Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 10 November 1936 — Page 14

FROM INDIANA

By ERNIE PYLE

COTIA, Cal.,, Nov. 10.—The Saxton kids were cousins of mine (they still are, for that matter). There were six of them (and there still are). There were born in a log house about a

mile’ and a half from our farm in western Indiana.” We were poor and they were pporer. I played with them all through my childhood. I always liked them, all six of them. We used to ride the

running gears of an old buggy down the slope and through the creek, making a sputter with our lips and pretending we were race drivers at Indianapolis. But we all grew up, and most of us left home. Some of the Saxton kids I haven't seen for nearly 20 years. Paul is one of them. I asked at the main office of the Pacific Lumber Co., in Scotia, for Paul Saxton. They said he was driving a “cat” down at the Monument Camp. They gave me a pass card, and told me how to go, and said I'd have to leave the car and walk across the railroad trestle to the camp. A train of flat cars was backed up a temporary track in a gulch, among tall trees. At the rear, a steam derrick with an “ice hook” on the end of a cable was lifting immense redwood logs off a pile and laying them on the flat cars. I asked for my cousin. They said he was one of three “cat” drivers dragging logs down from up in the woods, and and that each driver got down | only once an hour, and they didn't know whether | he was next or not. So I waited. Alter a while a big yellow caterpillar poked its nose over a hill and started down. It had three of the biggest logs I ever saw behind it. I looked the driver over, and decided he wasn't my man.

= = ” Recognizes Something

BY: Just as he got even with me and stopped, I recognized something. I don’t know what it was, for he certainly didn't look like anybody I'd ever seen before. But I recognized something. I started forward to shake hands. And he knew nie at the same time. He jumped off the “cat” with a big grin on his face. “I wouldn't have known you,” he said, “‘except you look like Uncle Will.” That's my father. I'made the next trip with him on the “cat”. It is an immense machine, with a “cat” trailer behind it, bearing a big derrick which lifts up oue end of the logs for dragging. The whole thing costs $12,000. It makes so much noise we had to yell at each other. We climbed up a worn lane through the forest. We rose more than a thousand feet in half a mile. No auto could ever pull the grades we took. Paul came west eight years ago. He has never been back to Indiana. He likes it out hera. “This is the worst job in the woods,” he said, “because it's so dirty. We have to wear masks on account of the dust. But it's about the best paid.

=» = »

Mr. Pyle

‘High-Climbing’

“Y HIGH-CLIMBED for three years. That’s climbing up and cutting out the top and getting the tree ready to fall. I never got hurt. That's a good job.” Some of these redwoods are more than 300 feet high. They're so very beautiful, and yet not the most valuable lumber by any means. It took us an hour to make the round trip. Coming back, we nosed down grades so steep you had to brace yourself and hold on to Keep from falling out. It was like a nose dive in an airplane. But nothing makes any difference to a a. ” Up or down, it's all the same. : He Paul was the one who recalled riding down on the old buggy running-gear. I had forgotten it. He said he bet that hill wouldn't look like anything if we saw it now. I said I bet it wouldn't either.

Mrs. Roosevelt's Day.

BY ELEANOR ROOSEVELT

HICAGO, Monday—Just before election I had a letter from the wife of an old man in the Bronx, New York City, who though 90 years old and very ill, was tJying so hard to keep alive to cast his vote on Nov. 3 for the President. She told me that his last wish had not been granted as he had passed away before that date. In the same mail came a letter from a gentleman telling me that he had been touched by the story in my column but he wished me to know there was another 90-year-old gentleman in the Bronx, in very good health, a Democrat of good Democratic antecedents, who had assembled 67 of his friends and had them properly registered in order that they might cast their votes for the Republican candidate.

