Indianapolis Times, Volume 48, Number 8, Indianapolis, Marion County, 20 March 1936 — Page 25

It Seems to Me DMBM (Robert Brown batting for Heywood Broun) BY ROBERT S. BROWN TuSfta Special Writer TY7ASHINGTON, March 20.—Sufficient work has * * been completed on the lower Mississippi River control program to protect the valley in the present crisis, Army engineers believe. While swollen waters, fed by the flooded Ohio and other Eastern tributaries, may cai'se some damage to dikes and new channels not yet completed, engineers said that only a “great flood” would bring reaFalarm. The control project, started shortly after Congress adopted the Mississippi flood control a/Ct in May, 1928, is expected to be completed next year. More than 580 million yards of earth have been placed on protecting ievees. The entire program calls for moving about 650 million yards. Congress authorized a total of $325,000,000 for the Job. So far $272,000,000 has been spent. an a FLOOD control work extends from Rock Island, 111., to the Gulf of Mexico, but the greater part is being done below Cairo, 111., where the Ohio joins tne Mississippi. A back levee of the New Madrid floodway, extending from Bird's Point, Mo., to New Madrid, Mo., has been completed. This wilt protect southwestern Missouri and the floodway will protect Cairo. Levees protecting the Reelfoot section of Kentucky and Tennessee have neen enlarged with a resulting added safety to tl ! region. In Arkansas, from New Madrid south, the H Francis basin has been given protection from flee t .aters by construction of levees along the little river drainage canal, St. John’s bayou and the main stream or the Mississippi. Extension and expansion of embankments on the couth bank of the Arkansas River will help southern Arkansas and parts of Louisiana. Levees in the Yazoo basin in Mississippi have been raised and strengthened from the bluffs near Memphis to a point just north of the Yazoo River at Vicksburg, Miss. i* it u ARMY engineers have completed control work along the entire length of Louisiana. Levees along Atchafalaya and Red Rivers have been rebuilt. The Bonnet Carre spillway, designed to protect New Orleans, is completed and can be placed in use whenever necessary. The same improvements have been carried to completition along the main Mississippi wherever local communities have been able to readjust their facilities to the higher and stronger levees. The entire plan of control is bas'd on the construction of levees, great ridges of t. rth piled up parallel to the river channel and situated far enough from the river to be safe from caving banks. These man-made boundaries vary from 20 to 30 feet in height. Earth for the embankments is taken from shallow pits far enough back from the levees to prevent underground percolation which might undermine or destroy the levees. In some instances the parallel ridges have been built by hydraulic dredges pumping the earth through pipelines. a it it IN certain areas revetments have been built along the river banks. Revetment includes a flexible mattress extending from the low-water line to near midstream as well as paving above the low-water line. Progress on tne Federal flood cdntrol project has been beyond first expectations. Almost all work is being done by private contractors under Army supervision. The program contemplates protection for the entire alluvial valley of the Mississippi.

Business Men of U. S. Can Work Together BY RAYMOND CLAPPER WASHINGTON, March 20.—President Roosevelt has called upon business leaders to co-operate in increasing production and reducing unemployment. Many think business is incapable of doing that. They picture business as a world of tooth-and-claw individualists unable to co-operate. \c.ually however, the business world is full of great co-operative efforts. We don’t notice them because they are efforts in the direction of technique,

production and sales rather than in the field of social problems. U. S. Steel is a gigantic co-operative enterprise, in which hundreds of executives work together. A. T. & T. is another gigantic coopera Live enterprise requiring not only the co-ordinated efforts of thousands of executives scattered throughout the entire country but perfection of intricate technical and mechanical co-operation. There is no lack of co-

