The Indianapolis times. [volume], July 17, 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
(A MHIPPg-HOWABI) NEWSPAPER)
ROY W. HOWARD t . President
TALCOTT POWELL . Editor
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r(< e s wow M
Oit> Lijht and the
People Will Find
Their Own Wav
MONDAY. JULY 17. 1933.
THE RECOVERY TEST
/ T'HE President’s recovery program faces its
■*- hardest test this week and next.
The threat of a thirty-five-hour-week for
ell employes has worked as intended and ma
jor industrial codes are pouring into Wash
ington. This does not mean, however, that the
race between prices and purchasing power is
over.
Code after code is coming in with provision
for a work week of forty hours or more. The
lumber men suggest a forty-eight-hour-week.
The steel agreement offers a forty-hour-week,
averaged over a six-month period, which
means that in busy weeks men would work
fifty or fifty-five hours and then would be
laid off or put on part time. Most of the big
codes now waiting hearings fail to reflect the
spirit or purpose of the recovery act.
The administration is trying to take these
faulty tools and, somehow, fashion with them
the sort of balanced economy that can bring
prosperity back to America.
It is not surprising that codes of this sort
have been submitted. The cotton textile in
dustry’s forty-hour week fixed that figure in
people's minds as a precedent, despite the
warnings by the President and Administrator
Johnson to the contrary.
It inspired a general hope in some employ
ers that somehow or other they could get
around the first principles laid down in Wash
ington and get a long start in the price and
purchasing power race.
If they are successful, the recovery program
will fail. Prices will rise for a while in an
ticipation of better times and will fall with a
thud because reinforcements of purchasing
power have not been brought up to support
them.
American business leaders have admitted
again and again that our economic structure
can survive only if a way is found to keep the
whole population at work and earning enough
to buy enough to make the wheels go around.
Before these major codes receive the ap
proval of the administration, most of them
should be and will be revised.
Working hours will be shortened to the
point where the recovery administration is
certain that more men and women will have
to be hired to do the work which a few are
% doing now. Minimum wages will be raised.
This is the only way to get the purchasing
power we are after.
Child labor should be ruled out, as it has
been in every code so far. Unemployment in
surance should be provided for each industry,
as it has been for garment workers. This sort
of insurance protects the business man against
collapse of the present order as surely as it
protects the worker from starvation and want.
Business is making faltering progress to
ward saving itself from destruction. Only con
tinued firm guidance from the administration
can pull it through.
Meanwhile, the President properly is con
sidering the recommendation of the recovery
administration for temporary codes for groups
of industries, {lending formulation and accept
ance of the individual codes.
Several weeks or months must elapse be
fore most of the individual, codes can become
effective. During that time purchasing power
will be losing in the race with rising prices.
To get the unemployed back to work quick
ly and to create mass buying power at once,
the President might well appeal to all indus
try to accept voluntary blanket codes for
shorter hours and higher wages immediately.
LET SAM DO IT
IN a wire to Governor Ruby Laffoon of Ken
tucky. Harry L. Hopkins, federal relief ad
ministrator, made clear that the government
does not intend to assume any state's entire
relief burden.
The rich state of Kentucky, it seems, has
voted absolutely nothing during the crisis to
feed its own destitute. City funds have run
out. The federal government now is car
rying the whole load of that state’s public
relief.
Hopkins suggested that Governor Laffoon
forthwith call a special session of his legis
lature ‘to provide substantial funds so that
Kentucky will pay a reasonable share of the
cost of caring for its own destitute.”
Mr. Hopkins' stand is just. Federal
grants' were needed to supplement, not sup
plant, local hunger relief. The allowance of
one federal dollar to every three local relief
dollars is generous.
Without state co-operation, the $500,000,-
000 federal fund soon will be gone, and all
states will suffer. States seeking to "let
Uncle Sam do it" should be reminded that
there are such things as state's duties as well
as state's right.
We trust that Hopkins will continue to
resist political pressure from stingy states and
insist that they do their duty toward their
own needy families.
