumstantial evidence, and in most murder trials that’s all the evidence there is. Or of robbery. Qt.gxson, Or high treason. Or most any other crime in the books, But not of running a lottery racket. Anyway, not in Indianapolis. . . n » » » THE JUDGE who freed this particular defendant only followed the well established rule of our local courts. A rule so well established that nobody on the bench apparently ever stops to wonder, any more, whether it wasn't a bad rule in the beginning. Good or bad, its effect over the years hae been to grant virtual immunity from the law to all the big racketeers. Only their small-fry retail agents are occasionally—and not very often—convicted. By its operation they have been able to build their illegal business to a known gross volume of more than $9 millions a year in Indianapolis. It has figured in a number of violent killings, and in dozens of lesser crimes. Its easy money and lush profits are at the root of our whole law enforcement problem. We have sympathy for—but no confidence in—Mayorelect Feeney's plan to drive this vicious crew out of action with our existing laws and perhaps, improved police methods. There was nothing wrong with the police methods in

the case that just ended. The police had done their job

thoroughly and well. rogantly out of court, acquitted. As usual. » . » » ” » LAST FALL, at the insistent demand of the people of this city, Coungjl enacted an ordinance under which convictions of proved lottery racketeers would become pos- | sible. There is little doubt that its application would wipe | out this racket almost over night. ' Ome Cireuft Court judge has held the opinion that the city has no power to make such a law, Many able lawyers disagree with him, " The obvious solution, we feel, is to appeal that decision to the state Supreme Court. If it is upheld, and the city does lack such power, then relief can be sought elsewh re. If it is reversed, and the law placed in operation, the police will have the weapon they must have to do anything effective about big-time lotteries.

While the Bubble Swells

HIS country will get no anti-inflation legislation from | the present session of Congress. House defeat of the Republicans’ Wolcott bill has made that a long-odds bet. The Wolcott bill was a political stratagem that tried | to be clever and fell on its face. It couldn't have done much

good, and its proposed relaxation of the anti-trust laws |

might have opened the way to serious abuses. But Republican leaders thought they could put the Democrats on a spot by bringing it before the House under conditions that drastically limited debate, forbade amendments and required a two-thirds vote for passage. This meant that the measure couldn't pass without a lot of Democratic support, and that if it didn't pass, the Democratic Party could be accused of thwarting a Republican effort to

do something about inflation. s ” n n » n ”

AS IT turned out, the bill didn't get even a majority. The Democrats voted unanimously against it—and, in the circumstances, they were right. Also, 26 Republicans joined them to defeat it. With Congress itching to adjourn

for Christmas this week-end, there is now practically no

chance for action on inflation until some time after the new session begins In January.

We'd like to believe things will be different then—that

both Republicans and Democrats will return to Washington determined to submerge politics long enough to make a united attack on inflation's causes. Neither party, so far, has shown any real disposition to-do more than try to suppress effects. : But that prospect isn't hopeful. For 1948 will be a campaign year. And both parties are thinking so hard about the election that they may not find time to reflect that it probably won't be worth winning if this inflation boom goes on to a bust,

Queen for a Day — Maybe T'S likely that the next royal wedding will be between King Michael of Romania and Princess Anne of Bour-bon-Parma, who used to work insa New York hat shop. Once upon a time the rosiest dream of any girl-—even a princess—was that she might some day be a queen, “nut our congratulations are not to the prospective bride in his case, With the monarchial prospects in Romania what they are today, we think young Michael is the lucky one ‘to pick a girl with-some experience in the business of earning a living. .

Minus ‘in’ and ‘De’ A FRIEND of ours remarks that everybody is worried about inflation, and everybody is scared of deflation. Maybe, he suggests, what this country wants is just some plain, ordinary flation. ° i

ai -

Ta A ’ vy. x J

is an | Nymphs,

Old Coat that plays a flute and Chases

easily distinguished. One needs only to remember that Simile is next before 8imil-F, and Metaphor

| next before Metafive.

Remember though, it is

always Metaphor, Metafive, Metasix, and so on-— never Metasix-and-seven-eighths, That is what is known as.a Mixed Metaphor and is frowned upon in the best pedagogic circles.

