OCR Text |
Show D 00 0 More Emtrgency Legislation We cdl realize that a state of war emergency demands certain laws and practices which are expedient and necessary to successful action even though they would not be asked ask-ed or allowed in peacetime. But the term "war emergency" has been invoked in-voked in the present Congress on several occasions-as an excuse for measures whose passage could scarcely affect the war one way or the other, and whose provisions are of debatable merit, to say the least. The bills to subsidize the public schools and the public press are two that come readily to mind. But the latest one, the so-called Ellender Bill, tops them all. This bill has to do with 'the tire business, and was introduced in the Senate by the junior senator from Louisiana, on behalf of the committee commit-tee studying small business problems. prob-lems. It would prohibit all but independent inde-pendent dealers from selling new, rebuilt or recapped tires (except when they are part of an automobile purchase), and from, recapping or servicing tires. This would put out of business all retail tire stores operated oper-ated by tire manufacturers, and would forbid the sale of tires by gasoline stations and by any person per-son or organization owning or controlling con-trolling 10 per cent of a tire manufacturing manu-facturing corporation. The original excuse for all this1 was the fear that independent dealers might be forced out of business by the shortage of new tires. But in the past year the independents have done about 56 percent of the $610 million tire business. Of the rest, the so-called "mass distributors," mailorder mail-order houses and big auto supply retailers did 34 per cent, -and the company-owned stores 'and filling stations did the remaining 10 per cent. Company stores have been charged charg-ed with price cutting and unfair competition. com-petition. The company stores hold that such instances are only healthy competition, and that if they had been cutting their opposition's throat .their vcolume of business would have been increased rather than declined. But true or false, the Ellender Bill is not the solution. If competitors can be legislated out of business and manufacturers prohibited from retailing re-tailing their own products, then the country's business future is qx tremely chaotic. Independent retailers retail-ers of automobiles, clothing, dairy products, radios and many more items could press for application of the same law in their own cases. The United States Supreme Court has ruled that a prime test of mon-: mon-: opoly is whether or not the public is injured. The public has not complained com-plained about the company-owned tire stores. Rather, the Ellender Bill is the . outcome of probably well-meaning, well-meaning, but certainly short-sighted, efforts to help "small business." : The whole tire business is in enough of a mess now without ' adding to it. And the post-war outlook out-look for business is serious enough without the confusion and stifling of : initiative and opportunity that a gen-;eral gen-;eral application of this legislation would invite. It is to be hoped that :the Senate Banking and Currency Committee will forget the Ellender Bill, swiftly and' completely. I get mad when I see signs showing show-ing the , mileage to Rome, because it still is so far away, but we'll get there. Lieut. Gen. Mark W. Clark. One weakness in our fiscal system sys-tem is that the privilege given Congress Con-gress to appropriate money carries no responsibility for raising the money appropriated. Senator Mil- lard E. Tydings of Maryland. . . - If you don't put happiness into life, you won't get happiness out of it, - no matter what you do or who you are. Harry F. MacLean, Canadian industrialist who goes on money- passing-out sprees. h iROVO, UTAH i Desk Chat British ' Foreign Minister An thony Eden In his recent speech to 6,000 Britten women in London said that England's interest in the outcome of this war is three- First: the advancement and se curity of the British Empire (it is well to remember that word 'advancement.') Second: An I alliance with the United States, Russia, and China. ij Third: some; arrangement on which world peace can be built. It is significant that the al liance with etne united states, Russia and China was Disced sec ond, and that world peace has not yet taken a definite pattern in British diplomacy. Our war-time . alliance with England, wasf necessary of course. But events ;have shaped themselves them-selves to bring the conclusion in America that: the first of Britain's war aims have worked out pretty well for England. But, how has it worked out for the United States. 