Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 30 January 1937 — Page 9

*®

Vagabond

FROM INDIANA

ERNIE PYLE

MARILLO, Tex., Jan. 30.—The most im- | portant thing in the Texas Panhandle They haven't had any

is the hope for rain. to speak of for five years. . The second most important thing is Gene Howe's daily newspaper column. signed. Tt is headed merely “The Tactless Texan,” and has a picture of cross-eved Ben Turpin at the top. But everybody knows who writes iv. The column

is read and talked about over an | arca 600 miles wide—all through |

the vast flat Panhandle and in adjoining states. The hold of this

column on the people is one of the | most thrilling things I know of in |

Journalism.

A number of times Howe's col- | umns have brought him national | doesn’t mince |

attention, for he

words. His greatest notice came

from bawling out Mary Garden for | giving Amarillo a good opera |

not performance. He and Mary have

Mr. Pyle made it up since. He has an auto-

graphed photo of her and gets a | Christmas card from her every year, |

Howe bawled out Lindbergh for “standing up” a huge crowd which turned out to see him after Atlantic Night. Hundreds of peopla came congratulated Howe, but the civic bodies passed resoIutions denouncing him for name of Sonthern hospitality,’ Howe is the culprit who started Mother-in-Law Day. He didn't realize what he was doing. He just threw the suggestion in his column lightly, to pacify a mother-in-law who had been hurt by something he said. But the next day a hundred mothers-in-law were in the office, keen for the idea. he knew Amarillo had a Mother-in-Law Day. > & 4 He's Prolific Writer {igi HOWE has been running this column ever ¥ since he came to Amarillo 14 VOears ago. H. G. Wells, he is prolific. His daily comment frequently runs three and four full-length ‘columns. Howe's column is simplicity itself. He doesn’t go in for dramatic writing, or for the paragraphical philosophizing of his famous father, the “Sage of Potato Hill.” He writes plain ordinary street talk. In this column Howe calls himself “Old Tack.” He is known by that for 300 miles in every direction. He runs Ben Turpin's picture in the columm just £0 itll look crazy. He didn't ask Turpin if he could, but one day Turpin came through and said he aion’t care. Howe starts out every dav with the weather. He has set himself up as a sort of jovial Panhandle weather prophet. In the winter he gives the probabilities for snow. In the summer for rain. That's what the farmers want, so they eat it up. He talks about the local football teams, and sings a little for people why the taxi drivers aren't paid a living wage, and boosts a concert, or quotes a visitor from Lubdock on the Mrs. Simpson affair, or scoops his own staff on coming weddings, and even comments on local suspected murderers,

Runs In Winchell

song

= un »

HEN hell run in Walter Winchell's entire column

(the buys it from the syndicate, but runs it right in his own column, with credit of course), and he usually winds up with half a column of shorts called “interesting facts,” which he also buys from a syndicate. He prints anything in his column, no matter what, He prints letters from people who want to get married. His column is responsible for more than 300 marriages in the Panhandle. He prints letters from women denouncing their neighbors by name, and then prints the neighbors’ answers, He says it makes wonderful reading. I should think it would. Almost every day he asks everybody to go out and help find a lost dog or cat. He has given away hundreds of dollars in rewards for children’s lost pets. Once a week he publishes a couple of columns of letters from people wanting jobs. He has placed hundreds. His column gets around 200 letters a month. He doesn’t try to answer them all. He writes part of his column during the day, and part of it at night. He has turned down two offers to go to New York and w rite a syndicated column. He'd rather live in Amarillo.

Mrs.Roosevelt's Day

By ELEANOR ROOSEVELT

VW SHING TO: Friday—Last evening we held the Congressional reception. This is one of the

largest receptions and perhaps one of the most diffi- |

cult to handle with fairness to all concerned. There was a time when several thousand people were asked to these recgptions., I can remember many

years ago, spending well over an hour progressing up |

the stairs to the East Room and even longer, gradually approaching the President and his wife.

hands with the guests. Now we attempt, for the sake of our guests as well as ourselves, to limit the numbers so that the entire line can pass the President in littie more than an hour. Of course, before this Administration began

the custom had changed and the Cabinet members | and their wives remain in the Red Room where they |

greet people when they come in and therefore they are not obliged to stand in lie.

This morning, I am on the trail of a new “Scamper.” | Our small grandson, Bill Roosevelt, who 1s staying | rere at the moment, has read and enjoyed both of |

mv daughter's books about “Scamper,” and every

morning since his arrival he has demanded to know

where Scamper can be found.

