The Indianapolis times. [volume], May 08, 1933, Home Edition, Page PAGE 4, Image 4

About The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965

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PAGE 4
The Indianapolis Times
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MONIj4Y. MAY g. IW3.
THE PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS
"PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT has great cour
age. Sunday night he resisted the
temptation to boast of his achievements and
to make big promises for the future. As for
the remarkable record of the last two months,
he simply recounted the facts and let them
speak for themselves.
He even went to the extent of warning
the country against overconfidence, saying:
"Industry has picked up, railroads are car
rying more freight, farm prices are better,
but I am not going to indulge in issuing
proclamations of overenthusiastic assurance.
We can not ballyhoo ourselves back to pros
perity.”
Here is the answer to those who are afraid
that the President is losing his head about
this inflation business. Unlike the cure-all
inflations, he is not having pipe dreams. He
said definitely that we will stop inflation at
the point where debtors can pay back at
prices they borrowed, that is, an honest dol
lar.
He said definitely that gold is a good basis
for currency and that is why he "decided
not to let any of the gold now in the country
go out of it.” With the notion that extreme
inflation as such can bring prosperity the
President has no traffic.
Instead, he soberly turned to the bigger
job yet to be done. A return to an honest
dollar and to the type of prosperity we had
before crash is not enough. That kind
of so-called prosperity was the cause of the
depression. Hence the President’s warning:
“I do not want the people to believe that
because of unjustified optimism we can re
sume the ruinous practice of increasing our
crop output and our factory output in the hope
that a kind Providence will find buyers at
high prices.
“Such course may bring us immediate and
false prosperity, but it will be the kind of
prosperity that will lead us into another tail
spin.”
* * *
As an alternative, the President proposed
national economic planning—not a govern
ment dictatorship over industry, “but rather
a partnership in planning and a partnership
to see that the plans are carried out.”
From his address Sunday night, as from
his Thursday speech to the United States
Chamber of Commerce, it is clear that the
President considers one issue more important
than any other in-this depression, one reform
more necessary than any other. That is the
need for the government to help industry to
achieve a basis of order; permitting planned
production, eliminating unfair competition by
pirates and sweatshops; abolishing child labor,
apportioning shorter hours and higher wages.
This goal has many names—sustained pur
chasing power, mass market, justice for labor,
redistribution of wealth—but whatever the
name, it is the common goal of economists and
the wisest business leaders who see that pros
perity is not possible with low wages and con
centration of wealth.
The President pledged a governmental
measure “to give to the industrial workers of
the country a more fair wage return, prevent
cut-throat competition and unduly long hours
for labor, and at the same time to encourage
each industry to prevent overproduction."
Industry has proved that it can not bring
this reform working alone. For example, -the
President cited the cotton goods industry, in
which perhaps 90 per cent of the manufac
turers would agree to eliminate starvation
wages, long hours, child labor, and overpro
duction, but would be powerless to act because
of the unfair competition of 10 per cent.
The President is going to smash that sys
tem, which once paraded under the title of
rugged individualism, but is now unmasked as
chaos and national suicide,
* * *
Mr. Roosevelt’s declaration of national
economic planning follows:
“Government ought to have the right, and
will have the right, after surveying and plan
ning for an industry, to prevent, with assist
ance of the overwhelming majority of that
industry, unfair practice and to enforce this
agreement by the authority of government.
“The so-called anti-trust laws were in
tended to prevent the creation of monopolies
and to forbid unreasonable profits to those
monopolies. That purpose of the anti-trust
laws must be continued, but these laws never
were intended to encourage the kind of unfair
competition that results in long hours, starva
tion wages and overproduction.”
We shall not be as modest as the President
regarding his program. We believe it is safe
to predict not only a return to prosperity, but
to a better prosperity, if the Roosevelt foreign
policy is accepted abroad and if at home the
President receives the full co-operation of con
gress. industry, and labor in his pledge for
government enforcement of economic plan
ning.
AMERICA’S FARM TRADITION
IT isn’t altogether bad luck that this vest
pocket war of lowa farmers should have
occurred just as the Anal licks were being put
on the big farm relief-inflation bill at Wash
ington.