LITTLE RED SCIIOOLHOUSE
TASSES
r I 'HE little red schoolhouse has been one of
•*- the most significant of all American land
marks for more than a century. It is part of
the background of millions of Americans; it
has been the starting post for many of the
nation’s most successful men; and it lives today
in a halo of sentiment, a thing as indisputably
and typically American as com on the cob.
But Owen D. Young was right in his
recent warning to the National Education
Association that we must bend every effort to
getting the little red schoolhouse off of the
scene.
The rural villages of the red schoolhouse’s
heyday, Mr. Young points out, were self
contained and self-supporting. They were
Islands, remote and isolated.
The cultural life of the nation was centered
in the cities; to the cities, consequently, went
the ambitious and energetic young men as
soon as the red schoolhouse had finished with
them.
Today the wind of change Is blowing over
the land. New economic conditions foreshadow
a decentralization of industry, of population
and of culture. The small town is due for a
rebirth. The old barriers that isolated it have
vanished forever.
But, says Mr. Young, “we will not get this
change in country life without good schools.
People will not move there or even stay there
if the educational facilities for their children
are inadequate. The schools are the key
which will unlock the country’ for modern
living.”
All this is perfectly true; and no one who
has traveled through rural districts In recent
years can fall to realize that a tremendous
start has already been made in the right
direction.
The fine new schoolhouse is more and more
becoming the cultural and architectural center
about wh.ch the life of the small town is built.
Many and many a towm has spent more money
than it really could afford to give Its children
the best schoolhouse possible.
That is a healthy trend. Our democracy
must stand or fall by its educational system,
and the demands w’hich it will make on its
schools in the immediate future will be greater
than ever before.
The little red schoolhouse, enormously
useful as It has been, has outlived its day.
The American scene will lose one of its dearest
landmarks—but it will get something better
to take its place.
THE KIDNAPING MENACE
HTHE series of kidnapings which have pro
•*- vided so many black headlines for the
newspapers recently comes as a shocking and
horrifying development.
Insolence and defiance of the underworld
which produced them remind us sharply that
so far we have made no headway whatever
in our avowed fight to check gangsterism.
Few crimes strike so directly at the se
curity and safety which organized society
seeks to provide for its members as does kid
naping.
It is the meanest of crimes and the most
dangerous. It can flourish only when so
ciety's means of protecting itself against law
lessness is on the very edge of collapse.
These recent kidnapings ought to arouse
us to tackle the whole problem of gangsterism
with genuine vigor and determination. The
job will be one of the hardest we ever under
took; but it also will be one of the most im
portant.
FAIR PLAY AND FAIR HOURS
/GENERAL JOHNSON’S terse statement
disapproving of the new code for mini
mum hours and wages submitted by heads
of the lumber manufacturing industry is one
with which most Americans will agree em
phatically.
This code provided for a forty-eight-hour
week and a minimum pay scale of 22 cents
an hour; and General Johnson immediately
rejected it with the remark:
"Forty-eight hours is so long I wouldn’t
even consider it, and speaking generally, 22 Ms
cents is far below what I regard as a mini
mum wage.”
A great deal is expected from these new
industrial codes. Properly handled, they can
form a pretty effective bulwark against a re
turn of hard times.
But it seems self-evident that if they are
going to fill that function they must offer
substantially more than this proposed lumber
code. General Johnson was entirely justified
in rejecting it.
105,733 YEARS
A TOTAL of 105,733 years, eight months
and nineteen days were passed out by
federal judges in jail sentences for violations
of the eighteenth amendment. This figure,
an official one from the United States prohi
bition bureau, does not include federal sen
tences for 1921 or 1922, nor does it include
those imposed by state judges for violations of
state enforcement laws. Federal fines totaled
in prohibition’s 12'* years $71,240,915.62.
Stretch that many years back into history
and you find that they span all of man’s
existence on earth. About 100.000 years ago
our human ancestor was the hairy Dawn Man.
Eoanthropus, who roamed / Sussex Downs
armed with a stone hatchet in search of wild
boars and strange creatures now extinct.
Now that we’ve decided to end the experi
ment that failed, we can ask: To what end
these 105,733 years of human suffering?
THE ACE OF ACES
ONLY thirty-three cars will start in the
500-mile automobile race at the Indian
apolis Speedway next Memorial day. That
drastic rule change has been ordered by the
contest board of the American Automobile As
sociation on recommendation of Colonel E. V.
