Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 4 February 1937 — Page 13
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' Vagabond
FROM INDIANA
ERNIE PYLE
USKOGEE, Okla., Feb. 4.—1t took us nine hours to drive the 150 miles from Oklahoma City to Muskogee. We pulled one car out of a ditch and did one loop ourselves. We had tire chains and a windshield heater, and yet I never felt safe an inch of the way. It was like being on a greased pole, We got here two hours after dark. It was down to 10 above zero, the snow was inches deep, it was sleeting, and the wind was coming straight from the North Pole with not a thing to stop it but Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, and Moose Jaw isn’t very big. So I propped my feet on the radiator and haven't stuck my head out of the door since, and don’t intend to until spring comes. Hence it must be obvious that I'm not out gathering any columns in Muskogee.
over the past few hundred miles: I never can forget that slope that comes down from the Rocky Mountains on the way east. It must be the longest and gentlest slope in the world. You can start east from Las Vegas, N. M, or
Mr, Pyle
I'll just have to shut my eyes | and toast my shins and look back |
8
Pueblo, Colo, or from Denver, and you can drive | east for 500 miles, and you will never realize you | have lost a foot, the ground is that flat, and yet in |
the 500 miles you come down a whole mile. At Las Vegas you're nearly 6500 feet above sea level, At Oklahoma City 1000. If you were to take a billiard table. put two postcards under the legs at one end, the table would then be sloping at about the same angle as this vast Rockies, »
Ernie Can't Take It
OME people can stand extreme altitudes, and some can’t. Personally, I can’t take it. In Santa Fe (7000 feet) I was continually out of breath, and there Was a ringing in my ears, and I just didn't feel well, although I couldn't put my finger on where it hurt, as they say. I could notice a change for the better when we got to Amarillo (3600 feet.) I felt freer, more relaxed, and didn’t have to work at breathing all the tinue. Some people thrive in high altitudes; although in every high altitude I've visited, from Denver on up, people say that when you get a cold you can't get rid of it for months. There's one thing I really like about the altitudes, though. It makes your hair nice. My hair (what there is left of it) has got so it's wiry and dry and sticks out in funny tufts; won't coagulate, you might say. But after about a week at a mile high or more it gets soft and seems to flow in becoming waves (or so the girls all tell me). The altitude doesn’t change the color though. It's still red.
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JR ESTAURANY experiences: In Amarillo, a waitress was telling us about a former manager. “He couldn't manage a chicken coop,” she said. In Santa Fe one night after dinner I asked for an ash tray. The waitress said she'd bring one if she couid find one. She said the customers had stolen 13 ash trays that day from the tables. They were just ordinary glass ash trays; nothing distinctive about them. Two drunks were in a restaurant in the tiny prairie town of Santa Rosa, N. M. They were nice-looking young men, obviously town boys rather than ranchers.
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you're little more than | and |
plane stretching down east of the |
They were nice drunks, and kept going “Sshhhhh!” |
at each other. way. The waitress was enjoying their talk. Finally one of them looked at her and said, very seriously: “Are vou an old cowgirl?” She laughed and said “Yes.” “I'm a cowboy,” he said, and went on eating. His partner said “Sshhhhh!”
