Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 20 May 1937 — Page 17

Vagabond

FROM INDIANA ERMIE PYLE

T has 2ot so that nearly every car in the 500-mile race is an individually made job. There is no such thing as a car which even faintly approaches being a stock car. And the drivers say there isn't any such thing as a speedway car having a certain make of engine. Maybe it was to start with, but the mechanids and engineers so alter and rebuild these engines that you couldn't call them anything by the

* time the race starts. Water is used in the radiators. But they don't have fans, You probably couldn't make a fan belt stand up at that speed anyway. This year the cars must use ordinary gasoline that can be bought from a filling station. For years gasoline has been one of the great shrouded secrets about auto racing. The drivers all had their secret formulas. They put everything from path salts to dynamite in the tanks. They kicked like steers when they heard they had to use commercial gas this year. But they're using it—and the cars are running faster than ever before! _ -Each car has two sets of brakes. Hydraulic on the foot brake, mechanical on the lever. - The motor itself is often a better brake—and a more igh co one—than the brake itself. On some

Mr. Pyle

of the high compression four-cylinder jobs a driver would be €ommitting suicide if he suddenly lifted his foot off the throttle at 140 miles an hour. It would be like slamming on the brakes, and the car would go into a wild skid. u " ” Push-Button on Wheel

AVERY car has a little push-button taped onto one spoke of the steering wheel. You'd never guess what it's for. Well, it's a cutout for the whole jcnition system. In case of a skid, and it looks to the driver like a bad pile-up, he presses this button and the ignition is cut off, so there won't be a fire after the crash. There might not be time to reach down to the dash and turn the switch, you see, The Indianapolis track is one of the world's roughest. It’s amazing to me how the drivers keep the cars under control at all. The turns have been sacadamized now and are smooth, but the back tretch is as rough as some of these old worn-out ountry pavements you drive on, There are several good bumps. The famous ‘cateway bump” has been smoothed somewhat this ear. It was a ridge running across the track just s you went into the southwest turn. Spectators n the stands could plain see the cars bounce and obble when they hit that bump. But what specEe couldn't see was this: Every car in the racegevery time it came around the track, bounced completely off the bricks—all four wheels in the air al once—and stayed off for 40 feet or more! When vou come back down, at 110 tniles an hour—that takes driving.

£2 8 2

Legs Tickled Shaw

HE drivers and mechanics take an awful beating on the rough track. Wilbur Shaw said he happened to look down into the cockpit once on the back stretch, and there were four legs, jiggling and shaking all around the car like jellyfish. .It tickled him so he punched his mechanic and had him look. You're mighty tired at the end of 500 miles. That is, you're tired if you didn't win. saying around the Speedway—“The winner is never tired.” Most of the drivers prefer the two-man cars over the one-man cars of a few years ago. eves, they say. are better than one. the main reason they dislike the one-man cars— they get lonesome! That sounds ridiculous, but it's true.

(Next: The tires.)

Mrs.Roosevelt's Day

By ELEANOR ROOSEVELT

ASHINGTON, Wednesday.—I wish I could have taken you|with me this morning into the Secretary of State's office as various officials gathered there to inaugurate radio-telephonic communication with Shanghai, China, It all seemed so simple you could hardly realize what months of preparation and work must have gone into opening this new line of communication. : Mr. T. G. Miller, vice president of the American Telephone & Telegraph Co. told. ‘me that as he opened communications with each country, it gave him a thrill.