Rickenbacker, America's ace of aces in the
World war and now president of the Speed
way Corporation.
That rule was urged on the law-makers of
the speed sport by The Times the day after
the last 500-mile race was run. It is a wise
rule and a sane rale, and to the contest board
and Colonel Rickenbacker belong a vote of
thanks from all racing followers for picking
up the suggestion.
It was apparent after the last race that
something ought to be done to reduce the
staggering accident toll. Surely no event that
could take the lives of five men could be
looked upon as a sporting classic. It was a
throwback to the days of Rome, something
far from these days of a so-called higher civil
ization.
Rickenbacker and T. E. Myers, vice-presi
dent of the Speedway, went to the contest
board meeting at Detroit determined to wage
a battle for added safety in the Indianapolis
race. The colonel is a showman, of course,
but a very human showman. The deaths of
those five men last May shocked him far more
than he ever can explain.
So Eddie Rickenbacker went to war again.
It was not to make his 500-mile race more
colorful, but safer and saner. He won.
Rickenbacker may not be the ace of aces
in the clouds any more, but he still is an ace
of aces among men. And that’s what counts
most.
THE TRANSPORTATION STUDY
ROOSEVELT S reported deci
sion to have Secretary of Commerce Daniel
Roper and others undertake a wide study of
transportation facilities should produce inter
esting and helpful results.
But his Inquiry will not, of course, supplant
that which Joseph Eastman, federal co-ordina
tor of railroads, is ordered to conduct in the
law which created the office he now holds.
Eastman, since the beginning, has been very
enthusiastic over the possibilities of his in
vestigation; in some respects he and others
regard it as the most important phase of the
new law. . x
In his first formal announcement since be
coming rail co-ordinator, Eastman has an
nounced that he will have a separate staff of
research experts to help him carry’ along his
investigation.
Upon the findings he and his experts make
will depend recommendations for further rail
road legislation of a more permanent charac
ter for submission to congress.
A FAIR CODE
"IT WHATEVER flaws hostile operators may
* ’ find in the new bituminous coal code, it
is apparent that this is the fairest and most
commendable code .yet presented to the na
tional recovery administration.
In every major feature it carries out the
policies and purposes of the Roosevelt admin
istration and the New Deal. Moreover, it has
the added advantage of having been drafted
by a joint conference of operators and miners,
thus assuring labor a voice in the future con
duct of the industry’.
In wages, the code fixes a basic pay of $5
a day for underground labor and $4 for surface
workers. Miners who work by tonnage are to
get wages comparable with this basic rate.
In regard to working hours, the code leaves
the final decision up to the national recovery
administration, and both operators and min
ers agree to abide by the decision.
Collective bargaining specifically is guar
anteed, along with the minors’ right not to
buy at company stores and to have their own
check w’eighmen at mine tipples.
And, as a protection to operators against
cut-throat competition, fair trade practices
are specified that will protect both large and
small mine owners.
Obviously, such a code offers much to both
miner and operator. For the former, it means
a decent living wage, restored purchasing
power and the right to organize and bargain
collectively. For the operator, it means the
end of price-cutting wars and other vicious
trade practices.
Those are factors that should assure favor
able consideration of the code by the Roose
velt administration.
Though nobody w r as shot when Governor
Murray called out state troops to delay the
sale of beer in Oklahoma, it is probable that
there were many who were half-shot soon
after the ban w’as lifted.
Having been assured that education pays,
the average college graduate now is trying to
find out where and when.
Seems that one of the reasons the London
economic conference frittered out is because
Europe found it couldn’t stack the cards in
Roosevelt’s "new deal.”
Bathing beach visitors have observed that
the modern girl has a perfect back. Yes, and
usually a perfect comeback.
M.E.TracySays:
JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER justly may be re
garded as typifying an era. The ninety
four years he has lived virtually compass the
rise and development of American big business.
There were millionaires for him to study and
emulate in his youth—men who had become
dominant in certain lines of trade and had won
great fortunes —but the corporation, holding
company, and organized raid to gain control in
some particular field remained to be perfected.
