The Des Moines Register from Des Moines, Iowa • Page 25

-1IXY 20, 1917. DES MOINES FUND AY REGISTER H-L 'if Kf THE PEOPLE'S OPEN FOR UM Letters from readers, printed on this page, may differ in opinion widely with the opinions of The Des Moines Register and Tribune. Letters must be addressed to the editor, not to third persons, and the right to shorten them is reserved. Complete postoffice addresses are necessary and they will be printed with the letters. Contributors are limited to not more than one letter in any 30 day period.

Poetry and verse are not accepted. Letters and their contents become the property of this newspaper and CANNOT BE RETURNED. Address letters to: The Open Forum Editor, Register and Tribune. Des Moines 4, la. EDITED BY ELIZABETH CLARKSON ZWART 4l Bill White's Considered Plea For German Rehabilitation Christianity Wearing Shorts i "sl IV- 2 feJU4 i k.

TRUCK DRIVER TELLS COSTS OF OPERATION To the Open Forum Editor: being a driver of one of the said Hi-way box cars for a. reliable trucking company, believe that people's ignorance of what it costs to operate these vehicles leads them to believe that they are not a part of a state's and people's economy as well as a taxable industry. First, the yearly license on this outfit, hauling approximately 15 tons i3 as follows: $515 for the truck tractor, plus $60 for the trailer. Then the commerce commission tacks on another $250 per year for travel rights or $5 per 24 hours for a travel order. GASOLINE TAXES.

On a weekly basis cf two and one-half round trips to Chicago, 111., 900 miles per week is driven within Iowa's boundary at six miles per gallon and four cents per gallon state tax, this amounts to $300 or over per year plus, a smaller mileage at three cents a gallon Illinois tax and an overall one and one half cent per gallon federal gas tax plus tax on oil and the federal excise tax on 14 large tires. For some time these trucks have had to show financial responsibility or carry FL and PD insurance before they could operate. OTHER EXPENSES. For my services as a driver only I average over $300 per month of about 240 hours and out of the income of this truck must come portions for office help, city men who unload, deliver and load up the loads it hauls. Then comes mechanics' wages, repairs, terminal operating expenses and incidentals.

So next time you are aggravated by following a semi-trailer up a hill stop and realize that maybe you are mixing your pleasure with a way-paying industry that cannot operate within a scheduled area such as a farmer in his fields or a factory worker in his factory or of the countless other industries that go to create our national, state and personal economy and livelihood. Carl Sandrock, 123G Seventh Nevada, la. impossible through any stretch of imagination to see either richness or beauty." S.U.L Art Show Panned REPORT ON THE GERMANS: By W. L. White.

Harcourt, Brace. $3. Reviewed by Helen K. Falrall. LET us remember the clamor which Mr.

W. White's "Report on the Russians" generated during the last year of the war. as we read his new book on the Germans. By now only the unthinking would deny that Mr. White was right about the Russians and their government.

Even hi3 tolerant companion on that trip and later his antagonist, Mr. Eric Johnston, recently blasted the Russian system publicly. This new report is Mr. White's considered rlea for understanding and helping the Germans to rehabilitate their country so that we may save the economic system of Europe of which they are the keystone. For the peace of the world, he says, depends partly on the Russians about whom we can now do very little, but also tipon the Tales About Greeks By Greek-American WHEN GREEK MEETS GREEK: By George Demetrios.

Houghton Mifflin. $2.75. GEORGE DEMETRIOS, Greek-American sculptor, was born in Macedonia in 1896 and came to America in 1911. He shined shoes, got a job on the Boston Herald, then turned to art. He spent some years in Europe on traveling scholarships and in study at the.

Beaux Arts in Taris. Since 1922 he has been an art teacher and sculptor in Pennsylvania and Massachusetts. "When Greek Meet Greek" a collection of brief stories about Mr. Demetrios' native land and hi fellow immigrant in America. Tliey range from moving village tales to screamingly funny Immigrant stories.

A couple of dud are Included, but most of "When Greek Meets Greek'' Is delightful, though the reader never quite recover from meeting in these stories salad cooks and pastry cook named Socrates and Pericles, wrestlers named Leonidas, and chicken raisers named Epominondas. As Mr. Demetrios must have hoped, no one can read his stories without getting from them a better understanding of his Greek-American acquaintances and friends. E.C.Z. An office secretary in Spencer who thought President Truman was wrong in vetoing the labor bill commented: "Our country is built around labor and they must have a chance.

