Indianapolis Times, Volume 48, Number 30, Indianapolis, Marion County, 15 April 1936 — Page 13

// seems to Me HEYM BROUN YORK, April 15.—Spring and the' baseball season are here again and I'm going to root for Brooklyn. I'm for Casey Stengel's club because he seems to be giving an opportunity to a couple of groups which are underprivileged in the world today. According to the sports writers, ihe Brooklyn infield is composed of striplings and the outfielders are all old men. Thus Casey provides

a haven for Miltons who are mute and Miltons who are shopworn. All projects for the easement of the aged are right down my alley. In recent seasons I have remained away from baseball parks because they serve so poignantly to remind a man of his lost youth. They recall the days when it actually caused me anguish to watch the Yankees lose a ball game. Indeed. they weren’t even called the Yankees in the days to which I refer. We knew them as the Highlanders, and their ball park was a skimpy

Hrywood Broun

affair perched precariously on the front lawn of a deaf and dumb asylum. a a a A Fine Cluck Collection {MNCE the Highlanders were anew club, the other O teams in thf league helped'them out by sending one or two players from their surplus material. Asa result of this antique shower the Highlanders boasted the finest collection of grandfather clucks ever seen on any diamond. How well do I remember old Popup John at first. Rome of the most poignant tragedies of my early youth are associated with this same John Ganzel. My youth wasn’t so very early at that. Already I was a full-fledged baseball reporter hired for a meager sum to give a dispassionate account of 154 games a. year. The teams which plaved against the Highlanders generally amassed a lead of six or seven runs in the first couple of innings, but presently the Hilltop team would rally. Before you knew it the bases were full, nobody was out and John Ganzel was w-alking to the plate. At such times the air was rent with mv loud cries of encouragement. I would implore John to hit the ball over the fence, which was not much more than a long putt in that particular park. But Popup John was mashie-minded. That man could take a full swing at a fast one and meet the ball in such a way as to drive it straight into the air. Longitudinally, few of his drives carried much more than five or six feet, but it was a fine sight to see the baseball climb and climb as if to meet the setting sun. Indeed, the bleacherites would join in a long drawn “Ah” as if they watched the flight of rockets. a a a The Inevitable Ending GANZEL having been disposed of, Jack Kleinow, Che catcher, would come up and hit into a double play, and that was the inevitable ending of the Highland fling. And yet in spite of this brief lapse into cynicism I remained sentimental about the ball club. But the Highlanders continued to lose with a high degree of regularity, and since these were my formative years it had quite an effect upon my social philosophy. I used to laugh scornfully when patriotic orators said that any man in America could be President. I knew that it was not within the range of Popup John s capacity ever to make it. Indeed, to this very day I trust no leader utterly and keep my fingers crossed because I fear that in the pinch he may have the Ganzel touch. Nevertheless, I mean to haunt the Brooklyn ball park and, particularly, the seats abutting on the outfield. I want to see baseball again and in the company of men of my own age. (Copyright, 1316) 'Eminent Author' Is Former F. D. R. Aid BY RAYMOND CLAPPER WASHINGTON, April 15.—The White House is extremely mysterious about the “eminent author” whose four-point cure for the country's ills was sarcastically quoted by President Roosevelt in his Baltimore speech. Some thought he was taking a dig at Hoover. Some thought it was a side-swipe at Charles P. Taft, son of the late President, whose little book, “You and I—and Roosevelt,” is being recommended as required reading by Gov. Landon. And some thought Roosevelt must have been referring to a couple of other fellows. Well, just to clear it up, the “eminent author” is Ralph Robey, handsome young economist and lecturer on banking at Columbia University. Roosevelt quoted Robey's four-point, cure verbatim in the Baltimore speech and remarked sarcastically that he hoped his audience would be as “thrilled" and excited" as he was by it. a a a IT all came about quite casually. Roosevelt had just returned from his fishing trip and had to throw something together in a hurry for the Baltimore speech. One story is that the thing had been forgotten until the last minute. But a more credible one is that Harry Hopkins furnished the data about, unemployment and the necessity of limiting work to persons from 18 to 65 and that, since Secretary Stephen T. Early was out of town on vacation, his assistant, William D. Hassett, prepared a memorandum to help the President in knocking out his Baltimore address. Anyway, the President returned to town Friday, and Saturday began collecting ideas as to what he should say. He was reading the New York Times and on Page 3. after glancing at a Washington dispatch about how he was back at his desk, he skimmed over the page and saw three other items all giving him advice. Jobless workers who marched on Washington announced a “program of action.” Frank E. Gannett, New York newspaper publisher and running mate of Senator Borah, advised the President to restore the value of the dollar. The third was a brief Chicago dispatch reporting a speech by Ralph Robey—but the impeccable New York Times made an error and called him Paul Robey. Roosevelt seized upon that item and went to it. If you don’t believe this, read over his Baltimore speech and then read the New York Times. There it is—word for word. a a a THE funny thing is that Robey, now quoted with such disdain, was an original member of the brain trust—in the 1932 campaign when Prof. Moley, Tugwell, Gen. Johnson and others, then ' knowm to fame, were hidden away fabricating New Deal theses for the next President. a a m THIS may be giving away a trade secret but after all it isn t fair to embarrass innocent bystanders. White House Secretary Mclntyre said he didn't know who the “eminent author” was. Assistant Secretary Hassett said he didn’t know. The President canceled his press conference to go to the ball game and couldn't be asked. Then—you know how it is in Washington—you run into a friend and get to talking and he says: “I think I saw something Ralph Robey said in a speech the other day and it sounded like what the President said.” So, as the whole town is on its wav to the first ball game of the year, you plod back to the office, begin digging through recent newspaper files, and finally find two sticks of type about the Robey speech. You compare his four-points with the President's text and they check. From then on it's easy. As to the little close-up picture of how Roosevelt stumbled on to the Robey thing—well, it could be palmed off as deep inside stuff and you’d get the impression that the President just couldn't keep the secret and had let this lucky reporter in on it. But. to tell the truth, Roosevelt gives It away in his Baltimore speech.