The Chinese Ambassador and his wife were present

and each of us who sat around the Secretary of State's desk could listen to all the conversation and answers which came through from China. Mr. Miller spoke first, then the Secretary of State and finally my turn came. It was a curious sensation indeed to find myself listening to a Chinese woman, Madame Chiang Kai-shek. wife of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, president of the executive Yuan, so many thousands of miles away. Madame. Chiang is.a graduate of Wellesley College. She made a plea for better understanding among the women of the world and voiced the hope that as more rapid transportation and easier communication drew us together, we would find an increase in understanding and therefore international peace. Madame Kung, wife of Dr, H. H. Kung, vice president of the executive Yuan and Minister of Finance, then told me she was very sorry she could not accompany her husband on his visit here in the near future. She added she had talked with him frequently in London, where he is at present, and would now be able to ‘talk to him in this country. Madame Kung is a graduate of Wesleyan College. I think this is the first time I can remember having a day for the veterans’ garden party when we did not have to watch the sky with great anxiety. At 4 o'clock the President and I will go out and stand under one of the big trees on the south lawn and there will file past us groups of men from every hospital in or near the city of Washington.

New Books

PUBLIC LIBRARY PRESENTS— HAT am I? .., Nothing! What do I want to be? Everything!” So wrote Marie Bashkirtseff (Mariia Konstantinovna Bashkirtseva) at the age of 15. And if she has not become everything, she has certainly become something. The subject of this biography. FOUNTAINS OF YOUTH (Dutton), by

Dorothy Julia Baynes (pseud. Doriner Creston), started her dairy at 12 and died at 24. She has been famous ever since, for 48 years. From the moment she could talk Marie Bashkirtseff dominated her slack, wavering family. She was _ determined to make a mark in the world as a woman and as an artist. She would be a singer, failing that a painter, and failing that she would leave a book behind her that men would not willingly let die. To pretend to: describe her would be ridiculous. The reader of this delightful biography will be enraged by her egotism and overwhelmed by her mere drive and power. : ” 2 2

OME of the most pleasing verses of the day are those written by Audrey Wurdemann, a young woman who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for poetry in 1935. SPLENDOUR IN THE GRASS (Harper) is her new volume. A fresh viewpoint on nature and a new and very feminine turn of phrase mark her lighter poems, while those that are longer and more serious tell of her great love of life and her sorrow for the fact that the race of Man must die—while Beauty alone remains. Miss Wurdemann is extremely aware in all of her senses of even the smallest things in nature. She watches for hours a spider spinning his web; she observes the taste, smell, and look of flowers; when she speaks of the cold, she describes not only

the feel of the cold but also its shape, color, sound,

and breath.

There is an old |

Two pairs of But here's really |

he Indianapolis

imes

Second Section

THURSDAY, MAY 20, 1937

Entered as Second-Class Matter Indianapolis,

at Postoffice,

PAGE 17

Ind.

- N

WOODEN TROUPER OF RADIOLAND

dear Bordon STs Veritrilo ist’ S F oil Is Far Fs rom Being a Duy

Former Illinois Boy Is

The Latest Star Of Air Waves.

By NORMAN SIEGEL EW- YORK, May 20,— Peck’s bad boy in tails and a top hat with a Dorothy Parker tongue and the suave swish of Alexander Woollcott. That unusual combination of human variances is Charlie McCarthy who took ventriloquism out of the “Who was the lady I saw you with last night?” class and streamlined it into the smartest radio and night club entertainment of the season. Charlie is a gentleman's

“dummy.” Yet Charlie isn’t a “dummy.” To millions of radio listeners, Charlie is every kit as real as Edgar Bergen, his mentor and brains. The average ventriloquist’s “dummy” is merely a foil for a trick veice-throwing act. It isn’t any more alive than the wood from which it is fashioned. But through Charlie's splinters there flows life. Bergen, the “Noel Coward” of ventriloquists, is the foil. Charlie is the life of the act. ; Although Charlie is 15 vears old, he first attracted nationwide attention as a radio personage last Dec. 17. That was the night Rudy Vallee introduced Edgar Bergen’s ventrilocquism act to his radio audience. What could a ventriloquist do on the radio? For the past 15 weeks, Bergen and his Charlie have been &answering that question with the most successful: radio act since Maj. Edward Bowes and his side show of human life.

