Indianapolis Times, Volume 46, Number 47, Indianapolis, Marion County, 5 July 1934 — Page 13

H kerns io He HEVWIOP BROUN STAMFORD. Conn . July 5. The Broun farm never ha? had a name or any reputation to rpeak of either. I wouldn't go quite so far as to rail ;t an abandoned farm since I strive to give it respectability bv paying it party calls almost every : olidajr and week-end. It serves to grow a few unwanted green apples and does its best to keep me from being a city chap with all the provincial not.ons which that term implies. Although the fact trains make the Grand Cent:ai station in less than fifty minutes, something of the wilderness of the frontier still obtains along t l -se few narrow acres. The birds of the air and t.-e beasts of the field are occasionally in evidence t en though the big town is scarcely thirty miles M the erow flies. The men who laid the htjtlways to Manhattan had not a drop of crow’s blood among the lot of them. The roads to this retreat (. u£ie and turn and help to preserve the illusion

that here one might turn hermit with very little outside interference. At times I have considered that possibility quite favorably, but each year I put it off. Being a hermit is one of the things which I am saving up lor my old age. But I do not think it is a profession which any man should embrace without some preliminary training. If I couldn't be a regular first-class hermit then I wouldn't want to be a hermit at all. a a a

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n vwood lironn Hegirood, You /tore Me \ND it isn't easy. Any hermit worthy of the -name, first of all. must be companionable. He r .eht to be the sort of person who delights in selfexamination and in exploring the attic corners of his own mind. Until I am able to become vastly more interested in myself I shall continue to comVanity, conceit and self-assurance are not altogether lacking in my makeup and even so I can not quite accept myself as a fascinating saga. I know how the plot comes out. I could wish for a greater number of vagaries, if ten when I sit upon the porch and commune with myself I can not escape becoming rude and saying, “You bore the life out of me. Why don't you get anew line?” As far as I have ever heard, no newspaper columnist has ever succeeded as a hermit. Too much ntrospert ion has gone on before the great adventure begins. The average columnist knows himself and his limitations so well that he finds no joy or kirk in spending a week-end with no other companion than his own ego. I imagine that even the better hermits have this difficult’. at times and their salvation apparently lies in turning to nature as a friendly gossip and a convenient stooge. There have been gifted individuals to whom a little grove of birch trees offered more scandal, detail. and surprises than a Monday column written by Walter Winchell. These fortunate folk know just when the swallows may be expected to be blessed with events and the precise season of the year when every oriole is “that way” about some other. Until I know the birds a little better I must depend upon friends and neighbors to save me from being solitary. BBS Itroun, the Naturalist (?) VERY much indeed I would like to be Broun. "the old naturalist.” and a reporter on the home life of the native flora and fauna. Flora, however, I never have known very well and my contacts with Connecticut fauna have been only slightly more extensive. Captain Flagg. I suppose, is fauna and I like him. but he no longer has much to contribute to any symposium on the aflairs of the world and how to stop them. Flagg is. I fear, a tired radical. Much in the world is not to his liking, but he has given up practically all active protest. In the days of his youth he bayed at the moon. But at the end of thirteen years he has reached a conviction that no matter how he howls the blame thing will wax and wane and never alter its appointed rounds by any little in spite of his disapproval. So Flagg won’t do as a representative of the most inspirational potentialities of the Broun farm fuana. The big black snake who lives upon the rock at the edge of my neighbor's lake has a somewhat more rugged revolutionary character than Captain Flagg, the airdale. Not in eight years during which I have known him has that snake ever despaired of establishing the rock as his own domain. Hundreds and hundreds of times he has been chased back into the swamp and yet on every sunny day he swaggers out again to take up his accustomed post. There is no slinking about this snake. Whatever he does is frank and above board. And yet I find his technique merely a matter of being dogged. He brings no new’ idea or method into his war against the advance of civilization. a tt tt Writing Columns—Such a Life! TO be sure I speak symbolically. I am referring to my own efforts to bathe without benefit of water snakes as the advance of civilization. The carter snake may have quite opposite ideas. Indeed I don't even know that he is a eartsr snake. I don't know that he is he. All I can say is that he has bitten no one as yet. If he possesses effective weapons of agression he is a fool to have waited so long. And that is the great heresy of nature and most of the members of its current kingdom hereabouts. Birds, snakes, and little mammals are fatalists, every one of them. They accept without criticism the state of life to which it has pleased providence to call them. It is true that the tadpole becomes a frog but here ambition ends. Never does a frog work himself up into being a pickerel, or a woodchuck. As soon as he becomes a frog he admits. “This is as far as I can be expected to go.” And so I guess I won't become a hermit for fear that I might be infected with the same defeatism. I do not want to live and die a columnist. I can do better than that. Who couldn't? iCoDvrisht. 1934. bv The TimeM