However, we can't let them get too strong for the good of the rest of the country." "Need Supervision." A young taxi driver said: "Unions are okay, but they need government supervision." Those Iowans who thought Truman was right were then asked: "Why do you feci President Truman was right in refusing to sign the bill to control labor unions?" UNDERPAID CLERGY. To the Open Forum Editor: The clergy must be eternally pleading for financial assistance to improve conditions in their parishes. After getting a specialist's education and a sense of decency and a spirit of always trying to help others, doesn't it seem fitting that those whom they are striving so heroically to help and save should give occasional consideration to seeing that they don't have to "live on bread alone." George Paquette, Hotel President, Waterloo, la. LONG PAST DUE. To ths Open Forum Editor: Why all this fuss about the end of the world? The end of the world is long past due.

Jesus said all things shall happen before this generation passes. S. A. Bohning, Belmond, la. 4t Flying Dollars To the Open Forum Editor: My mother's version of the flying saucers is the best I've heard yet.

Her idea is that they are silver dollars that have become so light in buying value during current inflation that they take off like rockets when anyone passes one. airs. C. E. Venzke, Readlyn, la.

ber is Art 759G147 and is a 14 day book. Mary A. Hunter, Hotel Brown, Des Moines 2. A Shock for Rembrandt To the Open Forum Editor: I have been reading the news article on page 12-L. of The Des Moines Sunday Register by George Shane.

When I looked at the photographs of the paintings, particularly those called "Seated Figure in and "Two Figures in the I was surprised, to put it mildly. A field of corn may be and a "cow grazing on an Iowa hill" may be but if a real artist like Leonardo da Vinci or Rembrandt were to awaken and view the pictures printed in The Register, I think they would be truly "shocked" at what twentieth century artists produce and what the State University of Iowa purchases in an effort to keep the art exhibit from being "regional" or I do not pretend to be an art critic, but I find it impossible through any stretch of my imagination to see either richness or beauty in either, of the pictures mentioned. The article by Mr. Shane says: "Dr. Longman takes note of an 'appetite for more complex and monumental statements, involving more responsible concepts, for a strategy employing more of the resources of three-dimensional design and more of the elements of visual reality I read the statement over and over again and kept wondering if one would have to go to such lengths to appreciate a picture like "Whistler's This is a streamlined age, one where an ugly picture ought to be described as And a thing of beauty does not need so many adjectives.

One's eyesight is sufficient. (Miss) Mary M. Sears, 1332 Second Fort Dodge, la. Republicans Declared Against Common Man To th Open Forum Editor: This is to inform Mr. McDonnell, Open Forum, July 13, and others who agree with him, that he is wet on labor leaders and Democrats alike.

I gather from his letter he thinks the Republican party could and would keep taxes down. I would like to call his attention to the state of Iowa taxes, a very solid Republican state, which has more and higher taxes than any other state I have had occasion to visit. Look at one of the latest bills on gasoline. You could not have over 20 gallons of gasoline In your car or over 50 gallons in a truck or bus. And then turn around and look at the road system.

They have the poorest of them. Then you talk about Republicans. They are and always have been against every progressive movement that ever came up, especially any that might help the laboring or common class of people. R. C.

Ohman, Conesville, la. Would Defer F.D.R. Memorial for Year To the Open Forum Editor: The papers say another memorial for F.D.R. is to be built by public subscription, higher than Washington's. (Those Roosevelts can't be outdone,) We had Hyde Park foisted onto us and another bill of expense, the huge national debt, caused by wasteful spending during the Roosevelt There seems a limit to what the public can take.

With all the suffering caused by floods and storms this season, the sane and humane thing to do would be to forget the dead for one year and give assistance to the living. There will be a winter soon and thousands facing it with no food or shelter. Our service men are still camped anyplace they can get in and wondering what they fought a war for. Mrs. M.

