Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 30 October 1949 — Page 12

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Telephone RI ley 5551 Give Liohs and the Peovie Will Ping Thelr Own Wow

Ve Can't Afford fo Fail

the pledges are still $140,800 short of the 30,000 goal necessary to keep 46 agencies operating on "Failure to reach the goal by only a comparatively few dollars before the deadline next Wednesday would mean ~ serious damage to services vital to the welfare of the comunity and all its citizens.

ey s 8 = . = JT WOULD that most of the agencies that have been keeping together, helping hundreds of unfortunate citizens through a thousand and one emergencies affecting the whole community, might be handicapped seriously by drastic cuts in operating budgets. It would mean leaving many sick or orphaned children unattended or unwed mothers left to try solving their problems without counsel. ‘A community as healthy as Indianapolis cannot afford to fail in this test of its ability to solve its own problems. If ¢ou have not been solicited or your pledge card was not collected, send your contribution to the Community Fund, Lemcke Building, or telephone MA-2401. ;

Fair Report on Railways Needed

arges and counter charges have been

o thousands of trolley and bus riders who have to ‘upon the transit company to get to and from work

n b pd ed by the PSC, collaborating with ‘Public’ Counselor lo w illiam E. Steckler has urged nt of » private engineering firm that has no connec‘with either the PSC or the utility firm. . fair and impartial report on the Railways’ conditio

WHATEVER the methods used in getting at the real ots, the results can be acceptable to thousands of transit

‘reasonable returns on its investment, or “doctored” nce the political prospects of any public official.

Matthews Should Go Too FOR THE good of the Navy, for the good of Armed Services unification, for the good of the country, Sec- _ From what we have heard of him, Mr, Matthews is above all else a patriotic citizen. He will soon realize—-if indeed he hasn't already reached that conclusion—that the firing of Adm. Denfeld has solved nothing. : : ~ He must know Adm. Denfeld was not stating merely his personal opinions, not just reflecting the prejudices of a small group of rebellious associates—but instead was voicing the convictions of the overwhelming majority of the

entire Navy officer corps. -

. » : ® » = THAT being true, we doubt the secretary will be able to find any other qualified admiral who, as chief of naval operations, could represent the secretary's viewpoint and at the same time command the Navy's respect and loyalty. Rightly or wrongly, it all boils down to this unfortunate truth: Secretary Matthews does not have the confidence of the Navy, and cannot win it. Responsible officers will never believe that the secretary adequately represents the Navy in the Pentagon's councils. ; He cannot make good on the primary duty of a secretary of the Navy in this defense crisis—which is to restore the Navy's morale and make that service once more an eager, willing, co-operative unit in a unified defense team.

» . ® " » » ~. MOREOVER, Mr. Matthews has forfeited the confi dence of Congress, by firing Adm. Denfeld after assurances

cers who gave their honest testimony, under oath, before When Mr. Matthews faces up to these unpleasant but "hard facts, we believe he will do. what would come naturally to a patriotic citizen: Step aside and let someone else take over his important job—someone who can start fresh and have a chance to succeed. We wish the situation were different. For we think Mr. Matthews will become a casualty of this unification controversy, 88 Adm. Denfeld has, because of an honest control reflect no discredit on either man.

Sunday, Oct. 30, 1949 |

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bad been given that there would be no reprisals against offi-

DEAR BOSS . . . By Dan Kidney Hoosier Urges Welfare State

Oscar Ewing Backs Fair Deal Plan for Basic Security

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For Welfare State

THAT such treatment hasn't caused Mr.

No ‘Slaves of Ignorance’

“FEDERAL ald for education, when it comes, will help give every boy and girl equal educational opportunities so that none will, except of their own accord, remain the slaves of ignore ance and the victims of industrial incompetence. “These great programs of the Fair Deal will strengthen the ring of freedom that centuries of struggle has drawn around western man.” Mr. Ewing then cited a seven-point test for freedom laid down by Winston Churchill and contended that the Fair Deal program passes on every point. Here are the Churchill test quesns: . ONE: Is there the right to free expression of opinion and of opposition and criticism of the government of the day? TWO: Have the people the right to turn out a governmentsof which they disapprove, and are constitutional means provided by which they can make their will apparent? THREE: Are there courts of justice free from violence by the executive and free of all threats of mob violence and all association with any particular political parties?