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HE story of Charlie and his master might well be titled, “From the sidewalks of Decatur to the Rainbow Roof of Radio City,” there being nothing higher or tonier in the glittering show

world of today. If a Follies dolly can strip with sophistication, why can’t a ventriloquist read his lines with all of the smartness and eclat of Cornelia Otis Skinner or Frank Morgan? He can if he writes his material as Bergen

does. Edgar John Bergen, whose blond hair is rapidly thinning at . the danger points and whose ‘baby blue eyes and soft featured face bespeak his Swedish ancestry, is the new exponent of an art that dates back to the Greeks and Hebrew high priests.. Back in Decatur, Ill, it was Edgar Bergen, the youngster who played pranks at school by throwing his voice into the mouths of the chalk figures on the blackboard. Bergen was throwing his’ voice for amusement for over a year before he put the trick to professional use. . He never took a lesson in the art, stating that it is as much a gift as is a good singing voice. He began by playing church, club and lodge engagements. Then he started working in cheap little movie houses, dragging his chair and dummy out on the stage for the act at $6 and $7 a week.

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ERGEN'S first professional engagement was at a small theater in Oak Park, Ill. He was so excited that he showed up for the performance a week early. His act eventually grew into an hour and three-quarter performance. In addition to ventriloquism his show

Charlie and his stooge, Edgar Bergen,

included a bit of magic, chalk talk and for a brief period a demonstration of hypnotism. Bergen still does his tricks of magic at private parties and occasionally gives a chalk talk. But the hypnotism is a thing of the past. Even before he discovered he could throw his voice, Bergen was interested in magic. He had childhood visions of becoming another Thurston. At an early age he purchased a $2 box of magic from Sears-Roebuck. He also invested a quarter in “The Wizard's Manual,” a book that promised to transform its readers into full-fledged ventriloquists, magicians and hypnotists. He still has the book. The current “lion” of the air waves entered the world of entertainment from the basement. He literally began at the bottom when he went to work tending the furnace in a little movie house in Decatur. Edgar was practicing the piano as well as magic in his spare moments. Gertrude Metzger, the lady who ran the movie theater, heard him fooling around on the piano one evening after the last show.

DEVANEY OF MINNESOTA TERMED POSSIBLE HIGH BENCH CHOICE

By NEA Service Tl INNEAPOLIS, May 20. — If Judge John Patrick Devaney should be appointed to the High Court as a result of Justice Van Devanter’'s resignation, few in Minnesota who have followed Mr. Devaney’s career would be much surprised. . Mr. Devaney, recently resigned as Chief Justice of the Minnesota Supreme Court, has long been an outstanding liberal. A Democrat in politics, he was appointed to the bench in 1933. by the late FarmerLabor Governor, Floyd Olson. He was one of Olson's “behind-the scenes” advisers. Mr. Devaney’s appearance before the Senate Judiciary Committee in Washington in behalf of the court reorganization plan, and his recent

election as president of the National |.

Lawyers’ Guild, have been his first steps into the national limelight.

» ” #

HOUGH he resigned from the bench ostensibly to resume private law practice, Mr. Devaney was shortly thereafter named by Postmaster General Farley to lead a movement to rehabilitate -the Democratic Party in Minnesota. The chief justiceship was Devaney’s fifst public office. He had practiced law in Minneapolis for 25 years. And one of his first public

acts was to take a voluntary pay;

cut of 20 per cent, with the request that the money saved be used to help low-paid employees of the State Legal Department. One of the leading peace advocates in the Northwest, Mr. Devaney has befriended many liberal causes, and his selection as one of the first witnesses for the Adminis-

Judge John Patrick Devaney

>

tration in the Supreme Court hearings indicates that his views are closely in accord with those of President Roosevelt and Attorney General Cummings. He is aggres-

sive, genial and tactful, and is highly regarded even .by many whose

eo #°

legal and economic’views differ from his own. While at the University of, Minnesota winning three degrees, Mr. Devaney was one of the leading orators and debaters. He is 54 years old and has ‘three children,