The only point of interest as far as I am concerned is, that the story again proves how good it is to live in a country where you are free to make up your own mind and do as you choose in the privacy of a voting booth. In the end the will of the majority is carried out peacefully. Mrs. Scheider and I left Washington Sunday at 3 po. m. and were met in North Philadelphia by Mrs. Donner Roosevelt and our small grandson, Bill. We went home with them for an early supper and Bill took pride in showing me his toys and his own drawings of animals which are pinned on the wall over his bed. We had to leave at 7:20 p. m. for Temple University and I think Bill was rather lonely at seeing us depart; for he suggested to Mrs. Scheider, who had been playing with him, that she might remain and let mummie and grannie go. We must have been weary Sunday night when

~~

diameter.

the alpha particle or nucleus

David Dietz

version into energy.

multiplied by the square of the

" velocity of light.

Here then is a tremendous source of energy, for there is no shortage of targets. A cubic inch of air contains 800 quadrillion molecules. These are composed of atoms and so the number of atoms in that cubic inch must be in excess of a quintillion.

The trouble with: our atomic artillery is that hits are not made very often. We have to fire about a million particles to get one hit. Einstein, who has a sense of humor, described the situation by saying, “It is like shooting ‘birds in the dark in a country where there are not many birds.” But still a quintillion birds to the cubic inch sounds pretty large. The whole problem, therefore, resolves itself into the prcblem of improving our marksmanship, improving the supply of projectiles, and improving their velocities. If we can hit more atoms and hit them harder, we can get more energy out of the process. That is the direction in which recent experiments are moving and that is why many authorities are now optimistic about the possibility of utilizing atomic energy in the near future. = 2 ” HE first experiments were performed by Lord Rutherford. He used radium for his source of projectiles. More exactly, he used the alpha rays of radium which consist of the nuclei of helium atoms. It was in 1919, the year after the big guns of the World War had stopped booming on the Western front, that Rutherford began his laboratory bombardments. Using the alpha particles of radium, he bombarded nitrogen gas and succeeded in knocking hydrogen out of it. Investigation proved that when

By DAVID DIETZ Scripps-Howard Science Edites

Huge Electrical Generator, Sending Light-ning-Like Bolts Into Subferranean Chamber, May Release Energy.

(Last of a Series)

TOM smashing i is an artillery game in which projectiles whose size is to be measured in quadrillionths of an inch are shot at targets a few millionths of an inch in

The projectiles are subatomic particles, for the most part protons or meutrons. Sometimes a heavier particle, .

of the helium atom, is used.

At times electrons are used. They are larger than protons or neutrons, but

lighter in weight. It will be recalled that the three fundamental particles of matter are the positive proton, the neutral neutron, and the negative electron. The nucleus of the atom is composed of protons and neutrons while electrons revolve about the nucleus. The trick is to shoot a particle into the nucleus of an atom, thus disrupting the atom. When this happens, particles are knocked out.of the nucleus of the atom which was hit. Sometimes these particles come out with greater velocities than the velocity of the projectile, proving that the projectile had released ‘energy locked within: the - nucleus of the atom. In other cases, a direct hit results in the complete annihiliation of one or more particles and their complete con-

Subatomic particles yield a tremendous amount of energy for their size, because as Einstein had predicted in 1905, the energy to be gained from such a conversion is equal to the mass or weight of the particle

an alpha particle hit a nitrogen atom, it entered the atom and combined with its nucleus: But the nucleus immediately disintegrated, giving off a hydrogen atom. What was left was no longer a nitrogen atom but an oxygen atom. So. Rutherford had succeeded in" accomplishing the ageold dream - of the alchemist of - changing one chemical element into another. Subsequently Rutherford used radium rays to bombard thin sheets of aluminum foil and other metals and succeeded in smashing their atoms. Tremendous strides in atom smashing have been made since the year 1931. The great advances began with the discovery of double-weight' hydrogen by Prof. Harold C. Urey of Columbia University, followed by the discovery of the neutron by Chadwick of England and the positron by Anderson of California Institute of Technology. In 1932, J. D. Cockroft and E. T.