Decency and Justice

FOUR: Will these courts administer open and well-established laws which are associated in the human mind with the broad principles of decency and justice? FIVE: Will there be fair play for poor as well as for rich, for private persons as well as government officials? SIX: Will the rights of the individual, subject to his duties to the state be maintained and asserted and exalted? SEVEN: Is the ordinary farmer or workman, earning a living by daily toll and striving to bring up his family, free from the fear that some police organization under the control of a single party, like the Gestapo, started by the Nazi and Fascist parties, will tap him on the shoulder and pack him off without fair or open trial to bondage or ill-treatmeft? In closing his forum Mr. Ewing decried the use of “stateism” by administration critics and concluded. “The opponents of the Fair Deal fail to comgeshend today’s problems. They seem to have no tanding of any anxieties but their own. They interpret the slightest effort toward social change as the hot breath of revolution. “They do not realize that a free society must offer positive answers to the haunting anxieties that beset modern man or else he is left vulnerable to the blandishments of totalitarianism. PRNEte the opposition, the New Deal and the Deal have met and will continue Thess needs of our time.” foe tp meet ough talk from a man credited with at one time collecting a million in attorney's fees from the Aluminum Company of America.

FOSTER'S FOLLIES

(“PARIS—Doctors urge a uart of wine for laborer; pint for brain on Ay . If you're an intellectual, A pint of wine a day Is just about effectual— Or so the doctors say.

But if your work depends on brawn, And you'd not die of thirst, You'll need a quart from dawn to dawn— Hey, Doc! Ain't that reversed?

OUR TOWN . . . By Anton Scherrer ;

Actress’ Influence Here in 1883

FOR THE past few evenings I have been taking ‘a paraboMc Mttle junket with W. Somerset Maugham whose latest work, “A Writer's Notebook,” has been pronounced “one of the most remarkable essays in self-evaluation I've ever read” (by Edward Weeks, editor of the Atlantic Monthly, in case you exercise If-asserted prerogative to know the source of everything that appears in this department). In the course of my enjoyment (with a bottle of Schlitz at my side), I ran across a remark made by Mrs. Langtry which Mr. Maugham catalogs as the proudest thing he ever heard a woman say. He continues: “The name of Freddy Gebhardt recurred frequently one day, and I, to whom i was new, at last asked who he was. ‘You mean to say you've never heard of Freddy Gebhardt? she cried with real astonishment. “Why he was the most celebrated man in two hemispheres. ‘Why? I inquired. ‘Because I loved him,’ she" answered.”

The possibility that Mr. Maugham may be just as ignorant of the momentous part Mrs. Langtry played in my life moves me to submit today’s column. Lily Langtry visited Indianapolis in the early part of 1883, just about a year after Oscar Wilde, the self-styled “Apostle of Aestheticism,” delivered his provocative lecture at English Opera House: Her engagement at the Park Theater comprised two performances. The first night she turned up in tights to play the role of Rosalind (“As You Like It”). On the following evening she appeared in Tobin's “The Honeymoon.” This time she was clothed from head to foot. Measured by dramatic standards, both performances were flops. :

No Money Back Demand

HOWEVER, nobody demanded his money ,back. That was because nobody went with the expectation of seeing a great actress. What everybody wanted to find out was whether there was any truth in the story Oscar Wilde told during his stay in Indianapolis. Oscar said that Lily entered a drawing room so majestically that on one occasion Queen Victoria forgot her station so completely that she stood up to see how the Langtry woman did it. Apparently, Oscar Wilde didn’t exaggerate a bit. Oldtimers agree that Mrs, Langtry was a superbly profiled woman with a carriage and walk the like of which had never been seen around here. Indeed, she even looked good standing still for that was the way Sir John Millais portrayed her when he painted his famous picture entitled “The Jersey Lily.” I drag Sir John and Queen Victoria into today's piece to explain the behavior of Indianapolis’ citizens at the time. With a queen and an acclaimed artist acting the way they did (let alone Oscar Wilde) it was no wonder that people around here should lose their heads. too. Which brings me to the day Lily Langtry took a notion to see the sights of Indianapolis withut the help of a courier, It was the second day of her stay in Indianapolis when Mrs. Langtry ventured to take a'walk by herself. Legend has it that she left the Denison Hotel that morning and walked