1° following week Bergen graduated to the job of piano player. he pumped and changed the rolls. He also hit the keys for special sound effects during dramatic moments in the silent picture on the screen. Then he advanced to the front of the theater as ticket seller. This didn’t last long as his mathematics. was bad in favor of the customers. After giving out too much change he was fired. However, not for long. One evening Miss Metzger arrived at the theater to find Bergen up in the projection room running the movie machine. The regular operator had stopped at a neighborhood saloon too long, so Bergen took over the job. He was only 15 at the time, but convinced the owner of the theater that he could handle the expensive equipment. He was particularly good, he says, on the slides which were flashed on the screen between reels and read, “Wait One Moment Please While the Reels Are Changed.” He still holds a card in the Motion Picture Cameramen’s Union. Edgar first floated his voice through space at the expense of his mother. She was baking pies in the kitchen.and suddenly left her culinary task to answer a call at the door. When she opened it there was no one there. Then the pies in the oven began to speak.

It was a player piano and

Upon discovering that it was Edgar who was upsetting her morning, he was sent to his room with something about which to throw his voice.

Bergen ‘has never had much encouragement from his family with respect to his theatrical ability. Even today, with all of his recent success, they fail to get even mildly excited over his work. An older brother, two years his sasnior, still doesn’t think Edgar is much good. Whenever Bergen plays Chicago. he offers him passes to the show. “What's the picture there this week?” the brother asks in all seriousness. An uncle up in Wisconsin still thinks that Bergen has the power of the devil in him when he throws his vcice. He isn’t alone in that, though, for back in 1930. when Bergen took Charlie to Sweden and Lapland, a number of people in the audience thought he was possessed of the devil.

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HE Laplanders, particularly, were sure-he was a bewitched individual when he had Charlie and a reindeer discussing the weather. In Sweden Charlie's was the living essence of an evil spirit. The natives couldn't figure out the act. They thought Bergen worked with a radio or a phonograph. Although Bergen and Charlie are ostensibly two characters they are really one. Charlie, of course, just wouldn't exist without Bergen, and Bergen might have becn

a doctor (he planned to study medicine at college) today if he hadn't conceived Charlie. When Bergen matriculated at Northwestern University. where he finally graduated from the schcol of speech, he was made a member of Delta Upsilon Fraternity because of Charlie.

Nobody took Bergen seriously at school. He was stamped as a ventriloquist the day he arrived on the campus. And it was as a ventriloquist that he paid his way to a diploma. : Starting out with small engagements in neighborhood theaters, he gradually worked into Chautauqua and then vaudeville. He left college during his junior year to tour in vaudeville, returning to finish up with summer courses. In 1928 he went to England for two months. The climate got him and he went to Italy to warm up before coming home. Since then he has toured all over the country with Charlie and has made six trips to Europe and South America. Not quite a year ago he was appearing at a night club in Hollywood. A number of motion picture moguls were in the audience. At the conclusion of his act one of them called him over to his table. The producer paid him many - compliments. “You've a great and entertaining act there|/Bergen,” he raved on. “It is perfect for a night club, but it hasn’t any possibilities on the screen.” : “That’s too bad,” Bergen replied. “I'm really sorry to hear that for I've just finished making 14 movie shorts for Warner’s.” And today, Bergen and Charlie are back in Hollywood with more movie offers than even. Charlie can handle. |

NEXT: The ie birth . of Charlie McCarthy and his development

into a radio and night gud star.

