Indianapolis Times, Volume 44, Number 106, Indianapolis, Marion County, 12 September 1932 — Page 2

PAGE 2

SULLIVAN SEES PERIL TO CITY IN BUDGET CUT Necessary Services to Be Curtailed If Further Slashes Come. Thi* 1* th* first of flv* storle*. tlarlfvine Important provision* of th* n*w fit? budget now ponding before officials. BY JAMES A. CARVIN’ Further reduction of the 1933 city budget will endanger seriously the proper operation of local government, Mapor Reginald H Sullivan said today, as representatives -of civic organizations prepared to demand a lower tax levy, at a special city council meeting tonight. Representatives of tax relief organizations last week announced they would appear before the council to urge greater slashes in departmental appropriations and to protest against the $1,319 levy created by anticipated expenses for 1933. Closing of numerous parks and playground, less frequent garbage and refuse collections, and elimination of many public health agencies would be necessary if requested appropriations of these departments are refused, Sullivan asserted.

Every Item Cheeked ‘ Every item in the 1933 budget was scrutinized carefully by the controller's office and myself, representatives of civic organizations, and heads of departments under discussion,” Sullivan said. "Recommendations agreed upon by representatives of the Indiana Taxpayers Association, Chamber of Commerce, and the Indiana Association for Tax Justice were incorporated in the budget reductions,” Sullivan pointed out that the amount of money to be raised by the $1,319 tax levy is $284,388.74 less than the amount derived from the 1932 levy of SI.OB. A reduction of more than $121,000,000 in the assessed valuation of Indianapolis property, and increased delinquency expectation of 6 per cent instead of 2 per cent, were cited by Sullivan as reasons for the levy increase. Tax Money Decreases “It is the opinion of this administration that the proper function of government is to serve the people by providing adequate and competent operation of all departments,” Sullivan said. “Unless sufficient funds are allowed, these functions must be curtailed. ‘ Sinpe 1930, the beginning of this administration, the amount of money raised by tax levy has decreased $600,032.02, comparing the 1930 and 1933 budgets,” Sullivan asserted. “This decrease was made despite the fact that it now is necessary to support institutions projected by previous administrations. “Anew unit has been built and is maintained at city hospital, the municipal airport has been established and the police radio system installed. These and all other public improvements, including more than $9,000,000 worth of park board property, must be maintained, else the loss in depreciated value will offset my many thousands of dollars any economy of the present. Health Work Needed “Operation of city hospital, public health work in schools and clinics, collection cf garbage and refuse, repair of streets, and provision for competent legal counsel to defend the city, all are public functions which benefit the people directly. “There are several minor departments, such as the department of weights and measures, which repay indirectly each year many limes their cost of operation. Even the dog pound pays several thousand dollars yearly into the general fund from sale of dogs for pets. “It requires money to operate a city government and we must, have it if the citizens expect the government to continue functioning. ’

Next—The new budget effect on park board holdings. W. B. RUEBY IS DEAD Real Estate Dealer Had Been 111 for Last Two Months. Woolford B. Rueby, 55. local real estate dealer, died Sunday in his home, 1728 North Delaware street. Hp had been 111 two months. He was in the real estate business hpre almost twenty years. The funeral is planned Wednesday afternoon in Flaanner <fc Buchanan mortuary', followed by burial in Crown Hill cemetery. DRY DRIVE IS LAUNCHED Allied Forres for Prohibition Begin Lake County Campaign. Bu Pniled Pm* HAMMOND. Ind., Sept. 12. Pledged to make Lake county “the dryest place in the country." a unit of the Allied Forces for Prohibition was formed here. A candidate for congress from the First district and a county ticket were being considered by the group. DAHLIAS TO BE SHOWN Annual State Show Will Be .Held Saturday, Sunday at Farground. The Dahlia Society of Indiana will exhibit thousands of the blossoms Saturday and Sunday in the Indiana university building at the state fairground. The annual meeting and dinner of the society will be held at 5:30 p. m. in the Carrollton Avenue Reformed church. E. C, CRAWFORD~DEAD Real Estate and Insurance Agent Succumbs After Long Illness. Long illness resulted in the death Saturday of Emory C. Crawford, 52, real estate and insurance agent,' in city hospital. Funeral services will be held at 2 Tuesday In Speaks undertaking establishment, 3859 College avenue. Burial will be in Crown Hill cemetery. Ransacks; Steals Only a Drink Maybe tht thief who ransacked the Lubritt Oil station, 4716 East Eleventh atreet, Sunday, was thirsty. Howard Rogers, manager, aaid only a bottle of Coca-Cola was

