Indianapolis Times, Volume 47, Number 254, Indianapolis, Marion County, 1 January 1936 — Page 13

TtSeems to Me flEmlH NEW ORLEANS, La., Jan. I.—Even in the red clay parishes it is admitted now that Huey I/mg iu deoQ, Whether his soul goes marching on is a matter of argument, but it is at best a local issue. There is not even the faintest suggestion of anybody from hereabouts assuming the national role which he once played. Wealth in Louisiana Is likely to stay unshared, as usual. But it would be grossly inaccurate to say that Huey is forgotten in this city where he fought and

frolicked. He is well remembered, and he remains the second favorite topic of discussion in the bars and the restaurants. Now he belongs to the makers of myths, and the tall stories spring up like beanstalks. They are giants in these days. Huey has become the Paul Bunyon of the bayous, and, ironically enough, this man who dreamed of empire is celebrated now because he drank deeply and ate great quantities of oysters. His enemies are more kindly, for one does not hate a dead dictator on account of his table manners.

—'

Heywood Broun

The owner of one of the old French restaurants was talking to us late at night about the Senator. “I liked Huey Long,” he said, ‘‘and perhaps that is strange, because, though he came here ofcen, he never learned anything about food and wines. The law—that he mastered with incredible speed. For politics he had a genius. You can not go so fast with food and wines. Huey did not go at all. tt a a Didn't Inspire Chef “T TRIED to teach him. There is a chef in my A kitchen who can prepare pompano in 20 different ways. I say to you, gentlemen, that you might come here every night for a year—two years, perhaps—and never eat the same dish twice. And this I have said many times to Huey. But always when he cpmes in here—l mean when he did; it is hard to keep in mind that he is dead —always he would say, ‘Bring me oysters.’ "A chef he works for years to prepare himself, and then the great man comes and says, ‘Fried oysters.’ Sometimes it is a dozen Huey wants and sometimes two dozen. Just fried oysters and a bottle of Worcestershire sauce. Upon each oyster a drop of Worcestershire, and then each one he takes in his fingers and cats so. ‘‘l am not afraid of Huey Long. He is my friend, and I have said to him: ‘lt is not good to eat fried oysters in your fingers. It is worse when you have put on them the Worcestershire sauce.’ And I have told him, too, what Ward McAllister said to the members of the Four Hundred. He said, ‘Use the fork as much as possible.’ But each time I have told Huey he would laugh and order more fried oysters and eat them with his fingers.” tt Should Have Used a Fork THE next round was on the house, and Monsieur A. sipped his cognac slowly before he began again and said—“l am French and you are Americans, and perhaps you would not understand. In France we have a thing called democracy. I do not know exactly how to translate it for you. It means go slowly. That is why I am against dictators and people who eat fried oysters in their fingers. They are in too much of a hurry. What would you? There are days to come and there will be more oysters.” “No,” said a newspaper man, ‘‘Huey was right. His days were numbered and he had to hurry. He wanted to make the world his oyster.” “But yes,” said Monsieur A., “it is so I have said it. He should not have tried to take it in his fingers. He should have used a fork.” It was much later in the same evening that I talked with another man who knew Huey Long. He had been, in a small way, a henchman. The holiday spirit was on him and the words came out in a jumble, but there was one I remembered. “Everybody loved Huey,” said the henchman. ‘‘Ask any of the bartenders here. He had what it tak£s. You know he used to talk about himself like he was a ball of fire. Everywhere he was going ‘like a ball cf fire.’ But you can’t be fire. You’d burn yourself and other people. In politics you’ve got to say more than you mean. That’s what I liked about Huey. He was always in there working. He had disintegrity.” (Copyright, 1936)