Your Health BY 1)K. MORKIS FISHBEIN

\ T OU may have read recently of the sudden death X of a banker while he was flying in an airplane. His death was due to ihe condition called coronary thrombosis, or the clogging of the small blood vessels in the neart muscle. President Coohdge and Senator Thomas Walsh died of this kind of heart disease, and so have many other well advanced in business and statesmanship. The coronary arteries, which supply the heart muscle with blood, are small blood vessels, about the size of a quill on a feather, which go around the heart and which give off branches passing downward toward the apex of the heart. The result is an occasional attack of pain in the heart, but this is not so serious as the sudden and complete blocking of the heart. a a a VI r HEN such sudden and complete blocking * occurs, there is severe and tremendous pain. This pam is not a matter of a few minutes, like the pam in angina pectoris, but lasts for hours and, if the person lives and is kept absolutely quiet, it will gradually wear off in a few days. Some slight soreness persists and. with a sudden effort, the severe pain may come on again. There is no way to reach the point at which a coronary blood vessel is blocked The only possible treatment is absolute rest, so that nature can do as much as possible to repair the damage. • This is done in two ways: First, the blood vessel that Is not blocked will not only supply the side of the heart that it usually supplies but will also send blood in a round-about manner to take care of the part that has "Bben shut off. • Second, the cl' may gradually be dissolved and blood may work . , way through it. a

Full Leased Wire Service oJ the United Press Association

SIGHS FOR ‘THE GOOD OLD DAYS’

Veteran Stagehand Remembers Era of Richard Mansfield

BY JACK HOWARD Time* Stall Writer THERE is no such thing as a bad actor. Startling as this may seem, you may take the word of Sam James, 410 North Jefferson avenue, and Sam James should know. An oldtime stage hand, Mr. James says that he is the only man living who was part of the stage force at the opening of English s theater in 1880. Looking back over his seventyfive years, Mr. James recalls a host of thespian celebrities who trod the boards in those early forgotten gas-light days when the theater belonged to the entire country and biology had not usurped the pedestal of drama. Read shows and one-night stands were the order of the day then and Keokuk and New York shared the era's theatrical luminaries. Mr. James’ familiarity with the stage was gleaned first hand in six crowded years from 1876 to 1882 when he shifted scenes, turned “flats,” hauled on ropes and arranged lighting effects here and on the road. He listened to rumbling applause greet Lawrence Barretts portrayal of “Hamlet” on that opening day at English’s, he watched in awe the immortal Richard Mansfield in “Persian Romance,” he thrilled to Frank Mayo in “Davy Crockett,” he laughed at Sol Smith Russell in “The Poor Relation,” and he cried over Kate Claxton in “The Two Orphans.” “In all my experience,” Mr. James says, “I never saw a bad actor. They were all good. Some were better than others that's all.” “But,” he recalled smilingly, “none of them could touch a feather to Richard Mansfield. Why, he could play to perfection any part. He always filled the house. a a a “TT makes me tired," Mr. James 1 said, "the way people refersto the old school of acting with scorn. Why, the best actors of today came from that old school, either directly or indirectly. “Look at Otis Skinner. George M. Cohan and all the Barrymores. Otis Skinner used to play with Barrett years ago and he is still going strong." Mr. James sighs for the “good old days” insofar as acting is concerned, but he is all for the present where stage hands and their work are involved, for stage hands of yesteryear had no organization such as now exists. Asa result, Mr. James confesses, their work was apt to be long and their pay short. “We had to work hard in my time,” the veteran stage hand said. “Our equipment was crude compared to what they have today and maybe that had something to do with conditions. “You know’, our flats—those pieces of scenery immediately coming forward from the backdrop and preceding the wings—sometimes were no bigger than twenty feet across. "Many times they had different scenes painted on either side and. during an intermission, we hands would run them to the center of the stage. (They were mounted on rollers.! Then we'd turn them around and run them back. Sometimes we even used two of them run together for a backdrop. a a a lights,” he continued, “were all gas and had to be hand lighted. For this purpose one man went about with a torch, with which he lighted all lamps. “Footlights were easy, but the fly well lights had to be lowered before anything could be done about them. Now a flip of the switch does most of the work we had to do by hand.” The