Once as a lad in the primary grades 1 was

assigned the task of writing an essay on the

Constitution,

“The word Constitution,” I began,

“is rooted in the bosom of the Roman language.” My teacher, who obviously was not qualified for her high calling, said this was a Mixed Metaphor. As we have already seen, it was of course nothing

of the kind.

It is such injustices .as this in early

youth whieh so often flower into psychoses in later life, and may even account for my proneness to write such articles as this,

-CLAUDE BRADDICK, ¢ & : An Ohlo woman caught two youths who tried

to snatch her purse containing £5 cents. She gave them no quarter.

for dinner, nice roly poly brown potatoes.

“ ® 4 4 , GOOD-NAP Come now, my darling little one, It's time to stop and rest And 'tho I interrupt your fun I know it's for the best. Your short and chubby little legs Have traveled many miles, But still my wee one pleads and begs "With such bewitching smiles— To stay awake until perhaps The dolls have had their meal; “I never see you taking naps, You can't know how I feel!” Those are her words (if she could talk), I read them in her glance, So hopefully she tries to balk And try for one last chance. But now I've won, it won't be long, You snuggle on my lap. We'll rock and sing your favorite song Until you say “Goodnap.”

~—MARCELLA HIBNER.

¢ 4 9 POTATO ROMANCE

My mind is singing happily for I have potatoes Now

what is so astonishing about that?

romance with the lowly potato. ; | the value of a skillet of this vegetable. But the defendant swaggered ar-| grown ill from the overpowering pressure of

Well, the story is like this. I'm having a I have learned

I have

| conversations based on high prices and scarcity,

Women are like drunkards thirsting for things

they keep building appetites for.

I have made up

my mind to make happiness from what I have if T have to beat my mind to shreds as it tries -t0 cry for high priced steaks.

Potatoes are a peaceful kind of food loved by

young and old, They speak of good earth and

sweating toil under a summer sky; of victory at | harvest time. They make one think of family

suppers as a child.

So, when you hear complaints all around you

take yourself to strength and murmur fervently,

“Potatoes! | is yours.

1 have potatoes.”, And, the victory ~JOSEPHINE BUCK, * oo Perhaps a snob doesn't want to associate with

| you for fear you'll find out you don't want to

associate with him.

$ & pt FOSTER'S FOLLIES

("WASHINGTON —Lewis Pledges Help of Miners

In Oil Shortage.”) Mr. Lewis says his miners Will not see the people freeze: “Change oil burners for coal burners, And we'll fill ‘em up with ease.”

Such nobility is warming, What great depth of soul he's got!

* Why, through years of strikes and storming,

He made EVERYBODY hot!

The. 8imile and Metaphor are likewise.

“1847, George Pitts got aroynd to

OUR TOWN . « « By Anton Scherrer An Ice House and a Cool Profit

ICE WAS PACKED for domestic use as barly as 1840 around here. The first to turn the trick was

John Hodgkin, who ran a so-called “pleasure garden’.

on the northeast corner of what is now Georgia St. and Capitol Ave. Mr. Hodgkin used to freeze his “ice cream,” the first to be sold in Indianapolis. It was not until several years later, however, that ice . was packed in quantittes sufficient to supply a general demand. In

ft. In no time at all hé had several competitors. Most of the ice was cut from the Canal and Fall Creek—strangely enough, only occasionally from the river, pe : In the Seventies, the ice business ceased being an infant industry. By this time the Kingan people were using 20,000 tons a year, and @. PF. Schmidt's brewery about half that amount. It's explained by

the fact that Kingan's was the first packing plant—g

anywhere in the world—to kill hogs in the.summer and keep the meat in storage with the help of ice. As for Schmidt's brewery, its sales were approaching 50.000 barrels of beer a year, at a time when Indianapolis didn't have that many people. As a matter of fact, only 48,244.