Gen. Johnson Says—

OKMULGEE, Okla., Jan. I—The cat’s out of the bag. We don’t take a census of unemployment because we don’t know what unemployment is—can’t define it. We ought to know what it is after six years of it. Ten million oi us, with more than 34 million dependents, are that way. They can tell you what un- * employment is. If we don’t know how to define it, how do we know how to spend $4,000,000,000 to relieve it? - I saw 220,000 jobless put to work in WPA in New York City. It wasn't any trouble at all either to define them or to find them. A man is unemployed, within the requirements of relief, when with reasonable effort he can find no dependable means of earning enough for a living for himself, or if he has dependents, for them also. We can define an abstraction like “the more abundant life" well enough to bet billions on it and contort our whole economic pattern, but we can’t define unemployment well enough to count it. We can’t kiss off an omission so serious with a pass so airy. St St 8 DURING the*war. we had to count and keep track of all men subject to military service. We had to exempt all those whose removal would deprive dependents of support or who were irreplaceable m industry or agriculture. It was a much mose difficult definition than “unemployment'’ and covered a far wider field. Yet we did it cheaply, with little complaint, and almost instantaneously. We used local, uncompensated boards of responsible citizens —neighbors who knew the needs of their own people and felt responsible for them not hired social workers, political census-takers or any other kind of professional snoopers. It was as near perfection as such a thing could be. You could register the unemployed that way, put necessitous cases in jobs that, way, distributing relief that way—all at a fraction of the cost of the present prodigal phantasy. % But so simple and efficient a plan as that is studiously ignored even when put into effect—as proved bv mv own intense experience. The New Deal must be new even if it busts the country. (Copyright. 1938, by United Feature Syndicate. Inc.).

Times Books

BOOTH TARKINGTON is oul with anew- book—“Mr. White, the Red Barn, Hell and Brideif that title seems a bit long, let me explain that it is npt one title, but four. For this new book is a collection of four short stories; and in them Mr. Tarkington turns his attention to death and what comes after it. musing soberly on the human spirit and the unfathomable mystery of its origin and destination. That the mystery does not merely hide a blank ydll—that man has a destination beyond the grave, and does not simply cease to exist like a blownout candle flame—Mr. Tarkington seems confident. m * * HE shows us, for instance, a dead man returning to warn a bosom friend of the vanity of his earthly desires; a half-mad old recluse playing at being God and providing an analogy for the bemused observer; a busy New Yorker dying and discovering that hell is simply a continuation of his ordinary life, lit by a f*int gleam of hope at the end of the road; and a regular Erskine Caldwell creation of a relief client who carries this study of hell even farther by demonstrating that eternal damnation can be inside of a man before he dies. All in all, Ihese are good stcries. Doubleday, Doran & Cos. is publishing the book at $1.25. (.By Bruce Catton.)

Full Legged Wire Service of the United Press Association.

WHAT ’36 PROMISES THE U. S. aatta n Trade Rise First Sign Business Feels Stimulus of New Deal Funds

Bittiness got better or business got worse this year—depending on which politician you listen to. John T. Flynn, probing through the maze, gives you an impartial, accurate review of business during 1935. This is the second of three articles. tt tt tt a tt tt BY JOHN T. FLYNN (Copyright, 1936, NEA Service, Inc.) ’yy/’E have finished 12 months of trail-finding. That is, labor, business groups, political groups, after the fever and confusion and bewilderment of 1933 and 1934, have been slowly finding their way. At least they have been drawing together in definite schools for movement in their separate directions. The years 1933 and 1934 w r ere vast, turbulent mob scenes. Now organization begins to express itself again. This year has another significance. Its place in the business cycle has been more or less fixed. That cycle began its long and steady descent in the fall of 1929 and

continued down until April of 1933—three and a half years of decline. From then to September, 1933, there was a hiatus. There was a sudden, hectic rise in business and a more sudden collapse in July and August. That was an interlude of inflationary disease. In September, 1933, the real ascent began. But it was very irregular and uncertain during 1934. In the summer of 1934 it commenced to sink alarmingly. The whole gain was wiped out and more by fall. It did not pick up until September and continued through the holidays. This year was different. Through the first half of the year business sank. That decline was not checked until about June. Since then it has moved upward precipitately, swiftly. a tt tt A GLANCE at the chart of the business curve reveals fairly clearly that this year marks the moment when the recovery mechanism—whatever it was—clicked. The total gain in business between January and December of last year was about five points. The total gain this year has been about 12 points These simple figures fairly tell the story. Employment during the first half of the year as a -whole was about the same as it was last year. But in the last half it began to pull away from last year. The year ends with a definite improvement. That is, there are about 15 men at work now for every 14 men at work a year ago. This is a rough figure but fairly correct. Pay rolls are also better. They were better in each month of the year than last year. This is a striking reply to those who said the pay rolls of the nation would collapse with the end of the NR A. Factories have made more goods. Perhaps we can state it this way. For every SBO worth of goods made in 1934 they have turned out SB7 worth this year. This means about