Mrs.Roosevelt's Day
By ELEANOR ROOSEVELT
ASHINGTON, Wednesday—Last night the dinner to the Justices of the Supreme Court was held. Chief Justice Hughes sat, as usual, on my right, and Mr. Justice Van Devanter on my left. Luckily for me the State Department seats all the officials. but there were a number of outside guests last night. The gold table decorations and service, bought by President James Madison for the White House, are nearly always used, and Mr. Reeves and his staff arrange the flowers. Every now and then they do something which is particularly lovely. When I came in the front door late yesterday afternoon, my eyes were caught by the arrangement of white flowers with green ferns and palms in the Blue Room. I only hope all the guests enjoyed the flowers as much as I did. Last evening “Little Bill,” my grandson, and I were telephoning to his mother who is in a hospital in Philadelphia while he has been here with us. There is really nothing serious the matter, but Elizabeth naturally feels rather depressed at having to be there at all, so every evening we call her on the telephone and he tells her what he’s has done all day. He burst into a stream of conversation which 1 couldn't understand and when I took the telephone hack. she said she couldn't understand it either, so his nurse had to explain what he was trying to tell her. For some reason, he had ridden the pony for a very short time in the morning and so his nurse asked him if there was anything elise he would like to do. He responded that he wanted to go to the Capitol and ride the same little train that “Scamper” rode on. He evidently knows these two books by my daughter verv well, and I only hope other children get as much pleasure out of them as he does. In his case, thev went to the Capitol and rode on the little train which goes from the Senate Office Building to the Capitol. There was still a little time to spare and the nurse asked him what he would like to do next. He replied that he would like to go to the top of the Capitol steps and bump down each step to the bottom just as “Scamper’ had done. His nurse wisely let him do it and he returned full of his adventure,
New Books
PUBLIC LIBRARY PRESENTS—
N her preface to NOT UNDER FORTY (Knopf), Willa Cather warns us that it is for those who look
They didn’t say anything out of the | : : | underground reservoirs, alarming-
packward with more pleasure than forward that these
sketches are written.
Willa Cather herself feels a nostalgia for the days
pefore Freud and proletarian literature. which enables her to understand the pride of Old Madame Grout in her uncle, Gustave Flaubert, which she so delicately depicts in “A Chance Meeting” It is this feeling which makes her rebel against photographic realism in the novel and the tong for “The Novel Demeuble”; and which causes her to champion the quiet flavor of Sarah Orne Jewett's stories against the more strident tones of present-day writers. Miss Cather writes with a sure feeling for a life and a literature more orderly, though not less passionate. than those of today. And the charm of those days, more leisurely than ours, and filled with gaiety and the sedate claiter of teacups, permeates her
essays.
n ” ”
VEN before the coming of European puppets to v4 America, the American Indians made use of the little figures in many of their ceremonials, to add magic and mystery to their religious rites. In PUPPETS IN AMERICA (Puppetry Imprints, Birmingham, Mich.), Paul McPharlin gives a very brief his-
tory of these fascinating “people,” both in Europe,
where they have long been taken seriously, and in America, where they received a new lease on life when Tony Sarg succeeded in making the puppet or marionette suecessful. Mr. McPharlin fills out the small volume with pictures illustrating the work of various puppeteers, the kinds of puppets used, and incredible things which can be done by a -puppet in the hands of one who loves the work.
lik
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It is this |
The Indianapolis Times
a a . a AR 1 AP PAA ME Si S20 ra A rs Ss To
Second Section
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 1937
Entered as Second-Class Matter Indianapolis,
et Postoffice,
PAGE 13
Ind.
"checking rapid runoff and permit-
FLOO
LOODS MUST AND CAN BE TAMED Reforesting of Farm Acres Plus Fight on Soil Erosion Held Need
(Last of a Series)
By BENTON J. STONG Times Special Writer
EADJUSTMENT in the use of hundreds of millions of acres of land—fundamental to the problem of flood control—was recommended in the detailed program drafted in 1934 by the Mississippi Valley Committee and by the Land Planning Committee of the National Resources Board.
Their plan involved:
Expansion of national forests by 225,000,000 acres, to restore the vegetation and humus which prevent rapid run-
off of rains and halt erosion.
Return of 75,000,000 acres of farm lands to forests. Expenditure of at least $20,000,000 a year for erosion control on farm lands, the program to include replanting of eroding lands with legumes, terracing and every known
control measure.
Zoning of land uses through state laws to prevent
their misuse.