S. Walton of Cambridge, England,

succeeded for the first time in performing disintegration experiments in which energy was released during the disintegration. Then, in 1934, came the most important discovery of all, artificial radio-activity. Mme. Marie Curie, working with her husband, Pierre Curie, discovered radium. History repeated itself when Mma. Irene Curie-Joliot, the daughter of Marie Curie, discovered artificial radio-activity in experiments conducted with her husband, Dr. PF. Joliot. The Joliots bombarded aluminum with high-speed alpha.particles. They found that neutrons were first given off. But. then, after the bombardment was stopped a stream of positrons continued to be given off. In other

BY SCIENCE SERVICE EW YORK, Nov. 10—Ljsting the practical advances made pc’ by the physical discoveries of the X-ray, radioactivity and the electron in the recent past, Dr. Karl I. Compton, president of Massachusetts Institute of ‘Technology, predicted here that by the end of the twentieth century. the still newer discoveries of research on atomic nuclei may yield comparable advances. “During the past third of a cen-

Research on Atomic Nuclei Hailed as Scientific Advance

science of physics. Moreover, there are other scientists—astronomers, meteorologists, optometrists and others dealing with instruments— who basically are also physicists. Scientific research is needed on a

national scale as much as on the smaller industrial scale, Dr. Comp-

ton declared, deploring the short-.

sightedness of research in the Federal government agencies caused by lack of appropriations. He said: ” EY

“YRRESPECTIVE of our judgment

The sketch shows Dr. Tuve’s plan for a 15,-000,000-volt subterranean atom-smasher. In the sketch, part of the ° steel ball housing the. apparatus has been cut away to show the generator within. This is a. Van de Graaf type generator. The electricity collecting on the huge sphere would be discharged through the vacuum tu b e which points’ downward. The atomic disintegration would fake ‘place in the. subterranean chamber

econd Section

Entered as Second-Class Matter at Postoffice, Indianapolis, Ind.

below the tube where ‘the earth on every side would protect the experimenters from the "lethal rays which would be generated as a byproduct of the atomsmashing. It is hoped - that an arrangement like that suggested by Dr. Tuve will be’ built soon. Many experimenters feel that it would ‘do for atom-smashing what the 100-inch telescope did for astronomy, point: the way to ° new achievements and - “new successes in a short time.

words, the bombardment had done

something to the aluminum ‘to make it behave like a radio-active substance. The positron. must not be confused with the proton. It is posi-

tive but in every other way resembles the electron. ' The proton,

it will be remembered, was about’

1800 times heavier than the electron. The. positron has the same

mass as the electron.

INCE 1934 scientists have made marvelous progress in atom smashing and. have performed many- experiments in which: matter was converted into energy and: energy into matter. Thus, for ex~ample, under certain circumstances a photon or bullet of light can be split in two to form a positron and an electron. In other ex--periments positrons. and electrons are annihilated to form photons or bullets of energy. :

The present trend is to build ;

bigger and better atom smashers, atomic artillery with greater powers, better aim and higher efficiency.

An ordinary electric discharge is a stream of electrons. One ave-

nue of research, therefore, is to devise ways and means of reaching higher electrical voltages since the higher the pressure the faster the electron stream moves.

One of the most successful attempts in this direction is thee electrostatic generator built by Dr. Robert J. Van De Graaf at Round. Hill, Mass.

This = generator uses Hovikg belts ‘to generate electric charges through friction. These charges "accumulate on great metal spheres.

~The Van De Graaf generator at Round Hill is mounted in a dirigible - hangar. Its metal spheres, .15 feet in diameter, are mounted upon pillars 25 feet high. To date, he. has succeeded in generating electric discnarges - of - 5,000,000 volts with it. At the University of California, Prof. E. O. Lawrence has succeed-. ed in. getting energies of 5,000,000 volts also. He uses a “whirligig atomic machine gun.” Its technical name is a’ cyclatron. Atomic particles are whirled around under’ the impetus of the magnetic. fields of huge magnets. Each time around they move faster and faster until they attain the tremendous energy .of 5,000,000 volts.