New Farm Bill Goes Beyo

nd

Old AAA, Clapper Deciates

By RAYMOND CLAPPER Times Special Writer

ASHINGTON, May 20.—If you and I were trying to draft a new crop-control law that would be constitutional, we would, being simple souls, naturally look up what the Supreme Court had to say about agriculture when it outlawed AAA. But that isn’t the way to do it at all. - Government legal experts have just drafted a new crop-control measure which goes several lengths beyond the invalidated AAA. Sure, they wanted to make it constitutional, but you'd be surprised how they had to go about it. Instead of looking up the AAA decision which carries the Court’s last word on agriculture, namely that crop production control is a local matter outside

‘of the jurisdiction of the Federal

Government, the Government legal mechanics looked up the Court's labor decisions. They have drafted farm legislation to conform to the Wagner labor decisions. One provision of the new bill, which is now before the House Agriculture Committee with farm leaders asking action at this session, revives AAA with modernized streamline improvements. Authority would be given to the Secretary of Agriculture to ke contracts with individual farmers to curtail their plantings by as much as 20 per cent of past annual averages, ” 8 2 UT under the new proposed legislation, ‘the Secretary of Agriculture would have discretion ta

put into effect a tax of 66s per cent of the price of all crops sold by farmers who refused to sigh curtailment contracts. With that point disposed that remained was to_insurg that the plan could be brought within the interstate commerce powers as construed by the Supreme |Court. This was a problem, because the Supreme Court, in the winter of 1936, said’ that agriculture [was a local matter. ]

s 2 =n

"HEN Administration think of the Suprem now, they distinguish between the pre-election Court which was antiNew Deal and the post-glection Court, which decided to let| Maine and Vermont go it alone. The AAA decision so far as the Administration is concerned, belongs ‘tc the dark ages. So, thumbing over the Wagner decisions, they found that a clothing factory in Richmond, turning out less than one-half of 1 per cent of all men's clothing produced in this country, was held by the Supreme Court to be in the stream of interstate commerce. It sent its men's suits into other states. Therefore it was subject to the national Labor Relations Act. If a small clothing | maker is in interstate commerce, why isn’t a small farmer whose.

awyers Court

- that Mrs.

* where the postoffice is?” .

of, all |

Our Town

By ANTON SCHERRER

N the flood tide of the news, proudly riding the crest, came word that Blanche Stillson had placed an order for Dante's “Divine Comedy” at one of our department stores. I could mention names if I wanted

to. When she got her statement, she discovered that she was billed for a copy of the “Dionne Comedy.” Honest. ; And some issues backs, I remember rendering a

sympathetic report to the effect Frederic Polley had never seen ‘a circus. Well, things have happened since then. Her husband tock her to see the circus the other day. . . . For the matter of that, Kurt Vonnegut has never seen a horse race. Which reminds me that when Kurt's brother, Alex, was in Baltimore, he stopped a newsboy and said: “Johnny, can you tell me . Surprised, the boy said, “How did you know my name was Johnny?” . + %Oh,” said Mr. Vonnegut, “I just guessed it.” . . “Well,” said the newsboy, ‘suppose ycu guess where the postoffice is.” And probably the only-funny thing about this one is that it's true. A man was walking up Delaware St., and also met a boy. Thus far, the story is just like the one about Mr. Vonnegut. “Boy,” said the man, “can you tell me where Hisey & Titus, the morticians. have their business?” . . “Never heard of them,” said the boy. . ... “Funny,” said the man, “they must be somewhere around here.” “Oh,” said the boy, “maybe you mean the undertakers.” “Sure,” said

the man, “where are they?” “I don't know,” said the boy.

Mr. Scherrer

: 2 nn -% Pick Out ‘Governor's Mansion’ ND speaking of undertakers, or morticians if you like, there is the story of the two cautious little ladies on the Fall Creek Meridian St. bridge. I know they were cautious because they carried umbrellas. In

| the absence of rain, they used the umbrellas to point

at things. Some people are like that. They were intent on finding something—that was

| evident—and so I stuck around thinking—hoping— | that maybe my knowledge of creeks and bridges might | be of some service.

Finally, one of the little ladies gave a cry of triumph. “There,” she said. pointing straight at Flanner & Buchanan's Mortuary, “is where the Governor lives.” | ' # #” 3 Dog Sneezes on Order LL of which leaves me room to pick up some loose threads. . . + Ex-Judge Walter Pritchard depends on suspenders. . . . Hannes Kuechler’s old-time saloon just west of old No. 8 Engine House, has a sign reading: “For Men Only.” , .. William M. Taylor's dog sneezes on command. The memorial in the entrance of the Herron

| sculpture court owes its lovely luster to a rum bath orderad ‘by Karl Bitter, the sculptor. . ington’s name isn'tin the telephone book. . .