ROADS

The Buzz of a Radio Signal Keeps Planes on Courses When Fog and Rain Hide Lights of Beacons. BY DAVID DIETZ Scripps-Howard Science Editor r JTHE propellers are roaring. Redcaps have finished stowing away the baggage. Passengers have taken their seats. The doors are closed. The big ship is ready to take off. The field is flooded with lights. Here and there special lights of red or green, their meaning clear to pilots, mark off boundaries, runways, obstructions. Beyond is darkness. Overhead the stars. The roar of the propellers increases. The big plane be-

gins to move as the pilot gives her the gun. Down the runway it goes. Up into the air. Visitors upon the steps of the airport administration building wave to the speeding plane To them it- has flown into the night, into the darkness of an ocean of air. But actually the plane is flying upon a road as well defined and as well equipped with signals as many a railroad. It is flying one of the roads of the

THIRD OF A SERIES

Federal Airways System. Let us follow this plane, I for we can not picture the air roads of the future without understanding I the air roads which already exist. The pilot of that plane, to begin with, did not merely hop into the cockpit and start his plane off into the night. Before he entered the plane, he talked with the airport dispatcher, went over the local weather reports and the reports which had come in by radio and by teletype. With the dispatcher, he mapped his —.

1 course, the altitudes at which he would fly, where he would stay under the clouds, where fly over them. The course decided upon, it was radioed to the dispatcher at the destination point for his approval. He checked it with his own weather reports and reports of incoming pilots and flashed back his o. k. Only then was the pilot ready to take off.

FLYING BY RADIO

AS his plane swung into the air, the dispatcher put a code message upon the teletypewriter. It gave the plane’s license number, the name of the pilot, and the destination. At once a line of observers ; from the point of embarkation to i the point of destination were on the j lookout for the plane. As the pilot rises into the air to I establish his altitude, he sees in the distance a flash of light. It is the next airways beacon, a rotating searchlight mounted upon a 51-foot tower. As the beam swings in his direction he sees a flash of clear white light. It is followed by a series of red flashes which in dot-and-dash code give him the beacon's location. This is the first of 10 such beacons, located at 10-mile intervals along the 100-mile stretch of the Federal Airways System which he is I now flying. If the weather remained clear the pilot would need no more than these beacons to guide him on his way. But the weather reports have warned him of “heavy weather” ; ahead, and so he turns a switch i which puts his radio apparatus into I operation. He is flying now by radio. He is : listening, with the earphones which ; he wears, to the radio range beacon of the airport which he has just left. This radio beason is a radio I transmitter so arranged that it sends out directional signals. Instead of going equally in all directions, the signals are confined to seitors, like segments of a pie. In one segment of the pie, the radion transmitter is sending in code letter “A.” This consists of a dot followed by a dash. The transmitter sends “dot dash” four times in succession and then follows it by the code signal which identifies the particular beacon. In the other segment, the transmitter is sending the letter “N,” which is a dash followed by a dot.