THER experimenters are likewise making ‘tremendous strides. Dr. M. A. Tuve of Carnegie Institution of Washington, one of the foremost workers in the field, has drawn plans for a. 15,-000,000-volt generator of the Van De Graaf type. He proposes that the generator be located in a holiow = 40-foot steel globe such as is used for storing gases ‘under pressure. He would sink this globe: 4 ground, and build 4 laboratory: baneath:: charge ‘of . the gerierator would take place downwards. into" this underground laboratory. Here the disintegration of atoms would take place, the thick layer of earth on every side protecting’ the scientists from the “lethal effects of such powerful rays. It is hoped that Tuve’s. proposal. will be . acted ‘on ‘soon.

Mahy authorities think it may

prove to atom-smashing what .the-_100-inch telescope - was: progress of astronomy. Perhaps it will be: the ‘initial step in the utilization of atomic. energy. No one "knows, alone will tell. z

THE END

POLITICS AS CLAPPER

SEES IT

BY RAYMOND CLAPPER ASHINGTON, Nov. 10.—There is . major- significance behind the attention which President Roosevelt is focusing on.the coming InterAmerican conference at: Buenos Aires. Extraordinary efforts are being made to arouse public interest in it. Although he can ill afford the time, President Roosevelt. is considering the unusual thing of making a personal trip to Buenos Aires to participate in the opening of the conference in order to dramatize the event and to stimulate a maximum of interest and

nomic starvation, are:driven desperately by the most: powerful instinct which moves a: people.. They are spending frantically to arm themselves for they will have, by might if by no other way, access to. raw materials, paths to markets for their manufactured goods. Some of them are. hysterically determined te. risk anything to this end. Those nations are spending the last -fragment of their energy to arm. Whether they can attain the necessary military strength before | economic exhaustion ~ overcomes them, nobody knows. - race. Be the outcome war or eco-

It is a grim

fields.” To protect. ‘ourseives.v we , have strengthened our navy, doing it inconspicuously under cover. of the spending. policy without having to inflame domestic sentiment or arouse foreign fears. By neutrality legislation, we also have sought to voluntarily restrict those futile neutral rishts which in the past have served chiefly to provide short-run profits while dragging us into fereign wars. i 2 = 8 N addition to thus Protesting our-

A selves, we have sought to ease world conditions by our reciprocal

“Time ;

— PAGE13

Our Town

OMETHING else that shrieks to High Heaven for reform is the present prac tice of calling a dish of melted cheese and crackers a “Welsh rarebit” instead of a “Welsh rabbit.”

As matters stand today, “Welsh rarebit”™ has insinuated itself on 9¢ per cent (or too many) of all bills-of-fare in Indianapolis, which, when you come to think of it, is ever worse than the Roosevelt lande

slide of a week ago. You probably thought nothing could exceed the magnitude of the Roosevelt landslide. So did I, until I looked into the madcap business of calling a “Welsh rabbit” a “Welsh rarebit.” To tell you the worst, the Democrats have a long way to go to beat the record of “Welsh rarebit” in Indianapolis, because if you dig into the thing the way I have, you'll learn that the practice of

calling a “rabbit” a “rarebit” has Mr. Scherrer

gotten completely out of hand

So much so, that this town will go sissy-—and too, if something isn’t done avout it

here. in a big way, pretty soon. . I don’t know where the practice started but 1 have a suspicion—and a pretty shrewd one, too—that it bee gan with a bunch of self-sufficient. people who didn’t know enough to leave well enough alone. Either that, or they were too snooty to handle the word “rabbit.” Well, let me tell them something. The word “rabbit” is not only a mighty nice word to handle but one that can boast of a family tree big enough to knock anybody down. Besides, it has a lot of hise torical precedent back of it, if you care for that sort of thing. 2 8 =

~ Scotch Woodcock

AKE the Scotch, for instance. It’s nothing for the Scotch to take a piece of anchovy toast, a poached egg and a rasher of bacon and call it a “Scotch woodcock.” Nobody takes any liberty with their notion. Well, if the Scotch can get away with calling a poached egg a “Scotch woodcock,” what business is it of anybody to deprive me of the fun of calling a piece of toasted cheese a “Welsh rabbit?” I hope I have made myself clear. Nor is that all. A Londoner can take a sheep’s ‘head, steep it in onions, and it comes out a “Field Lane duck.” Londoners can do even more. They

