Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 29 January 1937 — Page 21

Vagabond FROM INDIANA

ERNIE PYLE

ANTA FE, N. M,, Jan. 29.—1t is especially | pleasant to write about McHarg Daven- | port because he is the kind of painter you or | I would be if we suddenly dropped every- ,

thing, had no worries, and decided we'd be an artist or else. He doesn’t have to paint. It isn't necessary for him to sell anything. He hasn't received any divine command to perpetuate his genius for posterity. He just started painting pictures one

day, and he says they aren't much | good but he's never had so much |!

fun in his life. Davenport is a New Yorker. He came of a wealthy business family. His career has been in advertising and publishing. He was in the war, and was shot and gassed all to smithereens. Ten years ago he came to the Southwest to die. Much to his surprise, he didn’t die. In fact, he began to get better, and finally discovered he actually was going to live. That was quite a revelation, for he had resigned himself to death. So at that point ie turned over a new leaf. “For all practical purposes,” he says, “I had died. So I decided to start an entirely new life, and do just what I wanted to do and nothing else. I've got enough income so that [ don’t have to worry about anything except dying.” So he built a magnificent adobe house some four miles northeast of Santa Fe. It's on a hillside, and the house goes up as the hill goes up. It is a house of many icoms, and thrilling mountain views, and in the far end is Artist Davenport's studio—for he has decided to become an artist in his new life. He started at 40, and has been painting six years. He has painted more than a hundred pictures. He has had one show in New York, and he actually has sold about 10 pictures. He gets $300 apiece for them. They've brought him just about enough to pay the actual expenses of painting and framing. He savs he gets more thrill out of selling a picture for $300 than he would in making thousands in business.

=» Hn »

Mr. Pyle

No Obligations

HE hasn't any duties or obligations. He can do Just as he pleases. He paints all forenoon everv day he feels like it, which is most every day. He hangs a “Do Not Disturb” sign outside the door when he's working. His studio has two couches, so he can lie down when he wants to. His almost boyish pride in his work is delightful, He'll stand off and marvel at a picture, as though wondering how he ever did it. Hell put one on the easel for you to see, and he'll say: “Now here's a nice one. This one’s pretty good.” And then hell explain it to you, and if it has some sort of crazy symbolism he'll laugh and laugh over it, as much as to say: “What do you think of that idea now? Pretty good, huh?” It isn't conceit, it’s boyish enthusiasm. 5 n »

Hitch-Hiker Picture

E thinks up all kinds of crazy things. For instance, he has one picture of a hitch-hiking boy and girl standing beside a desert road, with nothing in sight for miles. Their backs are to vou. Davenport said he did it to see if he could paint the boy's concern and despair just in the seat of his pants. He did pretty well. He started to paint a Mexican band playing in the plaza. He painted the musicians’ brass horns, and then the idea came to him, “brass band—brass hair.” So, on a bench in the foreground, he painted a girl with brass hair. That's the whole point of the picture—brass hair. You ought to hear him laugh. Ancther of his pictures was hanging in the bar of the La Fonda Hotel here. A cowboy came in and made some smart cracks about it. Whereupon John Sloan, past 70 and one of America’s greatest painters, jumped up and told the cowboy where to get off.

Mrs.Roosevelt's Day

By ELEANOR ROOSEVELT

W ASHINGTON, Thursday—We had a real treat | recite | Her voice is very beau- |

vesterday in hearing Michael Strange with a harp accompaniment. tiful and she is very lovely to watch. some of !? had never heard before, and one or two I knew well. I can think of no more delightful way to hear poetry. Last evening I went to one of the series of congiven In the Library of Congress. I wish I could always be free to go and I think the small theater they have is a perfect place for a string quartet. The Roth Quartet from Budapest plaved a Schubert program and the evening was altogether delightful. The instruments all have histories and the cello had the most beautiful tone I ever remember hearing. A grand ride this morning, but under gray skies again. It seems the weather cannot live up to more than one day of sun and so we returned in the rain. I feel aimost wicked in continuing the daily round when so many people are suffering. A letter from my daughter-in-law, Ruth, told me they were 16 hours late in reaching Texas, but they had seen so much devastation from the train windows they could 10t even complain of their superficial discomfort. * On Saturday of this week the Birthday Balls will be held for the benefit of crippled children. The money raised will go rot only to the Warm Springs Foundation for research and improvement at the Springs, but 70 per cent of it will remain in the various communities. I think it is important that people should take