. . Booth Tark- . Less than 12.000. Indianapolis women buy lipstick. At any rate, that's what the girl at the toiletries counter said. It surprised me, too.

A Woman's View By MRS. WALTER FERGUSON : IVES of workers in Germany are being taken to offices and factories, we read, in order to

see how hard their husbands work. We recommend the plan to certain American men

| who evidently lack the necessary words to convince their idler halves that money isn't manufactured in

cash registers. The man who keeps his wife in ignorance of his financial condition is unjust both to himself and to her. He deceives her at the very point where truth would serve marriage best—at the point where so many marriages fail. By pretending a confidence he does not feel, giving her more cash than he can

| afford. and begging her not to worry her pretty head | about money matters,

he trains her to be inconsiderate, ineffectual and untruthful, Thousands of home women have become expert liars on the subject of money, however little we can question their veracity about other things. To cover up their bridge debts. their dressmaking bills or the expenses of a too elaborafe party, they sometimes resort to ignokle ruses. They sneak petty cash from the pockets of sleeping husbands, pad the grocery accounts, and even borrow cash from the servants— anything to hide their extravagances. In all fairness we cannot blame them. They are the victims of a colossal male folly. The husband who wishes tc be regarded by the Little Woman as a Wonder Man fosters feminine deceit, and what the poor thing doesn't realize is that each time she suc--ceeds in tricking excess cash out of him she regards him instead as a Wonder Easy Mark. Even the wife who spends the family income wisely might find it profitable to get first-hand knowledge abcut the economic battles that are waged daily for her and hers in the market place. Perhaps she would complain less often of her hard lot. Whatever our source of income, the money we spend is earned, and earned with difficulty by some= one. Byer woman ought to be educated to realize

Your feelth

By DR. MORRIS FISHBEIN

Editor. American Medical Assn. Journal HE pain of coronary thrombosis is like that of angina pectoris and, like angina, occurs because some part, of the heart muscle is deprived of its necessary blood supply. However. in coronary thrombosis, the blood supply is cut off because a clot or some other obstruction forms in one .of the blood vessels leading into the heart or in one of the branches of these blood vessels. Thus a portion of the heart muscle has to do without any blood and pain results. Moreover, the obstruction, once established, is suficiently long in its duration to permit a good deal of damage to the part of the heart concerned. Naturally, the seriousness of the condition depends on the size of the blood vessel that is obstructed, the location in the heart of the muscles which are compelled to do without blood and the ability of the heart to get along without that part cof the muscle - until nourishment can come in from some other vessels. * Since the stopping of the blood bessel is well nigh permanent, the pain in coronary thrombosis may last hours or days instead of minutes. The person who suffers from an attack of coronary thrombosis is likely to be quite sick. His breath comes with difficulty even when he is iying flat on his back;

- in fact he may not even be able to lie down flat. Often

hé is compelled to lie propped up in bed. He may cough because fluid accumulates in his lungs. The interference with the circulation of the blood makes his hands and feet look cold and blue. His pulse may be irregular and it is usually rapid. Moreover, the difficulty in keeping up the circulatiyn makes the blood pressure fall to a low level. In cases of this type, the doctor may order electracardiographic tracings which will reveal the extent of intereference in the heart action. The patient with coronary thrombosis must lie absolutely at rest for many weeks and under medical supervision until they amount of damage to the heart can be ascertained. The person With angina pectoris not complicated bv any other condition may go about his work, pro-

wheat or cotton go into other states vided he is suitably advised as to the extent of his

also in interstate commerce? That males it simple,

exertion and as to the proper procedure when the attacks do occur,

ee