Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 8 June 1937 — Page 13

i

agabond

From Indiana—Ernie Pyle

"Ernie Still Is Riding Trains and Has to. Crawl Through Two-Foot Hole to Get to Engineer's Cab.

ILL. STREAMLINING WESTWARD, June 8.—To get from the coaches to the engine on the streamliner City of Portland you do this: : Walk through the kitchen and say chef, who's frying chicken, “Boy, tha good enough to eat.” Go through the baggage compartment. Then get down on your hands and knees and crawl through a hole two feet square. Go along a little aisle, hh the double-decked beds where the crew sleeps. Step and chat a minute with the electrician, one of whom al--ways rides a Union Pacific streamliner. } Go through a little room where there, are two small motors and a lot of air-conditioning machinery and other stuff you don’t understand. Go through another door into the Diesel engine room. Hold your hat, for the wind blowing in to cool the motors almost knocks you over. Don’t yell, for you couldn't hear yourself- anyhow, it’s so noisy. Walk past the long rows of Diesel cylinders, along a sort of catwalk. Finally go through another door, close it behind you, turn around—and there you are, looking straight ahead at the whole Wild West rushing toward you at 80 miles.an hour. | The cab of the City’ of Bortland is like the rest of the train—it’s cozy. | Two men were in the eal when I got there. The engineer John Varney, and the supervisor of streamoe engineers, “Doc” Getty.| He was sitting in the

the oks

Mr. Pyle

reman’s seat, calling off figures from a paper, and Marney would repeat them. |! Here's what they were do i ig constantly putting in new track, constantly raising the “Bank” on curves so the trains can go faster. Eence the maximum speed a lowed on curves is constantly changing. And every time they send out & new set of speeds the engineer has to learn the figure gna every curve by heart.

Pheasant Broke Windshield

Il T noticed that “Doc” Getty had a long blue scar in his face that ran back under his ear. I didn't say anything about it, of course. But after a while The fireman said, “Do you see that scar?” And then 1: said, “He got that when a pheasant tried to knock the train off the track.” Seems as though they hit a pheasant one day, and it came right through the windshield. All the cab windows have thicker glass now. Incidentally, if a pheasant or anything else should ill the engineer, the train would stop. The U. P. streamliners have ‘what they call “Dead Man's Con{ro0l.” All the time the train is moving the engineer nust keep his foot on a pedal. It isn't hard to hold down. But if his foot should slide off (which it would if he died) then the motors would be throttled aufcmatically, and all the brakes would go on full force, end all the passengers in the diner would land in their soup. And the train would stop. It's comfortitig to know things like that.

‘Engineer Points Out Sights The cab of the City of Portland is much quieter tihan on the Burlington Zephyr. You can talk withgut shouting. i || Engineer Bob Hunter hauled us from Green River, Wyo. to Pocatello. He really gave me a personally ¢cnducted tour. ~- He named every mountain along the way, and pointed out old oil wells, and places where they've found fossils that are now in the Smithsonian, and explained all the railroad signs. ||| He's very proud of the company, and showed me 4 dozen places where they've straightened curves ip tle last few yeats, | We crossed the Continental Divide while I was in tlie cab. Oddly enough, it's a thousand feet lower than the highest point on the line, which is 170 miles back east. I don’t know why.

ng: The Union Pacific

Finally I had to leave the cab and go back and’

shave before dinner. Engineer Hunter said he was going to take some fast curves and make me cut my throat. He didn’t do that, but my razor slid into the basin of soapy water, and when I reached in for it x cut a finger. I'd have gone back up and told him about it, except that it was so much trouble getting oh rough that hole.

Mrs.Roosevelt's Day Sy Eleanor Roosevelt

First Lady Likes to Read in Bed And Often Exceeds Limit She Sets.