50 YEARS OF WEBER & FIELDS

Saloon Antics Gave Them Inspiration for First Acts

ji|| f ■ B tn (hr -Mer makeup thf" made PI Frueh. Y.YISIBP 1 ®* 1 " k “That's our song.” he said. “You mm can': use it in this theater." ; flp'Y-i "So. of course,” says Weber, H £. "they were better stars than us, , y, •v-tiy. pi / - * .so they got the song." 1 Without their music. Weber and A Fields were licked in the dance - and paprt tearing ' Thcn came they are today. said, and which one said it first is * we'oer and Fields, who were * *v : *■>' <■ take tyose old blackface gags, :< was Rfv Tx •T'vs'wPher'.' -But* 11 was the roal beginning of lerer had it. a Rniden jubilee. And pJr * Weber and/Fields, and since, as er is ironung 10 ns, v>e wants g^r' f '■- ’ *|| %.< nearly as they can remember, it. Y, M**, f < %h' Fkl took place fifty years ago. they * atm./ru: - 8 MKh an orrasion. the J>. ** “-f'Fti arp celebrating their jubilee on partners na’nralK are r<*mimr*nt. it . iLXju Sept. 25. a senes of artir;s mA J tieh- |g||( tßKmg|M|ra|^ iL M f aa a •n's some c.f ni remmisence. HSn 4 "P'B US . al S VJ ‘Wearing of the Green. ” p.V v .f iII 111 i\(, Y Joe exjoined tin- orchestra leader, limes staff Writer ' "Slid then Stop." ( ~ ,ri-l:rJ.°r k Wnrlll ~ /v / now immortal characters. Mike ~ r,r-n 'Weben and Myer <Fields'. howi- / FHF.H the shachet. oreu- ojMMi =■ .■~aJ9IiWaWMiaWMBBgM3B!UWKBIBBmITriif n K anc ‘ gesticulating kens and raising children ac- “Der disgust is all mine." thunto 'mmm dnt,'d Fields, ion, a German Jew, kept a WKg Their roles, on stage- at least, r\>- rvrv tho fa rQf flrvnr • 4. i;/. 4- r.

Joe Wpber ( seated) and Lew Fields as they are today. Joe Weber and Lew Fields, who were a team when the Bowery was a Ray theater street, will celebrate their golden jubilee as a team with a banquet at the Hotel Astor, New York, on the night of Sept. 25. "Not that we was together fifty years yet, it was fifty-six,” says Weber. "But we never had it a golden jubilee. And whatever it is coming to us, we wants it.” In approaching such an occasion, the two partners naturally are reminiscent, and a series of articles by A. J. Liebltng, of w-hich the following is the first presents some of the reminisence. BY A. J. LIEBLING Times Staff Writer (Copyright, 1832, by the New York World Telegram Corporation) WEBER, the shachet, occupied the basement of No. 10 Essex street in 1876, killing chickens and raising children according to Divine instructions. Simon, a German Jew', kept a saloon on the first floor. ' Whether Simon was a first or last name the heroes of this picaresque do not recollect—the saloon was known as Simon’s place and Simon was a short, bullnecked fellow, always in his shirt sleeves, a great talker and really not a bad guy. When it was almost time for the shachet, his wife and the senior progeny to return from synagog Saturday, Joe Weber, the eleventh and youngest, would carefully replace the featherbeds upon w'hich he and Lew Schanfield had been rehearsing acrobatics. Joe and Lew—they had exactly eighteen years, evenly divided between them—would sneak through the family entrance of Simon's place and crouch in a far corner of the little side room reserved for female customers. East of the Bowery then W'as a predominantly German neighborhood. Polish Jews, like the Weber and Schanfield families, w r ere a small minority. Simon's customers, from Foster’s flour mills at Essex and Canal streets, whitened like clowms, the flour in their chin W'hiskers making the lean ones look like Uncle Sam, or carpenters and mechanics with great forearms covered with blond hair, shouted and laughed between garbs at the free lunch and swallows of beer. n tt FROM gangs working as much as a block away would come delegates bearing long poles, whence depended twenty-five or thirty growlers, to be filled at a nickel a pint. Some of the Dutchmen wore fierce hussar mustaches and plaid vests, but most wore schnurrbarts, chin whiskers unaccompanied by mustaches, just such whiskers as a pair of comedians named Weber and Fields wore *years afterward. Lew and Joe, thin-faced little kids with great dark eyes, watched, envying such gusty vigor, amused by such chopping of the tongue they spoke themselves, according to the elegant tenets of the Allen street school. Lew and Joe had been expelled