THIS CURIOUS WORLD + B y win iam Ferguson

to RATTLESNAKE J VENOM * A-t-H A Isas” AN OUNCE/ CT j—rr rc used in treatment J V FDR TYPHOID FEVER. AT VERKHOYANSK, Siberia, f . and I "COLDEST SPOT ON EARTH ~ id THE MONfTH ofr JANUARY \ 'll HI/' USUALLY AVERAGES ABOUT ml 1 ' SQ BELOW ZERO. v J © I>M >Y Ht* SCTVtCt. INC

At. Verkhoyansk, when the weather is at its worst . . . and temperatures of 90 degrees below zero have been recorded there . . . the exhaled vapor of one's breath crystallizes into needles of ice, making breathing painful. Ice forms in the nostrils of animals and makes it difficult for them to get enough * r -

The Indianapolis Times

If the pilot flies into one segment he hears “dot dash, dot dash, dot dash, dot dash.” If he flies into the other, he hears “dash dot, dash dot, dash dot, dash dot.” Now the aerial of the beacon has been so adjusted that the line joining the two segments is the course along which the pilot should fly. And when he is on this line, the two signals merge and so he hears neither “dot dash,” nor “dash dot,” but a combination of the two which is merely one long “dash.” Therefore, let the fog or clouds be ever so thick, let the lights of the airways beacons be obscured, the pilot need only listen to his earphones They tell him when he is on his course and they keep him there. Now all communications stations along the airways are on the lookout for our plane because of the teletype messages which the dispatcher sent from the airpoi't. As it passes over each one of these stations, the fact is duly noted in a teletype message. HAVE 100-MILE RANGE THE radio range beacon extends for a distance of 100 miles. At the end of that distance our pilot merely switches to the wave of the beacon which is 100 miles ahead. The United States Department of Commerce, however, has provided other safeguards along the airways.

VXTASHINGTON, April 15. * * Despite all the alleged mystery about airplane crashes, those on the inside know there is not very much mystery about them. Usually the Commerce Department is trying to cover up its blunders or else the aviation companies are trying to cover up theirs. The recent air tragedy near Uniontown, Pa., may never be cleared up officially. But insiders know that the radio beam, on which the pilot set his course, had been reported off. A check on 13 pilots of the Pennsylvania Airline, flying over almost the same route, showed that five times each of them was in danger due to a faulty beam. This report probably never will

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 15, 1936

Let us assume that our pilot has passed three of the flashing airways beacons upon which the signal lights have shown red. He notes that the signal lights upon the fourth flashes a message in green. This means that the beacon marks an intermediate or lighted landing field. As he approaches closer he sees a group of small lights, white and green, so disposed as to form an “L” with half-mile legs. Beyond the “L” he notes some red lights. If necessary, he can land upon either leg of the “L.” The red lights call attention to obstructions which must be avoided. Many of these intermediate fields are equipped with radio marker beacons. These are automatic radio transmitters which give in code the designation of the field. This serves

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

get out. The Commerce Department will not put it out, oecause it operates the beam. Actually, the department may not have been at fault. Sometimes weather phenomena will swing a beam 20 miles or so off-course. The pilot following it does not know when this occurs. As probably happened at Uniontown, he may let himself down blind, thinking he is at his destination. B B B THIS was one cause of the crash in Missouri that killed Senator Bronson Cutting. The radio beam followed by the pilot was 18 miles off. In this case, however, the Commerce Department was at fault. The beam was not properly operated by its air station. Even more tragic, its air station reported a ceiling of 1200 feet. Actually the fog was as thick as soup, on the ground. Automobiles had to crawl through it. What the Commerce Department never admitted, but which a Senate committee shortly will expose, is that the man supposed to be operating the beam and sending out weather reports was out with a woman while a young substitute was doing his work. Not only did the Commerce Department hush this up, but afterward they promoted the operator. B B B INSIDERS also know there was no real mystery about the plane which crashed in the swamps of Arkansas last winter, killing seventeen people. The hop between Memphis and Little Rock—on which the plane was flying when it crashed —is short. In making it, pilots are tempted to fly close to the ground. If they attain altitude they lose time. This is because the Commerce Department specifies that no plane can lose altitude faster than 400 feet a minute. Thus to come down 10,000 feet requires 25 minutes. Explanation of the Arkansas crash is that the plane was flying low. Some witnesses estimated its height at around 100 feet. The lights on the gas tanks at the time of the crash showed that one was empty and it was time for the pilot to transfer from one to the other. The experts figure that he was reaching down tinkering with his tank regulators when an air pocket shot the plane into the trees. BUM ALSO there was the mysterious crash in the mountains of New York 18 months ago, when there were reports of a passenger carrying a package supposed to contain nitroglycerine or some other high explosive. . Actually, aviation experts say

