The Brooklyn Daily Eagle from Brooklyn, New York • Page 10

NATIONAl WHIRLIGIG BROOKLYN EAGLE, THURSDAY, JAN. 22, 1 942 10 Kings Co. Probation Service Should Be Given Square Deal RAY TUCKER'S LETTER FROM WASHINGTON Almost every form of food that makes up the ample United States diet will undergo strict rationing within a year. The only exception, to enforced regimentation of our eating habits will be wheat, fresh meats, locally grown vegetables and fruits. The war's impact upon world economy has destroyed Roosevelt-Wal- lace-Wickard dreams that our people would never suffer table shortages.

Japan's Far Eastern conquests will empty our pantries of tea, cocoa, spices and siphon off vast supplies of oils and fats imported from they may be somewhat more difficult to handle. Certainly they deserve nothing less than their more fortunate brethren across the East River. Yet, aside from the difference In salary paid to the head men in the respective bureaus, further discrimination is seen in the fact that Brooklyn can spend only $80 per probationer to Manhattan's $125. This, of course, Is stupid. If any excuse ever existed for such a difference, it ended when Mr.

FitzGerald put Brooklyn's probation house in order. In Judge Leibowitz's language this borough must not continue to be the victim of "an outrageous condition that Is prevalent only in Brooklyn because we are regarded as the stepchild of the City of New York." The pica for an increased budget for the probation service in the Kings County Court deserves sympathetic consideration by the city administration. Judges John J. Fitzgerald and Samuel S. Leibowitz, with Chief Probation Officer Edmond FitzGerald, have laid the facts upon the de.sk of Budget Director Kenneth Dayton.

Mr. FitzGerald, heading a department which only a year and a half ago was a disgrace to the name of the borough, has brought order out of the chaos which reigned when he took over. Yet he now gets a salary of S5.500 while in Manhattan the same job pays $8,500. Brooklyn's criminals are no easier to deal with than Manhattan's. If anything, from long neglect in the past, that region.

Our greatly expanded naval and military establishments will need ed quantities of canned meats, fish, vegetables, fruits. The British Isles must depend upon us for dairy and poultry products, meats, sugar, fruit juices, vitamin articles. Russia has Just ordered tremendous stores of oils, lards, fats, sugar, canned stuff, pork. Otherwise famine will stalk through the land of the Soviet. Our territories and possessions will look to us to satisfy their stomachs as well as feed their guns.

Our AAA-ers never envisaged these nrnhlems H'hpn nnlv a four mnnthe S'j Ma our approach by sea to the Canal will be cut off, it is well to be on the safe side. And after the war the road will be a marvelous inducement to increased tourist travel south of the border. they assured us that the 1933-1941 agricultural program had been designed to meet all requirements of der Tag. The farmer faces as fierce a job as the industrialists who must darken the skies with planes and build enough tanks to shake the earth. He must overcome the same sort of obstacles.

His labor too has become scarce and costly. He cannot obtain machinery and implements. But it is up to him to make the United States the world's grocery store or else The Cabinet was warned at a recent session that the United States dollar will soon buy only 70 cents' worth of goods unless the stratospheric rise in the cost of living Is checked abruptly. The Chief Executive listened with a solemn face to reports from his statisticians that continued inflationary impulses would mean disaster to millions of our people. The increase in the price of all items has amounted to 11 percent since the outbreak of CAN HE HOLD TILL HELP COMES? Muddled Thinking on Taxes A very sensible and financially sound position was taken the other day by Representative Doughton of North Carolina, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, when he urged States and municipalities to consider reducing their tax levies.

As he so well pointed out, this would help individuals to bear the heavier burdens of new Federal taxes to help finance the war program. As a matter of fact Governor Lehman had already taken such a position when he urged in his annual message that this State's expenses be cut and taxes reduced. It is therefore quite confusing to read that "Administration fiscal advisors" at Washington are opposing Chairman Doughton's proposal in so far as the taxes are concerned because of fears that such reductions would have an inflationary effect. This is one of the most amazing examples of muddled thinking we have seen. A Deserved Honor It would be difficult to And a Brook-lynite more deserving of public recognition than Henry J.