operative ability in the business and industrial world. It merely has not been applied to many problems beyond the immediate range of technical, administrative and sales requirements. tt it tt FOREIGNERS sometimes see our characteristics more sharply than we do ourselves. The former Spanish ambassador at Washington, Salvador De Madariaga, aims his spyglass at us in the Forum magazine: “The average American knows by instinct when a machine must be scrapped, a man fired, a business method given up. But he is utterly incapable of seeing that the Constitution of his country must be radically changed. His locomotives live about 10 years; his warships 20. But his century-and-a-half-old Constitution goes grinding and whining on up the stiff gradients of politics and economics, with just barely enough energy to spit out an unpleasant amendment but. not to adjust its tottering steps to the Jazz of modern economics.’’ Perhaps the ambassador exaggerates the alertness of American business men and the weaknesses of the Constitution. But he does succeed in dramatizing the contrast between hard-boiled common sense with which an American goes at his business affairs and his mythical worship of the past in governmental affairs. tt tt tt Or. as Prof. Thurman Arnold puts it in his “Symbols of Government’’: “The principles of Washington's farewell address are still sources of wisdom when cures for social ills are sought. The methods of Washington’s physician, however, are no longer studied.’’ n n tt ROOSEVELT, recognizing that the art of government is civilization's most backward child, sought with his brain trust to introduce into government some of the objective intelligence which has been applied to the sciences and other phases of life. It ha* not been a particularly successful experiment although, as in any pioneering effort, a large margin of error must be allowed. In turning now to private industry with an appeal to co-operate in tackling the stubborn unemployment problem, which has not yielded automatically to recovery, Mr. Roosevelt is in effect asking business to apply to it the same co-operative intelligence which has been applied so successfully to its more immediate affairs, particularly in the field of productive capacity. What we have in unemployment is a tonsil case, a focal point of infection which poisons our whole system. The tonsils have to come out. If the operation is beyond the capacity of private business executives, then the politicians will have to struggle with it. And it is fair to remind private business that when politicians go after tonsils, they U|£.an ax.

INDIANAPOLIS, THE CITY OF SMOKE aaaaaa*>'a a a a a a a a Health of Citizens Affected by Soot, Many Doctors Contend

This is the fifth of a series of articles on smoke conditions in Indianapolis by Arch Steinel. t BY ARCH STEINEL JNDIANAPOLIS has its spots—soot spots—that, like a leopard’s spots, never change when the soot begins to fall. They are sectors where the children get the dirtiest, where curtains are washed the oftenest, where housewives work the hardest to keep living quarters, clean, where wallpaper cleaner sales boom, and where a cold is as common as a black smoking cnimney. The three dirtiest sectors of the city, and they alter-

nate, month by month and year by year, for the reputation of having the sootiest face, are: Massachusetts-av and Rural-st. W. Michigan-st and Sheffield-av. Washington-st and Forest-av. Blocking off five-mile-square areas in the city, George R. Popp, city combustion engineer, in a survey found that the three sectors above each average better than 500 tons of sootfall yearly. If you live within the five-mile square of 29th and N. Hardingsts, 54th-st and College-av, and Sheiby-st and Pleasant Run-blvd, then you reside —according to the survey—in the spic -and - span areas. a a a THE sootfall, the survey shows, should not average over 250 to 290 tons yearly in the ultraclean sections. * Mr. Popp gathers sootfall records by placing jars 12 to 15 feet above street level to avoid catching street dust and carbon from motor cars. The survey, made for all months and correlated into a normal sooty year, would be higher at all 11 stations if jars were placed for the coal-burning winter of 1935-36. Collecting the jars, Mr. Popp, aided by the city chemist, examines the contents and separates the soot and minerals from the noncombustible dirt. Each jar averages about 42 per cent soot and minerals and 58 per cent dirt. The actual sootfall is computed from the 42 per cent carbon and mineral deposits of the jars. Dirt is not counted as sootfall. a a a THE 11 stations where jars were placed, with their yearly sootfall and percentage to the total sootfall—of between 4312 tons and 5000 tons—in the city, follow below in the order of the tons of soot rained on each approximate five-mile-square area: M O J - Si -1 nso 0 3 ns* Z* JSP o n ■< Station Massachusetts-av and Rural. 5*5 13.3 W. Mich.-st and Sheffield... 547 12.7 E. Wash.-st and Forest-av... 526 12.2 City Hall gar., downtown area. 445 10.3 E. Wash.-st and Emerson-av.. 394 9.1 22d-st and College-av 358 8.3 42d-st and Winthrop-av 352 8.1 Olivcr-av and Holly-st 324 7.5 Shelby & Pleasant Run-blvd 281 6.5 54th-st and College-av 268 6.4 29th and N. Harding-sts 242 5.6 Year’s fall 4312 100 Prevailing winds of Indianapolis, says J. H. Armingtcn, U. S. Weather Bureau head, blow from the south and southwest. Smoke and smogs travel, many times from the southwest toward the north and northeast, as well as the northwest. The station at Massachusettsav and Rural-st shows, it is said, high sootfall due not only to the wind direction, but to industries and railroads nearby. The low sootfall at 29th and Harding-sts can be attributed to the few r industries in the Riverside Park area. At times, the city’s smogs drift toward that sector but lose their density, and much of their smoke-laden particles fall in high sootfall areas such as W. Michigan-st and Sheffield-av. a a a SMOG, combin ition of smoke and fog, is induced, Mr. Armington says, by a high barometer accompanied by a high pressure field with the w r ind dropping in velocity to two miles an hour or less. The surface air has little lateral movement and the wind is too slow to carry away the smoke as fast as it is spewed into the air. “Indianapolis smogs occur in the latter part of the night as smoke combined with fog becomes so dense that a full complement of electric lights are needed in the downtown area. Those who live in the affected areas arise to dark, gloomy, damp-feeling mornings with sometimes the disagreeable smelly odor of exploded gunpowder; while those living in the suburbs are invigorated by a clear, snappy atmosphere. Passage from one area to another is marked like passing into or emerging from a long tunnel,” says Mr. Armington. Mr. Armington says Indianap-' olis will continue to suffer from smogs as long “as soft or inferior coals are burned without sufficient .care in firing or the use of smoke