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The flashing airways beacon symbolizes the new day in aviation.

two purposes. While the radio range beacon enables the pilot to stay on his course, the marker beacon, which can not be heard until the pilot is within five or seven miles of it, tells the pilot just where he is along the course. NEW MARKER BEACONS QOME of the more recently inL* stalled marker beacons are miniature range beacons and so can be used by the pilot to guide him in landing on the intermediate fields when necessary. The pilot knows when he is dia radio beacon because at that moment he enters what is known as the “cone of silence” and no longer hears the radio at all.

that the plane was new, had not been sufficiently tested, and tnat vibration caused the wing to come off. a a a r T'HE new radio beam, which probably caused the accident at Uniontown, is an attempt to remedy the defects of the old beam. The old beam had to be interrupted whenever weather reports were sent out, in order to use the same channel. Thus, a p’lot might be ready for a landing, and be forced to cruise around in the air for 15 or 20 minutes, waiting for weather reports to stop so he could get the beam again. The new radio beam is an attempt to send weather reports simultaneously with the beam. It is not completely perfected. (Copyright.. 1936, by United Feature Syndicate, Inc.)

The regular Bridge Lesson will be found today on Page Ten.

GRIN AND BEAR IT + + by Lichty

•hk r r*ll4 Fulan Iffiril*. Im. Jcntz; )

‘7 won't play with no ape—the last time 1 played with one, he stole the picture **

Avery recent development in use at some beacons is an additional radio beam that penetrates the air vertically. This actuates an automatic radio device upon some planes so that a red light flashes upon the plane’s instrument board when the plane cuts across this vertical beam. Supplementing all these automatic radio devices is the radio telephone by which the pilot talks directly with the dispatcher of an airport or the operator of a communications station located at an intermediate landing field. This enables him to ask for assistance, to receive instructions for landing, and what is extremely important, to receive bulletins upon changes in the weather. The weather service, supplied by the United States Bureau of Air Commerce and the United States Weather Bureau, constitutes one of the most important aids to aviation. Weather reports are distributed over 12,739 miles of teletypewriter service and over the radio. An hourly report is made by the airway weather-reporting stations according to a schedule in which stations report in sequence. This information is given: Name of station, ceiling, sky conditions, visibility, general conditions, wind direction and velocity, temperature, dew point, and barometric pressure. If unusual field conditions or abnormal weather phenomena exist, they are reported also. Emergency reports are broadcast when conditions warrant. At sixhour intervals, weather maps and general forecasts are given. These more comprehenstive reports are made at 2 a. m., 8 a. m., 2 p. m. and 8 p. m. Thus the pilot has at his command at all times, the weather reporting service of the United States government, the help of radio and visual signal systems, and the advice of airport dispatchers. His position is known and watched from the time he leaves one airport until he arrives at the next. He isn’t just flying the open sky. He's flying Uncle Sam's sky roads. TOMORROW’—Preventing trafffic jams.

Second Section

Entered as Second-Hasa Matter at Postofticp. Indianapolis. i n j.

Fair En ough wnM Mini QNE of the minor wonders of the world, which presents itself to all passengers on the ocean boats, is the politeness, efficiency and discipline of the stewards who serve the meals and perform the combined duties of chambermaid, companion and male nurse in the staterooms. Here is a trad® which offers a man a menial position in life in return for small pay, plus tips, and yet requires good manners and patience under all

conditions—always with the understanding that in time of peril he shall offer his life to protect the patrons of the line. He may be set on the beach out of a job on short notice, and frequently does find himself lopped off the pay roll. And to see him serving the caviar and duck and hear him suggesting expensive little trifles to tempt the appetite of his passengers nobody ever would suspect that the steward is forbidden to sample the food which he handles with such elegant poise and personal indifference.