Davenport, presW dent of the Home Title Guaranty Company and of the Downtown Brooklyn Association, in whose honor the Flat-bush Real Estate Board is giving a dinner in the Towers Hotel on January 29, In business, civic affairs, charity, the list of his activities is a long one, and it is a pleasure to see that his sincere and active devotion to his community is being recognized. If the borough possessed more men of his stamp it would progress at a much faster rate. HEFFERNAN says LETTERS TO THE EAGLE terreri must bear signature! and addresses ef writers but pen names will be permitted at the discretion of the editor, who reserves the right to cut them down to meet requirements of spoce. must be penetrated by falling shrapnel before the roof-boards are reached. They and the rafters are, on account of the weight they sup New York Needs a Full-Time Mayor Military Training in Schools A bill for compulsory military training for high school boys over 14 to be presented in Albany with the approval of New York City school authorities might at any other time be expected to kick up a strongly unfavorable reaction.

But these are not ordinary times and we no longer feel that we are safe as long as we mind our own business. There may come a time when we can safely revert to our old ways of thinking but that time certainly is not yet. Until it comes, we must do a lot of things we don't like to do, among them training our young men to become soldiers. To make them the best possible soldiers they need the best training and plenty of it. The training the high school boys would get under the bill would not be onerous or too much for them but would acquaint them with close order drill, the manual of arms and the like, help them acquire the habit of military discipline and ground them in the fundamentals so that, if they were called into service later, they would enter with some knowledge of what is expected of them.

Needed Traffic Divider It Is good news for motorists that work is about to begin on the construction of a traffic divider a concrete mid-roadway curbing along seven miles of Interborough Parkway and Grand Central Parkway from the Brooklyn-Queens line east to the Nassau County line. Such an improvement has already been made in the portion of the Interborough Parkway lying in Brooklyn and its continuance through Queens should help to reduce accidents particularly sidewiping between vehicles going in opposite directions on this narrow, much-traveled section of parkway. 2cui LaGuardio Urged to Apply Tammany Methods to Retain S-Cent Fare To the Editor of the Brooklyn Eagle: Preserve the 5-oent fare! Keep it safe for the working people of the City of New York. Well may the Committee of Fifteen, of representatives, of business.real estate and Industrial groups, who introduced the bill In the State Legislature to raise the fare argue of the deficit sustained by the transportation system, of the benefit accrued to visiting out-of-town-ers, etc. The fact remains that the millions of the poor, working, tax-paying New Yorkers are greatly benefited by this low fare.

It. would lay heavily on their necks if it should be raised to 10 cents or thereabouts while the real estate men would profit. For years Tammany Hall used the 5-cent fare as a political issue, promising its safety. Why can't the more efficient, progressive La-Guardia administration step into the breach now and use the same methods covering the deficit through its income elsewhere and save the 5-cent fare. LOUIS M.

GOREN. Brooklyn, Jan. 18. port, much heavier than ours. So when one reads of "the patter of falling shrapnel" on the London roofs one must remember what those) roofs are I What do we have throughout all our suburbs? Slabs of thin tarry material through which a pencil could be poked or sheets of tarred cloth, laid over thin boards supported on flimsy rafters.

Would falling shrapnel patter on our roofs. It would notl We would be lucky if it was stayed before reaching the ground floor of a two-family house, and the larger fragments of shell and nose-caps would mast assuredly patter on our basement floors! Until public shelters are built, all household- ers should be encouraged to erect in their basements a secondary ceiling of about six feet by eight feet composed of heavy 2x10 boards supported by four by fours and to screen the sides with sandbags as protection against splinters and flying debris. Neither this nor any other structure erected by a private citizen would be bomb-proof, but It would stop the falling shrapnel and afford protection even if the house was damaged by concussion. I may seem to be over-emphasizing the danger of shrapnel; but it and I were in very close contact night and day for three years and I know what I'm talking about. Brooklyn, Jan.