Our plans'to help the farmer at last have
crystallized iqto something definite and imme
diate; ahd the fact that a sensational row in
the corn belt took place simultaneously with
the final crystallization merely serves to focus
our attention anew on the whole agricultural
problem.
It is a good thing for us to understand just
what is at stake in this farm relief program.
Most of us have lost sight of the fact that
the American farmer has occupied a favored
.position among the farmers of the world ev^
since this country was founded. He never has
been a peasant; America Is the only land on
earth that never has had a peasantry.
The old American tradition has it that any
citizen, if he works hard and is intelligent and
ambitious, can lay by as much material sub
stance and as much happiness and content
ment as any of his neighbors.
There has been a good deal of truth in that
old tradition, and nowhere has it been so true
as on the farm. The American farmer has
been able to live better, to have more, and to
spend more than any other farmer on earth.
Consider, now, what the years of deflation
have been doing to this picture.
They have been striking. terrific blows at
the farmer's favored position. Wholesale
foreclosures and tax sales, long continued, point
to only one thing—the beginning of an Ameri
can peasantry.
Circumstances have been laying a heavy
paw on the farmer's neck and trying to force
him down to the immemorial level of the ag
riculturist in other lands.
It isn’t pleasant to look ahead to the cul
mination of such a program. Something in
expressibly valuable would be lost; the very
cornerstone of our traditional Americanism
would be gone.
That is what the lowa farmers are rioting
against. That is what the farm relief bill is
designed to prevent.
The rioters may be deplorably mistaken, the
farm relief bill may be a great blunder; but
both are sincere protests against a develop
ment which would be nothing less than a ma
jor catastrophe to the entire American plan
of life.
AMERICA’S NAVAL STRENGTH
WHILE the administration looks forward
to an extensive disarmament agreement
with foreign nations this summer, the gen
eral board of the navy issues a report declar
ing that “the growing inferiority of the Amer
ican navy is a matter of serious concern” and
urging immediate construction of forty-three
war ships.
Thus once again we find ourselves in one of
those peculiar situations where the necessities
of the moment seem to urge two diametrically
opposite courses of action upon us.
That there is a very strong and widespread
desire in this country for armament reduction
is beyond argument. There is also, however,
equally widespread, an uneasy feeling that in
the present state of things it is the part of
wisdom to keep our powder dry and our box
ing gloves handy, just in case somebody starts
something; and how these two feelings are to
be reconciled is perplexing.
As the navy’s general board points out, a
navy's strength is relative. You can’t figure
it unless you assess the strength of the navies
maintained by other nations.
And it is the board’s conclusion that in
every class of ship except battleships our navy
is inferior to the navies of England and Japan,
To remedy this, the board urges construc
tion this year of two aircraft carriers, seven
six-inch gun cruisers, twenty-four destroyers,
nine submarines and one eight-inch gun
cruiser.
On the face of things, the argument is
sound enough. The chief objection seems to
be that the present is hardly the proper
time for a program of that magnitude.
To begin with, federal finances right now
hardly are in shape to stand the enormous
costs involved.
In addition, we are right on the eve of
a great international conference which is ex
pected to produce further disarmament, and
any large-scale building program well might
await the conclusion of that conference.
Sooner or later we shall have to decide
definitely whether we intend to maintain our
navy at full treaty strength. But we don’t,
need to make that decision right now.
OUR DEBT BURDENS
TT'IGURES on the national debt issued by the
Twentieth Century Fund, headed by Ed
ward A. Filene of Boston, show in a striking
way the enormous burden which the nation is
trying to carry out of the depression.
Long term indebtedness in the United
States today, according to these figures,
amounts to 40 per cent of the national
wealth, requires 20 per cent of the national
income and is one of the major obstacles to
economic recovery.
Corporations, government agencies and in
dividuals share in a long term indebtedness
of $134,000,000,000, as compared with $75,000,-
000,000 in 1921.
Looking at those figures, it is not hard to
understand why such a strong demand for in
flation has arisen during the last few months.
PURE FOOD AND DRUGS
A DISPATCH from Washington says that
revisions of the federal food and drug
law to provide a way of penalizing advertisers
who mislead consumers is being considered
seriously by administration leaders.