LJAYBROOK, Conn., Monday—Storms hung in the WJ air last evening, finally the rain came, and everything looked delicious. green and cool afterward. I think, perhaps, the greatest luxury I know is sitting up reading in bed. Time after time I go to bed, firmly saying to myself: “I will not read more than 15 minutes,” and then the house is so quiet, the light is good, one is so comfortable, the book proves much too interesting to put down, and 10:30 becomes J: 30 and 11:30 becomes 12:30, and when the book is finally finished, you either glance guiltily at the clock and try to forget what you see. or you say to yourself firmly: “As one grows older, one doesn’t need §0 much sleep, so what is the use of wasting time that way.” Last night I put in a Short session because I was reading a manuscript for the Junior Literary Guild and was nearly through. I have strongly recommended that they accept it. but I don't know what the rest of the board will say. It is a very exciting story of the San Francisco waterfront today, not 20 or 50 years ago, though some of the things that occur may appear to people in other parts of the country to smack of the Middle Ages. N I always feel when I am on the West Coast, that if ought to be so easy to get people together and to work out.a practical solution.of some of their difficulties. Apparently this is not as easy as it would scem. Between employers and employees there exists a bitterness which we rarely find in any other part of the country, except perhaps in some of our largest industrial fields, like the coal and steel areas. {| I was up bright and early this morning, did a rumber of things and at 11 Mrs. Scheider and I started for Westbrook, Conn. The roads in Connectiicut are very lovely, there are so many trees and so much water, but they are not conducive to fast traveling because, evidently, no one has considered straightening them. I rather prefer it myself when I am not in a

Hurry, though I always think of Col. Frederick Stuart

Cireene, the Superintendent of Public Works for New York State, and his terrible logic when he once explained to me what 4 curve in the road cost in man-hours zd in five, in tires.

Walter O'Keefe —

ITH Amelia Earhart] gallivanting around the : heathen parts of the globe my heart goes out ito her husband, George Palmer Putnam, who's problebly stacking the dishes Up in the fink till she re‘turns. If he’s looking around for company and wants to find someone who's in the same spot he might go down ‘and sit around the White House evenings. i Of course, in a way, Franklin D. is in a better posi‘tion now. With Mrs. Roosevelt on the radio regularly Te at least knows where she is one hour a week. | God bless her First Ladyship! Mrs. Mussolini must ‘wonder how she does it. | Public Benefactress No. 1 goes about her work ” |guietly and efficiently so we'll never know all the good she does. ‘|| Nevertheless, I don't believe this talk that Mrs. Roosevelt might be our first woman President. That'll never work unless they make a trailer out of the White House. i »

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The Indianapolis

imes

TUESDAY, JUNE 8, 1937

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

PAGE 13

America's Footloose First La

U. S. Now Accepts Her ‘Kicking Over Traces’

(Second of a Series)

By Ruth Finney

anes Special Writer

ASHINGTON, June 8. Looking back four years it is evident that Eleanor Roosevelt broke the New Deal version of First Lady to us very gently. : In March, 1933, her departures from precedent seemed sensational, yet {rom the perspective of 1937 they appear

innocuous. of thinking.

To such an extent has she changed our way

She began her new life by announcing she would hold

press conferences for women writers.

That scared poli-

ticians almost to death. But the most shrinking’ Victorian wife could scarcely have been shocked at what came out

of that first conference. Mrs. Roosevelt said firmly that she would discuss no political questions, and her

announcements were confined to an outline of her social engagements. She passed around a box of candy and said she hoped she could make things easier for both the women writers and herself by letting them have accurate details about formal White House entertaining. Simple, but it had never been done before. She broke another precedent by attending the Women's National Press Club “stunt party” and seeing gentle fun poked at herself and her husband. She knit in the Senate gallery, drove her own automobile, called informally at the homes of reporters who had been covering her activities, refused to have a Secret Service man constantly at her heels, insisted she was capable of operating an automatic elevator by herselfi and traveled to New York to ‘attend a wedding and again to speak at a dinner for her friend Frances Perkins.

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HEN her husband was elected, she confessed later, she was terrified at the prospect of having to compress her life into the conventional mold prescribed for President's wives. She had always driven her own car and she wanted to keep on, but it took courage to insist on this first rebellion. “I lost some of my fears,” she said in telling about it, “when 1 decided that I'd be lost if I pre-

| tended to be anything I was not.