Mass Curiosity Played Big Part in Lindbergh Hegira

BY FOREST DAVIS NEW YORK, Jan. I.—The Lindberghs fled with their second son, Jon, almost as much to escape the Herod of mass curiosity—a callous, prying hero worship—as from the menace of criminal America. I was informed today by persons familiar with the background of the Lone Eagle's second sensational transatlantic flight. Imprisoned by recurrent threats against Jon’s safety and their own well-being, the Lindberghs also were deprived by the public’s intrusiveness of a normal, day-to-day life in their own country. The shadow of a mob—friendly, if not worshipful, but always capable of sheltering one of the cranks who mailed threats of personal violence —lay across their comings and goings in New York, their home city. They lived as virtual hermits at the wooded, guarded estate of Mrs. Lindbergh’s mother, Mrs. Dwight W. Morrow, at Englewood, N. J. When they ventured across the Hudson into New York, they came singly, incognito, and often in disguise. Alone among healthy, unconfined young Americans, Col. Charles A. Lindbergh and his talented wife, Anne, were unable to enjoy the boon of free, careless movemem. Ridiculous as it sounds. Lindbergh, the foremost hero of modern times, a scientist and aviator honored the world over, was compelled to adopt the anonymous role of a tall young man wearing a cap, his coat collar untidily turned up and his eyes shielded by dark glasses as he performed his arrands in New York. tt tt tt Disguise Successful He traveled in and out of the New York crowds with the watchfulness of a hunted man. Seldom

BENNY

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The Indianapolis Times

8% per cent increase in production. are gains. But the most interesting figure of them is that as the year progressed the gains became progressively better. Just here there are two points which have to be noticed. One refers to the reason for this lift in business. The other is the claim of business that it would go ahead much faster but for the government’s many interferences. First as to the cause. Several reason are assigned. You can take your choice of the following: (1) The natural recovery of business from normal economic laws: (2) the Roosevelt recovery program; (3) government spending. (1) There is no evidence that the recovery is due to natural energies in business. If this were so we v T ould see (a) large expansion of bank loans; (b) great increase in new financing; (c) revival of the capital goods industry —construction and heavy machinery. None of these things has taken place. Bank loans are actually smaller than they w'ere a year ago. There has been almost no new financing. In the first nine months of this year total security issues authorized by the SEC were $1,765,338,556. But of this huge total only $93,997,090 was for new money. tt a THERE has been no revival of the capital goods industry. Os course, construction has shown an increase, but this has been due largely to government-financed or sponsored projects and to a small increase in house building. The most important phenomenon in private industry has been this small rise in the small house building field. It is about twice as good as it was this time last year. But of course, this leaves it still only about one-fifth of what it was in 1928. Some lise in private industry through its own energies may be

was his disguise penetrated. Once, in a rush hour subway train, a pickpocket dipped into his pocket. The colonel caugh the man’s wrists but permitted him to escape as he paused for an instant reflecting on the publicity that would follow an arrest. Afterward, Mr. Lindbergh was half pleased by the incident. It was a sign that the thief had not recognized him. The Lindberghs seldom left the metropolitan area except by airplane. Formerly he drove a small Model A Ford. That, too, was a disguise. They motored to Detroit once, stopping at tourist camps. The colonel wore a tur-tle-neck sweater and a cap. It was publicly known that he preferred to got hatless—hence the cap, which had the added virtue that it could be pulled over his eyes. Anne wore rough, shabby clothes and they affected ungrammatical speech. They escaped detection so well that at one tourist camp they were rewarded by overhearing the proprietress express doubt that the “young couple in the end cabin” (themselves) actually were married. Shut off from the usual public pleasures, they were able to enjoy the movies because they were dimly lighted. Intermissions at the theater would have brought about them a pack of fellowplaygoers—a tightly packed horde, including the invariable old ladies begging for the privilege of kissing the hero’s hand. Hollywood stars might be able to enjoy such attentions but the Lindberghs, remembering that the unthinkable once had happened to them, daren't ignore the danger that lies in crowd hysteria. They never dined in public restaurants. Other couples freely might do their Christmas shopping together, New Year's

INDIANAPOLIS, WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 1, 1936

“There are fifteen men at work for every fourteen men at work a year ago,” writes John T. Flynn . . . “For every SBO worth of goods made in 1934, factories turned out SB7 worth this year.”