A number of people have pointed out that
the existing law contains a number of loop
holes. An unscrupulous manufacturer can
take advantage of these to deceive the public
seriously.
And it is not only the public that needs
protection; it is the reputable manufacturer
and the reputable advertiser, as well. Most
firms doing business under the food and drug
law’ do not need to be restrained.
They suffer as much as does the consum
ing public from the fact that a conscienceless
few take advantage of the law’s weakness.
RENAISSANCE
(From the Baltimore Sun)
'T'HERE was a time when Indianapolis
A could dispute with Boston for the cul
tural honors of the country. Riley, Tarking
ton, Nicholson and many other lights of lit
erature shone then with an unexampled bril
liance in the Indiana capital.
It was the heydey of Hoosier enlighten
ment, and the whole nation looked to the
banks of the Wabash for moral and intel
lectual instruction.
More recently the banks of the Wabash
have lost a good deal of their verdure. We
have seen there only the moonlight of a once
proud civilization fallen into decay as a result
of the machinations of Kluxery, the intrigues
of Republican politicians, and general political
cussedness.
It has been a sad spectacle, in dreary con
trast with the brilliance of an earlier day and
holding little hope for the future.
Now, however, hope would seem to be re
vived. Indianapolis once more is in the pews
In a big way, and it is there not by virtue
of the shenanigans of a McCray, but because
of the reforming zeal of anew Democratic
Governor.
Paul V. McNutt, a former national com
mander of thef American Legion, who was
swept into gubernatorial office in the Demo
cratic landslide last November, is showing a
flair for governmental economy, governmental
reorganization, and the enlargement of execu
tive power in general that is causing all hands
to sit up and take notice.
Indiana is being galvanized into new life,
and while the process is largely political up
to now, it would not be surprising to see the
glow of culture and enlightenment reappear
almost any day.
For six decades, despite all the vicissi
tudes of fortune, the center of population
for the United States has remained stead
fastly in Indiana.
Who knows but that with anew political
deal the state may regain its position as the
cultural hub, if not of the universe, at least
of the middle West?
WELL-MEANING FRIENDS
THE gentleman who remarked that he could
take care of his enemies if only someone
would protect him from his friends well might
have had the case of Tom Mooney in mind.
A good-sized crowd of people who wanted
Mooney freed held a demonstration in his be
half last week when his newly granted mur
der trial was called in San Francisco. The
result was that the trial judge, quite properly,
postponed the trial "until this feeling dies
down,” and the efforts of Mooney's lawyers
to get a speedy hearing were foiled.
Mooney’s chief counsel, Frank P. Walsh,
begged that no demonstration be held, pointing
out that “any man who takes part in such
demonstrations is doing Mooney harm—almost
fatal harm.”
One wonders just what was in the minds
of these demonstrators. Were they sincerely
trying to help Mooney—or were they just
using him as a good excuse for kicking up a
row? *
UP BOBS GRUNDY
IF we remember our nursery stuff there was
an end to Solomon Grundy, born on a
Monday. But none, it seems, to his namesake,
Joe.
Ex-Senator and ex-Lobbyist Joseph R.
Grundy, the greatest tariff-touter of all time,
is back in Washington. He carries the blessing
of the American Tariff League, and swears to
scotch the Roosevelt plan for reciprocal tariff
treaties with other nations.
In 1930 America was warned by thirty-six
nations that the Hawley-Smoot-Grundy high
tariff policies would ruin them and us. Sec
retary of State Cordell Hull said: “The prac- ’
tice of the half-insane policy of economic iso
lation during the last ten years by America
and by the world under American leadership
is the largest single underlying cause of the
present world panic.”
A group of 1,000 American economists said
the same thing. President Hoover listened to
the Grundy bloc. The voters retired Mr. Hoo
ver to California, Mr. Hawley to Oregon, Mr.
Smoot to Utah, Mr. Grundy to Pennsylvania.
Messrs. Hoover, Hawley and Smoot are
silent in their little grey homes in the west.
Silence likewise would be becoming to Mr.
Grundy.
No, Doris, fiat money is not the kind with
which you buy those imported Italian cars.