Destitution Grows, but R. F. C. Lags on Funds

Stringent Restrictions Put Major Relief Burden on Lpcal Agencies. Bo Scrippt-Noicard Xnctpaprr Alliance WASHINGTON, Sept, 12.—With winter approaching and reports of poverty increasing, the Reconstruction Finance Corporation has laid down a policy for administering the $300,000,000 federal relief fund, which places the major burden of caring for the destitute on local agencies. .The policy has had the effect of restricting and delaying use of federal relief funds. Explanation of the corporation's policy was given today by Fred C. Croxton, relief administrative expert of the R. F. C. He said the board will insist that local efforts to raise funds be exhausted before the board will make advances. Stringency of the board’s rules is believed to account for the fact that loans to date slightly are under $18,000,000 or less than 6 per cent of the relief fund. Loans are to be repaid by future deductions from federal aid to state highway funds. The board has adopted these rules: Proof must be given that state resources are inadequate. Where there is a possibility of bond issues or additional taxation, even though such steps require revision of laws through special legislative sessions, such action must be taken. R. F. C. relief activities will be confined 'Strictly to assistance to the destitute, and will not extend Into

Weber (seated, as usual) and Fields in their salad days, from a hitherto suppressed photograph.

from the school for doing head stands during long division and Lancashire clogs during McGuffey's Reader. Their parents knew nothing of this nor, considering the Allen street code, was there much danger they would. The friends were looking for a booking as actors so they might go to the old folks and say, ‘ Pa and ma, we quit school to accept a big offer from Tony Pastor.” Then they would make their respective families rich, and wear diamond shirt studs. It was an anxious time. tt u tt “TF* you ask Lew Fields today A why he practiced headstands during long division, and Joe Weber why he held on to the back of his neighbor’s seat and clogged with his left foot they are puzzled that you should ask such a question •‘Why, it was ir ’is," they explain. “That's the -way we were. It was in us. Whatever we saw anybody do on the stage we would go home and practice until we could do it. Managers of nickel museums, beer gardens, saloons, we would stop in the street and say, ‘Mister, we are actors. Look.’ And we would do our stuff in front of him, so he couldn’t get past until he saw - ' us.” So of course they got in—at the Chatham Square museum, twelve to fifteen shows a day, $6 a week for the team. They did a song, dance and alleged comic dialog, and the rest of the variety show comprised trained birds, trained dogs, trained pigs and an acrobat. Tire variety entertainment was but one feature of the Chatham Square museum, a choice collection of bogus freaks and a phrenologist. making .up the other attractions. The phrenologist was the big money getter. He got money that the patrons had left in their in-