ascribed to the accumulated shortages in various groups of goods. Inevitably these would have to be repaired. But they would not be until fresh supplies of purchasing power were injected into the system either through bank loans, security loans or construction loans. Where, then, has the rise come from? Another group insists it is due to Roosevelt policies. But— The NRA is dead. The Gold and

Washington Merry-Go-Round BY DREW PEARSON and ROBERT S. ALLEN

WASHINGTON, Jan. I.—To the public at large, the name of Dr. John A. Kingsbury means little if anything. But to eve parties, go to popular art exhibitions or football games. Not so the Lindberghs, and when they went to the movies the expedition, simple enough for John Citizen and his wife, was for them a carefully plotted adventure. Reserving seats in advance, wearing dark glasses and inconspicuous clothing (which included a cap for the colonel), they drove to the theater entrance together. Mrs. Lindbergh dismounted from the car and swiftly entered the theater alone. The colonel found a parking space and returned to find his way to a seat beside her in the semi-obscurity. They were reasonably sure of escaping recognition during the picture. tt tt Motives Not Known No @ne apart from Col. Lindbergh may know precisely the motives that impelled him to leave his country. They were, no doubt, complex, including genuine apprehensions for the life of Jon. He resented w'hat seemed to be attempts by Gov. Harold Hoffman of New Jersey to obtain national publicity over Bruno Richard Hauptmann’s death sentence. A concerted, ugly, letter-writing campaign calculated to force him to intercede for Hauptmann likewise played a part, I understand. The Lindberghs, unlike other notables, never were permitted by the adoring multitudes to enjoy a happy obscurity. No hero ever has been so bedeviled by his fame. Other public idols of this generation, Hobson, Dewey, Theodore Roosevelt, Byrd, Chamberlain, w r ere allowed to relax into the routine of a celebrity. Only Lindbergh invariably and instantly attracted a pushing, gaping, growling, relentless crowd. The durable nature of his popularity is one of the phenomena of our time. The phenomenon helped to drive him from this country.

Silver Purchase Acts are admittedly failures. The Home Owners and Farm Loan Acts, while bringing peace to the mortgage foreclosure market, played no part in recovery; they were purely relief measures. The Emergency Housing Act was a complete flop. The Securities and Stock Exchange Acts are not intended to be recovery measures; they seek reform, not recovery. The Utilities Act is not yet in force.

medical and social welfare circles, it means one of the foremost public health authorities in the country. Dr. Kingsbury was commissioner of charities of New York City under Mayor John Purroy Mitchell. As such he gave a social welfare job to a gangling youth from lowa. The young man’s name was Hopkins and it w r as his first rea; job. In 1921 Dr. Kingsbury became secretary of the Milbank Memorial Fund, endowed for social research and the promotion of public health. Fourteen years later, he suddenly found himself out on the street, and applied to the gangling youth, from lowa—now Works Progress Administrator for a job. He got it. Behind that incident is a story of the trials and tribulations of the Sot il Security Act. It is a story of what is alleged to be a. bitter vendetta by certain doctors against the public health provisions of the new law. a tt u Medical Competition TT7HAT these doctors are said * ’ to object to is the provision in the Social Security Act whereby $8,000,000 is distributed among the states for public health work, while $2,000,000 for research is given the U. S. Public Health Service, and $3,500,000 goes to the U. S. Children’s Bureau for maternity and child welfare work. This means government competition with private practice. This section was drafted by two associates of Dr. Kingsbury in the Milbank foundation—Edgar Sydenstricker and Dr. I. S. Falk. They drafted the provisions at the invitation of Labor Secretary Perkins. But it aroused the resentment of influential doctors in the American Medical Association. The association actually held a special meeting in Chicago—the first in many years—and went on record against the Social Security Act. Dr. Kingsbury asserted publicly