Dietitian reports that no matter how you
cook spinach, kids are apt to refuse it. Just
an old spinach custom.
Maybe that stock market boom is just the
echo of the crash.
M.E.TracySays:
LOSING a farm through foreclosure is tough,
but no tougher, perhaps, than losing a life's
savings in stock or all one’s ready cash through
bank failure.
In any case, it does not help matters the
least bit to drag an old judge off the bench,
pour automobile grease over his head, tie a rope
around his neck, and mistreat him in other
ways.
Neither does it help matters the least bit to
make a deputy sheriff kiss the flag or run law
yers off the courthouse steps.
There are people \vho regard such acts as
not only ’ justifiable, but constructive in their
effect. There are people who believe in the
most childish kind of violence as a sound meth
od of reform and relief. One hears such chat
ter on every hand and, occasionally, one gets an
illustration of how it works when translated
into mob activities. •
We should be very grateful that most of
these illustrations have been furnished by other
people and that our ow’n country has been so
free from them.
Whatever else happens, w’e must maintain
order, since with order all things are possible,
without it, little can be accomplished.
a a a
NOTHING has done more to distinguish the
United States in this season of world
wide agony than the firmness with which con
stitutional government has been maintained,
unless it is the speed with which anew adminis
tration has made such radical changes without
causing the slightest disturbance.
The flexibility of this government permits
the people to do what is necessary without re
sorting to revolution, or mobilizing volunteer
forces of discipline.
That fact has spared us from the upheavals
and disorders with which so many other coun
tries have been afflicted and which can not
help slowing up the processes of recovery.
We are right in discouraging all forms of
violent action on the one hand, and in insisting
on the application of lawful sanction for every
kind of relief or reform on the other.
As things stand, the American people have
nothing to overcome but material losses and
economic handicaps,- while many other people
find themselves entangled with rump govern
ments, arbitrary’ dictatorships, lost liberties,
factional hates and political chaos.
a a a
ONE can go to the record and prove that the
United States has suffered well above the
average in the decline of trade, capital value,
and earning capacity.
But — an d this is the all-important point—the
United States has found it possible to maintain
the health of her people and keep her govern
mental structure intact.
We have found it desirable to grant the
President dictatorial powers, we have found it
unnecessary to call on “black shirts’ or “brown
shirts, ’ much less invoke firing squads or perse
cute minorities.
All this puts us in a position to take quick
advantage of the upswinging and to exert a
wholesome influence for peace and order
throughout the world.
THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES
(Times readers are invited to express
tlieir views in these columns. Make your
letters short, so all can have a chance.
Limit them to 250 words or less.)
By A Depositor
Now that a receiver has been ap
pointed for the Meyer-Kiser bank,
a great many depositors have set
tled back with a sigh of relief, glad
to know that affairs of the insol
vent bank have been taken out of
the hands of the three liquidating
agents. Let us hope that Judge
Cox will continue to air the trans
actions and fees of the new receiver
as thoroughly as he has the old
administration.
By Donald E. Stebbing
My dear Taxpayer of April 24, the
dirty neck and greasy hands belong
to the faithful and blind slaves who
sweat blood and grime in your fac
tories—creating your wealth, giving
you your perfumed soap. It has
been easier for you to steal the
candy of these helpless children
than to earn it yourself.
When dead and dumb property
and shiny yellow coins became more
precious to you than the fate of
God-made fellow men, violence to
you and your gang is the last and
triumphant card. Remember this,
Bourbon: A quarter million young
men will not shoot their own
brothers, wives, fathers, and sweet
hearts. The oath will mean little.
It will be forgotten.
Will Your Excellency please be
specific when he states that our
leaders may be purchased for thirty
pieces of silver?
If you are serious when you ask
for a visit from a Red, I shall be
most happy to accept. I shall not
grovel and I shall not beg bread.
Neither shall I convince you of your
errors.
That, I’m afraid, is beyond human
possibility. I am writing this for the
benefit of those who are puzzled at
your imbecility . and are possibly
wondering whether you are not all
“that way.” I wish you were.