DAILY WASHINGTON MERRY-GO-ROUND

By Drew Pearson and Robert S. Allen WASHINGTON. July s—Roosevelt's departure south has caused a lot of sub rosa concern in various high places. Basis for the concern, bnellv, is this: The seventy-third congress heaped on the head of one man more power than ever before given to a President of the United States. Upon the exercise of that power will depend the immediate future of the country. With dozens of major bills just passed, with several important commissions about to function, some of Roosevelt's best friends felt he had chosen the wrong time for so distant a holiday. Whether or not they are right, it remains a fact that the next month is going to be a crucial one in Washington. Here are some reasons why: LABOR—Strikes and threats of strikes have been popping in every part of the country. The still unsettled steel strike, the Pacific coast longshoremen's difficulties, the Milwaukee street railway's walkout, have kept a constant stream of labor disputes knocking at Roosevelt's door. The Wagner labor disputes bill, passed to settle these, has barely begun to function. It will miss the guiding hand of the man in the White House. NRA —The nest of the Blue Eagle, as Roosevelt departed south was messier than ever before in its hectic and frequently messy life. General Johnson, his trigger-finger always nervous, is more explosive than ever.

Despite Johnson's expletives. Clarence Darrow's reports on big business and little business, can not be laughed off. Price-fixing remains a sore spot. A hundred complicated questions are crowding in on a man already discouraged and weary. HOUSING—The big drive to take up the midsummer slack, to help reduce federal relief rolls through the gigantic slum-clear-being launched. Upon it depends construction prosperity next year. LOANS TO INDUSTRY’—The R. F. C. has just received from congress the right to put the government further into business by lending money to industry. This new start on the old, handout game has just begun. TARIFF—The President has just received unprecedented powers to negotiate trade treaties changing tariff rates without ratification by congress. A score of nations and several hundred lobbyists have been hounding the state department to begin. STOCK MARKET For the first time in history the government will attempt to make Wall Street walk the straight and narrow. 'Hie commission faced with

The Indianapolis Times

As Sam James sits smoking in the comfort of his front yard, he dreams of great days in the history of Indianapolis’ legitimate stage. The smoke cloud (upper, left) reveals Otis Skinner, as he appeared in his great role, Hajj, in “Kismet.” The gallant lady (upper, right) is Ada Rehan, as Katherine in “The Taming of the Shrew’.”

Mr. James’ tone ot voice implied he would trade old days for new equipment. “Work may have been hard, but we used to have our laughs,” Mr. James recalls in another vein. “I remember one time,” and he chuckled, “w’hen they were playing Alexandre Dumas’ ‘Camille’ at the English. In those days, the backyards of the private houses which faced on Ohio street ran down to the alley in back of the theater. “Well, sir, they had just reached the death scene. “You know that’s a very tense moment in ‘Camille.’ The audience was in the sw r ay of the drama when all of a sudden the milkman making his Ohio street rounds started to ring his bell through that al’ey. That just about w’recked the act, although the audience, with a few exceptions, was able to control itself.” a a tt MR. JAMES paused a moment and then explained that one of the reasons why the audience didn't burst out laughing when the bell interrupted “Camille’s”

this task still is in embryo. COMMUNICATIONS Another commission to control telephones, telegraphs and radio, also, for the first time in history, has not even rented spittoons and coat hangers. What accentuates Roosevelt's absence is the fact that his is the most centralized administration in years. Some of his cabinet officers will scarcely hire an office boy without trotting over to ask the man in the White House. So the summer may be hot, hectic and at times delirious. The component parts of the official family will step on each other's toes. Fireworks should be brliant, feudage bitter. a a a WHO called them Virgin islands? Possibly not even the President, as he nears their shores, knows the origin of the name. It was given by another great mariper—Columbus. He was on his second voyage, 1493, and he was impressed by the great number of islands in that part of the Caribbean, as if nature, with a prodigal hand, had

INDIANAPOLIS, THURSDAY, JULY 5, 1934

death scene was due tc the great respect they had for the actors. "People rarely went to see a play in those days,” he said. "They went to see the actors. Ada Rehan was the drawing card, not the ‘Taming of the Shrew.’ People went to see McKee Rankin and his wife in Joaquin Miller's ‘The Dainties,’ but their interest was little held by the play. “Edwin Booth, Mansfield, Fanny Davenport, Nance O’Neill and the great Italian tragedian, Salvini, could appear in almost anything and the S. R. O. sign would be out. “And,” Mr. James continued, “believe me, those actors lived up to their parts on and off the stage. They traveled in style with hotel and stage luggage galore, but that didn't make them snobbish. I remember one time I was stranded in Baltimore and wanted to get home. “At that time J. K. Emmet had a troupe playing at the old Holiday street theater there and I knew’ one of the stage hands. I went around to see him and he

scattered them there for the beauty of their coral sand and bending palms. Columbus was reminded of the Christian legend of St. Ursula, prioress of a convent, who went forth on a religious mission with her band of 11.000 virgins. So he called them the Islands of the Virgins.