At meal times he takes his station with his uniform neatly pressed and brushed, his hands scrubbed hite and his whiskers shaved and greets his peoPle wffh a courteous smile which reveals nothing of the contrast in his own condition. He has been S ° n ° r s^ hetti ar >d bread and cheap cheese and cheap wine, and the quarters in which he sleeps and spends his hours off watch, though not exactly a slum, compare with the first-class accommodations about the same as a laborers’ section of a city compares with the homes of th® aristocracy. a a a Recommended Wrongdoing TOURING the hours when the passengers don't see . him he is working hard scrubbing floors, polishing silver and setting tables for the next meal. In port, while the ship is being turned around, he mav have a few hours’ liberty ashore, sometimes an overnight. pass, but he also has plenty of work, and in case of a quick turn-around he may not get a chance to go ashore at all. , The room steward is a little more fortunate in the matter of food, for even though he, too, is supposed to live on the mess provided for the ship’s company, he has certain opportunities to obtain passenger loodl which are not enjoyed by the other members of the crew. If the passenger orders four lamb chops the room steward may raise it to six and hide the two others somewhere, wrapped in a napkin until a favorable moment when he hides in a stateroom and gives them the attention they deserve. a a a They're a Good Lot nr'HE i oom steward s job is not very trying in fair X weather, but the winds do blow at times, and their task of easing the torture of passengers who eel resentful against fate, life, the elements and the stockholders of the steamship company is one which need not be described in intimate detail. At such times the steward becomes a nurse as well as a flunky, and, being no more than human himself he must have many wretched hours when he would prefer to find some quiet spot himself and give himself up to his misery. Yet I have never known any steward to shirk his job or to reveal to the passengers m his care any hint that he has troubles or interests of his own. Shipwreck is rare, of course, but it is always possible, and the steward thus is a potential sacrifice, for in such hours he is not a servant any more but a sailor with very manly duties set out for him and bound by discipline to control his fear, do hi3 work and set an example for the passengers. This may happen on one of the frequent voyages when there are not enough passengers to go around and he. personally, is without clients and sailing the sea for only his base pay, which, in all tip jobs, is not much better than nominal. Altogether a good lot of men. the ship's stewards —intelligent, honest, faithful, insufficiently appreciated and underpaid.

Gen. Johnson Says—

WASHINGTON, April 15.—Privacy is a lost right. The disclosure of telegrams is only one angle. Public confidences are just as vulnerable. It is almost impossible, in Washington, to keep confidential any important official action if it ever reaches the documentary state. t lrT, was not so durin & the but it is so now. In NRA it became so hopeless that we stopped trying. If something embarrassing was brewing, we gave it to the press on the theory that it was better to get bad news straight than to suffer gossipy distortions of it. n n u IN leaving WPA in New York City, I prepaf-ed a careful analysis and submitted it to Mr. Hopkins with comment that was, in some places, sharply critical, seeking to turn hard-earned lessons to account. On the whole, the analysis showed a remarkable performance by WPA. Only six people, none of whom talked, saw th® report. Even mimeographing was done in my private office by confidential clerks. The stencils wer® destroyed immediately. There were only four copies in other hands and they were kept confidential. About a month ago, I sent all extra copies to WPA with a warning to care for them. For nearly six months not even its existenc® seemed to be suspected. Suddenly, at the most embarrassing moment for WPA, copious direct quotations of only the criticism appeared in the most hostile chain of newspapers in the country. (Copyright, 1936. by United Feature Syndicate. Inc.)

Times Books

A GOOD many readers of “Red Neck” (Harrison Smith and Robert Haas. Inc.) are likely to say that the second word of the title is superflous Congressman Thomas L. Blanton and other selfappointed guardians of the public reading matter would take delight in barring thus fiction from all shelves. It is a story about a Pennsylvania coal miner whe tries to follow a vision implanted by John Mitchell, former head of the United Mine Workers. He becomes a local leader and finally an organizer for the union. He works and drinks almost equally hard, but fails in every task, and in the last few pages: He rouses from a drink-drugged stupor to see from the window of his hotel hideout the rank-and-file miners gathering for a fight to close a nonunion mine. They are led by the central character's illegitimate son, who has been driven by his disgust with union leadership to become a radical. One peculiar thing about this book is that it deals with a union which is the strongest numerically of the A. P. of L„ which has produced abundant results for its membership during the last few years, and whose president, John L. Lewis, is known for stern antagonism to drunkenness as well as skulduggery among his subordinate officers. But the authors—McAlister Coleman and Stephen Rauschenbush, the latter head of the Pennsylvania Security League and chief investigator for the Senate Munitions Committee—portray a sordid picture in which the greatest American labor union fares as badly as grasping coal operators, dishonest publia officials, jury-fixers, prostitutes and company thugs. The language, like the story, is occasionally lurid, with short-and-ugly or longer-and-ugly phraseology. (By Fred Perkins.),

-jmmi

Westbrook Pegler