16. J. GUNN SEVILLE. The Road to Panama Until the completion of our two-ocean Navy, the Panama Canal is the obvious key to our naval strategy and absolutely nothing must go undone to insure its safety. For that reason we are pleased to note that arrangements have been made by our Government to lend $20,000,000 to the five Central American republics to hasten completion of their sections of the Pan-American Highway.

The road will provide a land route to the Canal. Although we have no reason to suppose war in September, 1939, according to the.se memos. But the skyrocketing of the cost of things which the ordinary family buys has been even more pyrotechnic. Food levels have climbed 14 percent. House furnishings are up 18 percent.

The advance in clothing has been 14 5 percent. It is estimated that artificially swollen values nicked every one's pocketbook for at least $5,000,000,000 extra in 1941. The upward trend will be even steeper in the current year and in 1943. It was after this lesson in elementary economics that F. D.

R. wrote his warning to Congress against the Bankhead and O'Mahoney amendments to the Price Control Bill. The President's advisers talked politics as well as economics. They pointed out that the dislocation was due solely to the combination of increasing purchasing power and a relatively smaller stock of goods on the shelves. The Federal Government, through its war expenditures and restrictions on production of consumers' goods, is responsible for this unbalance.

And when the voters flock to the polls next November, they will not be satisfied with the ballot-box explanation that the fellow at. fault is a chap named Hitler. He will not be running for office. Mrs. Roosevelt was discussing the simple liv.

lng of her girlhood days with several old friends. "You know." she remarked, "I was qufte a grownup girl before I ever got as far as five miles from my home." "Well," remarked a listener with a dry sense of humor, "you have certainly marie up for it since then." OLD CRANKMIRE PLEADS By EDGAR A. Gl'EST "We've had it rather easy," said Old Crgnk- mire, "year by year. Now it's time to prove our mettle lest, our flag disappear. They have struck at us who hate us and our children would enslave.

Now at any post we're offered we must prove that we are "We've had years of easy going, we've been double-blessed with luck So let's show that we deserve it with a fine display of pluck. We've had Joys denied to others, cars and radios for all. These have been the gifts of freedom, now shall freedom's aliars fall? "We've been singing down the ages, ours the home land of the brave, Now it's up to us to prove it, if our land we hope to save. For our flag will gleam the brighter when at last the war Is won For the hardship and the heartache and the will to carry on." Mussolini has ordered Italian newspapers to be cut to four pages in size. It is believed that this allow enough space to carry complete reports of Italian victories.

Advises Precautionary Measures in Homes Against Shrapnel Danger To lh Editor the Brooklyn Eagle: We in Brooklyn are living in a Fool's Paradise and inviting disaster which, in loss of life, may cause Pearl Harbor to fade into insignifi-ca nee. From every side we are cautioned that when an air raid comes we must get under cover. Under cover of what? Outside of the shopping and manufacturing centers there is cover! All our theories of raid precautions are based tin the experiences of London and the larger English cities; but we have completely ignored one important factor that is entirely missing in our country. Throughout London and in all English towns the roofs are covered with slates. These overlap so that at least one inch of stone Mayor LaGuardia's failure to make a choice between the office to which he was elected In November and the Civilian Defense directorship is disappointing to those who are far more interested in the successful prosecution of the war effort than in the political fortunes of Mr.

LaGuardia himself. Nevertheless while he retains the authority vested in him by the national Government, some of the things of which he complains are not only in poor taste but are dangerous. One might easily let his sense of humor get the better of sound judgment over some of the features of Mr. LaGuardia's national effort, but even if that were in conformity with the present situation, it does harm not only to the national cause but to a great body of earnest and active men and women who are enrolled In civilian defense work. The parody on civilian defense instructions circulated in some sections of the city is no longer appropriate.