south. At Market St, a crowd consisting mostly

of males sighted her. Aware that 8 mob was organizing to follow her, Lily hurriedly west and landed in the Circle. : It was the worst possible thing she could have done because once she was inside the Circle, she didn’t know how to get out. She went round and round completely bewildered, and there’s no telling what might have happened had not a gallant plug-hatted gentleman come to her rescue. He took her by the hand and escorted her back to the Denison. (Lest you have your hopes set too high, it behooves a trustworthy columnist to say that Mrs. Langtry’s liberator, in this case, was not Freddy Gebhardt.)

‘Langtry Labyrinth’ AFTER Mrs, Langtry left Indianapolis there was a well-organized movement around here to call the Circle the “Lily Langtry Labyrinth.” The idea was plausible enough because back in the Eighties when Lily was going good; everything under the sun was named in her honor. A twisted piece of black velvet with a goose quill stuck through it was dubbed a “Langtry hat” and “Langtry shoes” became a standard style in the trade. Why, there was even a ‘Langtry bustle,” the coils of which were made of blue tempered watch-spring steel. That's where 1 came in to establish a relation (on the basis of association) with Mrs, Langtry. The reason I know something about the Langtry bustle may be traced to the fact that, 60 and more years ago, I was an ardent student of the illustrated ads in The Youth's Companion. Except for the text of those ads, I wouldn't be fn a position to tell you that women of the Eighties had their choice of three bustle shapes—single, double and three-deckers in much the same way that sandwiches come today, The Langtry bustle was a three-decker guaranteed to yield to the “slightest pressure” which on second reading, revealed that it would return to its proper shape after the severest usage. If I remember correctly, the ads went on to say (in effect) that the wearers of the Langtry bustle were never mortified by having their bus"tles crushed or bent into ridiculous shapes; the corollary of which was, of course, that a bustle made of blue tempered watch-spring steel would prove a great comfort to sensitive ladies who, when they rise, have an uneasy feeling that their posteriors may have shifted.

Langtry Bustle THE ads in the Youth's Companion never said so, but they distinctly carried the implica-

‘Hoosier Forum

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my husband's union, fight. We will win and prove to the American people that because of your humane and under« standing leaders!

By Clarence Love, Marshall,

. Our prosperous with a colossal debt arising from the war exe penditures. Possibly statistics would appraise a levy of $2000 in round numbers upon every man, woman and child of this genera.

The economic system is further embarrassed by a constant wave of strikes involving a loss of about $6 billion, the workers taking a set. back of about $3 billion and not getting much of a gain. The powerful prestige of the labor unions and the appropriations of the governe ment uphold the high prices existing today. In this present world crisis the ultimate result, unless the government assumes a more conservative basis of administration and deliberation, and lends a deft ear to political entreaties, the nation is courting an unnecessary drastic depression that will rock the economic system. Furthermore, unless we'll give value to the dollar, poverty will come to the nation. ® oo

Questions on Housing By H. W. Daacke, 3818 S. Olney St. The recent Forum letter on “Mythical Housing Shortage” was a very plausible picture to the uninitiated, but is only a part of the entire

* tion.