1 America his been giving away its wealth unstUitingly to all Allies. Al-lies. Perhapsff less China than most people i in America would like but we have given our all to England, f . which means the preservation.. -of .the British Em-prie Em-prie and its advancement. . . and we have received little or nothing noth-ing in return, . As one United . States senator who recently made a tour of American battlef ronts remarked, 'We' are not fallowed to set down any of our commercial airplanes on military fiilds we (the United States) have built in North Africa for the mutual benefit of our Allies fighting there." In other words, air fields which America ha erected across Africa are not under American management Shut under British control. And we have no guarantee guaran-tee of any kind that we shall ever receive anything in return for our . huge contributions thru Lease-lend . I . not even the se curity of the' Island bases which we now knowlare vital to the defense de-fense of the American continent. Anyone who raises a voice in protest or who advocates placing American needs and American safety first is branded and smeared smear-ed with the label of "isolationist", but are we supposed to sit idly by and see th government of the United States subverted to the cause of British Imperialism? . . . a thought which is repugnant to every sincerely patriotic American. Ameri-can. We need a , clear, statement not evasions and vagus generalities generali-ties from both our president and the secretary of state as to just what it is we are fighting for and what we shall! get in return for the vast wealth we have expended. PERT AND PERTINENT "Fifteen minutes a day spent in reading the classics will give you a literary culture ..." if you can; stay awake that long. "The domestic cat has two sets of vocal chords! ..." and here We always thought it was two cats.! "Insects are njuch like men . . declares a scientist. the difference being that they are not guilty of wilful absenteeism. absentee-ism. : "It is now definitely proven that man is more than a million years old. . T but don't yob dare to suggest that woman is that old. There is a Little girl Who often I Comes when 1 I'm alone, And gravely s Looks at me ) With an Appraising and Candid gaze-Children gaze-Children seem To see what We grown-ups Fail to 'Understand. Of course i know it Is I More than mere Curiousity Trfat causes Such inscrutable Concentration i And more often Than not I am tempted To turn away Because I am Reluctant To read The Judgement and Accusation . In the eyes Of her Who is Myself Of yesterday. THE WASHINGTON E "You Win Tojo!" JUVENILE LOGIC "Now. BobbV.r laid the teacher. who was quizing the class in zoology, "tell me lwhere the ele phant is found." I xne boy hesitated a moment, then his face lit- up with a thought. "The elenhant" h mm is such a very large animal that it naraiy ever gets lost." YesterdaVs TombrroWs simile- As reluctant as a Congressman to vote on a new tax meaanre just before election. Tad. the -Tourist writes In to tell of a billboard featuring Smith Bros, cou&rh droba And whieh emphasizes the slogan "Take one co oea witn you. ; it seems that some wag had added the words: "T umiilrin't alaon S oritVi ..tfV.... A them." 1 ill r Wi 1 0H,53eihg REAL PERSON BY PR. HARRY EMERSON FOSDICK Fatalism Is Very Comfortable Way of Avoiding Responsibility Many today escape a sense of .system of foreordination whose personal responsibility through a general feeling of powerlessness. Like Gulliver in the land of the giants, they find their , lives determined de-termined by forces so titanic that they lapse into a mood of emotional emo-tional fatalism. Fatalism is commonly pre sented as a dour, grim doctrine. robbing us of inner freedom, reducing re-ducing us to the estate tof robots. denying us initiative and creativity. creat-ivity. , i As a matter of fact; fatalism is one of the most comfortable moods In which .m manj can live. l-t he is an automation he Is irresponsible, ir-responsible, , and so ha an un answerable justification: for any thing he is or does. H creed is simple and complete: Whatever is, is inevitable, said a man to bis friend, "You are acting like a fool." "Well," was the answer. if that is what I ami I cannot help it. That is the way fate made me." From that alibi, persist ently held, there is no appeal; it is an lmpregnaoie defense mech anism. An altogether different outlook is suggested 3y Emer son: "Henry Thoreau made, last night, the fine remark that, as long as a man stands in his own way, everything seems1 to be in his way." Only oh the basis of man's pro found emotional desire to be dispensed dis-pensed from such relponslbilfty can the historic rise of 'one system of fatalism after another be ex plained. verbal left-overs linger in our vcabulary If a man was jovial,! it was because he was born under j the planet Jove; if mercurial, under un-der Mercury. Nor has theology escaped es-caped such usage for Islam and certain