Iee, Strawberry Point, la. Most Iowans With Opinions Feel Labor Veto Wrong A majority of Iowans who paid any attention to the labor bill veto thought President Truman was wrong in refusing to sign the Taft-Hartley bill to control labor unions. Doesn't Think Is Hurt by Girl Declares Camp Told About Is Aiding Youth. To the Open Forum Editor: I am a 16 year old girl. I would like to ask the lady who said "no Christian woman would wear shorts" this question.

Is it any worse for us to discuss the vital problems of Christian young people in shorts than it is for her to say her evening prayers in her nightgown? I have recently been to a youth camp and I think the wearing apparel had very little to do with the Christian atmosphere of that camp. It would be just as inappropriate for us to wear silk hose and high heels at such a camp. EVERYDAY RELIGION. Is the religion of today to be the stiff, sober, Sunday style of religion of our forefathers? I believe that God meant for us to use our religion in our everyday lives. We have a free kind of religion in wilich one can read the Bible, pray, and worship how and where he pleases.

It is a happv thing to be a Christian. We should express our beliefs in all that we do whether in our work, play, or in not only when we are in our Sunday best in church. I do not feel that wearing shorts is hurting my Christian faith. If the adults of today were more worried about the things that confront the young such as towns full of taverns, lack of wholesome recreation, and too few people with whom they can really talk things over, there would be less delinquency. All we ask is that you, once in a while, look at our problems from a 1947 viewpoint instead of using the measuring stick of 1920.

ON FINDING ANSWERS. If the church and the adults don't help us find the answers to our questions about drinking, smoking, dating, and many others we will find them out for ourselves. If they don't help us then they are responsible for the "condition America is in" and not the girls who wear shorts at a youth camp. The type of camp told about in the article of July 6 is helping youth. It does a lot to set us straight on what we should do about a lot of things.

All we need is more of them and more adult backing to get more young folks there. Beverly Sowers, RFD No. 1, Story City, la. SHAME AFTER SINNING. To the Open Forum Editor: I believe a true Christian man or woman will not pay any attention to what another wears.

That is right. It was after Adam and Eve Binned they became ashamed of their nakedness. Yes I do believe God would have put clothes on all. Just how much, I do not know. Adam and Eve did not wait for God's plan and purpose.

Before man sinned, he was living in peace and righteousness. After, he became disturbed, evil took hold of his mind. In God's wrath, he clothed them in skins and drove them from the Garden that they may not eat of the tree of life. Mrs. E.

J. Collins, 4133 E. Forty-eighth Des Moines 17. Ideas Differ About Modesty To the Open Forum Editor: Retha Pischel, Open Forum, July 13, says, "no Christian would go about in halter neck and shorts." I'm not so "The result has been a lowering of general health." ,1 I 1 HI 1 If 1 i i Germans about whom scrr.ethir.g eta be dene. We must not allow them putrefy in poverty and idleness.

We must permit a free and democratic Germany to emerge from the present chaos. REPORT By way of preface, Mr. White tell us that he had little love for the Germans and especially the Berliner when he left their country in 1939 and came home to tell all who would listen that the German army was well nigh, perfect. When he went back In 1946 the ruined mid continent was occupied by four victorious armies. He talked to a Journalist who had been one of Goebbel's propagandists, young omen who had never known a free Germany, Jews who had existed "addresses unknown" through the kindness and charity cf good Germans, unrepentant, blustering Nazis, and others who still could not believe the horrors of Belsen and Maldenek.

In his rambling report, the author reconstructs the war years in Germany the exultation over the Polish conquest, the shame over the invasion of Norway and Belgium, the pleasure over the luxuries sent from France, the belief that an arrangement could te made with Britain. TOWARD DEFEAT At first the Russian war was popular but with Pearl Harbor the realist knew that the war was lost. Early in 1944 Hitler was discredited with the masses. The shallow Nazi philosophy which was based upon success had lost its hold. Had the wished it, the gang of a.1ver.t::rr rs could have been wiped out by a government which would have sued peace.

(Mr. Whit does' not say hv this could have been 1 in view of the abortive attack on II. t-lor in 1914. his claim misrht con si i-ered good hindsight.) Instead we announced a policy of unconditional surrender which cost the lives of and put Russia in Europe. OUR MISTAKES But the meat of Mr.