SIDE GLANCES

£>•**,* ■< -''- '‘ ' i 1

"Maybe it’s the return of prosperity or maybe it’s just that new cook, but the customers are" leaving more on their plates.’*

But possibly the most glorious memory Mr. James’ dreams evoke is that of Edwin Booth (lower, left), great even to the "greats,” costumed for the title role in "Richelieu.” Fanny Davenport (lower, right), a stage beauty of those halcyon days, is another vision appearing in Mr. James’ memory.

said they were leaving for St. Louis and he'd let me ride as far as Indianapolis in the baggage car with the props if I'd help him load. "I agreed! "Before the train left, I bought some sandwiches and sarsaparilla and I made myself comfortable in the baggage car and set out for Indianapolis. "Pretty soon my friend came into the car with a great load of fruit and food in a basket. I told him he shouldn’t have spent all that money on me and he replied that the cast had bought that food to see me home. "Now, you couldn’t find any nicer folk than that, could you?” a tt tt MR. JAMES remembers the days w’hen the present Capitol motion picture theater used to be the Park theater and before that the Metropolitan Variety theater. It w’as during the theater’s earliest years that Denman Thompson used to present

TODAY and TOMORROW tt tt a tt tt b By Walter Lippmann

TO those who for one reason or another have been losing faith in constitutional government

By George Clark

the vaudeville act w’hich later he wrote into the widely played “The Old Homestead.” He also remembers the time the great Salvini came to Indianapolis and played at the Park theater. "He was a most peculiar man,” Mr. James recalled. "He never w’ould use gas lights when he made up, but insisted on having the stage carpenter make him a crude wooden candlestick, just a block of wood with a shallow hole in it, in which he would stick a candle. That’s all he ever would use.” The curtain fell on Mr. James’ career as a stage hand in 1882 and he became a city fireman, a post he held until his retirement before the war. Now’, he spends mast of his time sitting with "the boys” at engine house 20. at 352 North Bevville avenue, but his thoughts are in the wings of the English theater —listening to Lawrence Barrett render in magnificent fashion the words of Shakespeare’s famous melancholy Dane.

and democratic methods, the course of events in Germany must bring a sharp realization of what the alternatives really are. “The national socialist state,” says Dr. Frick, the minister of the interior, “is built up on unconditional obedience to the orders of the feuhrer and his deputies.” How has this doctrine worked out? To express disagreement with the fuehrer is forbidden. Yet many Germans disagreed with him. The result was that they plotted underground. In place of free discussion there was conspiracy and intrigue. It required about five hundred years of constitutional development among the English-speak-ing peoples to turn the pugnacity and the predatory impulses of men into the channels of talk, rhetoric, bombast, reason and persuasion. Deride the talk as much as you like; it is the civilized substitute for street brawls, gangs, conspiracies, assassinations, orivate armies. No other substitute has as yet been discovered. a a a THE doctrine preached by the Fascists that a nation can think and feel with one mind and one heart, except on details, is contrary to all human experience. For a short time, in a mood of exultation or under the crushing power of terrorism, a nation may appear to be of one mind. The idea that these armies of Black Shirts and Brown Shirts represent some great new twentieth century invention can be entertained only by those who have never read any history. They are unmistakably a reversion to political# practices which prevailed in western Europe up to about the seventeenth century. Democracy is not the creation of abstract theorists. It is the creation of men who stop by step through centuries of disorde - , established a regime of order. (Copyright, 1934)

Second Secfron

Entered a* Second Class Matter at PostofTiee, Indianapolis, Ind.