_ picture. So, in order to complete the picture,

let him answer the following questions: How many of these for sale and rental homes are priced comparable with the reduc. tion in price of some of the building materials used in their construction? How many of them are available to families with one or more children? How many. of. them can be bought or rented without the inclusion of about $100 worth of furniture that has jumped in price to $300 over night? How many of these homes are on the borderline of condemnation by the Board of Health? ® & ¢

‘Help Find My Mother’

By Mrs. Melvin C. Mabrey, R. R. No. 1,

" Auburn, Ga. (

Can you help me to find my mother? I was born in Shelby County, Shelbyville, Ind. in 1916. My father’s name was Cleveland Ash. He died when I was a child. My mother's name was Jessie Sweet before she married Cleveland Ash. When I was 7 years old I was placed in an orphans’ home in Shelbyville, Ind. I was t&ken out by Harriet E. Cook and lived with herintil 1943 when she pased away. I am now 33 and haven't seen my real mother since I was 7, 26 years. There were seven in my family and I have never seen my sisters or brothers—we were all plated in the orphans’ home 2 I have waited until now to try and figure a way to contact my mother. I know no other way than to write this. Please write me if anything can be doné to find my mother.

What Others Say

tion that the Langtry bustle was ived the hope that it would make a woman look like Lily. It proved to be the prize non sequitur of my boyhood. , As for Freddy Gebhardt (in case Mr. Maugham hasn't yet heard), he was a wealthy New York playboy with an annual income of $80,000 (net) most of which was spent on Mrs. Langtry—$950 for flowers on one occasion; later, a mansion on 23d St. No wonder Lily loved him. When Lily ended her New York engagement, Freddy continued to pursue her. Somewhere on the transcontinental tour, however, Lily's im~ presario (Henry E. Abbey) ordered Freddy to pack his trunk and return home; with the result that Freddy Gebhardt wasn't with Lily Langtry when she appeared in Indianapolis, I'm sure of it. Certainly I couldn't have been so blind as to be unaware of a rival

THE surrender to the state of all services to the needy is the surrender of moral and spiritual responsibility to the state, No bureaucracy can create or sustain a system of morals or the inspirations of a spiritual life.—Dr. James R. Killian, president of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. 0%

THE present overemphasis on strategie bombing and heavy bombers must react une favorably upon other components vital to preparedness.—Rear Adm, Reig A. Ofstie, U. 8. N,

IF businessmen would come to' Washington more often and discuss their problems with government officials rather than standing aloof and throwing brickbats, smoother pathway for both business and govern« ment.—Vice President Alben Barkley.

HEALTH INSURANCE... By Marquis Childs Welfare in Sweden

STOCKHOLM, Sweden, Oct. 29 professors, Co The

Covers More People

in Norway a voluntary health insurance pian in evolved to cover an ever greater number of persons. Now it is to be extended to cover the whole |

LIKEWISE force since 1911 has gradually

Revering a Name

po] A . cil ht . Yer

“Then in a little while

SAAR ISSUE . . . By Ludwell Denny

Fate of France

PARIS, Oct. 20—-The Saar can either save France or sink

price is too ; Paris has precipitated the lssue by insisting that the Saar be giveh associate member in the new Council of Europe, T I aslee ' which is open only to “countries.” we were a Pes The legal status is purposely vague, pending final decision by a peace conference on ye Phony ‘Independence’ GERMANS say the Saar’s alleged political “independence”

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landers in a United Nations plebiscite.

that they want to annex the Saar, or t future

there would be a

Matthews, . Surface Navy air m because Den entire servic tire service feels it's been reprimand, or they ask? Immediate competent off ed to keep Na set-up functio Admirals B have both wi will not cons as chief of (They haven’ have been me: Blandy, sla! mander-in-chi of signatory i Atlantic Pact, that by lining Denfeld. Every thea every member have said th Altogether, Dx two and three from Navy they're with I Emotions a that top Nax cannot “think of them cries Denfeld was Privately | “it's our cha Johnson pol ussing weight chang when a new tration take they're sure the end. “W ending unifi ceived now. Denfeld wil U. 8. repres Nations, but will refuse. Matthews chief of naval Thomas Kir Forrest Sher: It’s not certs cept. Present vic Dale Pric Matthews ha gineering th episode. Actually, NB to staff na civilians, he’s thews; incide firing of Der lard Tydings no protest fr Senate Arme tee.

¥ War Tare IF WAR ( men expect strike first 2 25,000 indust listed them, secret. However, 1 areas are n say the bom Boston to Al most attrac Runners up Lakes area, industrial reg They say, realistic to t: zation, thoug in to Nations Board fror want advice. Planners that wholes