We used to have bunnies in an inclosure at the |

back of the White House, but the number of dogs made it rather difficult to keep them safely apart. Now all the dogs are gone, so I am satisfying Bill by starting in on bunnies again.

I started to be a growling lion on the floor this | morning, only to discover I was being too realistic | Then I had to |

and my grandson had run away. change into a bucking bronchoe and put him on my back while mv brother held him on. That was entirely successful and ended in roars of laughter as we both collapsed on the floor.

New Books

PUBLIC LIBRARY PRESENTS—

LL lovers of modern poetry recognize the genius and charm of Edna St. Vincent Millay. readers will be delighted with Elizabeth Atkins’ book,

EDNA ST. VINCENT MILLAY AND HER TIMES | A study of Miss Millays life and its influence upon her writings is com- | bined with keen, analytical criticism of her individual | Hailing Miss Millay as “our most popular and |

(University of Chicago Press),

works. representative poet,” the author by comparison and contrast of her work with that of many of her predecessors and contemporaries, endeavors to prove that she is “the initiator, not the imitator” and, as such, has “set the tone for recent poetry.” An unusual and interesting chronological arrangement enables us to trace the growth of the poet's art as she herself has grown in experience and knowledge,

” n » OSTWAR Germany, with its cruel social forces

that have twisted the pathetic lives of its victims, |

is the scene of the tragic novel, WAR GOES ON, by Shalom Asch (Putnam). Accompanying ruthless destruction, inflation comes a deadly reality. life of the Polish Jew, Judkewitch, who at the outset plans to win materially by it.

tragedy into the beautiful life of Hans and Lotte, who desperately have challenged society on the strength of their love. Included in this novel are many other characters equally harassed by the strife. Hitler is seen shouting hysterically in Munich cellars, yet his denunciations and ideas are slowly taking root,

It is un-

his | in and |

“pesmirching the fair |

The first thing |

who have died, and asks |

SATURDAY, JANUARY 30, 1937

The Indianapolis Times

Entered as Second-Clase Matter Indianapolis,

at Postoffice,

ano

FLOODS MUST AND CAN BE TAMED

Disaster Is Boon if It Brings Execution of River Control Plan

(Third of a Series) By BENTON J. STONG Times Special Writer HE great Mississippi Valley flood of 1937 may be one of the most helpful things which ever happened to the valley, an area touching 31 states, That is. on condition that the angry overflow of the Father of Waters, with its human suffering and its vast property losses, will set the New Deal into action to carry out a great national plan for development and control of the river—a plan drafted in 1934 by the Mississippi Valley Committee and the National Resources Board. The plan, calling for a two-billion-dollar program of reservoirs, spillways, levees, reforestation and soil-erosion control, was fathered by President Roosevelt, But little has been done to put it into effect as a unified program,

There have been few © more auspicious occasions | than this, with the river on a rampage as President Roosevelt begins his second term, for launching a program to translate the Mississippi Valley plan into works. The committee which drafted the plan was headed by Morris L. Cooke, who serves the New Deal today as head of the Rural Electrification Administration. It worked in co-operation with the National Resources Board and its Advisory Council headed by Frederic A. Delano, the President's uncle,

Milions of dollars poured into levees, dredging and river channel improvements—the stop-gap measures of the past—fail to meet the problem, the committee found. Levees have been raised time after time, but the river has

| swept over each new barrier be-

cause eroding fields were adding several inches of silt to the river bed each year. The flooa-control problem, it was found, reached far beyond the construction of artificial barriers on the banks of the Lower Mississippi. It reached back to the headwaters of the Ohio in

| Pennsylvania; back to the snow-

capped Rockies where the Mis-

| souri River rises.

And it proved to involve, not alone the lowering of the crests of the Mississippi, but nearly every

| problem concerned with the con-

servation of resources. » 5 » o HE time has passed when isolated and unrelated

plans are adequate to American needs,” the committee reported. “The divisions into which the Mississippi Valley Committee was forced, by the sheer logic of the situation, to analyze its problem will illustrate the amazing diversity of the task of using and controlling water, Flood control, low-water control, navigation, power, sanitation and erosion are integral parts of the picture, All of these elements are met with in the Great Valley. . “There is no one method of flood control which 1s applicable to the entire Mississippi River system. The improvement of natural channels, the building of reservoirs—sometimes well adapted for purposes of irrigation and power; the construction of levees,

