Indianapolis Times, Volume 40, Number 244, Indianapolis, Marion County, 1 March 1929 — Page 7
MARCH 1,1929.
RECORD JUMP WINS HONORS FOR WAR HERO Twelve-Foot Leap Lands Sergeant Congressional Medal. Bit Ttmeg Special LOS ANGELES, March I.—Maybe you’ve never heard of Louis Van lersel. Possibly you recall him as one of the handful of men who won the highest American recognition of heroism, the congressional medal of honor, in the late war. But it’s hardly likely you ever heard of him as world’s champion broad jumper, because that’s what this story is about. It was Louis’ broad jump of twelve feet that landed his congressional medal, but since the terse language of the citation doesn’t mention it, that sterling athletic feat has remained buried until now, ten years after, when the mild little DutchAmerican has revealed the details for publication in the March issue of McClure’s magazine. If you don’t believe twelve feet constitutes a broad jump record, try it at night some time from a position clinging to a post with an icy river raging under you, machine guns shredding the air around you and the nearest land twelve feet away. He was Sergeant Van lersel, then, leading a reconoitering party at Mouzon, France, on the black night 9, 1918. Across the Meuse the enemy held a village, commanding the only bridge with machine guns. Louis’ job was to cross, find
Land Grants
The expenditure of public funds to build canals and improve rivers for navigation is often compared to the land grants that were made by the government to aid the construction of some pioneer railroads. The fact is tjmt such expenditures and land grants are different in several important particulars. Take the grant of land in Illinois to the original Illinois Central Railroad. It was the first of the federal land grants for railroads. There is no question of the substantial help which the Illinois Central Railroad derived from this grant. Without such help the road could not have been built at the time it was built, in advance of the settlement of interior Illinois. Yet the government gave away nothing of value, for there was no one to buy the land until the railroad provided a reliable means of transportation. On the other hand, the government received something of great value. The building of the Illinois Central Railroad enabled the government to sell at advanced prices the land it had retail M and thereby recoup immediately tlu full t "ice of the entire land grant. Moreover, taxable property was permanently created, the Illiuois Central obligated itself forever to carry mail, troops and other government traffic at reduced rates, and a special tax was levied upon behalf of the state of Illinois which is still being regularly collected after more than seventy years. Government expenditures on inland waterways are different. They are valuable at the time they are made, the beneficiaries give nothing for them, and where the government itself goes into the transportation business there is no increase in taxable property values. Government assistance to inland waterways truly comparable to the Illinois Central land grant would be the donation of stretches of unimproved streams and adjacent worthless land, the recipients to make all improvements themselves, pay special taxes and handle government traffic at reduced rates. Constructive criticism and suggestions are invited. L. A. DOWNS, President, Illinois Central System CHICAGO, March 1,1929.
Come Home! Bu United Presr WASHINGTON, March I. Charles Otto Schubert, left his wife in Doylestown, Pa., in 1905 to purchase a lot in a nearby town. He never returned. Thursday night she asked police to seek him because she was no longer able to earn her living making embroidery.
the position oi those machine guns and report back. But the order did not take into consideration the fact that the bridge would be blown away before he reached it. Finding only wreckage where the bridge had stood, Louis left his six men behind, crawled out among the splintered boards, stepped on a board which the foe had wired to sound an alarm. Immediately the air was ripped with bullets. But plunging into the water, the little sergeant swarr the gap—and found that he had crawled ashore immediately under the machine gun nests. For a half hour he lay listening, noting the position, until he heard a gutteral order for a barrage which would wipe out the American position. He had to get back to give the warning. He crawled forward on the slipping, teetering wreckaie to its end, made a fifteen foot dive that brought him up clinging to the post in the darkness. And just then a flare went up—showing Louis gripping his post with the American bank twelve f ' l ct away. A machine gun hail rent the air around aim as he jumped. His uniform was seared in a dozen places by bullets, but he made the leap, dashed for headquarters, reported the oncoming barrage and collapsed. Los Angeles favorite hero, three times wounded, lives now on the city’s outskirts, raises chickens and works with a city crew of surveyors.
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THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES
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