The task of reforming this sick
earth would be far simpler, if all
the aristocracy had your frankness,
your utter lack of guile, the com
mon horde and several of your close
servants w f ould make a tandem for
mation and descend upon your
precious necks.
The scream of Bolshevism and
victorious mob violence would ring
through your beautiful halls. You
would quake and whine for mercy,
MANY years ago an alarming
number of babies died with
the coming of summer because of
severe attacks of summer diarrhea,
also called summer complaint.
The intestinal tracts of babies are
exceedingly delicate and are likely
to develop looseness on slight provo
cation. Moreover, because of the
extremely delicate organization of
the infant’s growing body, the ef
fects of summer complaint are like
ly to be much more serious in an
infant than in a grown-up person.
In a recent consideration of the
subject, Dr. W. McKim Marriott
points out that perfectly healthy
babies show great individual dif
ferences in the number of daily
movements.
Much depends on whether they
are nursing at the breast or being
“T'VIRECTOR of the Mint" is a
mouth-filling title, especially
for a woman. Nevertheless, we’re
going to have one. Mrs. Nellie Tay
loe R' vs s will be in charge of all the
gold, ohver and copper coins in this
entire country and will supervise the
assay offices, to which the metal is
taken for conversion into money.
Here’s progress, if you ask me.
And when we become really intelli
gent, financially speaking, we shall
put women in complete charge of
national collections and disburse
ments.
We’ll regulate our large expendi
tures as we do those at home—by
giving mama an allowance on which
to run things. And will they be
run!
In spite of the idea prevalent in
many quarters that we know noth
ing about money, and it given a
free hand would be reckless spend
thrifts, most of the actual saving
accomplished in any country is done
by women.
We are intact Benjamin Frank
The Message Center
Summer Complaint Is Peril to Babies
A Woman’s Viewpoint
===BY MRS. WALTER FERGUSON ~
The Merry Month of May
Try Reading
By N. F. T.
IHAVE been watching with
great interest the reactions of
Times readers to the article by
Taxpayer of April 24, and can not
resist the urge and the opportun
ity to voice an opinion and to
make a suggestion.
Judging from the character of
Taxpayer’s assertions, I think it
very probable that they flow from
a narrow channel of thought and
that they indicate an inability,
not a refusal, I hope, to see what
the continuation of the conditions
he upholds ultimately will lead to.
If Taxpayer snould care to get
out of the rut of traditionalism
and do some progressive thinking,
I suggest, in a spirit of friend
liness, that he read “After Demo
cracy,” by H. G. Wells, available
at the library.
but your challenging words would
be remembered and the rifle bolts
would click with a sharp vengeance
and you would be dead.
A great Chinese philosopher once
remarked that “he who abuses the
weak eventually is destroyed by his
own weakness. You would better
pray each night for peaceful and
evolutionary socialism.
By Times Reader
The democracy of this great na
tion has become a farcical legend
based on the Constitution which our
forefathers created. The vote of the
honest citizen has no significance
in our gubernatorial elections.
The most plausible explanation of
this indignity is that the govern
ment now is based upon the propo
sition that all corporations and
chain stores are the property of and
managed by shareholding citizens.
The facts concerning this horri
ble depression that has devastated
our country never will be ack
nowledged by the people responsi
ble for it. The “thirty pieces of sil
ver” method of obtaining the re
vision of our honest laws and gov
ernmental policies has resulted in
our public and law-making officials
stupidly trying one scheme after
another to raise the nation out of
the mire, with the corporations and
chain organizations on every law
like wolves tearing its heart out and
leaving only the skeleton.
Can any government continue to
BY DR. MORRIS FISHBEIN
Editor Journal of the American Medical
Association and of Hvgeia. the
Health Magazine.
artificially fed. Any baby must be
considered as an individual and
handled as such.
The chief cause of diarrhea dur
ing hot weather is the pressure of
germs in milk, which multiply ex
cessively, particularly if the milk
is not properly cooled or refrig
erated.
Os course, the baby who is nurs
ing is likely to have fresh milk free
from harmful germs.
The breast-fed baby rarely suf
fers with summer complaint. Even
such a baby, however, may suffer
iinfection from impure water or
from accessory feeding of materials
which are not bacteriologically
clean.
lins in petticoats and can do rings
around that thrifty gentleman in
the matter of economizing.