Clapper

BENNY

= r-y. .. r = ATTORNEY f \ —— “Ip— ■

The Indianapolis Times

consumers,” or “until effective action has been taken to do away with the great volumes of soot poured into the atmosphere.” a a a Hm asserts that tne city would have fewer dense fogs and no smogs if it were a smokeless metropolis. \ Knock on the door of a bungalow at 1814 N. Rural-st —within a couple of squares of one of the worst soot areas at Massachusetts and Rural—and Mrs. John McCotter, tired from trying to keep six children clean, answers the knock. The McCotters at one time lived next door to a foundry at 529 S. Holmes-av, so Rural-st seems a paradise to them and yet—- “ Billy, he’s 3, has always got colds summer, and winter. Helen cries all the time —she’s 7—and can’t get along at school. Esther, 10, is frail and we’ve had her out to Sunnyside. Catherine, 12, seems to take cold quicker than any except Billy. And outside of Pat, 5, and James, 14, it seems all the others are sick,” says Mrs. McCotter. “Look at Billy there —” and she pointed to a freckle-faced youth with nose smudged with soot and clothing grimed with dirt who stood first on one toe and then another eyeing the home’s visitor. a a a BILLY sniffed disdainfully at a comment on his nostril activity. “You can’t keep them clean. I never hang out my washings and sometimes I have to wash over again if the,soot gets in the basement when I dry them in the liuuce,” Mrs. McCotter added. Next door reside Mr. and Mrs. Ivan Farmer. Mrs. Farmer echoes Mrs. McCottor’s complaint with the declaration she finds it hard to keep her two daughters clean. “We moved here from Muncie and, although Muncie is not such a clean city, it’s not as dirty as this town. Why I wash my curtains every month. We’d move somewhere else, but it’s close to my husband’s work,” she vouched. One and one-half miles away from the Farmer home is Forestav, between Washington and New York-sts. It had four houses and a lot of vacant ground for sale. Situated in one of the city’s soot areas, the street was born of the depression and may die of the soot unless resurrected. a a a OWNERS of tw'o homes on the street, valued at SSOOO to S6OOO in boom years, would sell out tomorrow if they could get some return on their investments. Industrial smoke, coupled with use of the street as a proving ground for motor cars, residents say, has banned it for children. The block has no children. “I clean all the time,”*said Mrs. C. H. Myers, 65 N. Forest-av, as she shook out a dust-rag, “and as for keeping white curtains up. you just can’t do it. That’s why I use dark drapes.” Across the street, Miss Edith Trible and her mother, Mrs. Margaret Trible, 48 N. Forest, agree that the realty value of their S6OOO home has depreciated and that industrial smoke has not helped keep that value up.