White book is found in the last four chapters wherein he discusses with regret the mistakes we have made and the step we must take to rectify, if possible, our errors. For our present situation is due not to the diabolical ctmnir.g cf the Kremlin whose foreign pclicy is but a continuation of the Romanovs, but to our own lack of foresight ar.d realism, he says. We failed to coordinate our great physical powers with our objective of restoring freedom in Europe. Summarizing, Mr. White states: We failed to exact from Moscow in return for lend-lease a pledge to renounce all territorial claims.

Our demand for unconditional surrender, aside from It cost, put the Russians In the middle of Europe. We rejected Churchill's propoal for a Balkan Invasion which would saved the p'ac and made unnecessary rushing aid to Greece and Turkey. We tore our armies to pieces before we made the peace, thus losing our bargaining power and enabling the Russians to disregard their own commitments made at Yalta. Our frantic haste In demobilization left us helple to dictate our version of peace. Many a reader will wish that Mr.

White had explored the ways ar.d means of getting Germany back to work. Would he have us sign a separate peace and proceed with the rebuilding of the zones not under Russia? How would he persuade the Russians to give up the rich agricultural and manufacturing area of the Reich How co-ordinate the zones we hold if Russia refuses to allow the incorporation of the vital eastern zone? These are but a few of the problems which demand answers before we end the stalemate in Germany. Author Faure Loses His Way MISTER ST. JOHN: By Raoul C. Faure.

Harpers. $2.75. Reviewed by William L. Hassett. VERY sentient person, I suppese locks back at the roads not taken and speculates idly but fondly on the many might-have-beens.

Had he only chosen another way, might not his life have been fuller, happier? So speculates Dr. Elian in the closing moments of his life. His memory is prodded by Mister St. John (Faustus) who taunts the moribund with earlier failure to choose the better road, with failure to pursue a fairer dream. Specifically the indictment is that the Doctor had taken the high safe road to success instead of the errant by-way of adventure with his one true love.

But St. John's taunts are not unkind. He Is an understanding Devil. He discourses brilliantly and humorously of fatalism and of God who Mister St. John's coworker In te sime Onrjard.

He even vouchsafes to Dr. Elian, without penalty or forfeit, a swift pursuit cf the happier road. Here are the makings cf a goci novel hut I am sorry to report that Racul C. Faure leaves the pieces scattered about all over the Dr. Elian must have died happy in the knowledge that the road he chanced to miss was not so hot.

It is really Mr. Faure who lost his way. And that is a great surprise knowing that this same Mr. Faure gave us, just last year, a work of perfection entitled "The Spear In The Sand." Cause of Floods? To the Open Forum Editor: It would be very entertaining if the Open Forum could be devoted to these various causes of the floods for several issues. I have noted so far: paths of iniquity, liquor, baseball, near nude females and sun spots.

There must be many more. Let's have a full list and see what a scientific reason it will all add up to. Howard Kimble, Box 482, Ames, la. sure. Isn't it true that our ideas about what is modest dress differs in time, custom, locality and climate The Mohammedan woman gets veiled or is secluded in the name of modesty.

The Hottentot woman can wear scarcely anything and still be modest, according to their standards. When I wras young, a girl was not modestly dressed unless her skirts were to her ankles. She wore at least two petticoats. She didn't have "legs." She had "limbs." In the Marshall islands, missionaries, with the best intentions, taught the natives that it was sinful to be so scantily clad. So they adopted more clothes.

The result in that warm, humid climate, there has been a lowering of general health, and skin diseases, which they did not have when they wore their native dress, a cocoa matting breech clout, and were washed by the rains and exposed to the healthful rays of the sun. I certainly do not believe in nudism, but neither do I think a person's Christianity should be judged by the amount of clothes he or she wears. Rather let it be judged by "the fruit of the spirit" which is love, joy, peace, long suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness, temperence. It is true the Bible says women should adorn themselves with modest apparel, "not with braided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array." Could it be that those things were considered immodest in those days? The Bible also says, on the best of authority, our Lord, himself, "Let him who is without sin among you cast the first stone." Mrs. W.

A. Nelson, Brajron, la. WILLING TO LET GERMANS STARVE To the Open Forum Editor: In reply to the letter of Mrs. Helen Brammer, Open Forum, July 13, I thoroughly agree with her that there are people who would like to see the German people starve to death. Tell her to ask people who saw their women and children killed, maimed and tortured by the Germans, people who saw their homes reduced to rubble in seconds by U.