such as now exist along the lower

Mississippi, reforestation and a change in certain areas from tilled crops, may all play a part in slowing down the rush of water to the sea, or in keeping it away from cities, towns and valuable lands.” A detailed plan covering all these features, estimated to cost in excess of $2000000000, but much of it quickly self-liquidat-ing, was outlined in detail. ® » » HIS plan includes: Appropriation of at least 20,000,000 a year for 20 years ior soil-erosion work—work which would not only cause the land to hold back water and lower the river crests but save the fertility of the land itself. This appropriation would be only 5 per cent of the estimated $400,000,000 annual loss in soil value through erosion. It was found that 25 per cent of all tillable land has already been stripped to the subsoil. Appropriation of at Jeast $47. 000,000 annually for 20 years for the acquisition and reforestation of marginal lands, and $27,000,000 a year for maintenance of the national forests, A 20-year program of river works to cost $1,000,000,000, This would include everything from reservoir dams-—providing power, irrigation, water supply and flood control on small headwater Streams from Pennsylvania to Montana—to regulated emergency spillways in the lower Mississippi basin, » » » HERE are things we can certainly draw into our map of the future,” the committee advised President Roosevelt, “Such a map might show the disastrous kind of erosion finally choked. Instead of gullied hillsides and slopes from which the rich humus colors were slowly fading, it would show terraces; alternations of tilled lands and grasslands; new forests springing up in belts and patches, tended carefully as so many orchards. It would show , , . the scientific uses of all land in the valley, determined after long studies of soils and climatic conditions. No farmer would be trying to grow com on land fitted only for timber, or wheat on land best fitted for recreation and the preservation of wild life. “The rivers might not be under control entirely in times of major floods, but the crest of the floods would have been lowered by means of forest planting, sodcultivation and the building of multiple-purpose dams, and the

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Residents of Dayton, O. which in 1913, suffered $100,000,000 flood damage, no longer are panicky dur ing flood season, and the Huffman Dam (above) is one of the reasons, through the city grows turbulent, this dam, pictured above, holds back in its basin most of the surplus water,

When the mad river which threads

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creation of numerous minor reservoirs, When the rivers could not be held in their channels, they would be permitted to flow into previously selected floodways, where the least possible harm would result. . . . “Power lines would have flung an intricate, mterconnected network over the whole region. . . . “The economic life of the region, being better organized, would be carried forward to a higher level. . . . “Such a picture is not fanciful, even though we cannot predict certainly that it will be realized. It indicates what can be accom=plished in an American way, in a democratic society, through demo= cratic governing agencies.”

NEXT-How projects in Penne sylvania and Colorado will lessen the disasters in the lower Mississippi.

In those | days the entire Cabinet was lined up also to shake |

TODAY'S LOCAL PERSONALITY

These |

be- | Its effects render havoc in the |

Economic unbalance, | plus the many political factions into which Germany | is torn immediately after the war, bring inevitable |

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7 BASE HOSPITAL NO. 32

‘WILSON DAM “WR.L \

Clapper Urges Federal Flood Control

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This chart reveals at a glance dams that already have been built, are under way, or have been proposed, for flood control, Some already have proved their worth, The current Ohio River flood horror might have been greater, for instance, had not TVA barviers and the completed dams in Ohio's Miami district held back swollen Tennessee and Miami River waters, Another year will see more dams.

By RAYMOND CLAPPER

ASHINGTON, Jan, 30.-Every vear, so David Cushman Coyle tells us in his little book, “Waste,” enough water falls in the United States to cover the whole country two and one-half feet deep. About half of this evaporates, Part 1s absorbed by plants. One-third flows back into the ocean. It is that one-third that causes the trouble. If this water rolled down to the sea in an even flow, it could be car ried off easily. The difficulty is that it piles up at the most inconvenient times and tries to get down all at once. The mean annual flow of the Mississippi at the mouth is 695,000 cubie feet a second... Yet the Ohio River, which is its most troublesome tributary, has been known to flow 1,500,000 cubic feet a second, or almost three times the mean flow of the Mississippi. Some estimate that in the present flood the Ohio has been running 3,000,000 cubic feet. The Mississippi levee system, Army engineers say, was constructed to accommodate a flow of about 2.400.000 cubic feet, It remains to be seen whether it will hold the present flood. These figures point to the real nature of the flood problem, It is a

| violent fluctuation in the volune of

water that we have to deal with.

| One way is to build levees and try

to hold this water when it rushes

| down. The other is to try to muffle | these waters on their way and level

| “little waters,”

off the flow. That is what President Roosevelt is talking about when he speaks of controlling the of reforestation, of

| control back toward the sources of

{ | |

the tributaries. It is too late to deal with floods after they are floods. But back up in the mountains perhaps the many small streams which ultimately produce these floods can be held in control.