She recited

certs

an Interest mn the way this money is spent in their |

community. It is not enough to treat a child in a hospital for a brief time. rehabilitated make life worth living and a rounded program of education as well as health should be the concern of every community in the interest of preventing these voungsters from growing up to be a charge on the coramunity rather than an asset. :

New Books

PUBLIC LIBRARY PRESENTS—

N her new novel about “The Smiths” of Chicago, RICH MAN, POOR MAN (Houghton), Janet Aver Fairbank chooses Hendricks Smith Jr, of the third generation, to represent “a normal young man, living, fighting, working, and loving in the years between 1812 and 19238.” This long, though fast moving, story begins with a really thrilling account of the 1912 Republican and Progressive conventions in Chicago. During the scampig, in which he takes an active part for Theodora Roosevelt, young Smith meets and marries another enthusiast, His wife's passion for “causes” and her in= akility to settle inte tire life of his family in Chicago soclety ead to an estrangement wiltich becomes divorce goon after his return from France. We leave them, however, happy with new partners, on the verge of the 1529 panic. And we wonder whether Mrs, Fairbank will some time continue the Smith saga through thie depression.

* 1

= = » UR present day impressive foundries, chemical laboratories, and factories probably had humble beginnings in blacksmith, apothécary, and tinkerin’ chops. Marien Nicholl Rawson in HANDWROUGHT ANCESTORS; THE STORY OF EARLY AMERICAN SHOPS AND THOSE WHO WORKED THEREIN Mutton) gives us Muminating sidelights on home industries and the part they plaved in personal and comymmmity life

fhe shops produced not only nails, harness, tacles and flativons, but philosophers and neighlivess as well. Says the author, “Many a tiny inkerin’ shop tinned a botcher into a skilled workYian and 2 mere tinker into a man.” We now go far To seek as antiques the handwrought produce of these craltamen:; 2nd this volume is an item to add to the <eilcctors jibrary. The text is profusely illustrated by the authen and a full index adds to its | usehulness,

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her own poems, some by Iris Tree which I |

Crippled children must be | Something must be done which will |

The Indianapolis Times

| Second Section

FRIDAY, JANUARY 29, 1937

Entered as Second-Class Matter Indianapolis,

at Postoffice,

PAGE 21

Ind.

FLOODS MUST AND CAN BE TAMED |O

More Trees Are Suggested as Preventive of Future Disasters

(Second of a Series)

By FRED W. PERKINS

Times Special Writer VV ASHINGTON, Jan. 29. —F. A. Silcox, chief of the U. S. Forest Service, today emphasized the need of more trees to prevent repetitions of the current Ohio Valley disaster. Trees have two uses in flood control, according to Mr. Silcox. One is to provide through years of shedding leaves and needles, a ground - surface sponge which holds rain and melting snow for a gradual runoff. The other is prevention

of soil erosion, and that has a direct relation to the “big dam” system of flood prevention, which the Army engineers back and which Congress indorsed in its flood-control legislation.

“Every cubic foot of dirt washed into a river raises the water level,” Mr. Silcox said. “Keeping out this wasted soil, often the most fertile topsoil, will reduce the crest of streams at flood stage. Control of erosion is essential in any {lood -control program.”

" = =

THER experts said the “big dams” of the Army engineers will gradually lose their usefulness if erosion is allowed to continue, because the silt washed into the reservoirs slowly will reduce their capacity. Creation of national forests in the East grew out of another great Ohio Valley flood in 1907. Delegations from the Pittsburgh region and from farther down the valley urged Congress to provide for planting more and more trees at heads of watersheds. They said ruthless lumbering had created the conditions that were causing more frequent and more damaging floods. The evidence, then as now, supported this claim. From the 1907 flood came enactment in 1911 of the Weeks law, providing for establishment of national forests in the East. Two such forests affecting headwaters of the Ohio now are being enlarged. They are the Allegheny forest in northwestern Pennsylvania and the Monongahela in northern and eastern West Virginia. New forest “purchase areas” have been established in Indiana | and Ohio.