It happens that there are men and women who during the bitter Winter days and nights have been doing arduous patrol work and suffering from the chill of a hard cold wave while the rest of us were enjoying the comfort of our homes. It happens that there are school principals and school teachers who are growing gray over the problem of proper protection for the great school population of a city like New York. It happens that should we get anything like the hammering London got something whirh Is by no means likely our problem would be far more serious than that of the British metropolis. More serious because we are a city of great skyscraping apartment houses, for Instance. More troublesome because necessary 'regulations might interfere seriously with the war work in our factories.

The Mayor has said and said very sensibly, that this is a peril which is remote. He has a right to expect that we shall seriously accept certain responsibilities however, and keep in the back of our minds the fact that in this war some of the most fantastic dreams have assumed the grim and terrifying forms of reality. It is quite probable that the circular was the output of some ironically facetious person, who made a reductio ad absurdum of real dangers Inherent in the fact that the Mayor tenaciously clings to the two important Jobs, In either of which his energy might be valuable to his city and nation. For the Mayor of New York there will be ample opportunity to be of service. We shall need hospitalization for the wounded, and New York did its full duty in the last war In this respect.

We shall need active and adequate real police work. We shall need preparation in the sanitation and public works departments, for evert if no bomber ever appears over New York City, one of the submarines now operating off our shores might land a group of saboteurs on the Long Island coast which could do very serious harm to our water supply and sewer system. Guarding against the effects of such activities Is the Mayor's job particularly. New York need a full-time Mayor. In Defense of 'Pennsylvania Dutch' To 'he Editor ot the Brooklyn Eagle: The letter registering resentment of the use of the term 'Pennsylvania Dutch" doesn't have a very fair spirit.

too, am a descendant of one of the old Knickerbocker families on my mother's side and from the English on my father's side, so my defense of the "Pennsylvania Dutch" is not because I am pro this or pro that. They are a fine, upright, peaceable, industrious people. After this long period of time they are Americans, and whether they are called Dutch or German doesn't matter. So long as Pennsylvania is left, on their cognomen, we will be satisfied, for Pennsylvania is proud of them. M.

I. ELLSON. Drexrl Hill, Pa Jan. 14. GRIN AND BEAR IT A FACT A DAY ABOUT BROOKLYN "South." Brooklyn's oldest surviving telephone central office name, has been in uninterrupted use for fifty-live, years this month.

It continues in service the same general area, nest ot Prospect. Park, in which it began its telephone career in January, 1SX7. The on'y name of the kind ever used for telephone purposes in. Kew York City, it was chosen probably because the section was generally referred to as South. Brooklyn.

Known since 1930 as "SOuth this designation now applies to about 9,400 telephones, served from a full-size dial central office in the telephone building at 335 14th Street. But when South was "born," it could serve only about 170 lines and occupied part, of a store at ,5.59 Sth Avenue. The. switchboard was of the viagneln type, requiring telephone, users to turn a crank to signal the operator. 25 YEARS AGO IN BROOKLYN January 12.

1917 Edward Ba.ssett. member of the Brooklyn Committee on City Plan, explained that the confirmation of the report of the condemnation commissioners to widen to 100 feet the section of Kings Highway between Ocean and Flatbuyh Avenues, was being withheld because It would interfere with the plan to make Kings Highway a MO-foot boulevard for its entire length. By Lichty BROOKLYN EAGLE ITrade Murk Eairle Registered! (Pounded by Isaac Van Anden In 1811 THE BROOKLYN DAILY EAOLE PRANK D. 8CHR0TH. President and W.

CROWELL. Secretary and Treasurer E8le Buildmit. Johnson and Adami Street. Brooklyn, New York TELEPHONE MAIn 4-B200 Mbrnpiinn rale by mall for the Brooklyn In ihe tinned Slatea. one year.

Ill (10 Entered at the Brooklyn Pnsloffice as Second Ciao Mall Malter Thousands were turned away from the Civic. Forum lecture where Count Ilia Tolstoy spoke, on the life of his father, the Russian "Hr ust won't do his geography lessons he keeps soying 'Why don't we ut sit tight, Miss Jones, and see what happens'.