# a a
A WOMAN always can make a
dollar go twice as far as a man.
She is the shopper superlative and
can get more for her money. She
is a past master at the arts of bar
ter and if it wasn't for this fem
inine talent hundreds of thousands
Questions and
Answers
Q —Who was Lucrezia Borgia?
A—The natural daughter of
Pope Alexander VI by his mistress.
Vanozza-Dei Cattanei. She lived
from 1460 to 1519, and was
Duchess of Ferrara.
Q —Why do all bills for raising
revenue in the United States haw
to originate in the house of rep
resentatives?
A —Because that is a provision
of the Constitution.
■
function under the existing handi
caps to which they are subjected?
Let the radical cry against poverty,
unemployment, and tariffs. Let
him tell how many different meth
ods are to be and are being used
to counteract these evils and the
conditions are not improved the
least.
Every drop of water you drink
or bathe in carefully is measured
and charged to you by scientific in
struments. Your food and your
clothing are allotted to you on a
predatory supply and demand basis.
The benefits derived from these
necessities of existence do not re
vert to the craftsman who creates
them, but to the capitalistic heads
of corporations that control their
finances. Until these monopolistic
pirates and their shock troops of
corporation lawyers are subdued or
completely annihilated, and muni
cipally controlled projects substi
tuted, the prevailing conditions will
exist.
There will be little liberty for the
average layman and the present
form of government will continue
to operate on the high priced “Yes
Man” basis.
Let’s drag the skeleton out of our
big closet and restore the nation to
government, “of the people and by
the people.”
So They Say
It is, I may say now, both the
policy and the practice of the
United States to confer where
questions affecting peace are con
cerned.—Norman Davis, U. S. rep
resentative at Geneva.
Humor is a profession like law,
medicine, engineering, and poetry.—
Ed Wynn, comedian.
Even the impending inflation,
which seems to be necessary rather
than voluntary, may turn out to be
a good thing, in spite of our old
and conservative economic notions.
—Charles A. Miller, former presi
dent of the R. F. C.
There is evolution backward as
well as forward.—Professor Thomas
Hunt Morgan, California Institute
of Technology.
During the development and
handling of milk it invariably be
comes contaminated with some
germs. The germs multiply rapidly
in the milk unless the milk is kept
cool.
When the milk is pasteurized, the
germs are destroyed or inhibited,
but after the milk is distributed it
again suffers the possibility of con
tamination.
While such infection constitutes
the responsibility for the vast ma
jority of cases, there are other cases
of summer complaint associated
with infections and fevers with the
feeding of too much sugar or of
rich cream, and sometimes the baby
is not getting enough to eat.
Babies that are undernourished
and weak can not digest their food
well.
ofi families in America right now’
wouldn’t be getting along at all.
We girls got a bad reputation for
spending, but we were using some
body's else money at the time, you
must remember. We all know how
to hang on to our own.
I daresay if our sex had been in
charge of affairs in 1914, a great
deal more of our cash still would be
at home and a great deal less in
Europe.
Woman is fitted both by nature
and circumstance for economy. She
has had a raw deal from nature and
lived through the ages when she
worked without pay. Everything she
got for a long time had to be ob
tained by stowing nickles away in
cracked teapots and in slicing pen
nies from the family budget.
She schemed and connived to get
a few extras for her children, and
has run her home on a pittance.
If practice makes perfect, women
ought to be able to run the country
on one-tenth of what the men have
to have.
m
.■MAY 8, 1933
It Seems
to Me
BY lIEYWOOD BROUN =i>
YORK. May B.—The city of
I Turin, in Italy, was about to
I have a fashion show, until Mus
solini saw the murals which had
been designed for the event by a
young artist who favored angles
rather than curves. The Duce said.
“No!”
Before the show could open, it
was necessary to fatten all the
figures. Indeed, it is reported that
shopkeepers have been warned to
keep close watch on their store*
windows and see to it that no ladies
of plaster or of wax shall be ex
hibited if they so happen to be a
little less plump than is pleasing to
Benito.