such fields as pension payments, hospitalization or agencies normally supported by public funds or community chests. The relief act also permits relief loans to cities or other subdivisions. The Governor of the state must certify the necessity. These loans, the act says, can be made “upon such terms and conditions as may be agreed upon between the corporation and the subdivision.” The board set up these restrictions: “Adequate” bonds or warrants must be deposited to secure the loan, promissory notes not being considered acceptable collateral. Bonds will not be taken up by the corporation if they are salable to private buyers at "reasonable” interest rates. The R. F. C. reserves the right to resell the bonds, and, if resold, they bear their face interest rate. While they are the property of the corporation, interest is charged at 3 per cent as specified in the act. Governors asking for loans are required to fill out a two-page application, and also answer a list of some thirty questions on the needs for relief and the security to be offered, if the proceeds are for a municipality. This list is the one referred to Friday by Governor Gifford Pinchot of Pennsylvania, who in a letter to Chairman 1 Atlee Pomerene of the R. P. C. took the board to task for "splitting hairs while children starve.” The body of a full-grown elephant contains about seventy gallons of pure oil.

THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

side pockets, and the police put the museum out of business. Weber and Fields obtained other work, always in museums. tt tt tt “TF we could ever get into a show A without a tatooed man we figured that would be a success,” Weber relates. There were three stock lines of comedy in those days dialect, German dialect, and colored dialect. Jews were so few that there was no appreciation of Jewish dialect, and not one comedian doing it. The boys did blackface, mostly. They also had an act known as a “neat.” “Ladies and gentlemen,” Weber w’ould announce, “your attention is invited to our difficult achievement of performing three separate and distinct feats at one and the game time—dancing, in unison, keeping in time to the music and tearing these sheets of paper in in-trick-ate design.” Something like Joe Cook's forty years later, one Hawaiian playing the guitar, another humming, and another beating time with his foot. Their entrance for this act was always done with a song they had heard somewhere and adopted:— “Who are those fellows with the green um-ba-rellows? “Bright new neckties—a glass In their eyes? “Don’t they look spooney? I think they are looney: “Maybe they're young Oscar Weil in disguise.” “We thought Oscar Weil was some dude on East Broadway,” Fields explains. “But somehow we thought the song was classy.” tt a tt AT last, through the failure of another act to appear, they got a chance to play a reputable theater. Miner's Bowery, at S2O a week for the team. There was on the bill an act known as the American Four—a recognized act which had played regular theaters for years. At rehearsal the boys hummed their theme song for the orchestra. One of the Americans stepped up to the east side kids.

M’NUTT. VAN NUYS TO BE ON RADIO HOOKUP Democratic Nominees Will Open State Campaign on Sept. 26. Paul V. McNutt, nominee for Governor, and Frederick Van Nuys, nominee for the United States senate, will speak on a statewide radio hookup Sept. 26. at 8 p. m., when the Democratic state campaign will be opened officially. Decision on the date and arrangement of the program was made at a meeting of state candidates Sunday w;ith R. Earl Peters, state chairman, at the Clavpool headquarters. Peters will introduce each candidate over the air and the forty-five minutes for speaking will be divided between McNutt and Van Nuys. WFBM and stations at Ft. Wayne, Evansville and possibly at Terse Haute and Gary will be included in the hookup, it was announced. 30 T 0 BE initiated Large Class of Candidates to Be Taken in by Ben-Hur Lodge. Ben-Hur Life Association will initiate a class of approximately thirty candidates at 8 o'clock Wednesday night at 322 East New York street, a Refreshments will be served. Louie H. Mills will have charge of the meeting. 10,006 Cigarets Stolen Ten thousand cigarets, valued at $75, were stolen by a burglar who gained entrance to the Hook drug store at 680 St. Clair street by breaking into a basement window, M. J. Frank, 2135 Barth avenue, manager reported today to police.