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

WASHINGTON, March 20. Although it will not be admitted officially, the present high unemployment figure, with the continuing necessity for Federal relief, is one of the keenest personal disappointments experienced by the Prdfeident. He had set his heart on going before the country in June and announcing that unemployment had disappeared and the relief problem virtually had ended. He was convinced that unemployment rolls could be brought down to 2,000,000, which is low compared to the number normally out of work in this country. At no time, how r ever, did his close advisers agree with him. Harry Hopkins, who faced the job of employing 3.500,000 men, never thought the total of unemployed could be reduced below 7,500,000, or 8,000.000. (It now stands between 10.000,000 and 12.000.000.) But the President would not accept such pessimistic figures.

FRIDAY, MARCH 20, 1936

Four residences on the street, no children, but a lot of soot, is the predicament of Forest-av, off of E. Washington-st. It is shown above, located in one of the city’s dirtiest soot-infested areas. Soot and smogs rarely give Billy McCotter’s handkerchief a break. Billy, 3, of 1814 N. Rural-st, lower photo, lives—according to records in the office of the city smoke combustion engineer—in another leading “blackface” district. “Billy always has colds,” his mother says.

“This street was cut through in 1930 and we built the first home here. Too many people burn a poor grade of coal around here to help smoke matters much,” said the daughter. a a a SKIP to 29th and Harding-sts and its closest residential neighborhood, the 1500 block on Udell-st, and the city’s cleanest spot finds residents agreeing that the sootfall findings are accurate. Infants can get their Vitamin D from, baby-buggies placed in backyards rather than from a codliver oil bottle as in some sections of Indianapolis. Mrs. Clyde E. Williams, 1501 Udell-st, knows it is cleaner than the 2300 block on Carrollton-av, her former abode. “I can sun Fay Anne, 15-months-old, where I know it could not be done in winter over on Carrollton,” Mrs. Williams says. She qualifies the district’s cleanliness, however, by declaring that the Williams’ former home, South Bend, was a much cleaner town. “Clyde Jr., he’s 6, has had more colds since we’ve been here than he had in South Eend. Yes I’d say this is a dirtier city than South Bend.” Physicians bear out the chorus of housewives visited that “windows just can’t be kept open.” Dr. Herman G. Morgan, city health officer, on several occasions has warned sinus sufferers to sleep with closed windows. One of the smoke-infested areas of the city is the apartmenthouse district in the vicinity of 16th and Pennsylvania-sts. It is in the shadow of $250,000 in art treasures of the John Herron Art Institute’s museum. • Housekeeping at the museum is doubled by the sootfall, according to Wilbur D. Peat, curator. Expensive textiles, costumes and fabrics of oriental and other foreign weaving must be kept boxed up instead of on display to prevent damage. Silk and brocades suffer from soot and dust. The museum’s dry cleaning bill runs to S2OO yearly and other costs, such as washing of cases and cleansing oils, add materially to the expense. a a a SULPHUR fumes from the smoke, Mr. Peat believes, form one of the most deadly enemies to the institute’s treasures. Removal of the museum to a

TTTHILE visiting in Hyde Park ’ ’ last fall he had an argument with Aubrey Williams, assistant WPA administrator, regarding unemployment estimates. “You are all w r et on those figures,” he told Williams. “The WPA administrator right here at Hyde Park advertised for 700 men, and how many do you thing he got? Just exactly two.” And convinced that unemployment could not be so large if the WPA could not secure men around Hyde Park, Roosevelt ordered a recheck of figures for the entire country. Gordon Silvermaster, who checked them, found the original estimates were correct. (Copyright. 1936. by United Feature Syndicate. Inc.) Former Steel Chief Dies By United Press BIRMINGHAM, Ala., March 20. George Gordon Crawford, former head of the T. C. 1., Southern subsidiary of United States Steel, and onetime head of the Jones & Laughlin Steel Corp. of Pittsburgh, died here today. He was 60.

p§TO 4p& M|

cleaner section of the city has been discussed at times. One of the ironies of Indianapolis is that one of its cleanest sections, the southwest section, has few residences and a small minority of the population compared to similar areas. William P. Snethen, secretarymanager of the Apartment House Owners Association of Indianapolis, points this fact out. He says that his organization’s members believe that realty values are affected by the smoke nuisance.