Corners Indiana Ice Market

IT WAS in the early Seventies that Volney T. Malott, an astute banker, became the ice king of Indianapolis. Apparently he saw the drift of things and got control.of the ice plants in northern Indiana. Finally he owned the largest lake plant in the state located at La Porte. As luck would have it, Mr. Malott’s father-in-law (David Macy) owned the railroad connectigg Peru with Indianapolis. With a railroad at his command, Mr. Malott cornered the ice market—with such happy results, indeed, that he hung up a record for selling more ice in a single season than any gther dealer in Indiana. Legend has it that Mr Malott cleaned up a cool quarter of a million handling ice. In 1874, Mr. Malott got the scare of his life. A new ice king turned up in Indianapolis in the person of a struggling druggist on W. Washington St. His name was Sterling R.. Holt, a North Carolina farm boy who had turned up around here when he was 18 years old, ‘He got off at the Union Station and wandered up and down 8. Meridian St. looking for a job. When pobody would have him, he walked all the way to Plainfleld where he hired out to a farmer.

~~§tore, working the two entérprises in conjunction.

business was the better of the two.

that went with it. Believe it. or not, it set him

The next winter the boy returned to Indianapolis and, this time, had the luck to get a job as porter in a wholesale drughouse. Shortly thereafter, with what little money he had saved, he had the nerve to start a drug store of his own. _ One day when business was none too good, fate disguised in the clothes of a Mr. Michael dropped into Mr. Holt's little drug store. Mr. Michael, it appears, wag a contractor who had built an enormous storage house of a capacity to supply the Bates House with ice for a whole summer season, When the management of the hotel failed that year, it .not only left Mr. Michael stuck with a big building, but one that was filled with the most perishable material in Indianapolis at the time—especially with summer right around the corner, Mr. Michael got to the point right away. He offered to sell the whole works at 50 cents on the dollar. With a fully stocked ice house on his hands, Mr. Holt invested in a second-hand wagon for which he paid a feed store proprietor the sum of $11. He picked up a second-hand horse of $35. It was the start of the ice peddler in Indianapolis.

Sold for 60 Cents per 100 Pounds

EFORE THE summer was over, Mr. Holt had three ice delivery wagons. The next year he had five wagons going. All this time he held on to the drug

Then, one day he made up his mind that the ice

Twenty years after he started, Sterling Holt had everybody coming to him for ice. Thereafter his output was 90,000 tons a year. It required 120 men - to handle his business. On one occasion, he filled an order exporting 300 freight cars of 20 tons each to less far-sighted states of the Union. When Mr. Holt’s peddlers first appeared in Indianapolis, ice was considered a luxury in the same category with silks and sealskin coats. Bought wholesale, it cost anywhere from $8 to $10 a ton. When delivered by a peddler, it brought at least 60 cents per hundred pounds., Mr. Holt lived to see it go down to 7 cents a hundred weight. At that there was plenty of profit. Nor did the appearance of the first ice machine in 1889, installed by Shover & Dick~ son, frighten Mr. Holt. The best it could do was 40 tons a day working all 24 hours. When Mr. Holt had accumulated $300,000, all of which came by way of ice profits, he built a $30,000 stone castle on the southeast corner of Meridian and 16th Sts: Even more amazing was the stone stable

back another $7000.

bof & third world war we should nominate

avert such a conflict. : The Democrats of the nation should nomituste Henry Wallace in the interest of pesce, This should be a move toward world peace and it is to the interest of labor, the farmer and the common man to preserye peace as long as we in do and we ought to’ give more constructive to conditions here at home and not thought to world conditions*as this is where we live. ; . 8 ere is no hope for the great : common people in the Republican Democratic Party as mow constituted fore to save the country from the baneful

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Wallace, who has thousands of friends the Democrats of the nations. The Wallace Democrats must, if necessary, form & third party which will attract to its banner all the elements now rejected the Truman Democratic Party and now scorned by the Truman Democrats. ® % ¢

‘Finland Pays, Why Not Others?’ By Marshell J. Schnyder, 1015 Main St, Beech Grove ?