Co-ordinated Federal, state and local land-use pro-
grams,
“A plan to check the most serious erosion within the next 10 years should immediately be put in effect,” the
Land Planning Committee ©
said. That was more than two years ago. The estimated cost of the forest program, based on recommendations of the Forest Service, would be $47,000,000 a year for purchases and $27,000,000 a year for maintenahce of forests, States would be asked to acquire a fair share of the total 225,000,000 acres, as state forests. This vast land program is recommended in addition to the bil-lion-dollar public works program suggested by the Mississippi Valley Committee. “The cost of protection against erosion is but a minute fraction of the cost of erosion,” the Valley Committee reported. “A 20-year Federal program, calling for joint action with states, counties, land districts and individual owners, would cost the national Government $20,000,000 a year—and 5 per cent of the measurable annual loss from erosion at the present rate.” ” HILE conserving lands, the committee found that such a program would coniribute tremendously to flood control by
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ting the infiltration of water to
iy depleted in recent years. “A large part of the United States is underlaid by artesian reservoirs which, under natural conditions, contain large volumes of water under pressure,” the Resources Board reported. “If the pressure is sufficient to deliver water at the surface or within pumping distance therefrom, this | is an ideal form of natural conservation by storage.” To preserve this great storage capacity—not to be confused with “ground water” storage within higher strata—the committee found that a study of intake areas would be necessary and that some great “water reservations” might be necessary to stimulate natural replenishment. Ground-water storage offers great additional capaciiy—and the committee found that it could only be replinished by adjustments in land uses. “The enormous extent of this
ground-water reservoir may be realized from the fact that except for regulation by natural lakes it supplies the dependable perennial flow of all streams,” the committee wrote. “Without it nearly all rivers would go dry at times. “The superficial ground-water reservoir is replenished from that part of the rain which enters the overlying soil as infiltration. Methods of cultivation and use of land which tend to pack the soil or reduce its capacity to absorb rain may result in serious lowering of ground-water levels and reduction in the ground-water reserVoirs. ” 2 ” " ESTORATION of the ground-water levels and conservation of the ground-water resources in the superficial zone can be brought about only through methods of cultivation and use of land which permit the normal amount of water to enter the ground as infiltration and which prevent soil moisture from being withdrawn in excess by crops or otherwise.” It has become increasingly evident that the public must take over much larger forest lands to protect its “interests, the report found. “The history of American forests has been one of exploitation, depletion, and, on large areas, actual devastation,” the committee said. “At the present time about 20 per cent of the land surface within the Mississippi Basin is classed as forest. Prior to settlement, forests covered about 40 per ~ent of the land. “The conservation of forests on the steep slopes in mountainous areas and elsewhere is of special value in the control of soil erosion. The web of roots of trees and lesser growth in the forest penetrates the soil in all directions and holds it firmly in place. The canopy of branches and leaves checks the force of heavy rains. The ground cover of litter and humus protects the topsoil from the wearing action of water running over the surface.
Es SON J E 8 Flood control starts on the land. Waters are held and runoff retarded in the virgin forest above. They rush from the gullied lands (right), carrying with them a cargo of silt to fill reservoir basins and defeat the highest levees.
mus to absorb and hold water. The litter maintains the soil in a maximum condition of porosity for infiltration of water.” Thus the committee, delving into every phase of planning for
ing floods cannot be stopped unless the whole problem of conservation of resources is faced. “Planning for the use and control of water is planning for most of the basic functions of the life of the nation,” it said. “We cannot plan for water unJess we consider the relevant problems of the land. We cannot plan for the water and land unless we plan for the whole people. “It is of little use to control rivers unless we also master the conditions which make for security and freedom of human life ... “We are but tenants and transients on the earth. Let us hand down our heritage not only unimpaired, but enriched to those
who come after us.”