In the stage makeup they made famous, from a drawing by A1 Frueh. “That's our song,” he said. “You can’t use it in this theater.” "So, of course,” says Weber, “they were better stars than us, so they got the song.” Without their music, Weber and Fields were licked in the dance and paper tearing. Then came inspiration. “Let’s do a Dutch act,” they said, and which one said it first is immaterial and forgotten. “Let's take those old blackface gags, talk them the way they talk in Simons’ saloon, and wind up with the knockabout stuff w T e rehearsed on the featherbed.” It was the real beginning of Weber and/ Fields, and since, as nearly as they can remeAber, it took place fifty years ago, they are celebrating their jubilee on Sept. 25. tt it us a few bars of the VJT ‘Wearing of the Green’, ” Joe exjoined the orchestra leader, “and then stop.” On to the tsage walked those now immortal characters, Mike (Weber) and Myer (Fields), howling and gesticulating. “I am delightfulness to meet you,” shouted the padded Weber. “Der disgust is all mine,” thundered Fields. Their roles, on stage- at least, were set for life —Fields, the transparently wise guy, bullying the meek Weber, imposing upon the credulity of the only being in the theater unable to see through his crude wiles. They sputtered. They howled. They bumped stomachs. Fields reached out with his crooked cane, hooked it around Weber’s neck, and threw him. Weber arose, hooked his cane around Fields’ neck, and dragged him across the stage, while the house rocked in glee. Fields kicked Weber in his padded stomach and hit him over his flat derby. It was simply a repetition of a fight they had seen in Simon's saloon, where as actors they w r ere now' full-fledged patrons, though less than 15 years old. The audience was on its feet, yelling. Anew comedy star act had risen —from behind a beer barrel in a saloon at 10 Essex street. Next—Weber and Fields successfully invade Pacific coast.

How A Customer Uses Two Fletcher Trust Banks at the same time Sometimes a branch customer who makes branch, over a private wire Wfuch dbesrft a withdrawal at our Main Office down* run through the telephone company** town asks us: "How do you identify central, for approval of payment of the my signature and how do you know I check. In just a few seconds after tht have a balance at the branch which will customer presents the check downtown, cover the check lam cashing?” h ' has Kceived his mone Y and 1 “““• of the transaction is on file at his branch The explanation is simple. Duplicate ~ which ma ? ** mil “ awaYsignature cards of every branch customer Speed> convenienC( , ; quick servic( . are kept at the Main Office. When a into this routine performance. And all branch customer presents a check at the - are achieved without the slightest sacrifice Main Office, we verify his signature from of the recognized principles of banking a duplicate card. Then we phone the conservatism and safety. Skitter ®st a. fflwpwj Jim MAIN OFFICE 1 \ 6? 4 $ $55 Northwest Comer Pennsylvania and Market Streets and ji Jr - | n; I ** l* fra NORTH SIDE BRANCHES WEST SIDE BRANCHES EAST SIDE BRANCHES 1 H“ 5| 5' 1541 North Illinois Street 474 West Washington Street 2122 East Tenth Street i It'?:.-a*' **gt ‘ J 5 5Jj 3001 North Illinois Street 1233 Oliver Avenue 458 East Washington Street ! . >i lh If 1 3 1533 Rooseveh Avenue 2600 West Michigen Street 2506 East Washington Street P 1 l?- . 6235 Bcliefontaine Street 5501 East Washington Street L lfjpr*- -J* NrSOUTH SIDE BRANCH—II2S South Meridian Street t

MAJ. TAYLOR TO : BE BURIED WITH MILITARY RITES Funeral for National Guard Squadron Commander • to Be Held Tuesday. Military funeral rites will be held at 10 Tuesday for ‘Major Richard F. Taylor, Indiana national guard air squadron commander, who died late Saturday following an airplane accident near Clinton. The body will lie in state at the Flanner & Buchanan mortuary, 25 West Fall Creek boulevard, until the services. A military guard of two members of the air squadron will remain by the body until the funeral. Burial will be in Crown Hill cemetery. The funeral will be attended by virtually the entire personnel of the one hundred thirteenth Observation squadron, as well as by members of the air corps reserve and by private and commercial fliers. Major Taylor was injured fatally when his plane crashed in a field near Clinton Friday while he and Sergeant David B. Vickery were making an observation flight over the coal mine area involved in recent picketing disorders. Vickery sustained less serious injuries. The funeral car was accompanied from Clinton to Indianapolis by an honor guard of six enlisted men, accompanied by Lieutenant Paul Zartman. At Danville the cortage was met and accompanied by a squadron of three guard planes.