An item on how Finland had paid three debts to the U. 8. three days ahead of time appeared on page 25 of your paper. It should have been a headline, so that every Times reader would be sure to see it. That way everyone would realize what a lot of chiseling parasiting many of the countries of Europe are pulling on us, It is time that all of us work up to the above fact. The answer that may.come back from some would be that their industrial production Is destroyed. So what? If it wasn't they Wouldn't manufacture anything but war equipment anyway, And as long as there are big handouts from this country of ours those people in Europe who are chiselers and parasites won't do anything but let Uncle Sam take care of them. Why should they work when they have someone to hand things to them? I was over there and things didn’t look bad at all. I got around te see things for myself. The people in most places were fat, sassy and better dressed than they ate in this country. Sure, I grant that there are hungry and poorly dressed people in this world and these same people are that way in the best of times. And these people won't have a bit more if we sent food and clothing to their country until the end of time. Because they never have the money to buy it anyway. It is the same in this country where millions live in shacks worse than any you will see in foreign countries. Most food and clothing we sent overseas anyway goes to black markets and very little goes at regular prices so that the average The best thing we can do is to stop sending and watch them go to of larger countries in Europe the majority of people are lazy anyway. The small countries are the really industrious peoples. Sure, they want to get American dollars us so that they can buy American-made cars gasoline. Because they don't like walking any mors than we do. So if one small country like can pay its just debts, why can't the rest? - ® ¢ ¢

‘Restaurant Cleanup Important’

By E..S. Schuermann, 244 Sumner Bivd, IL

I wish to compliment you on your excellent articles in your drive toward clesning up the restaurants in Indianapolis, This is certainly a very important move and I hope that through yout series of articles you will soon have your health division in full action toward cleaning up the public eating places. The city of St.' Louis has accomplished very much toward such a campaign about a year ago and today it is pleasing to know that wherever one dines they can be assured of eating food that has not in any way been contaminated. Most of the. réstaurants are displaying an “A” placard which symbolizes that they are tops in food and sanitation. . I get to Indianapolis about every 30 days and know it would make me enjoy my meals a lot more if in my own mind I could be assured thas the place in which I am eating has been approved by the Indianapolis Board of Health.

| NATIONAL AFFAIRS . . . By Peter Edso No Longer a Land Of Unlimited Plenty

WASHINGTON, Dec, 17—It may come as a shock to some people still circulating around “with 19th Century minds,” as Sen. Aiken of Vermont calls them, but it is no longer possiblé in this country to go out the back door and shoot a brace of quail every morning before breakfast, i : “In less figurative language, the U. 8. is no longer the land of un« limited plenty that it used to be. It is hard for old-timers ta get used to this idea. But the truth is that. iron: ore, copper, lead and zinc, virgin forest and virgin land, lakes and rivers full of fish, unlimited oil under the ground and all such luxuries in natural resources may be running out.- Unless there is conservation, in a couple of generations all this wealth may be gone with the buffalo and the passenger pigeon. Three things have happened. The inheritance of national wealth has been wasted, An expanding production has accelerated consumption. The population has grown and the country is actually becoming crowded.

Side Glances—By Galbraith

To say these things is neither to sell America short, nor to give in

to defeatism, wor to'embrace the economics of scarcity. But, in the light of these facts, most of today's talk gbout unlimited free enterprise becomes mere political gibberish. In the light of these facts, people who talk about shutting off trade with Russia talk nonsense.

< For from Russia the U. 8. can get the vast supplies of chrome, tung-./

sten, manganese—even furs and other scarce materials,

. No Imports, No Atom Bomb IN THE LIGHT of these facts, any idea that the U. S. can retreat in splendid isolation behind the security of the atomic bomb secret is folly, If the U. 8. had no imports of uranium from Canada | and the Congo, it would have no homb.

- ny

In the light of these facts, the present nearsighted opposition to |

allocation'of scarce materials is suicidal, To admit these things makes no one an advocate of “planned economy.” To submit to temporary rationing of tin cans, gasoline or fuel ofl is not a "surrender of all personal liberties” to a ‘totalitarian | government” intent on running a “police state.” Every selfish interest in the country is today fighting against this equitable distribution to essential users. © The oil industry fears return of wartime controls. Ten years ago, oil furnace men blandly assured their customers the country literally had oil to burn. Yet this very winter, cars may stand idle and houses cold because the country can't produce the oil as fast as it is being consumed, ” ! Steel men fight government allocation of steel, tin and alloy products. Manufacturers talk grandly about increased production being the only way to bring down prices. But, in spite of unprecedented demands and high price incentives, the physical volume of goods produced has been increased only five -per cent since the end of the war, Increasing it more and faster is held back by shortages of raw materials, 3 |

Little New Land for Farming ; ’ SEN. HOMER CAPEHART of Indiana talks about Increasing food _| production. 20 per cent fo bring down the cost of living. Secretary of Agriculture Clinton Anderson says coldly, “There is very little more

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COPR. 1947 BY NEA SERVICE. INC. 7. M_RSO. U. § PAV. OFF.