"can take a herring, fix it up some way, and the

next thing you know, it’s a “Digby chicken.” Am I making myself clear? : What's more, they can take a different breed of herring and do something to it and it turns out a

“Dunbar wether.” 2 » ”

Could Name Names

OR some reason, these noble names stick. in Lone don, but they wouldn't if some people around here had their way. I could mention names if I wanted to. : For the matter of that, we don’t have to go abroad for precedent. We can stay right here in democratic America (Maine and Vermont excepted) and contemplate the practice of calling a Boston codfish a “Cape Cod turkey.” " Indeed we can do even beter and contemplate the “Mt. Clemens rabbit,” as good a dish as ever came out of the hinterland, even if it does necessitate the use of three-quarters of a pound of cheese and two cups of kidney beans. : - I don’t know how the “Mt. Clemens rabbit” got its name, and I don’t care (I am like that), but I will use every resource of this column to keep new-fangled

“fools. from calling it a “Mark Twain rarebit.”

Hoosier Yesterdays.

NOVEMBER 10 OAQUIN MILLER, one of the best known poets of America during the closing years of the nine teenth century, ‘was born near Liberty, in ‘Union County, on Nov. 10,:1841,- At the age of 11 he accom=

- panied his parents to Oregon, traveling in a covered to’ the |

wagon over the Oregon Trail He remained in that state until 1870, when he wetit

south to California where he spent the greater pore

‘tion of the remainder of his life. His real name was

' Cincinnatus Miller—he assumed the Joaquin soon

after he had published an article .in defense of Joa= quin Murietta, a Mexican brigand. Many of his earlier poems appeared ‘in Scribner's magazine, which at that time féatured the writings of young American authors from various sections of the country. Perhaps his most famous volume of verses was that entitled “Songs of the Sierras,” publishéd in England in 1871. He was quickly hailed there as the great American poet. In fact, Miller's work was gen= erally better known and more appreciated in England than in this’'country. Other well-known volumes are “Songs of the Sunland” and “Songs of the Desert.” He died in California in 1913. In compliance with his Tast wishes, his body was cremated and the ashes carried up the Sierras and cast to the winds. Two years later a huge boulder was unveiled in an open field on the Liberty-Richmond pike near where he was born—a final tribute to the “Poet of the Sierras.”

| Watch Your Healh

BY DR. MORRIS FISHBEIN :

friendly public sentiment. . trade policy, which is an attempt. not. only to improve ‘our own: foreign trade but also to lew down: the trade barriers which all over the world are: contributing to the economic strangulation : of - nations| having a ‘low degree of self-suffi-ciency. Further, by the reéent gentlemen’s agreement with Britain and France, a beginning has been made toward reducing ° the’ international monetary anarchy which was wreaking deadly havoc. "Now comes the effort through. the inter-American conference to sdlid- } ify ‘understanding among: Sy Ameri~ can republics so that the Western world, stronghold .of democracy, will. be fortified by internal harmony should the storm break, and meantime be in better position, at least

Editor, Amer, Medical Assn. Journal

F a child has trouble with his sight, he will sania fest the difficulty in various ways. A child whose eyes bother him will: : Constantly attempt to brush away a. blur. Blink Somiually when at tasks calling

tury,” said Dr. Compton, “the discoveries of the electron, the X-ray and radioactivity. have together brought about the greatest advances which have ever been made in fundamental knowledge of the physical world and in practical applicalions of this knowledge to human welfare. These developments will undoubtedly continue. It may very well be that the new fields of knowledge disclosed through exploration of the atomic nucleus may bring about a new set of developments of corresponding importance before this century comes to a close. It is primarily in the groups represented by the five member societies of the American Institute of Physics that those things which are next in physics some of which we can

regarding the justification for large government expenditures fo stimulate industry, I ° think that there would be agreement on the following principle by practically all

we got on the train at 11, for we did not get up on Monday morning until an unconscionably late hour.