” ” os URING the history of the country there have been some 50 floods on the Ohio River. Because it is such a heavy tributary, it is re=sponsible for much of the Mississippi’s trouble, The Mississippi River system including tributaries covers 41 per cent of the area of the United States. It penetrates 31 states, in which live half of the people of the country. Obviously this is a national problem, Twenty-five years ago he late Senator Newlands of Nevada used to bore the Senate with his river control plan, He spoke about it at every opportunity, often exhibiting a large diagram. His plan had the essentials which still form the basis of all long-range discussion--refor= estation, reservoirs at the headwaters, slowing down and levelling off the flow, and measurss to check erosion. But nobody was interested. It was an expensive dream-would have cost three or four billion dollars, which was more than the whole Government budget then, Meantime the Government has spent millions on the Mississippi and on the Ohio, trying to catch the floods after they developed.

5 8 RESIDENT ROOSEVELT has given more attention than any

Fo of the Guanes TORI

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National Resources Board has devoted much study to this question and has prepared elaborate reports, Two factors have held back adequate action, One was lack of suf ficient publie interest, which may be supplied now as the nation looks on horrified at the destruction, The other is the cloud over Federal authority to act. The Constitution does not mens= tion navigation, but the Supreme Court has written IPederal authors ity over it into the Constitution as an implied power growing out of the commerce power. Under its authority over navigation, the Fed eral Government has done a great many things, TVA is primarily a power project, but when it goes into court it puts on its stage whiskers and pretends to be an innocent navigation project. Flood cons trol can be linked to navigation to a certain extent. Just how far de= pends upon how far the Supreme Court will let it go. Most headwater control has been attempted through State compacts. Results have not been satisfactory. In trying to control the Delaware River, for instance, Pennsylvania was obliged to seek a compact with New York and New Jersey, Headwaters are in New York State. Benefits would be felt not so much by New York but by Pennsylvania. Who, then, should pay for New York land sacrificed in creating storage reservoirs? New York insisted that Pennsylvania should. Controversies like this have had a paralyzing effect. Positive Federal action—by the grace of the Supreme Court-—seems the only prace ticable course. FLU CASES RISE By Science Service WASHINGTON, Jan. 30.—A big jump in influenza cases that was not due to the disastrous Ohio River floods has been reported by state health officers to the U. 8. Public Health Service here. The increase, tc a total of 35,003 new cases, was reported for the week ending Jan. 23. Western states showed largest numbers of cases per state, Since that date hundreds of thousands have been driven by the flood

from their homes and following exposure to cold and wet are now crowded together in temporary and makeshift living quarters. It looks like a perfect setup for another big jump in influenza cases, although the figures next week will probably not tell the complete story. Reporting of influenza cases is sketchy at best and under present circumstances reports will probably lag farther than ever behind the actual number of cases.

KNOW YOUR INDIANAPOLIS

Indianapolis has the nation's third ranking children’s museum and the only one with

| think of the U. 8, Supreme Court?

Second Section

PAGE

Qur Town

By ANTON SCHERRER

NDER the leadership of an excited and ine sistent patriot I got to meet Walter A, Kiefer the other day. Mr, Kiefer is Assists ant District Director of the U. S. Department of Labor, Division of Immigration, and shows

up in Indianapolis a couple of times a year to quiz foreigners who, for some reason of their own, want to be citizens of our country, Mr. Kiefer has been doing this ever since 1013, and he’s pretty good now,

The meeting took place in the Corinthian Cireuit Court Room over in the Federal Building, but it wasn't as formal as it sounds. To tell the truth, it was a pretty intimate affair, because that's the kind of a man Mr. Kiefer is, The candidates got around Mr. Kiefer and a big, expensive mahogany table, and before I got wise to what was going on, the examinas tion was on its way. It had a Socratic slant, if you know what I mean. Anvway, it wasn't a written examination, because Mr, Kiefer doesn't believe in that sort of thing, He likes to ask a question and start a little disouss ston whieh, when vou come to think about it. is as good a way as any to start a fellow toward being a good American, The class consisted of 11 eandidates—fiva women and six men=-and I'm telling vou that the women put it all over the men, Anyway, I don’t know a single man of my acquaintance who could have done what these women did. One woman (British). for instance, explained what a republic is and followed it up with a most illuminating definition of liberty,