"When | tola him she was a senior he said ne knew it— guess you can't do much for a guy who likes old women!

land we can bring into use through drainage and irrigation.” There are. now only three acres of cropland per inhabitant. That there would ever be a shortage of electric power has been considered unthinkable. Yet it is here. Still, some people fight development of super-power projects too big for private industry to finance or handle. : Careless irrigation ‘practices by. private enterprisers who cry out

| about “their rights” have, in some western states, lowered the water-

table to dangerous levels, leading to drying up the land. Selfish stockmen want to break up the national park system and the government-owned forests and -ranges, just so they can over-graze for a quick profit, even if it destroys: the land. As, President Truman sajd in dedicating Everglades National Park’ recently, “There are always plenty of hogs who are trying to get our ‘natural resources for their own personal benefit.” What all ‘this adds up to is that the country is in a state of transition from abundance to mere § . ‘The old concepts of the copy books still listen good, but if today’s probléns of | greater demand are to be brought into balance, there sound management and some new thinking. :

“o »

WORLD AFFAIRS . . . By Ludwell Denny

The Ruble Busts But Solves Nothing

WASHINGTON, Dec. 17—If your dollar was suddenly worth only a dime, and two-thirds of your savings in war bonds were wiped ous, you could sympathize with the poor Russians whose dictator has cleaned them out again. , Of course this devaluation racket is not a Red invention. It's as old as money and improvident governments which bail theme selves out at the expense of the people. Stalin simply has cut more drastically than is customary where the victims can kick out:the government. The Russians have to take it. But even a dictator can't make them like it—as shown by the panic buying which stripped the meager Soviet shops last week.

It's the Same Old Law

AT ANY RATE the controlled Communist economy has run up against the same old law of supply and demand which the Reds supposed held good only in the wicked domains of capitalism. We were told that the Soviet economy had escaped the devastating war and post-war inflation of the benighted Western world. Bus now Stalin, in his devaluation decree, for the first time admits that Russia is caught in the evils of inflation and—believe it or not— speculation, ' By gevaluation of the ruble the Kremlin has cut its national debt to one-third and poured down the drain a vast amount of excess purchasing power of its subjects. In that sense it has “solved” its inflationary problem, which is now revealed officially to have been much worse than in most capitalist countries. \ Basically, however, it has solved nothing. The same inability to produce enough goods to supply even the most primitive needs of a backward people still exists. Slave labor, which Russia uses by the millions, does not produce well ~

Less Incentive fo Produce

SO-CALLED free Russian labor would not produce without ine centive payments—the hated capitalist device of “exploitation” which Stalin had fo adopt long ago. But now’ that Stalin, by o nine-tenths capital levy, has taken back ‘the workers’ savings, there will be less incentive to produce more to earn wayward rubles. Stalin hopes that his abandonment of food rationing will counter the devaluation blow. It would in part if there were enough consumer goods available at reasonable prices. But real prices still will be among the highest in the world, and supplies among the

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BRIN fought th given by Hyland.

Landon Eisenhe

Sees N If Worle

WASHING’ Former Gov. Kansas pred Dwight D. Ei whelmingly dent at the . if the intern comes any m “That's the said Mr. Lane presidential. ¢ “Gen. Eise particularly gq direct person: time Europe chief) and hi tions and fo involved.” No ‘Ins Mr. Lando: had no “insi the general's “I haven't

years,” he sa

Mr. Landor mense grass

_ ously support

“It’s the r play of stren said. “It's a can politics.” However, ti ernor said th not going to “They're g« the general’: stands,” Mr. will not only but with tre: he has to ss express himse

ITHACA AI ITHACA, } ern city of I the age-old « replace book: In response | mayor of tl residents of city raised quested book