Inventors, lawyers, and promoters combined
to create anew philosophy while Mr. Rockefeller
was growing up, and he elected to join them.
They were a strong, imaginative, acquisitive set
of men, and the very liberty by which this gov
ernment sought to protect the weak gave them
a great advantage.
They schemed, combined and built without
much interference. Borrowing corporated privi
leges from individual rights, they developed such
a system of financial and industrial hegemonies
as the world never knew.
The people still were too interested in pre
venting centralized political power to appreciate
the threat of centralized economic power. The
hangover of revolutionary concepts gave mid-
Victorian bankers and exploiters free reign.
Fourth of July orators acomplished nothing so
well as to divert attention from what was taking
place in trade and finance.
a a a
AS a matter of fact, America was proud of
her big enterprises and the big men at
their head, proud of their boldness and dare
devil spirit. She applauded as they drove the
railroad westward, opened new territory, bet
their money on innovations, and gambled glori
ously with the fate of whole communities.
Besides, there was philanthropy to console
the doubters. Endowed colleges, hospitals and
museums sprang up on every hand. It became
the fashion to give back part of the profit,
though not too big a part, and generally not
until death or old age made it convenient.
It was a grand display of human capacity,
and we shall miss it, if those who think it has
come to an end are right.
Possibly it has not come to an end, though
it is obviously due for a stricter sort of super
vision. Possibly the blues of depression have
led us to assume too much.
We are adopting some rather drastic mea
sures, but whether to meet an emergency or
for basic changes in our system of govern
ment remains to be seen.
It is to be admitted that industrialism ala
Rockefeller. Ford. Morgan has its drawbacks,
but what theory has not?
nan
WHEN you get right down to brass tacks,
have the Stalins, Mussolinis or Hitlers
shown any greater ability to meet, or avoid, de
pression than the rest of us?
England and the United States have suffered
terribly from unemployment, as well as other
economic losses, but they have succeeded in
preventing widespread illness and death.
Disciplined action has kept most people at
work in such countries as Italy and Russia, but
when translated into terms of bread, meat and
recreation for the masses, has the system shown
better results than our own?
At least we have preserved freedom of speech,
a free press and our political rights, which they
have not, and we still can preserve them, in spite
of such modifications as may be necessary in our
industrial structure, by following the lead of
President Roosevelt,
THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES
1918 MmMiMir
1929
y NEVER AfiAi.’ii
1935 WELL HABPLV EVER
~ '/
: : The Message Center : :
,J== I wholly disapprove of what you say and will defend to the death your right to say it.—Voltaire =- I
(Times readers are invited to express
their views in these columns. Make your
letters short, so all can have a chance.
Limit them to SSO words or less.J
By Grudging Payer.
The first act of the income tax
spree is over—and the sovereign
state goes merrily on.
As one taxpayer in millions, I
paid grudgingly. It seemed grossly
unfair that this additional burden
should be levied on the people in
face of reduced salaries, rising
prices and the supposed “cutting” of
government costs.
The sovereign state, we know,
cracked its whip to enforce the col
lections. We read in the papers
veiled threats for failure to pay
—when it was plain that every
taxpayer in the state was talking
nothing else but income tax.
The people didn’t have to be tolo
about it. They knew it was com
ing months before the deadline date.
The only defense weapons they
carried were reduced earnings and
higher living costs.
But in fact of these facts, the new
tax has been initiated. Individuals
have felt it, but, most of all, busi
ness has felt it. The law has met
its test in the people, and it now
remains to be seen how effectively
the new Indiana democracy can
put across its quota in the new deal.
By Wilson Compton.
National Lumber Mfrs. Assn.
It gives me much pleasure to tell
you that the National Lumber
Manufacturers’ Association “and its
affiliated interests” are entirely in
accord with the last paragraph of
your recqnt editorial entitled: “Trees
Are Wealth.” These industries look
upon the industrial recovery act as
their salvation.
The economic position and the
statutory obligations of lumbermen
have been such ever since the war,
and before, that it has been diffi
cult, if not impossible, to keep most
of the forest products industrial
units either in a sound business
condition or in a position to prac
tice sustained yield operations and
thereby to insure perpetuation of
forests.