forms of Christianity have notoriously provided fatalist! c doctrines according to which man is the helpless victim of divine decrees. Lymon Beecher was a masterful master-ful figure in New England in his day. , One week end he was to exchange pulpits with a neighboring neighbor-ing minister who held a stiff theory of predestination, while on that point Beecher was for his time a liberal. On Sunday morning morn-ing both men started I rdm home, each going to the other's church, and met midway. As they paused, the neighboring minister said, "Doctor Beecher, I wish to call to your attention that before the creation of the world God arranged that you were to preach in my pulpit and I in yours on this particular Sabbath. Sab-bath. "Is that so?" said Lyman Beecher, glaring at him. "Then I won't do it!" And turning his horse, he returned to his own church. However, there is a kernel of truth in determinism. When one considers our absolute dependence depend-ence on the maintenance of the earths j!heat and moisture, the determining effect on each indiv- ual of the race s biological evo.u the fact that our initial endo ments of physique, intelligence, and temperament are' genetically predetermined, and when, added to that, one knows how powerfully power-fully lives are directed and shaped from babyhood up by conditioning environments, one cannot lightly light-ly talk about being master of one's fate and captain of one's soul. Unless our conscious experience, ex-perience, howeveftV is, fallacious, this is not the whole story. All the ""more because the truth in fatalism" is so momentous, stress is needed on that inner core of personal Initiative and response where lies our power to individualize individ-ualize our handling of life. In the conviction that to use Dostoievsky's Do-stoievsky's phrase r "people are people and not the keys of a piano," is the beginning of human hu-man life's distinction and dignity. Moreover, the facts justify this conviction. The very spectacle of one vast system of determinism after another rising and falling suggests alike their emotional source and their intellectual invalidity. in-validity. At the center of human life is a realistic, experimental fact man's capacity for personal response whose effects in Chang' ing environments as well as en during it, and in altering personal quality as well as putting up with it, are too evident to be denied. TOMORROW. Too many peor pie use only a 'vocabulary of de feat.- Copyright, 1944 Harper & Broth-ers, Broth-ers, New York. Astrology its belated devotees tion, the momentous consequences still among us provided a vast of heredity, when one confronts AIR MAIL VOTING BILL COMING UP WASHINGTON, Nov.- 17 (UK- Senate Democratic Leader Alben W. Barkley, D., Ky., said today he hoped to start senate debate Thursday on a bill to provide air mail voting in national elections rer members of the armed services overseas. - By FAITH BALDWIN . COWffOMT. 14. NCA SSRVICK. INC THIS rrORTt Wkn Jim Then. m a Deete Hall's aniit. aat.ee lata the Hall aoaaeaeld. Naaey Hall, aaoflea a feared, la flattere fey Ma aHeaa feat eaaaet feaet Djrew Waraer. Mrs. Ball weala Ilka Waae ta eaeoar-sra eaeoar-sra wealthy Freak Eafar. Edgar, fcewever, eeeaas amt latereated la tee ether aaasatcr, Ehafly. a Vlstttae; Narae MMeat her Jefe. Naaer ehldee Jtai sr werkiae; JOTS APARTMENT CHAPTER 311 MILYTS room faced the front of the house. She could hear every word Nancy wis saying to Jim Thompson as they gat there on the steps. I "Dont go in yet Father's up, at an hours." , "But I must see him, Nancy." Tn wait here." . . Emily could hear Jim come in the house. The screen door slammed, his feet sounded on the stairs, she heard her father's irritable roar of greeting, her mother's voice. She heard Jim go: downstairs again, two at time. 'The door slammed once more. And Nancy said:' "You took long enough. No, don't go over to the apartment. Sit here." Jim said after a moment, "I should go and catchjsome sleep. There may be ealli. X expect one, in fact" "You'll be up all sight" said Nancy. "Why in the world anyone wants to be a doc tori" "Don't you' know," he asked, laving lived with your father all these years?" J "It's deadly," she said savagely, "and killing. A horrible , business. Mother's never had any fun . . . she's entitled to it She added, "I wish you'd been along tonight It was nice, on the beach. But I did set so bored. At nrst the sum mer was r atbtt affiuii Biitoas. up old threads and then well, it all went stale. Same faces, same gags, same lines, same passes." "What about Frank?" he. in-qufred. in-qufred. m 9 9 TIPE smoke, strong and sweet drifted lazUy upward, the scent of it was in Emily's nostrils. "We had a fight" admitted Nancy, and laughed. Emily could not catch Jim's low reply. But she heard Nancy's next sentence, clear