LIBERTY AND NATIONAL' PARTIES ARE MERGED Concentrated Campaign for Votes in State Will Be Made. Liberty party in Indiana and the National party merged Sunday following a meeting of officials of both parties in National headquarters, 2315 East Troy avenue. Announcement of the consolidation was made by John Zhand, national chairman of the National party, who said, “Principles "of the two organizations are the same. Why shouldn’t they merge?” The combination will take the name of the National party. Candidates of the new party will be: Ralph E. Green for United States senator; Ward B. Hiner, governor; Bert Decker, lieutenant-governor; Leon J. Granger, secretary of state; Herman Kendall, state auditor; Charles L. Baxter, state treasurer; Mrs. Fidelia P. Judd, superintendent of public instruction; Walter Reece, attorney-general; Mabel La Rue, reporter of the supreme and appellate courts, and for supreme court judges, Ben H. Long, third district; Charles Anderson, fifth district, and Max Holenberger, first district. Francis X. Walters will be state chairman. Forrest L. Hackley, state chairman of the Liberty party, has been offered the position of national organizer of the new party. MAN. 50, IS MISSING Thomas Clifford Absent From Home Since Thursday; W’ife Asks Aid. Thomas Clifford, 50, of 2745 Manker street, has been missing since Thursday, according to a report to police Sunday night by his wife. He left home in his automobile.

Reinstated

ImSrel - w a HBaUBiB **' i:-5 mW® Wr

Upon orders from President Hoover, Ben H. Kerr, above, postal clerk Gary, Ind., has been reinstated to his job from which he was discharged after he had introduced a resolution before his local American Legion post in support of the soldiers’ bonus. Kerr was accused of “political activity,” but protests by the American Legion resulted in Hoover ordering his reinstatement. The case caused quite a controversy, the postoffice depart'ment being accused of having adopted a policy of trying to “muzzle” all federal employes whose political views differed from those of the administration.

Keep Thinking f Life is one long training and the best thinker takes the prize. Don't let Father Time or the other fellow get ahead of you. In its Evening and Extension Division Butler University offers, first semester, 122 courses at hours available for workers. In this list is something you need: Business and Economics. 17 courses: Education, 18; English, 9; Fine Arts, 2; Health, 3; History, 4; Home Economics, 5; Journalism. 3; Latin, 2; Library, 1; Mathematics, 2; Music and Dramatics, 11; Philosophy, 1; Photography, 2; Political Science. 4; Religion. 17; Romance Languages! 14; Science, 8; Secretarial Arts, 2; Sociology, 2; Speech, 4; Vocational Guidance, 2. ...You Adults with your mature minds and your accumulated experience, are ripe for education. Technical requirements do not prevent your entering these courses. Registration Sept. 22-24 Make the most of this opportunity. SEND FOR BULLETIN Butler University Dean Albert E. Bailey Butler University, Room 116 HU. 1318

.SEPT. 12, 1932

BOLIVIAN FORCE IS ANNIHILATED, PARAGUAY SAYS Whole Regiment Is Wiped Out, War Department Tells Nation. By United Peru ASUNCION, Paraguay, Sept. 12. “AnnihilaUon” of the lourteeaith Bolivian infantry regiment was claimed by Paraguayan forces today as thousands of troops battled fiercely for possession of Ft. Boqueron, scene of several days fighting in the disputed Gran Chaco. Announcement of the Paraguayan victory was made soon after midnight. It was cheered by thousands in the streets. An earlier communique from the w r ar department said "fighting continues in the vicinity of Fort Boqueron and our forces have taxen a number of prisoners." Public excitement was high. Crowds paraded, singing the national anthem. Sunday morning, a two-minute period of silence was observed in honor of Paraguayans Killed in the fighting. Admit Intense Fighting By United Prett LA PAZ, Bolivia, Sept. 12.—Five thousand Paraguayan trbops are engaged in an intense attack on Fort Boqueron and Fort Aguarica in the Gran Chaco, the war department announced today, but Bolivia still holds both fortifications.