The man who compelled the
trains to run on time now asks the
ladies of the land not to run at
all. The Fascist frail must make
each vitamin a victory, so that
Mussolini may go down to posterity
as the proud ruler who launched a
thousand hips.
a o a
Back to Romulus
From now on, I suppose, the na
tional anthem is to be, “So let’s
have another cup of coffee, and
let's have another piece of pie.” It
might not even be amiss to refer
to Italy as the land of the spree
and the home of the crave.
And, as for the wolf at the door,
she will be lucky if she does not
find herself drafted for the nursery
in good old Roman fashion.
“Beyond the Alps lies Italy” no
longer will be an accurate observa
tion. Under the Duce's diet every
village of the plain will teem tilth
mountainous maids.
But so far there has been almost
no complaint. That is, with the
exception of the protest being drawn
up by the Venetian Gondoliers’
Union, Local No. l, which wants
time and a half for overtime, a big
ger boat, a full crew, a couple of
mules and a towpath if Mussolini
insists that larger shadows must be
cast under the moonlight.
On the other hand, the Balcony
Builders’ International Executive
Council of the T. U. U. L. has come
out in favor of the Duce on the
ground that repair work, inspection,
and general overhauling have been
very brisk since announcement of
the new dispensation.
The Italian Shakespearean So
ciety has somewhat altered the text
in the rather well-known passage
which now runs, as. nearly as I can
remember:—“But soft what light
through yonder window breaks. It
is the yeast, and Juliet is the sun,
the moon and several of the larger
planets rolled in one.” In fact,
they’ve changed the name of the
play, too. From now on it is to be
known as Benito’s Beef Trust.
u tt
Congressman Silent
I was invited, several days ago,
to participate in a debate over the
air with the Hon. Ham Fish on the
question of the recognition of Rus
sia by the United States. The task
of Mr. Fish was to condemn any
such action by our state depart
ment, while I was assigned to argue
that recognition should be accorded
—and the sooner the better.
Since that is my very strong
opinion, I was and lighted to accept.
In addition I was curious to see and
to listen to the Honorable Fish, who
has won such a reputation for him
self among the herring hunters. A
red sky at night is the sailors’ de
light, but to the congressman it
constitutes a warning.
At the appointed hour I appeared
at the studio with a script filled
with statistics and everything. But
there was no Ham Fish.
“You go on first,” advised the
station manager, “and undoubtedly
he’ll show up before you finish.”
I started out to talk against Fish
and time. The minutes seemed
captive balloons—so stationary they
were. On I went, and on, but Fish
was fifty miles away. At least he
was not visible.
Just before I went down for the
third time, I made a despairing
gesture to the local announcer to
indicate that I could go no further.
Being a man of rare presence of
mind, he picked up the address of
the distinguished and missing man
from Washington and thrust it into
the hands of Ralph Easley.
An Eolsey for a Fish
Now, Mr. Easley is almost as
famous a ghost trotter as Mr. Fish.
Even the soft patter of the tiniest
liberal feet will set Mr. Easley to
crying out on alarm that the red
shirts are coming. Paul Revere had
a horse, Mr. Easley a motorcycle.
But circumstances were against
him. He did not precisely thunder
down the ether, because the script
was strange to him and he could
not pronounce some of the long
words.
Even more unfortunately, there
was a page to turn just after a
paragraph embodying a defense of
religious belief against all foreigners
who would assail it. Mr. Easley lost
his place and muttered under his
breath.
Radio is a great invention, and
not a single word of the im
promptu whisper was denied the in
visible audience. Out through *the
Oranges and into Radboume went
the agonized cry: “Damm it all!
Where the hell does it hitch up?”
(Copyright. 1933, by The Times)
Spring
BY EDWARD HIESE
Standing on the hillside
Ankle-deep in flowers,
Her favorites flocking around her,
Or hanging back in bowers.
Resting in the valley,
Like a tired child from play,
Lying in the fern and moss,
Breathing scents of May.
Spring is in the woodland,
More beautiful than all.
Opening blossoms ’round her.
Opening at her call.
Birds singing o’er her,
Bright blue sky above.
God surely sent her
To fill the world with love.