and gay andenter-tained. andenter-tained. "What in the world gave you that idea? ... As if I could be interested in Frank Edgar!" A moment later there was a stir on the porch and Nancy said: "I'm wide awake. Everyone else has gone to bed, I suppose. Youll no sooner get there than youll have to go out again. I've an idea. If you won't take me driving, IH come over and pay you a call, and make you some coffee and well sit up and drink it, and gossip." Possibly he demurred. Emily didn't know. But a little later she heard their footsteps on the wooden treads and then going, muffled, across the grass, and louder? down the gravel to the garage. She rose wearily, undressed and went to bed. She thought lying in the darkness, Serves you right . . . you had no business listening. But she was conscious of a cold anger. Nancy must be out of her mind. Why shouldn't she go to Jim's apartment if she wanted to, brew him a cup of coffee, talk with him . . . parade her little tricks. He should be in bed and asleep, but Nancy wouldn't think of that She wouldn't of course question the decorum of the impulse. Nowadays Now-adays the word decorum was as seldom used as the word indiscreet indis-creet Jim war her father's as- atetaaLHsc Xaftas. bee ooths&. her sister, were together under one roof, next door to the garage apartment No one would think anything of it She had quarreled with Frank. Why? And she was amusing herself her-self with Jim because she was annoyed, hurt perhaps. Not hurt, thought Emily. To her horror the quick, sudden sud-den tears forced themselves against her closed lids, crawled slowly down her cheeks. I'm not in love with him, she thought And knew that she was. a e UHEN had it begun? Had it YV started back in the old hospital hos-pital days when they'd been just good friends, talking, arguing, laughing, working together? Or when he'd walked into the house on Atlantic Street a few weeks ago? Or the first tune she had seen him look at Nancy with his blue eyes warming and his lopsided lop-sided grin? Or tonight coming home from the hospital? It didn't matter when. It didn't matter whether it had happened years, a month, a week, an hour ago, or just now. It had happened and that was that ' She thought miserably, There's nothing I can do about it go away perhaps, find a job in Bostonanything.. Bos-tonanything.. Someone tapped at her dooi and her mother came in. "Asleep?" "No. Wait a moment" Emily fumbled under a pillow, scrubbed her handkerchief across her face and eyes, steadied her voice, reached out and turned on the bedside light "What's the matter," mat-ter," she asked, "is father?" "No, he's all right Fast asleep." Mfllicent's hair was pinned into curls, caught under a net cap. Her face was scrubbed. Despite the fine lines, it had a little girl look. She had a pot of cold cream in her hand and sitting down beside Emily's ned she absentmindedly began to stroke the cream across heir forehead and under her eyes. She said: "I looked out of the window just now. Nancy over in the apartment with Jim." WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 943 Such Language, Mr. Higgins! By PETER EDSON j Daily Herald . Washington Correspondent Andrew ' J. Higgins, the ! big boat and airplane builder from New Orleans, has been having another battle with the guVment, this time over renegotiation of one of his contracts with i the Navy. 'At one of the sessions. Higgins is reported to have talked for four and a half hours to ask whether, she was to tran-vcabulary tran-vcabulary which colors Higgins' A good fast stenographer with a mechanical shorthand type writer was assigned to take tran script of the testimony, but right at the beginning she Interrupted to ask where she was to transcribe tran-scribe the statements just as it was given. "Word for word." they told her, in effect even to the cussing. The hearing resumed, re-sumed, but a little later the stenographer sten-ographer had to stop again. There are a lot of these swear words," she said, "that I never learned pie symbols for on this machine." Informing Ickes At his first press conference after signing the agreement with John L. Lewis to end the coal strike, Secretary of the Interior Harold L. Ickes raised' the curtain a little bit at what goes on in his office before he meets the reporters. Ickes had been asked some pretty tough ques tions on the settlement and that made him confess. "Every day we have one of these conferences," said Ickes, "a big fellow named Mike Straus (now first assistant secretary but formerly Interior's chief of public pub-lic relations) pushes his way into my office without a by-your-leave or anything else. He pulls up a chair just as close to my desk as he can get it I keep my eye on him so he doesn't lay a lighted cigaret butt on the edge, but then he proceeds to speculate on what questions