TODAY'S LOCAL PERSONALITY
By JACK MORANZ
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THE PEON TRACKLESS
MOTOR BOACH NV HEET IN THE
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TATUER OF WARREN (CAS CONSUL AMSTERDAM) AND ANTAONY (L/BERAL ARTS STUDENT AT UNI OF QH1) AX,
zr Zy — = i - He 1S PRESIDENT OF THE INDIANAPOLIS RAILWAYS 00. OPERATING THE LARGEST COUNTRY » AWARDED PRIZE BY FORRES MAGAZINE FOR ACCOMPLISHINGONE OF THE MOST OUTSTANDING MODERNIZATION JOBS OF ANY AMERICAN INDUSTRY DURING THE DEPRESSION *DERNES 3 PLEASURE AND GRATIFICATION FROM HELDING To Bul ol NORTHERN IND. DIS AND DEVELOPING POWER OPERATIONS ACROSS
F & EARLY AN DIR.COMM . CHES TAND IND. STATE CHAMBER OF COMMERCE iN MOF U-S-CL.o8 0. 5 MBR, EXER COMM. OF MER TRANSIT ASSN 2oiN 1923 WAS IN CHARGE OF INAUGURATING N-R-AFOR INDPLS *& \WARRED ADELE MATHIAS MND IS:
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Bom IN MILWAUKEE AND PAGO AND HARVAR) » NERD toa d ih SCHOOL » PRACT 3 WN IN HE RAILWAVS AND ELECTR Sa OF IND« SHEADED THE REORGANIZATION
AND RENARILITATION OF THE GARY RAILWAVS « THE Sou | HE
WITH AERIEND ATOMAHA
TED IN OMAHA, UNV. oF ben AW 12VEARS AND THROUGH WIS CLENTS
§ SOUTH BEND ReR« AND R LWAYS x a a» \
| CharlesW Chase
OF special importance is the | power of the litter and hu- |
the valley, found that its devastat- |
| |
ASHINGTON, Feb. 4 —Out of a vast number of suggestions for achieving the broad ob- | je@ives which were sought unsuccessfully through NRA, the program which is gaining the most support within the Administration is, in substance, as follows: 1. Monopolistic and unfair trade practices would be more clearly de- | fined through a rewriting of portions of the antitrust acts, particularly the Federal Trade Commission Act. The list of unfair trade practices would be expanded. These prohibitions would be enforced by the Federal Trade Commission, backed up by the courts. 2. Antitrust laws would be suspended in so far as necessary to permit voluntary trade agreements to establish sound business relations and to promote fair dealing and to | prevent undesirable but not illegal | practices such as price§ cutting. | These agreements would be reached | through co-operation between busil1iess groups and a new Government | agency, either an independent | agency or a new division within | perhaps the Department of Com- | merce. Approval of this agency would be necessary to validate such | agreements, which would be exempt | irom antitrust liabilities. No force | of law would support such arrange- | ments. Public opinion, publicity, | and the pressure of trade ethics | would have to be relied upon to pre- | vent chiseling. 3. Under broad authority to be | sought from Congress, special | boards created for various industries | would decide upon minimum-wage | and maximum-hour standards, adjusted to various industries. Child labor prohibitions also would be included. Failure to observe these minimum requirements would constitute an unfair trade practice. Enforcement would be in the hands of the Federal Trade Commission. These provisions would not involve collective bargaining, which is considered something apart. The present effort is to fix minimums beyond which the collective bargaining process would go on as now. This legislation would in no way affect the collective bargaining machinery of the Wagner act. ” ”
S is apparent from the foregoA ing, the functions of the Federal Trade Commission would be separated. The commission would remain as an enforcing and prose- | cuting agency. The drafting of | trade agreements would be in the | hands of another agency. In this | the thought is that one agency
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| would originate the agreements,
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' while another would determine their fairness and the policing. One object is to permit the agency charged with developing trade agreements to function in an
atmosphere more co-operative withy ceived no support.