Neither is the Social Security Act nor the Banking Act nor the act to tax big incomes. The Guffey Act is hardly effective yet and the same is true of the Railroad Retirement Act. As you go over the list you begin to perceive that the only Roosevelt measures which are really effective are the agencies set up to spend money. This in 'ludes public works in a small way and relief in a large way. including the CCC as a very small force. *. a a a T TERE is the proof of the pudding. Business points to the increase in bank deposits as an evidence of rising business. Bank deposits have risen. At the low point in 1933 they were $38,000,000,000. Now they are around $45,000,000,000. There is a rise of $7,000,000,000. Where did all that money come from? Money in banks can increase only with the creation of new money. This can take place either by (1) fresh emission of money by the government, (2) bank credits or loans. (3) gold imports, (4) government borrowing at the banks. It has not come from fresh supplies of government money. These have increased only a few hundred million. It has not come from bank loans for these are less nowr than in March, 1933. Some of it has come from gold imports —nearly two billion of it. The only energy left is government bank borrowing. And of course this has been on an enormous scale. In the period since March, 1933, it has amounted to $9,426,872,837. This is where the great bank deposits have come from. tt tt it IT IS easy to see how this has affected us. During the last two years the government has spent close to $300,000,000 a month on recovery and relief. When the government spends $300,000,000 in a month, what becomes of that money? It passes out of the hands of the relief beneficiaries into the hands of business. It continues to move about from retailer to manufacturer to producers, to workers, to stores cf all sorts and so on in an endless chain. As each month goes by, the spendings of the government are added to the sums which are circulating around in business. Now we have the accumulated spendings of the last two years all out in the business world moving and creating purchasing power and business energy. The total is around seven billion dollars. How any one can doubt that it is this which produces the current rise in business passes understanding. It was about the summer of this year that these cumulated spendings began to have a cumulative effect and to quicken the whole structure of the economic machine.

that as a move to retaliate against the Milbank foundation, a secret boycott was launched against the Borden Milk Cos. of which Albert G. Milbank, president of the Memorial Fund, is chairman. The medical association itseif had nothing to do with the boycott, he said, but claimed that many of its leading members did. This was particularly true, he said, in New York, Indiana and Michigan. Dr. Kingsbury charged that when faced with this economic offensive, the directors of the Milbank foundation asked him to cease assisting the Social Security Board. He refused, he asserted, and was forced to resign, and became an assistant to Harry Hopkins. tt Drama Experiment T7TCTOR WOOLFSON, special ’ dramatic adviser to Tugwell’s Resettlement Administration, has recommended the zenith in New Deal experimentation. Woolfson has made a survey of resettlement projects, where exminers are being set up in new homesteads with a garden patch of their own. He said: “These people can create an indigenous drama. It would be a great mistake to let them produce third-rate established plays. Let them write plays out of their own life drama.” Therefore he proposes sitting down with a group of homesteaders, and saying: “Now, tell us what you have been doing”; or, “What momentous things have happened in your life?” Out of this a play would be written. Then the homesteaders would act out the story. Whether such drama experimentation takes place depends upon Resettlement’s “Special Skills” division and upon 27-year-old Grace Falke, assistant to Tugwell. Syndicate. Inc.)

By J. Carver Pusey

Second Section

F.ntered ns seeond-Cla* Matter at Pnatoffice, Indianapolis. Ind.

Fair Enough WESIMOKPMfIt pARIS, Jan. I.—lt is a strange refuge which the X Charles A. Lindberghs have selected in their flight from the prying press of the United States, because they will discover that the English have an uncommonly morbid appetite for the intimate affairs of prominent persons and are especially silly on the subject of prominent babies. Compared to the inquisitiveness of their new neighbors in England regarding their home and their little son. the curiosity of their American countrymen, which the Lindberghs found so tiresome, will

seem nothing more than acute indifference. Asa typical example of the tripe which the English print about well-born infants I quote from an article in an English magazine called Woman’s Journal, written, not to say prattled, by Miss Kate Fox, who was childhood nurse to Princess Marina of Greece, who married the Duke of Kent. This feat of journalistic baby talk deals with the life and times and nursery of the infant child of the duke and duchess. It is