Today's Science By David Dietz RAINS in various parts of the United States during June made a start toward breaking up the drought, but it still is too early to consider the drought as ended. The United States weather bureau reports that a tropical storm moved inland from the Gulf of Mexico into Louisiana on June 16. It moved to the northeast from there into the middle Atlantic area. High damaging winds were experienced in the gulf section and in some localities in the south the rainfall for the week was in excess of nine inches. Moving eastward, the storm had, by June 19, brought much needed rains to Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and New’ York. There were also satisfactory rains in western Oklahoma, mast of Kansas and Nebraska, the northern Mississippi valley and the northwest. The southwest, however, including practically all of the great basin, failed to receive any benefit. During the first twenty days of June, according to the weather bureau, rain occurred over practically all drought sections east of the Rocky mountains, but “in many cases show’ers have been irregularly distributed, with some localities receiving generous, even excessive, amounts, while others are still badly needing moisture. tt tt tt THE seven days from June 19 to June 26, according to the weather bureau, were characterized by high temperatures in nearly all sections east of the Rocky mountains. Little or no rain fell in most southern states while unevenly distributed showers occured in the central and northern districts. The temperature averaged trom 6 to 12 degrees above normal over a large area of the interior of the country while over most eastern states the temperature was from 2 to 5 degrees above normal. Light to moderate rains w j ere the rule in the interior valleys and northwest with some heavy falls in the southern Ohio valley area, the western lake region and a few north-central localities. “The showers were sufficient to maintain the improved outlook resulting from the previous rains in most parts of the drought area, and cultivated crops, especially, show substantial progress in many places,” J. B. Kincer, chief of the division of climate and crop weather of the United States w’eather bureau, says. a si tt “\\ 7HILE the improved situation is being mainW tained,” Mr. Kincer continues, "the rains in most places have been sufficient only for current needs of cultivated crops, with widespread rains in substantial amounts still necesasry for permanent relief. “This is emphasized by the fact that most of the interior droughty states, following an extremely dry spring, have received, so far, less than the normal rainfall since the beginning of June. “A favorable feature of the showers has been their occurrence at frequent intervals and mostly in moderate amounts, which have assured the maximum of benefit from the amount of rain received. Only in limited areas have they been excessive and damaging.

Questions and Answers

Q —What are the latest years when the new moon appeared on Dec. 15, and the full moon was on the same date? A—New moon, Dec. 15, 1925, and full moon Dec. 15, 1910. These are repeated approximately ever thirty years. Q —Where and when did Calvin Coolidge take the oath as President to succeed Warren G. Harding? A—Early in the morning of Aug. 3, 1923, in his father’s farm house at Plymouth, Vt. Q —What is the average life of a railroad locomotive? • A—About forty-six years. Q —Does the sun maintain approximately the same altitude daily at the north pole? What is a six months day? A—At the north pole, the sun maintains approximately the same altitude during each day. About March 20, the center of the sun is on the horizon for an observer located on the pole, and does not at any time during the next six months pass below the horizon. On about Sept. 22, the center does pass below the horizon and does not rise again for another six months. The period when the sun is seen is called “six months day.” Q—Where is Colonel E. R. Bradley’s famous Idle Hour stock farm. A—Near Lexington, Ky. Q—ls the king of England prohibited by law from leaving Great Britain? A—No. Q—Did Bolivia declare war against Paraguay in 1932? A—A state of war has existed since June, 1932, without formal declaration. Q—How old was George Washington when he was first inaugurated President of the United States? A—Fifty-seven. Q—What is a mirage? A—An illusory image produced by atmospheric conditions, of a lake in the desert or a city or tree3 in the sky. Q—Do Americans lose their citizenship when they enlist in the French foreign legion? A—No, because they are not required to swear allegiance to the French flag. Q—Can non-de-plumes be copyrighted? A—No. Q—ls Mahatma Gandhi in prison? A—He was released from jail when he started his fast early in May, last year, and has since been free. Q—What is the address of Ed Wynn? A—Grenwolde, Great Neck, Long Island, New York. Q—Bound the state of Maine. A—On the north Quebec, Canada, on the east New Brunswick, Canada, arid the Atlantic ocean, on the south the Atlantic ocean, and on the west New Hampshire and Quebec. Q— How many home runs were made in the two major baseball leagues in each of the last four seasons? A—National League: 1930, 892; 1931, 492; 1932, 649; 1933, 460. American League: 1930, 673; 1931, 576; 1932, 708; 1933, 626. Q—Who wrote and produced the play “Three Cornered Moon?” A—Gertrude Tonkonogy sold the play to Richard Aldrich and Alfred de Liagre Jr., who produced it. Q —What was the name of the paternal grandfather of Colonel Charles E. Lindbergh, and when did he come to this country? A—Augustus Mansson, born in Stockholm, Sweden, member of the Swedish parliament, who emigrated to the United States in 1880 and settled near Sauk Center, Minn. He legally changed the family name to Lindbergh. Q—How many officers and elisted men has the United States navy? A—lt has 9,423 officers and 81,120 enlisted men. Q—What are the two best sellers among English books? A—The Bible and Bunyan’s “Pilgrims Progress." Q —Has any baseball player ever hit four home runs in one game? A—Players who have hit four home runs in a single game are Robert L. Lowe. Boston, 1894; Edward J. Delahanty, Philadelphia, 1896; Henry L. Gehrig, New York, June 3, 1932. Q—ls Viscount Edward Grey, English statesman, living? Adied Sept. 7, 1933.