HAND MAY DECEIVE YOU

Today’s Contract Problem South is playing the con- . tract at six spades. During the contracting, East bid clubs. What chance lias East of defeating the six-spade contract? What card should he play on bis partner’s opening lead? A A 10 7 5 2 V Void 4 AKQ 10 8 4 2 ’ *3 *94 Jj |*K VQJ 64 2 w c * 10 875 495 w 6 4J7 *A 8 6.5 S *KQJ9 Dealer 2 AQJB63 V AK 9 3 4 6 3 * 10 4 N. & S. yul. Opener—* A. Solution in next issue. 13

Solution to Previous Contract Problem BY WM. E. M’KENNEY Secretary American Bridge League HERE is a hand with a play that looks similar to a grand coup, and still is not a grand coup. While North and South are loaded with high-card tricks, West’s spade bid saves them from getting into an unmakable slam. Against four hearts West can hardly be criticized for not opening his ace of spades. It is true that, if he does, he can hold the contract to five hearts. With a diamond opening, however, the declarer can make seven odd. The opening diamond lead is won in dummy with the ace. A heart is led and. of course, declarer should not take a finesse on the

His organization is backing smoke abatement campaigns. But be it apartment house, art museum, office building or home, and regardless of the sector of the city, it just must receive some portion of a 250 to 600 tons of sootfall that sifts, flake by flake, down in the various areas until it makes a total blanket of black for Indianapolis of between 4312 and 5000 tons. Next: Shooing the Soot Away— How to Do It.

A 7 3 V 75 4 3 ♦ AK9 5 3 ♦ A J A AQIOB. 6 N *K 9 2 V Void W E V QlO 8 2 ♦ QJIO 7 C 486 * 4 S5 r D Kr 10 3 7 6 AJ 5 4 VAK J 9 S ♦ 2 . *KQ4 2 Rubber—E. & W. vul.. South West North East IV 1 A 2 A Pass 2 V Pass 4 y Pass Opening lead—A Q. 13 first round, but should go up with the ace. West discards a high spade. A small club is won in dummy with the jack, the king of diamonds cashed and a spade discarded. Now the ace of clubs is cashed, a small heart played, and the nine spot finessed. West completes his echo in spades by playing the six. As declarer has nothing to lose, he next should cash the king and queen of club. r , discarding the two losing spades in dummy. A smsll spade now is trumped in dummy with the five of hearts. A diamond is returned, East does not trump, but discards a spade; and declarer trumps with the six of hearts. The jack of spades is ruffed in dummy with the seven of hearts. A diamond is led and, as East has nothing but trump, he is forced to play either the ten or the queen, the declarer overtrumps and picks up the outstanding heart, making seven odd. (Copyright, 1936. by NEA Service. Inc.)

By J. Carver Pusey

Second Section

Entered as Second-Class Matter at I’ostoffiee. Indianapolis. Ind.

Fair Enough IMMIfR PARIS, March 20.—There have been more planes than usual in the air over Paris since Hitler moved the army of the winter Olympics up to their positions along the Rhine, and the sound of motors overhead naturally starts a certain train of thought among the citizens. For years now sentimental pacifists and flying generals—both groups lopsided on the subject of the horror of the next war from the air—have been co-op rating in a fear campaign, so it is interesting

at th s writing to note the cold indiff rence of the Parisians. Bomt rdment is no new experience ) most of them, and they seem ot to believe the ballyhoo of th( last 15 years about huge bombs which will blow the Bourse to powder with one large noise and gas bombs which will destroy thousands of civilians in conditions of great discomfort. They have heard all that before. To be sure, experience taught them that it was not good hygiene to stand in exposed positions when the bombs were popping. So the city is now prepared