are going to be asked and he tells me now I should answer them. "Talk about freedom of speech!' Ickes exclaimed with his cur mudgeon's sardonic grin. "He doesn't give me credit for having any more discretion than my year-old son." After the conference, Straus claimed that he had been mis quoted. "vVhat I told him," said Mike, "was that I hoped he'd use more discretion and have more success than he did in talking to his 4-year-old son." Poet-War Radio- Government regulation of hjgh frequency radio wave channels, now largely unused commercially, is one of the post-war tech nological developments bei n g carefully studied. Cha i r m a n James Lawrence Fly of the Federal Fed-eral Communications Commission has announced a conference of government agencies and in dustries using radio to meet in Washington this month and from then on this subject may be more and more in the news, heralding the new radio age of television, aviation, communications, meat cine, electro-metallurgy and the science of electronics all even more startling in their potential ltles than the future of flying. The standard radio broadcast band on your home radio taps only 1000 kilocycles, or the fre quencies from 550 to 1500, which is an infinitesimal part of what the radio engineers call the radio spectrum of frequencies from zero to 30,000,000 kilocycles and beyond. be-yond. Today, the only really useful use-ful part of the spectrum employed commercially is from 10 to 800,- 000 ks. As new uses and applica tions are found for the higher frequencies, the demand for the lower frequencies is reduced meaning, in so far as home radio is concerned, that there is hope for ultimate allocations of unused frequencies which will eliminate station interference. Scientists who yesterday be lieved that frequencies of from 40,000 to 60,000 kc. were best for television now think that higher bands will be better going go-ing up into the hundreds of thousands, in snort order, tney hope to transmit television by relays, re-lays, over the horizon, replacing the more expensive coaxial cable and giving real long distance sight by radio. Above 300,000 kc, in what the scientists call the ultra-high fre quencies up to 8,000,000 and the super-high to 30,000,000, much ex perimental work is being done, even during the war. This re search can't be discussed in de tail because of its applications to military, naval and aviation uses, on secret weapons and communi cations devices. MERRY - GO -R0 ID A Daily Picture of What's Going on in National Affairs By Drew reawee (Major Bebert 8. Ailea ea aetlve daty). Q's and A's Q What is cryology? A The science of cold, and its study. Q Who is commandant of the U. S. Marines? A Lieut- Gen. Thomas Hoi-combe. Hoi-combe. Q What is the OFRRO? A The Office of Foreign Relief Re-lief and Rehabilitation Oper ations. Q 'What was the peak annual sale of phonograph records? A 110 million, sold in 1941. Q How -many buffalo are left in the United States? A About 6000. At one time there were an estimated 50 mil lion. Ohio University was the first educational institution opened in the Northwest Territory, in isov. WASHINGTON Republican Senator William Wil-liam Langer of North Dakota and Democratic. Representative John H. Tolan of California are still plugging for their proposal to convert the spacious underground Senate garage into sleeping sleep-ing quarters for servicemen arriving at nearby Union Station. However, it looks as though many of the servicemen will continue bunking benches in the crowded railroad station. So far, Langer and Tolan have received negligible support for their idea; especially from Senators, who do not relish giving up their steam-heated parking places in the garage. The legislators are smart enough not to air their views publicity, but there has been a lot of undercover sniping at the Lan-ger-Tolan scheme by the powers-that-be on Capitol Hill. Recently, Senator Francis Maloney of Connecticut Con-necticut requested the views of Senator Harry F. Byrd of Virginia, chairman of the potent Rules Committee. The multi-millionaire Virginia Vir-ginia apple grower replied that the Rules Com-tee Com-tee "has nothing whatever to do" with the gwage. "My own personal Judgment" continues Senator Byrd, Is that it would be costly, to make this garage suitable for living quarters and that it should only be done as a last resort I should think there are other buildings available which could be utilized at less expense." NOTE: Actually, it would cost very little to convert the garage into sleeping quarters, chiefly the matter of providing cots, of which the Army has thousands. The hundreds of servicemen serv-icemen streaming through Union Station every day now must depend on the limited accommodations accommo-dations of the nearby United Nations' Service Center formerly the Capitol Park