S. bombs and rockets, people who are half starved, two years after peace because of the Germans. They are not sympathetic toward the "terrible suffering" of the Germans. Many countries which suffered at their hands are going short of food to feed them now. It is easy to have sympathy for the Germans when you lived out the war over 3,000 miles from them and their devilish practices, not so easy when you lived only 30 miles from them.

It is time the German people were made to realize that starting war is not a paying game and if starvation is the only way they can learn, I say let them learn the hard way and maybe we can have peace in our time. No doubt there are many pro-Germans in this country and others, but there are also those of us who still remember with horror Lidice, Belsen and the "blitz." Mrs. Marie J. Stacy, 814 First N.W., Hampton, la. WORSE PICTURES.

To the Open Forum Editor: I'll send my idea of the Germans starving. The picture of the little girl in your paper a while back was bad but my son has pictures he brought back from Germany, and she still has a long way to go to look like those pictures in German prison camps. If the youngsters in the first war had not grown up, for sure the second would not have been. We lost a brother in the first war, a son in the second. Mrs.

Brammer is right when she says some would like to see the Germans starve. Agnes Elliott, Norway, la. NEEDY AT HOME. To the Open Forum Editor: I am opposed to building up any and all countries who so willingly went along with the super race to destroy the U.S.A. and it3 way of life.

Did they consider the starving, the freezing, the feeble ones they wantonly destroyed? No. Here in the U.S.A. and in Iowa we have the aged ones who need aid. Some of them are living under conditions worse than the refugees of Europe. Nell Geiselhart, R.F.D.

No. 2, Grimes, la. LABOR AND TAXES. To the Oren Forum Erlitor: I quite agree with all Mr. T.H.J.

McDonnell, Open Forum, July 13, had to say in regard to labor leaders and high taxes. He puts the responsibility for thi3 on the Democrats. If thi3 is true, I would like to have him explain why Iowa, which has been a Republican playground for 50 years, is the highest taxed state in the union and why all taxes were raised by the last legislature J. W. Barry, Hampton, la.

Writer Says He's Started a New School. To tt Cj Forum Edltcr: It's no wonder the American public has been seeing flying disks. If people can stretch their imagination to the point where they believe the Bummer exhibition cf art at the State University cf Iowa is art in any form then surely they can believe anything. If, as Dr. Longman points out, it is true these smeared canvasses represent what is being painted today, he will be tremendously excited to learn that in my provincial environment, can offer him the acme in cosmopolitan paintings.

I do it with my foot ar.d I have witnesses to attost that my foot has had no previous training. I have started a new school. I call It And my greatest masterpiece, I have named "Parisian It reaches beyond the finite in a daring adventure of bizrirre colors ar.d grotesque lines. Shall I bring it to the exhibit Paul A. Veish3pI.

129 N. Frederick. la. Paintings Called Trash To Optn Forum Editor: I have taken a good look at the paintings shown on the first page of the colored section of the July 13 Sunday Register. It is well that it tells under each painting what the artist has tried to portray.

Else one would never know. It seems incredible that taxpayers' money would be. spent to purchase this sort of trash for the university. And I do mean trash. Any grade school pupil who couldn't do better than the two paintings on the lower half of the page would probably be flunked by his teacher.

Or, don't I appreciate art? Edd Wish-man, Kuthven, la. 'Worthless Mess Of StufP To Open Forum Editor: Why do the newspapers waste perfectly good paper in printing the worthless mess of stuff that appears in most of them now days? Our grocery stores can't get paper sacks and wrapping paper, or bathroom paper. Yet these trashy things come out every week. I was Just now looking at the colored section of The Sunday Register. "State University Presents Its Third Summer Art Exhibit" on the front page.

Oh Night mares, you No sane, sober person ever conceived and painted such atrocities. Yet you use precious paper to reproduce them, when we housewives have to carry home half of our groceries unwrapped. The-e are "funny" books printed fa'h by the billions for our esters to peruse, which only add the already prevalent gangster 1 they possess. No wonder our children are so many delinquents. Oh, yes.

I'm an old fashioned person who believes a Sunday School paper preferable to all that mess of gangster Helen S. Olerman, 407 Ninth Charles City, la. Reading of a Book On Art Suggested Tc Crr. Forum Editor: I wish to thank the writer of the rditonaj in the July 13 Sunday Register, whith interested me no end. It was titled.