» n ” Explains Ratification

NOTHER (German) explained how amendments are ratified, which is something I defy any of my male friends to do, I thought Mr, Kiefer was taking advantage of a woman with a quess tion like that, but she got away with it in great shape, So well, in fact, that I took down her name for future reference. She was Mrs. Aenne Nepple and she hails from somewhere in Westphalia where the real Pumps ernickel comes from, Mis, Nepple passed, of course, and so did three of the other women. The men didn’t do so well and will be given another chance the next time Mr, Kiefer comes to town, I shall not divulge any more, An observer's zeal must not outrun his good sense, My only excuse for attempting this piece at all is to record my final im= pression--a conviction that we men have a long way to go if we want to keep up with the women,

Mr. Scherrer

woman

u ” ”

Scherrer Examination

ND when it was all over, IT set up a 10-minute examination of my own, just to show that Mr, Kiefer's job isn't so hard after all: 1. Will the Constitution outlive Amos 'n’ Andy? 2. What does the President of the United States He certainly thinks something. 3. Do Maine and Vermont States? How come? 4. Define the American standard of living without lugging in a bathroom, 5 Why do Americans: (a) Hog (he end seat in streetcars; (b) Live in trailers; (¢) Run through trafe fie lights? 6. Would Governor La I'ollette have acted differs ently if Glenn Frank had turned out a team as good as Minnesota's? 7. Is it patriotism that inspires a pigeon to stick around the War Memorial? If not, what is it? The class is dismissed,

A Woman's View

By MRS. WALTER FERGUSON

LETTER from a small California town speaks what is in the heart of many another woman: “I try on $27.50 a week to pay for a little ranch, raise, a few chickens, keep two girls in high school and get the right food and medical care for my T= year-old son and husband, both of whom have asthma, “I Keep up my courage pretty well until I read about such doings as Mrs. McLean's $50,000 party and then I see red. “Are we tools or weak, or do we just lack what it takes, that women like me, doing the very best we can, have to live out our lives without comforts, see our children do without the education we hoped for them and watch loved ones die, all for the lack of just a little more money? And money, too, which a few of our rich fling about as if they were playing with leaves, Am 1 crazy or just going to be?” Our world is crazy. That's why our correspondent Is so shaken with resentment, How many hearts have been moved with the same righteous anger which stirs her to speak! For she Knows, as everyone capable of sustained thought knows, that there has been something vastly wrong with an economic SyS= tem which made it possible for a few individuals to accumulate so much money that their heirs could finally toss it off with thoughtless abandon, The return of prosperity proves two things. First, that the rich are not so poor as they pretended to be in 1933, and second, that we live in a decadent age, Great extremes of poverty and wealth have always preceded the downfall of nations, and ours will be no exception unless something can be done to remedy the injustice. The present New Deal experiment is to be commended for at least trying to tackle the problem. And whatever is to come for us, whether our ree public stands or falls, we can be sure of one thing, Those who have it, or build it anew, will be the children of people who have struggled along on a little money. For they will have been bred for strug gle. The others, the soft and sleek, will go down at once, overwhelmed by hardships. Only those with stamina, resourcefulness and strength will be worthy to inherit the new earth. Among them probably will be the children of our California correspondent,

Your Health

By DR. MORRIS FISHBEIN

Editor, American Medical Assn. Journal

belong to the United

ERTAIN diseases are transferred regularly through soil, food and water. Typhoid fever, for example, is frequently carried by infected water or food; hooks worm may be picked up from the soil; the germs of septic sore throat are carried by infected material, Many infections, however, are transmitted by human beings who, while not themselves sick, can convey germs to other people, All of us are constantly being invaded by germs. When we are recovering from disease, our bodies usually get rid of the dangerous germs. Occasionally, however, people do not Md themselves of all such germs, and those that remain find resting and breeds ing places somewhere in the body. There are people, for example, who recover from diphtheria and who continue to carry dangerous germs in noses and throats thereafter. For this reason, health departe ments require a certain number of nose and throat tests before releasing the patient from quarantine. There are people known as passive carriers, who carry dangerous germs, although they themselves do not have the diseases. Then there are active cars riers, who continue to carry germs long after they recover from the disease, Then there is the present or temporary carrier—a person, for instance, who feeds a child with infantile paralysis and who can carry that infection from the child to another person. Any person suspected of being a carrier of disease should have a complete examination to indicate the nature of the germs carried, the places in which they Bis Sarried and the best methods of getting

| rid of

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