The industrial recovery act ap
pears to give the forest industries an
opportunity to make their business
remunerative enough to meet the
cost of reforestation and conserva
tive cutting.
Permit me to say that your edi
torial is in grave error in stating
that the forests are being “destroyed
and mutilated” at the rate of eight
million acres a year. In the first
place, the total area cut over never
has been as much as eight million
acres a year, and except to a lim-
This is the last article in a series on
first-aid.
BURNS of the skin may be pro
duced by many different meth
ods, including the heat from a flame
or hot iron, the heat from scalding
water or steam, and by electricity.
Burns which involve more than one
half of the surface of the body
usually are fatal.
When a person has been severely
burned he may suffer from shock.
This demands immediate attention
to save life. He should, of course,
be put at rest and the burn suitably
covered, to prevent continued irrita
tion.
Almost every one now knows that
when a person’s clothing actually is
burning it is well to smother the
flames by the use of a blanket, a
rug or any other heavy material
that is handy.
When slight burns or scalds oc-
Helene Christine bennett
and Herbert G. Edwards have
looked into divorce data and Scrib
ner's carries the result of their re
search.
We gather that the divorced wom
an and the married woman do not
agree very well. The former thinks
that poverty kills love, that sex is
the most important thing in wed
lock, and that men are mean to
women. The wives differ. I am
speaking in a broad sense. There
are many exceptions, of course.
Personally, I never have trusted
statistics. I have little faith in
questionnaires. I do not always
believe in figures, because I know
that men and women are not pup
pets and that no two of them will
react alike to the same given situa
tion.
Cold Water Checks Heat Effect in Scalds
BY DR. MORRIS FISHBEIN - - ■
: : A Woman’s Viewpoint : :
What — Never?
Drys Confounded
Bv E. F. C.
WITH all this talk about the
new deal, America has for
gotten about all those pre-beer
forecasts of the drys. Before
April 7, when 3.2 became a na
tional asset, there were dire pre
dictions that every street corner
in the country would be turned
into a brawl-infested area.
The drys had visions of drunks
staggering homeward, insulting
people right and left. They pre
dicted licensed beer dispensaries
would become centers of vice, and
wailed loudly of the danger of
drunken drivers.
Three months have passed since
beer returned. That period must
be a big disappointment to its
enemies. Accidents attributed to
3.2 are rare. Brawls in drinking
places almost are unheard of.
Few, if any, innocent women have
suffered embarrassment at the
hands of 3.2 imbibers.
The general conduct of the beer
drinking public has been admir
able. I have frequented many so
called parlors here and in several
parts of the country. My observa
tions are impartial.
This unexpected blow to the
drys can be attributed largely to
the good sense of dispensary op
erators. Almost universally, they
seem to urge moderation, and they
stick strictly to the rules of law
and order.
Give them credit. They have
been wise. They see the hand
writing of repeal on the wall.
ited extent the cut-over areas have
not been destroyed—as witness the
fact that fully 30 per cent of the
lumber output of the United States
in recent years has come from sec
ond, third, and even fourth and
fifth growth of trees since the
original cutting.
By far the major part of all the
millions of acres that have been
lumbered in the last fifty years now
are supporting new forests. In a
report prepared by Colonel W. B.
Greeley, former chief forester of the
United States, to the United States
timber conservation board, he says:
“The area now covered with com
mercial forests and likely to remain
available for that purpose, if given
ample protection and management,
is more than sufficient to meet any
probable future demand.”
The code of fair competition
about to be submitted to the indus
trial recovery administration pro
vides for sustained yield forest ad
ministration.. and the forest indus
Editor Jourral of the American Medi
cal Association of Hvgcia. the
Health Magazine.
cur, it is preferable to cover the
burned portion immediately with
cold water, which will check the ef
fect of the heat and stop the pain.
If the foot or hand has been
burned by spilling hot water, soup
or coffee over it, it is well to put
the part burned immediately un
der water and to keep it submerged
until the first effects of the injury
have passed.
Thereafter, it may be covered
with sterile vaseline or petrolatum.