accompanied by photographs of the baby’s quarters and a thorough Baedekers guide to the nurserv Which would be of invaluable aid to^he^kidnapers; hiit l fho P^!° Bra F hS are simplv to ° damned duckv, S, ; , I , :xt .f nd ca^> ons dou dle and redouble the hDH I k duckinoss. The photographs show the ittie and h?? ,t tle blt V e crib ’ his wooll y bootie wooties and his blanky wankets. a a And More of the Same ' TT prints, by gracious permission of her royal highnoss, an exclusive photograph of the ittie bittie kiddy s very own bathroom, whose plumbing is a faintly melancholy reminder of the earliest experiments in modern conveniences in Minnesota. I ask whether the Lindberghs ever have been asked to tolerate anything like this in America. "On the top floor cf the large and dignified house m Belgrave Square high up from the hurrying, bustling world, are the nurseries of our new prince. There sleeps and smiles and cries the tiny babe of but a few' w'eeks ole, starting his life as the fifth grandchild of our king and queen. Behind these windows there is love and care and watchfulness and the joyous privileges of motherhood which come to every home when a child is bom. “Let us take a peep into his own little world and see what it is like. Here the walls and ceiling and floor are white. Such soft and soothing shades as this white are the baby eyes to open upon. Such necessary equipment as swabs of cotton in glassware enamel bowls, and the vaseline is kept in a low, rub-ber-tired trolley.” It goes on and on but there is a chilling note of commercial ballyhoo. A picture shows a room in the nursery which looks not unlike one in a chain store hotel back home, and the cutline says: “Everything in the prince’s nursery is, of course, British made.” a tt Resigned to Their Fate ENGLISH newspapers have been exceedingly smug about the Lindberghs, but if Col. Lind, bergh’s counsel can dig out of the files of the American press any copy which even remotely approaches the fatuous intimacy of this piece about the baby prince I will produce an American newspaper man who will eat without ketchup the entire edition. The truth about the royal family is that all of them have been better sports about the burden of publicity w'hich their jobs involve than Lindbergh has been. But Lindbergh quite early in the game adopted a rude and surly attitude toward American reporters and photographers who were persistently sent out to work on him. Nobody ever printed or even sought any dirt about Lindbergh—all he ever got was idolatry and curiosity, and the reporters may have felt sometimes that they were engaged in rotten work. A Temple and An Old Alabama Roman BY ERNIE PYLE BIRMINGHAM, Ala.. Jan. I.—There is a man in Birmingham who lives by himself in a Roman temple on top of a mountain. He isn’t crazy. He just has a hobby, and it happens to be Roman history. He likes to surround himself with things Roman. So 10 years ago he bought 20 acres right on the peak of Shades Mountain, 15 miles from downtown Birmingham. Instead of building a house to resemble a temple, he built a temple and then fixed it up inside like a house. The temple is round, and those who make jokes like to say that George B. Ward lives in a silo. But George Ward’s temple is no more like a silo than a cigaret, which is also round. George Ward, now going down the other side of life, is one of Birmingham’s very first citizens. He was bom in Birmingham, and has always lived here. He was Mayor for 10 years. He is a partner in a bond brokerage house, and still goes downtown every day. He has been a leader in things civic most of his life. But his obsession for Roman history makes him a “character.” He made his home a replica of the Temple of Vesta. He calls his place “Vestavia.” Vesta, you know, was the Goddess of the hearth-fire. a a THE stone for Vestavia came right out of Shades Mountain. The temple has three stories and a basement, and rises 58 feet above ground. A 14-foot wide porch circles it just below the top. and 20 large columns run down to the porch on the ground floor. Inside, there is just one room on each floor. Each room is round, and 28 feet across. The first floor is a living room, and beautiful. The second floor (reached by a circular stairway) is the bedroom. It has a huge fireplace, two great canopied beds, and a bathroom. Ward has never finished the third floor inside. Doesn’t need it. I spent an evening with George Ward in Vestavia. Inside the temple, we sat before the immense fireplace, in easy chairs, talking. tt a 11 WARD is a lonesome man among his splendor. I know he is lonesome, because he told me so. He is unmarried. He is alone but for his three colored servants and his five little dogs. He has read about evei-ything there is to read that he likes. He has shelf after shelf of books on the Roman Empire. He has read them all. He can answer the minutest question on Roman history. He thinks Caesar was the greatest of all men, and he puts Napoleon next. Militarists are his heroes. He says the reason I hate militarists is because I am young. He thinks Mussolini the greatest man of our time. He has visited Italy three times, but hasn’t seen Mussolini. He’d like to. He thinks Italy's move into Ethiopia is all right. He thinks the Ethiopian! should be saved from themselves. Vestavia is the showplace of Birmingham, and Ward is generous with it. Occasionally he throws it open for the public. He used to give grand parties, and dress his colored boys in armor, holding spears. Others would sweep great fans over the guests’ heads. The colored boys thought it was swell. So did the guests. When I left Vestavia to go down the mountain that night, I did not leave litre an ordinary person leaves an ordinary place. No. One servant drove my car. Two others followed in another car. A Roman escort, down Shade! Mountain, in the dark! Did I feel big?

Westbrook Fegler