to dive underground when the raiders come. But they have not bought many masks, and sales at the Galeries Lafayette during the last week amounted to just 10. a a a They're Rather Expensive THE masks are expensive equipment, costing approximately $5.60 to $8.40, reduced from s2l. At the old price the gas masks were obviously a luxury for the well-to-do, but it can hardly be said that this equipment has been brought within reach of the masses even now. They are said to be good for 24 hours of continual use, after which the chemicals in the snout must be replaced at a cost of a little less than $3. There are said to be gasproof garments, too—something like the ones which marine divers wear. Dryg stores and other shops in town also have masks for sale, and there was a window display some time ago of a chemical which, if scattered on the floor of a room, will neutralize certain kinds of gas but not all kinds. That suggests another problem of individual defense. A man may buy a whole armful of assorted masks for his family at great expense and issue them around, only to discover that the stuff in the snout is not the right formula to resist the particular gas with which the family circle is being bombarded at the moment. a a a Why Live Forever? THE attitude of the civilians who can not possibly get out of town or safely underground in time for one of the great horrible raids which have been predicted for years is something like that of the British Tommy toward body armor during the big war. The loving parents or the wife or children of the British Tommy might sacrifice many little desires in order to buy him a sort of false belly made of steel—in three sections, like the shell of an armadillo—and present it to him at the hour of his going to the front. He would accept it with affectionate gratitude and half an hour later would be tossing it out of the window of the train because it wasn’t regulation. It was too heavy, and, finally, it set his comrades to asking him what the hell—did he want to live forever? To be sure, if the air raids in the next war should justify the stories of the fear campaign there will be great indignation among the citizens of France, who will feel that the army should have known and the government should have issued civilian protective gear. Just now, though, they can hear the sound of motors over the city, think their thoughts and remain quite calm, for enemies have been wiping out Paris and the French nation for hundreds of years, and here they are today.

Gen, Johnson Says—

WASHINGTON, March 20.—At the Armistice there were some counsels among the Allies that favored marching to Berlin and dictating peace to an occupied Germany. It would have cost several hundred thousand lives, and might have made matters no better than their present sorry state, but the argument was that unless Germany really tasted defeat she would still be recalcitrant and dangerous. She has been that way since the beginning of time. From the first mention of the Teutonic tribes in Tacitus they have been a military and aggressive people, with a resiliency that exists nowhere else. They stopped Rome in her tracks by the annihilation of Varus’ legions. Charlemagne decimated them —but they were never subdued. Frederick the Great could say “all is lost save honor,” and live to see his grenadiers conquer middle Europe. Napoleon subjugated them, but it was Blucher rather than Wellington who broke the Emperor at Waterloo. a a a GERMAN occupation of the Rhineland is not an act of war, but it takes from France part of the security for which she fought the World War. The French eastern frontier is the strongest fortified line in the world—too strong for any German assault now. But to be able to defend herself on her own eastern front, where she feels a constant danger, Germany simply can not leave a demilitarized zone along the Rhine. On the other hand, it is almost unanimous French military opinion that if Germany isn’t made and kept incapable of offense now, France never can be safe. There has been no French generation that did not see a German war. What we have here is something like the irresistible force and the immovable object—one great nation which feels that it has a right to defend itself on every foot. of its territory, and another convinced that to permit this is fatal to its own future peace. The military situation in Europe is more serious and dangerous than at any time since 1918. (Copyright. 1936, by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.)

Times Books

IN “The Battleground,” (Lippincott; $4) Hilaire Belloc has a look at the fundamentals of European history from the vantage ground of Syria. Syria, he declares, since the dawn of history has been the focal point of the great struggle between the Asiatic and European conceptions of human society. It has been the greatest of all gateways to Asia; on its windswept hills the east and the west have fought for mastery over and over. This being so, Syria must be worth examining. Mr. Belloc proceeds to examine it, and writes a highly interesting book while doing so. The great civilizations of the Euphrates and the Tigris communicated with Egypt and the Mediterranean world across Syria, thousands of years ago. Alexander struck at the east through Syria. Later on, Rome went to Syria to make secure her eastern frontier. This eternal plowing of the soil, says Mr. Belloc, prepared the land so that it could give the world its one great gift, the Christian religion. It made this gift, and thereby changed the face of the world; and then a few centuries later, Asia swept back in an irresistible tide. It thrust the west back, and Syria became Asiatic again until Allenby took a British army into Jerusalem in 1917. All this great span of history, from the days of Abraham to the present moment, is covered in this book. With it comes again Mr. Belloc's plea for a united Christian civilization in the Occident; a plea that takes on added force from his exposition of that dvilizagon’s background. (By Bruce Catton.).

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Westbrook Pegler