Clapper Outlines Favored Plan for Replacing NRA
By RAYMOND CLAPPER
industry than would be possible if it were also engaged in policing and prosecution. This program might be enacted in one bill or in two or more measures. It is not fair to say that President Roosevelt has approved this program. However, it does represents a growing consensus within the Administration, its supports including Attorney General Cummings, Ernest G. Draper, Assistant Secretary of Commerce, some Federal Trade Commission officials and a number of private citizens, including some key industrial leaders. td ” ”
MISSARIES of the President have been particularly active in discussing the program among business executives whose support is regarded as essential if the plan is to work, since it was their opposition largely which broke down NRA. Looking to defense of tlie program against attack in Congress, some of those working on it point out that
somewhat the same plan was suggested in a Republican minority re-
port when an attempt was made to!
extend NRA in 1935. If President Roosevelt should finally approve this plan, as seems not improbable, the result would be to withhold support from the proposed Black 30-Hour-Week Bill, the O'Mahoney Federal Incorporation Bill, the proposed Guffey act substitute and various “Little NRA” bills designed for particular industries such as textiles. There is some expectation that the Fresident will move in this field before he goes to Warm Springs a month hence, but no decision has heen reached. :
Heard in Congress
Senator Ashurst (D. Ariz.) —When I used to practice law, and lost a case, I would get my clients around me, go down to a hotel and say, “Now, regarding that case of yours which I lost, the judges were wrong. You ought to have men like me on the bench, and your cases would be rightly decided.”
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Rep. Cox (D. Ga.)—What is it that is lacking in the Secretary's (Miss Perkins’) technique which makes it impossible for her seemingly to get anywhere? Rep. Hoffman (R. Mich.) —How do I know what a Democratic Secretary of Labor is thinking?
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Senator Ashurst (D. Ariz.)—I introduced a proposed constitutional amendment which would give to Congress the power to levy taxes on income from bonds issued by the United States; and my amendment was about as popular as a cuckoo
clock in a boys’ dormitory. It re-
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| for fogd that is harmful.
Our Town
By ANTON SCHERRER
A BUNCH of violets the other day recalled the Widow Finn who used to live in a little brick house on the west side of Union St. between McCarty and Ray Sts. Fifty years ago everybody around here called her
the “Violet Lady.” She might just as well have been called the “Bouquet Lady,” because I ree member that her lilies-of-the-valley were every bit as pretty as her violets. Widow Finn's little house was pretty close to the property line in front, which left her considerable ground in the rear for a garden. Measured by old-fash-ioned standards, which, by the way, still have their points, it was the prettiest plot in Indianapolis. At any rate, I never saw a neater or more orderly garden, and it: struck me at the time, young as I was, that maybe a pretty garden reflects the love and tenderness a woman puts into it. Be that as it may, I know that the Violet Lady loved her garden, because every time I called on her, I found her puttering around the place. Indeed, there were only two times a day that you wouldn't find her in her garden. One was when she took time off to attend the Sacred Heart Church to pay her obligations to the Lord, and the other when she went uptown to dispose of her bouquets. She had her regular customers, I remember. Her best one was Louis Hollweg, who ran the big chinae ware store on Meridian St. Mr. Hollweg always got Widow Finn's first and last bouquets of violets. This struck everybody as a bit unfair but the Widow justified it by saying that Mr. Hollweg bought so many violets—a bunch a day, as a matter of fact— that it was only fair that he should have the first and the last ones, too.