” zn »

R. SILCOX said the current floods “bring sharply to gttention the need for a co-ordinat-ed program of flood control which will utilize every means at man’s disposal to reduce the runoff from the land.” He expressed doubt that any program wholly would have prevented floods at this time, “but a concerted program which included construction of reservoirs and detention basins, restoration of onceforested slopes, control of soil erosion and even modifications in agricultural practices, would undoubtedly have lowered water crests.” The water causing the present floods, he said, is largely due “to abnormal runoff from slopes whereon improper agriculture is being practiced. “On some areas agriculture should not be practiced at all.

These lands should be restored to forests.” He pointed out also that all through the Central States the ground-water level is steadily going down—partly because of decreased rainfall over several years, partly due to increased runoff from erosion and faulty farming methods. “Water which should be stored in the soil has been allowed to waste itself in floods,” he said, “Every drop of water that is allowed to stay on or in the land through soil conservation methods and by means of a forest cover will raise the ground-water level and help to lower flood levels.” Mr. Silcox said that a program now under way in the Agriculture Department, of which the Forest Service is a part, aims to use every possible means to keep soil on the land and out of the river channels.

(Next—Disaster may be boon to Mississippi Valley.)

SERUM IS PLENTIFUL Py Science Service W JTASHINGTON, Jan, 29.—There will be no shortage of essen-

| tial serums and vaccines in connec- | tion with the flood disaster, in the

opinion of those U. S. Public Health officials here who are charged with testing and approving these essentials to health safety. What does cause worry here is the possibility of a major influenza epidemic among the flood refugees. No known preventive or curative serum exists for this disease and the treatment is what most flu patients in the distressed regions obviously will not be able to get—good nursing, rest in bed, warmth, ete. The health problem among the flood refugees is similar to that which existed among the troops concentrated during the World War.

« + « And plant

State workers combat erosion

Roe

ing

locust trees for cover.

—Indiana Department of Conservation photos

Fifty years ago a peach orchard in Jackson County. This view shows the result of water erosion.

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gullies w

These views are from the

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Morgan-Monroe forest.

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EPISCOPAL EHUREM «

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HE 18 ((S. MINISTER To VENEZUELA APPOINTED BY PRES, ROOSEVELT iN (937, | EE AND M.D TO DORAGUAY 193334 & _« . MEMBER OF WABASH CHAPTER PHI BETA KAPPA, PHI GAMMA DELTA, UNIVERSITY CLUB, INDIANAPOUR ATHLETIE eLUT AND |

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RECOGNIZED AS ONE OF THE €OUNTR:! § FOREMOST AUTHORS « WRITER OF MANY BOOKS, NOVELS POEMS, ESSAYS, PLAYS Ele. * ELECTED MEMBER INDIANAPOLIS €OMMON C0uNeIL THROUGH RECONSTRUCTION EFFORTS OF €ivie BODIES 1928-30% DEMOCRATS DISTRICT CHAIRMAN AND MEMBER DEMOCRATIC STATE COMM 1980-32 MEMBER OF NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ARTS AND \ TERS “- =» - - .

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{IN DEMAND AS A \E¢ BORN IN CRAWFORDSVILLE, IND. * EDUCATED IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS OF INDIAN ABOU AN WABASH COLLEGE 1001. AND BU COLLEGE 1002 ¢ RECEIVED LITT. D. WABASH COLLEGE 1007, LL.D. INDIANA UNIV: 1928 AND. LEGE 1920 « MEMBER UB OF NEw AND NA