"The Summer Art Shows ir. Iowa City." I wish to congratulate the person tvhn wrote it for his forbearance and also to thank him for showing some people how to look at these modern classics in art exhibits. The four selections em to our unconverted to modern art methods, or schools, or what have you, just too crazy for words. If the painters were trying to express an idea one wonders what ailed them. Ha! Ha! Anyway, I wish to offer to the editorial writer a suggestion which I believe he may enjoy carrying through.

It is the reading of a very rare book (I imagine) 5n the Art library on Locust street. The title is, "Twilight cf an analysis of recent trends to serve in a period of reconstruction, by R. H. Ives Gammel, published by G. P.

Putman'a Sons. The bock is dedicated thus: "To the painter, born or unborn, who shall lift the art of painting from the low estate to which it has fallen, this book is dedicated." It i3 profusely illustrated at the end in "2 plates, and referred to by number throughout. It is not long, but filled with readable, understandable descriptions and quotations. I feel sure the writer of that editorial will enjoy it. It is rented through the Art department and ita data num- Total Men Women Bill not workable 30 33 27 Unfair to working man .20 20 21 Limits and controls labor 17 17 16 Averted strikes ..1 1 2 Political Influence 10 2 Not strong enough 10 1 Miscellaneous ...10 12 7 Indefinite 20 17 24 Recent findings by THE IOWA POLL showed that about six out of 10 who paid attention to the veto felt he was wrong.

Mr. Truman's veto was later overridden by congress. On June 16 President Truman vetoed the first income tax rcduc tion bill. A majority who paid at tention to this veto thought he was right in refusing to sign the bill. Since then he has vetoed a second income tax bill, which differed from the first one only in that it would have become effective Jan.

1, 198, instead of July 1, 1947. The house sustained the first veto and the senate the second. Iowa's eight representatives and two senators voted to override the president's veto of the labor bill. A majority of Iowans with opinions approved this. Filibuster.

A similar majority thought the senate filibuster over the labor bill was wrong. On June 20, both President Truman and Senator Robert Taft Ohio) spoke about the labor bill over the radio. Among Iowans, Mr. Truman's speech drew the attention of about half of Iowans interviewed. Taft's speech drew the attention of less than one-third.

The Questions. Field reporters for The Iowa Poll asked a representative cross-section of Iowans the following question: "Considering the welfare of the country, do you feel President Truman teas right or wrong in vetoing (refusing to sign) the bill to control labor unions, or didn't you pay any attention to it?" To'al Union Non-TJn. Mem. 48 28 15 9 Town Mem. JO 42 19 15 Farm 19 43 24 14 Right ....28 Wrong 10 No attention 1 No opinion It Ry residence: City Right 34 Wrong 38 No attention .15 No opinion .13 Iowans who said wrong were then asked: 1 37 20 16 Truman was "Why do you, fed.

President Truman Has wrong in refusing to the bill to control labor Total Women Unions need some control fi3 Political influence .13 Congress expressed will of the count ry 6 B2" 13 14 8 Restricts free enterprise 1 1 0 Don't know 1 1 0 Miscellaneous .3 3 3 Indefinite 13 16 9 A housewife from Dubuque commented: "Bill is too hard on labor. Labor should have some rights, too." Iowa's reaction to the senate filibuster is revealed through the following: "After President Truman vetoed the bill to control labor unions, some senators started a filibuster. Do you, feel that this filibuster jvas right or wrong, or didn't you pay any attention to it?" Non-Union Union Total Mem. Mem. Right 12 20 10 Wrong 48 40 50 No attention 31 34 31 No opinion 9 6 9 The Iowa Toll's last question read: "Do you approve or disapprove of our loica congress- me) and senators voting to override President Truman's veto of the bill to control labor unions?" Total Men Women Approve 48 53 44 Disapprove 26 28 23 Undecided 26 19 S3 About half of Iowa'3 labor union members interviewed disapproved of Iowa's congressmen and senators voting to override the veto.

About one-third approved. no man's mind can possibly He wholly at the disposition of another, for no one can willingly transfer his natural right of free reason and judgment, or be compelled so to do." SPINOZA..