Loose cotton should not be put
on a burn, nor should w ! de pieces
of gauze be applied. It is practical
ly impossible to remove such ma
terials without great injury to the
tissues. The gauze should be ap
plied in narrow strips.
BY MRS. WALTER FERGUSO
However, it seems more rational
to consult married women about
marriage than to solicit facts from
the divorcee. We do not as a rule
listen attentively to the man who
has failed in business when he tries
to tell us how business should be
run.
We open our ears to the man who
has succeeded. The person who can
swim becomes our authority on
swimming and by the same reason
ing the individual who can stay
married should be our matrimonial
oracle, if we must have one.
u a a
MARRIAGE is in rather a
chaotic state right now. May
it not be partially becaues we
generally have consulted those who
have failed in it rather than those
t
tries sincerely hope that the indus
trial recovery act will result in per
manent public policies which will
make continuous reforestation eco
nomically practicable.
Lumbermen are no more to be
blamed for present conditions in the
forests than farmers are for their
impoverished soils, coal miners for
their wasteful mines, or oil men for
their lost oil.
All have been operating under
public land policies, legal restric
tions and commercial customs, and
economic conditions that made the
present practices and conditions in
evitable. The practical problem is
to meet these conditions as they
now are and not as they might
have been had wiser public policies
been followed heretofore.
This Involves both industrial and
public obligations. The industries
intend to do their part and are
counting on the President’s pledge
of effective public co-operation.
So They Say
Get away and stay away—-for at
least six months and preferably for
a year—from your son or daughter
who just has been married.—The
Rev. Henry H. Crare, Scranton, Pa.,
in advice to parents.
I guess these taxes for the bene
fit of the farmer are all right, but
I’ll bet they wouldn’t have levied
them if they'd known wheat was go
ing to a dollar a bushel before they
even could start to collect.—F. A.
Dodge, Washington, D. C, grocer.
The teaching in the American
university could be materially cut
down without loss to anybody.—
President Robert M. Hutchins, Uni
versity of Chicago.
Depreciated currency never bene
fitted any country except by en
abling it to repudiate debts owed to
foreigners.—Rufus S. Tucker, New
York economist.
I am in favor of applying the curb
to industry where necessary, but not
of placing the heavy, paralyzing
hand of the government upon all
the business enterprise of the na
tion.—Al Smith.
The attitude of snobbishness is all
too common among educators.—
President Walter Dill Scott, North
western University.
Modern methods of treating bums
include application of liquid petro
latum, or the application of melted
petrolatum, which then hardens and
covers the burn.
A more recent method involves
the use of especally prepared tan
nic acid, which produces a crust
under which healing takes place.
Burns from acids are serious, par
ticularly nitric and sulphuric acids.
The first treatment is to wash off
the acid as quickly as possible with
a solution of bicarbonate of soda
and to leave the wound in the soda
solution for some time.
People who work in acids regu
larly should wear gloves.
Electric burns usually are deep
and severe. They should be treat
ed as are other burns.
(The End)
who have succeeded? Those who
offer the best alibis as to why they
could not make a matrimonial go of
life have become our authorities on
this question and have put out the
most information on the subject.
The married man or woman has,
I grant you, as much as he or she
can do to manage the job. There
is very little time for interviews.
Divorcees are not different from
other women. They are either
weaker or more unfortunate. But
when we want pointers on marriage,
it seems infinitely more sensible to
get them from the woman who has
stayed married.
And we need hardly doubt that,
whoever she may be, she has met
crises in life when divorce seemed
imminent and desirable.
_JULY 17, 1933
It Seems
to Me
BY HEVWOOD BROUN=
NEW YORK, July 17.— The
League for Industrial De
mocracy is passing around a ques
tionnaire as to what the artist
should do when Utopia it estab
lished. I haven't received my blank
yet. and perhaps they have lost my
address. Or possibly—-
But never mind. I hardly think
that I would assert any claim upon
my own account as to a right to
qualify. In fact, 1 am. of necessity,
more interested in what will hap
pen to the journeyman writer in
the almost perfect state.
Deems Taylor, who got ms blank
all right, thinks that nobody should
be let off some -mall share in the
j hard tasks of a co-operative com
monwealth. He gladly would put in
half an hour a day on manual labor
if given the remaining time to fool
around with music and belles
lettres.