TODAY'S LOCAL PERSONALITY

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By MARK

WY Jan. 20.—A good many quips are mingled with the serious comment on the refusal by President Sloan of General Motors of Secretary of Labor Perkins’ invitation, amounting to a re- | quest, that he sit down with her and | Chairman Lewis of the labor organ= ization. It is said that Myr. Sloan | js jittery about the very term ‘sit | down.” Most of the serious comments de- | plore Mr. Sloan's refusal. He was | asked by Secretary Perkins to come to her office and confer with Mr, | Lewis. Mr, Sloan put his refusal on the ground that Mr, Lewis’ sit-down | strikers are illegally in possession of | General Motors plants, and that he | would enter into no negotiations | with Mr. Lewis until after the il- | legal possession is ended. | g B 2 HAT puts Mr. Sloan's refusal upon a sound principle. But there are two principles involvedat least there is a dictum of propriety almost equal in force to the principle. Any request from either the President or a member of the President's Cabinet, such as Miss Perkins’, is commonly regarded as a command. Between this rule and the principle Mr. Sloan stood on, there is not any necessary conflict. Mr. Sloan could have conformed to poth. He could have accepted Miss Perkins’ invitation and come to Miss Perkins’ conference. There he could have made his statement that he could not pay any price for evacuation of General Motors prop= erty, not even the price of agreeing to negotiate. ® ® @

AR. SLOAN must watch his step, not only in one respect but in so many that he needs to be a high= Iv intelligent centipede, with exceptional command over his motor nerves. Had he been familiar with politics he would have been particu= larly wary about Washington just at {his time. He knew that President Roosevelt had last week admin istered a slap on the wrist Leader Lewis; and he

Sullivan Believes Sloan Erred in Refusing Parley

SULLIVAN

surmised that if occasion arose the President would next admiaister a balancing slap to the General Motors side. Because he did not handle his feet with sufficient caution, he | received not a slap on the wrist, but | a sock in the eve. Within the space | of one hour the President did two things. He told his press conference to fell the world that he regarded

Mr. Sloan's action as “very unfortunate,” and he had Mr. Lewis as a | visitor to the White House. |

The recent developments have |

brought some further light, though not vet a conclusive light, on the central question involved. That is the element of “sit-down” in the strike, and what America should do about this innovation,

2 » ”

N the legitimacy of the sit- | down, President Roosevelt has taken no position, Secretary of Labor Perkins has. She condones it. She says General Motors’ atti« tude is “legalistic.” Had Mr. Sloan accepted Miss Perkins’ invitation and come to Washington, he could have used his visit here as the best possible leverage from which to give the widest publicity to the merit of the prin ciple on which he stands. Simply to enter a conference room with Miss Perkins and Mr. Lewis need not have committed him to anything and would have been at once an act of courtesy and respect for Government officials and a cone vineing show of reasonableness of attitude on the part of General Motors officials.

KNOW YOUR

INDIANAPOLIS

Indianapolis has the largest low-pressure district heating system in the world, Four plants supply steam to many

ur Town

By ANTON SCHERRER

HEN I was a youngster, there was a little shop near Bryce's Bakery on E, South St. which had the geographical advantage of being but a block away from Hetherington & Berner's Foundry. This

made it mighty handy for the man who ran the little shop, because when things got dull he could run over to the foundry. The man worked in both places. See?

For a long time there was a goed deal of mystery surrounding the little shop, but by the time I came along it was pretty well known that Fred Hetherington, son of the foundry boss, was the man running between the two places. Pretty soon, more news leaked out, and before anybody was hep to what was going on in Indianapolis, some of us kids discovered that Mr. Hetherington had invented a kind of camera, the like of which had never been seen before. The little shop was turning them out as fast as it could. Mr. Hetherington had certainly hit upon something big. It was a portable magazine camera capable of being charged with a dozen plates, which was something nobody had been slick enough to think of before. A turn of a key flopped the plates into position, I remember. In appearance, the camera looked like a package of Oswego starch, which, if my memory serves me, was about 15 inches long and 8 inches wide. It was just about as thick, too. The camera weighed about 5 pounds and sold for $125. Walter Bonns told me the other day that he still has one kicking around the house.