Mr. Scherrer
= un Bought Dozen at Once HARLEY MAYER was her second best patron, but in many respects he was her biggest one. That's explained by the fact that Mr. Mayer bought as many as a dozen bouquets at a time, He bought them to sell to his customers—at a little profit, I guess, which was all right, because really the Widow didn’t charge enough for her violets in the first place. But whether she charged enough or not, it re mains an historical fact that the bouquets gathered from her garden brought in enough every year to pay the taxes on her property, And that’s really what I started to tell you about. ” " Pride in Paying Taxes Wioow FINN was mighty particular about paye ing her taxes—more so than anybody else around here. Nobody knew exactly why she was among the first every year to appear at the Court House, but it finally leaked out that it was her pride, And it sounded reasonable enough when we learned that the Widow's property represented the savings of a lifetime, every cent of which was earned bending over a washboard. In her younger days, Widow Finn had a very select clientele. She did all! the laundry work for the bachelors at the Circle Park Hotel-—for men like Engelbach, the bookseller; Heckler, the barber; Mr, Schwartz and Mr. Mummenhoff—and it was more than enough to keep her geing. Indeed, when it came time for her to retire, she discovered that, be= sides having the property on Union St. she had a surplus to boot. She used the surplus to take a trip to Germany, her old home. And in the bottom of her trunk, she put an American washboard to show the folks over there how she had acquired her Indianapolis house and garden.
A Woman's View
By MRS. WALTER FERGUSON
” HY,” shouts an infuriated and anonymous lady from Xenia, O., “do you write under your husband's name? In doing this, you perpetuate a degrading custom of making women lose their identity. You aren't ashamed of your owh name, are you? As a graduate nurse I know that humanity isn't worth what women sacrifice for it. You make money at the expense of the degradation of your sex.” Oh, lady! lady! This—after I have endured for 15 years the vituperation of enraged males who accused me of inciting the women to sex wars. It only proves that we must prepare ourselves to be misunderstood. Mad as she is, our nurse brings up an interesting question. Why do women use their husband’s names? Does the custom subordinate them and betray their sex? I have never thought so, for the matter seems wholly nonessential—just another something for angry people to yell about. Dear Hollywood, out of which most of our pet fetishes come, has destroyed the idea, if it ever existed. Hardly any star of note uses the handle she was born with. It isn't changing your name that matters—it’'s what you do under the name you go by that counts. Every now and then the Lucy Stoners begin their arguments all over again, and they have some mighty good ones. Yet isn't it a poor rule that won't work both ways? And it is unlikely that a majority of women would want to see the present mode changed —t00 many of them live in vicarious glory under it. The general idea seems to be that if a woman be= comes famous on her own account her name ought to be used as the laurel rack, but if such fame is won by her husband she may with a good conscience annex it by: using his name. We see them wherever we go, these ladies who trot happily along, delighted to be the wife of General This or That, of Senator Thus and So, or the third spouse of plain Mr. Whoosit with millions in the bank, They are never accused of degrading their sex, and the re glory the man acquires the more women are out after him, hoping to share his name. Even the publishers of Mrs. Grace Lewis’ Y00ks invariably speak of her as Sinclair Lewis’ first wife, Why? Because she is sure of more attention. A simple way of settling this question would be to let the woman use the man’s name if he had endowed it with glamour, and to give men a like privilege when they marry a woman of note. .
Your Health
By DR. MORRIS FISHBEIN
Editor, American Medical Assn, Journal
ETHODS of preventing infection may be divided into those used by public health officials to benefit human beings and those employed by the individual. Public health authorities, for example, control wae ter, food, air, overcrowding, inoculation in times of epidemic, reporting of infectious diseases, disposal of sewage and similar factors. The individual may prevent much infection in his own body by particular attention to personal hygiene. The most important factor in personal hygiene is to keep the health at an optimum at all times. Every person must study his own powers, learn how much rest and how much sleep he needs, and find out how much exercise he may take without becoming unduly exhausted. He must learn the hazards associated with the particular industry in which he works. He must know when he is eating too much and when too little. He must realize which foods disagree with him, and avoid them. He must practice a constant general cleanliness in all aspects of his life. All this requires knowledge. We cannot trust our instincts. Appetite frequently runs away with us. No instinct automatically will protect human beings from disease germs. Furthermore, our feelings are not to be trusted. Many a man who feels tired really needs exercise. Many a person who is very excited and wants action freally needs rest. The eyes may create an appetite
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