But Deems Tayior is much better
equipped than i ever shall be to
meet the revolution. Mr. Taylor
can make a chair or an with
equal skill. Lest there be confusion
as to my statement, let me add
that he makes good chairs.
a e a
Wouldn't He Any Good
Moreover, it would be no sac
rifice for him to combine cul
tural activities with tasks generally
considered menial. He likes to put
ter with hammers, nails and maybe
a chisel. I am less ready for the
new world. I am a newspaper man
or nothing. And let us hurry on be
j fore any answering echo gives a
painful answer to this alternative.
Some commissar in the year 1950
well might say to me. "You are
large and ponderous, and what rea
son can you offer why you should
not perform your stint in the ditch
digging unit of the state's shock
brigade of laborers?” The only an
swer I could make w r ould be that
after I was done ten other fellows
| would have to come along and set
I my flaws to rights.
I can do nothing with my hands
j except shuffle cards and hit a key
! board. And so, defensively, I have
fallen into a revolt against that
phrase “the dignity of labor.” t I
do not even think the way out lies
in trying to convince great masses
of people that dull jobs are worthy
| of any man's best effort.
I think the beginning of the new
1 world should be set in the general
j agreement that certain tasks are
arduous, tiresome and the greatest
nuisance in the world.
To some extent we may be able
to press buttons and let kilowatts
and currents do the mopping up.
Yet even in the most visionary con
ception of the machine age there
must be points at w’hich the man
with the hoe will have to step in.
But I think we need not try to
kid him by pretending that hie is
one of nature's noblemen and that
honest toil wears a lovely fac°. Cut
his hours to the bone by spacing
the job out through all the able
bodied members of society and let
him get back to his sonnets or his
landscapes.
Ban
j Fifty Per Cent Fine
AS far as I can judge at this
distance, Russia has done a
' fine job in getting large masses of
! people to work enthusiastically in
spite of the absence of the profit
motive. I think the Soviets have
| given an adequate and crushing an
j sw’er to the old complaint that col
lectivism crushes all initiative.
But I can not find that Mr. Stalin
as yet has been particularly stimu
lating in showing his people new
! ways in w’hich to use leisure. He
1 himself seems to live monastically
I and to work about twice as hard as
any captain or even corporal of in
! dustry.
And surely this is not the end
i result of the vast and noble experi
ment in Socialism. Men w’ho toil in
factories may be happier if they feel
that the plant belongs to them and
not to some exploiting boss. Yet,
even so, work is work. All the
decorations and prizes given out in
Russia st em to have gone to those
groups which were able to make two
tractors grow where there was one
before.
I wait with interest for the day
when Comrade Stalin pins a ribbon
on Ivan Ishkoff, who managed to
sit for fifteen hours in the sun with
out once stirring from his position
to perform any utilitarian act.
808
'Take It Easy ’
Even under the somewhat modi
fied radicalism of the “new
deal” the whole urge has been to get
the former indlividualists to slow
down their previous performances.
With tears in their eyes the gentle
men in Washington are pleading
with the farmers to be less ambi
tious in the matter of wheat and
rye and cotton.
Prosperity is just around the cor
ner drug store, where the idlers
linger and do their patriotic duty
in producing no commodities to glut
the market.
In this necessity, for changing
ants to butterflies it may be that
there is a solution for my personal
Utopia. I could become a teacher.
The state W’ell might endow me as
an instructor in the art of getting
by with a minimum of effort.
I hope that such a chair will be
founded. But I must insist that it
be equipped with rockers.
(Copyright, 1833 by The Times)
Futility
BY AUSTIN JAMES
To have a rain, no grass to drink it,
To have a sun. no flowers to grow,
To have a thought, alone to think it,
A lovely thought, no one to know.
To have a heart, no one to want it,
Desire for love, no one to care,
To have a goal, alone to hunt it.
To find success, no one to share.
Daily Thought
The Lord hath heard my suppli
cation; the Lord will receive my
prayer.—Psalms 6:9.
PRAYER is not conquering God'*
reluctance, but taking hold
upon God’s willingness.—Phillip*
Brooks.