This ‘attention which Washing- | omic collapse, the United Stafes is t< : is concentrating upon the com- | Pound to suffer as a Sysiandar, :

ing conference of American repub- ; an 8, lics should be considered as the | ,y~HUS, the world stands on a hys-

scientists, engneers and progressive | 0Pening phase of a new interest here a distraught industrialists: in world affairs. Tal Juluk Sn. ‘in rau “In Dational, just 3s In Industzial, 2 = = United States found itself intechal expenditures, some su t. r- > on the eve of Roosevelt's t tion should be devoted to the at-| / \ THOUGH siiroad ihe tension yi can happen when tempt to“improve the products, pro- |. "0%. Gased momeRaHY. da. | fear is on. the loose. cesses and methods of the future, [FCllel is quite superficial. Punda- | ou role, “therefore, seems. to be Huge expenditures for construction | Mentally the situation is ous. | 4wo-fold. He have the double task and production only, with no. provi-| For instance, in the Mediter-| of trying, first, to protect and insusion for research and development |TAnean, Italy is threatening the life- | jate- ourselves as much as possible, aimed at better construction and |line of the British Empire. Ger- and’ second, to do:what we can tonew production 'in the future, are{many, rearming furiously, is looking | ward easing the tension and toward woefully short-sighted. Public policy { hungrily to the east, to Czecho- [changing the ‘underlying conditions and. future -industrial welfare re- |Slovakia.and beyond to the wheat- | that are creating. these nationalistic quire foundations for the future as [lands of Russian Ukraine. fears. well as production of the present.” | Certain nations, fearful ut eco- "We already are’ Sperauing in both

for close eye

Daily New Books

THE PUBLIC LIBRARY PRESENTS—

e work. Cry frequently. Have frequent fits of temper. Ignore favorite toys when they are across the room from him. : ‘Hold a book close to his eyes when reading. Hold his body tense when looking at distant obe

O the drama-loving public that looks forward to the annual publication of the season's best plays, we announce the arrival of the Burns Mantle collection of BEST PLAYS OF 1935-1936 (Dodd: $3), which gives the current year’s most successful plays in shortened form with excerpts from each, and critical notes concerning the plays and their authors. The new collection includes Maxwell Anderson's play in verse form, “Winterset,” the Drama Critics’ Circle award, and SheweoS comedy with a war xe eme, “Idiot's ht,” the Pulitzer prize winner. | anticipate and some of which are The other most popular plays are “End of Summer,” | certainly quite unknown to us, will he es Yorahow Em hat

soon to be presented to Indianapolis thester-goers; | come to pass. | A Woman's Viewpoint---Mrs. Walter Ferguson AEE atm 5

“First hacy, . icone Regina,” “Boy Meets Girl,” ¥ a 8.8 “Dead End,” “ a Day,” “Ethan Frome” and N- predicting the future one can , CE ie of Du== UNIVERSITY'S .dean of medicine, Dr. ficult distance ahead for ‘this Wilburt ©. Davison, says today’s mothers are

ects. * Appear uninterested when other children are ens dove a circus parade or watching distant moving objects. Seem bored during group discussion of some enjoy« able things, such as an airplane in flight. ; Become irritable over tasks, even when selfs selected. Keep his face close to small playthings. Sowa and scowl when fitting together parts of a Rub his eyes frequently. Screw up his face when looking at nearby or dise tant objects. -

“Pride and Dre uiiqe” » the past and with a knowledge of present trends, pointed out Dr.

Compton. Of the past he said: in the next breath he reminds us that. they. were

the flappers of the terrible twenties. Tend 10 be cos-eyed when ooking at nearby obs

BVIOUSLY an eye that is fatigued and unable work - satisfactorily becomes easily Then, too, it is more likely to be invaded by f such as cinders and dust, simply because the re ars. gator p

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Margaret Wrong (Edinburgh House Press; $.75). Ala 1935 copyright, this book has been added because Africa is the special study for Indianapolis missionary societies

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