Mr. Scherrer

” ” » Along Came Film Roll

OR a while it looked as if Mr. Hetherington had everything his own way when along came the Kodak people and sprang their stunt of the roll of film, Almost overnight the little shop folded up. After that, Mr. Hetherington had better luck with his ine vention of an asphalt plant. It's still going good. Mr. Hetherington thought up a lot of things around here before anybody else did. I can’t think of all the things he figured out, but I seem to ree member that he made the first cartoon to appear in any Indianapolis paper and that he was among the first to discover the beauty of Brown County.

” ” » First Cartoon

N 1879, when he was 20 years old, Mr. Hetherington was a student under John Love in the Indiana School of Art. Nobody knows how it happened, but one day he got a note inviting him to come up and

see Enos B. Reed, owner of a loud and lusty weekly. A few moments conversation developed the fact that Mr, Reed had thought up an idea for a cartoon, and Mr, Hetherington was the boy picked to put it across. Up to that time, nobody around here had thought of cartoons. Well, Mr. Hetherington did such a nasty-nice job that it attracted the attention of other editors, with the result that he had all that he could do. Indeed, he even caught the fancy of the ad writers of the time, His best ad, I remember, was the one he turned out; for the Tucker Glove Co. It represented a bunch of boys without a stitch of clothing on. Nobody knew what the naked Kkids were up to, but everybody laughed himself sick when he learned that the Tucker people were launching a drive on “undressed kids.” Which leaves Mr, Hetherington's discovery of Brown County to be accounted for,

A Woman's View

By MRS. WALTER FERGUSON

HERE are two major events in human life—birth and death. At the first we rejoice, at the other we weep—yet is it not perhaps true that both are merely a part of the progress of the soul through many universes? Whatever may be the answer, birth has for all of us an impelling fascination, although millions of people live all their lives in total ignorance of its processes, Even the woman who gives birth these days doesn't always understand how wondrously her body functions to produce its young.

The Viking Press has just published a book by Dr. Alan Frank Guttmacher, called “Into This Unie verse,” which gives to the layman the story of human birth. It should be of inestimable value to expectant parents and make fascinating reading for everyone, Its language is simple and free from technical terms. Dr. Guttmacher gives, first, a vivid picture of a normal accouchement of the 16th and 17th centuries, when the event was surrounded by superstitious practices and the mother subjected to a thousand magic formulas. How far we have come since that distant date, even though our infant mortality record is not so good and we lose far too many mothers in childbirth! To modern women it will be inconceivable that any person could have endured the agonies inflicted upon the hapless wife of medieval days. One feels moved again to give thanks for being alive in an age when anesthetics are available to all, sanitation is not uncommon, and for every woman aseptic labor can be provided. Although he admits that a huge territory of obstetrical ignorance remains. Dr. Guttmacher visions a day when ideal birth “free of danger, bereft of pain and deprived of inconvenience” will be possible, Millions of women echo this hope.

Your Health

By DR. MORRIS FISHBEIN

Editor, American Medical Assn, Journal

HERE are various ways in which germs enter the human body. They may, of course, enter, with air, through the nose and the breathing tract into the lungs; they may reach the intestines with food or fluids, or they may get through openings in the skin. It has been estimated that at least 90 per cent of infections enter the body by way of the nose and the mouth—most nf them through the mouth, The infectious organisms also may get in with dust, with objects placed in the mouth, or what is known as “hand to mouth” infection may be responsible, These facts obviously are of importance in pre venting infection. Hands should certainly be washed before and after handling food, or attending to any of the ordinary toilet affairs of the human body. Hands should be kept away from mouth and nose as much as possible. No one with decent manners will put his fingers in his nose or use his fingernails to pick his teeth. Intelligent people do not chew the ends of pencils or hold other objects in the mouth, They leave this for the lower animals. Dishes and other utensils used for food or water should be boiled after use by one person and before use by another, particularly at times when there are epidemics of coughs, colds and other respiratory diseases. Food and drink should be clean and most foods thoroughly cooked. Such simple measures would prevent innumerable cases of infection. Most infections pass directly from one human bee ing to another, or through the medium of a carrier. There may, of course, be germs in the air, in street dust, and in various other materials, but nature usuale control, as will be exe