Hotel at rates ranging from $1 (dormitory) to $3 a night MARSHALL'S MEMORY For a long time, Jim Farley and Mrs. Henry Wallace were supposed to have the best memories mem-ories around Washington.. But they have a real rival in the Chief of Staff, General Marshall. Returning from a warfront town, Marshall held a press conference. Twenty-one newsmen were present Marshall said he would answer one question from each newsman. He turned to the man nearest him on the right and said, "All right what's yours?" The question proved to be rather elaborate. "I will answer that in a minute,." said Marshall. "But let's go ahead. What's yours?" And before answering any questions, he went the rounds of 21 men and got their 21 questions. Then he proceeded to answer the questions one by one. Not only did he remember the question which each of the twenty-one had asked, but he remembered who asked it Pointing to each man, he said, "Now your question was ." And then he named it and proceeded to answer it This was more than a feat of memory. It gave order and body to the answers, and eliminated elim-inated the confusion of most press conferences. NOTE: Other competitors for the "Memory Club" are Nat Howard of the Cleveland News, formerly U. S. press censor; and Erwin A. Holt of Burlington, N. O, who can tell you the day of the week you were born on If you give him the date. MUST BLOCK WILLKIE Robert Lund, manufacturer of Listerine and the sugar daddy of St Louis Republicans, had a confidential and highly illuminating pow-wow with high-up Republicans the other day in Washington. Among those who attended the private dinner din-ner conference were Harison Spangler, chairman of the Republican National Committee, bitter-end Congressman Harold Knutson of Minnesota, and old-timer Dan Reed, Republican Congressman from up-state New York. Chief topic of conversation was how to block Willkie. Exactly how to block him was not decided. de-cided. But at all costs It was felt he must be blocked. The Republican chances now look brighter and brighter, so the last thing GOP conserva tives want is anyone with a progressive Republican Re-publican outlook in the White House. "CHICKEN DINNER" MORRISON The Government Printing Office, weighed down with war printing orders by the War and Navy Departments, the Treasury Department and other government agencies, also has its hands full with one of the largest political jobs in recent history. The beneficiary is loquacious freshman Representative Rep-resentative James H. Morrison of Louisiana. Much to the regret of the Government Printing Office, Jimmy is running for governor of Louisiana.! Louis-iana.! Though 34-years-old Morrison has been In Congress less than a year, he has learned some tricks about getting federal help for his political ambitions that would make Congressional old-timers old-timers green with envy: Already, 237,000 copies of speeches boosting his gubernatorial chances have been run off at cost rates by the Government Printing Office. The campaign literature is being distributed among Louisiana voters, and -more of it is reportedly re-portedly on order. Whether, any of this political- material is being mailed at government cost under Morrison's Morri-son's frank, has been kept a mystery. Franked material is usually inserted ta envelopes-by Capitol folding rooms and sent directly to the Washington post office for -mailing. However, after preparing Morrison's campaign literature f or mailing, House folding-room employees are instructed to return it to the Louisianian's office, of-fice, whence it is sent out in bags. When a member of Congress, elects to assume as-sume the mailing costs of personal or political letters, he usually Instructs the folding room to leave off his frank. Morrison did not do this. Envelopes containing his speeches were stamped with his (free) frank before being returned to his office. SENATOR PEPPER Energetic Senator Claude Pepper of Florida, who led the fight to put teeth in the Connelly peace resolution, was kept so . busy; during this long debate that he was unable to see some of the Floridians who called at his office. The day after the resolution passed Pepper was scheduled to speak in commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the resumption of U. S.Russian S.-Russian diplomatic relations; To his surprise, he bumped into four business friends from Florida Flor-ida as he boarded the train. "Senator, we decided that the best way to see you was to buy tickets on this train," one of the quartet explained with a grin. Pepper, who makes a fetish of seeing everybody every-body who calls at his office, both big and the little, devoted the train ride to Philadelphia to his four visitors instead f studying the speech, he was to deliver. ' (Copyright. 1943. by United Feature Syndicate, Znc.), . i . '" 35 . 1 4 |