The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1931-10-19
FORUM THRONC
CHEERS WORDS
OF YOUNG bob
Wisconsin Senator Cracks
Whip as He Fails
Exorbitant Rates.
HITS FEDERAL POLICY
Tells KirShbaum Crowd
U. S. Treasury Should
Help With Poor Aid.

Slashing into the ranks Of the
private utility owners with de-
vastating array of figures and sta
tistics, Senator Robert M. La Fol-
lette Jr. of Wisconsin opened the
indianapolis open forum season ct
Kirshbaum center Sunday night be-
fore a record forum throng.
-Four giant companies control 95
per cent of the power consumed in
the United States" said La Toilette.
"And these companies have create>
a perfect maze of holding COM
panies, super holding companies
and super-super holding companies.
Even the experts are unable to trace
these holding firms to their rlghtful
owners"
The forum crowd burst into cheers
as La Toilette waved his fist and
cried:
Let Us have direct municipal and
federal competition with these util-
titles. Let us open Muscle Shoals
and demonstrate to the nation
Just how cheaply power can be
manufactured"
Has Crowd With Him
"In the city of Tacoma, Wash" "
continued the senator, housewives
get an hour of cooking for one mill
-one-tenth of a cent-from the
publicly operated utility there. How
would you housewives like that?"
Publicly owned utilities in Wis
consin charge 215 cents a kilowatt
hour for power. Private interests
charge 6 and cents an hour"
Speaking on What DO the Pro-
gressives Want?" the nations
youngest senator quite evidently
had the crowd with him" from the
start of his lecture.
Assails Tariff Bill
lone of the contributing factors
to the depression" cried La Toilette,
els the Hawley- Smooth tariff mon
strosity-the greatest legislative
blunder of its kind
He declared that the Progressives
stood for the shorter hour day and
the shorter work week and the
matching of federal dollar for
municipal and state dollar in poor
relief.
"The nations leaders," he said
ironically, declare that a federal
dole would break down the rugged
individualism of America. A dole
what is it that we have if it isn't
dole from municipal, county and
state treasures?
Il can not see one iota of differ
ence in a dollar coming from the
federal treasury and dollar COM
ing from the treasury of the city
of Indianapolis. The only differ
ence is that in Indianapolis the
money comes out of the pocket OF
the home owner and the taxpayer.
Crisis Second Only to War
From the government it would
come from higher taxed big bust
ness"
THE Progressives are utterly
against the policy of standing by
with out hands by our side while
our American standard of living,
built up in a fight of forty years, is
broken down by this depression.
The government has the power
to act in this crisis-this crisis sec
only only to war time emergency"
La Toilette blamed the present
crisis, "the worst since the Civil
war" on heedlessness Of the Hard
ing and Coolidge conservative adj
ministrationS to halt the pulling of
the publics credit from the indus
tries and the farms to the specula-
tive stock market, when a downfall
of this system was inevitable"
SIaps Factory Operations
Industry must be stabilized, said
the senator, and declared that the
Progressives favor the creation of
national economic staff with the
power to go into every industry and
factory in the country and obtain
the necessary information to reg
ulate the ebb and flow of manu-
featuring so that there need never
be further depression.
"There must be an end to the type
of industrial operation which per-
mits a plant to operate day and
night for ninety days and then close
down for four months" La Toilette
asserted.
THE ProgressiveS," he continued.
"demand unemployment insurance.
Why should not the man and
woman who labors faithfully for an
industry have a reserve to meet
these needs when their working days
are done?"
Want Control Initiation
The final point on the Progressive
platform, he said, is for a nation
wide public works program to be
financed by public bonds sold not
on the public market, but to the
federal reserve system which would
be directed by law to issue notes
against the bonds to be taken up as
business picks up.
He declared this to be control
imitation"
The speech marked the, opening
of the Open Forums sixth season.
1t is sponsored by the Jewish Com
munity Center Association.
CONGRESSMAN IS DEAD