You must retain your natural self. If you don’t, people whom .you meet won't be themselves. They will think of you as a personage, not as a person.” But she was the first President's wife—at least in many years—to insist on being thought of as a person. ‘Since Jan. 1, 1937, Mrs. Roosevelt has traveled some 20,000 miles. She has delivered 30 lec-

tures in 20 days, earning money °

which she uses for personal charities—sending children to Warm Springs, paying for their operations, and so forth. She has started a new radio broadcast series, the proceeds going directly to the American Friends Service

Committee for educational and medical work. She has written her daily column and completed the story of her life up to 1924, now appearing serially- in a magazine. The money earned this way, like the rest, she devotes to charity after paying her traveling expenses.

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HE has flown to the Pacific Coast and back again, visiting her daughter's family and delivering another address. She has visited in Florida, has made three trips to Hyde Park and others to New York City, has driven through the Carolinas and has made other quick excursions out of Washington. She has sat by the bedside of a very sick son—Franklin Jr.—in a Boston hospital, has helped nurse another son, a granddaughter, a prospective daugh-ter-in-law and a mother-in-law, has had one attack of flu herself, and has attended the funerals of two close friends. On Inauguration Day last January she got her large family off to church at 10-a. m., went to the Capitol in a downpour for the ceremony at 12 and got. soaked several times trying to make relatives and friends more comfortable, entertained 750 for luncheon, wrote her column, watched the inaugural parade—-still in the rain—entertained 3000 ct tea, entertained at dinner, and attended the inaugural concert. She has given the usual formal dinners, receptions and garden parties on the White House schedule, which is larger in her regime than it used to be, has entertained the Governor General of Canada and Lady Tweedsmuir as house guests, has likewise entertained the graduating class of Todhunter School at the White House and the senior class of Arthurdale, W. Va. high school.

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HE has made a visit to Arthurdale, made a speech at Columbi~ University, attended. a conference on problems of Negro youth, revisited the National Training School for Delinquent Girls, where conditions last year horrified her, bestowed the national achievement award of Chi Omega Sorority on Katherine Cornell, attended the annual farm-and-home week of the Cornell Colleges of Agriculture and Home Economics, entertained

women from the WPA sewing

History Students Invited To Old Williamsburg

By A. L. P. N the last few years Williamsburg, Va., has become just about the most interesting yillage in America. That interest fests upoA more than

two centuries#of history, the first century vivid with great names and events, the second merely somnolent, and, lately, 10 years ‘of research amazing for agguracy a 1d scholarliness, with five yerrs: of reconstruction. The result is'a’national shrine. Nothing could be more appropriate therefore than the announcement from President John Stewart Bryan of a seminar on Colonial life at the College of William and Mary, in Williamsburg. During the: week of June 20 the. dormitories will be thrown open to teachers and professors and students of history, the invitation emphasizing moderate rates and’ an informal, but inclusive program.

In this “incomparable laboratory of history” they will learn of social conditions in the - infancy of our country. The result will be a deeper and a truer perspective, not only on the great men of our early days— Patrick Henry, the Randolphs, Jefferson, Madison, Marshall, all ‘of whom attended William and Mary— but on subsequent happenings and characters. Williamsburg, so long the center of American political life, is made possible in its reconstructed form by some 15 millions or more of money from the Rockefellers and the vision of Dr. William A. R. Goodwin, the Williamsburg rector who “sold” John D. Jr. the idea. The teachers who go to Williamsburg will transmit to those who have not seen it a vast knowledge of and respect for our beginnings, and because of President Bryan's plan Williamsburg will become in its truest

and widest sense an educational in- |

stitution.

Side Glances

wasainiy; EDTA vm pra Ba A gy

AT T. M. REG. U. S. PAT. OFF.

4-@ COPR. 1937 BY NEA SERVICE, INC.

-r

"Girls, this is Tommy. He acts shy, but remember roading all those Latters he wrote me?"

4

{yeas to 296 nays.

The First Lady chatting with officials after arriving -at Nuovitas, Cuba, in 1934. made during her air voyage to Puerto Rico.

project at Atlantic City, attended

three Victory dinners, speaking at

one, dedicated a boys’ club, christened an airplane, planted a tree, visited with 40,000 guests at the annual Easter egg rolling, spoken ito the voteless League of Women Voters in the District of Columbia, visited the district jail and deathhouse, ridden horseback at least five times, attended eight plays (counting school and other amateur entertainments), and done |all the routige things like answering mail, Holding press conferences, receiving at tea, shaking hands with the D. A. R., conferring daily with the White House housekeeper and her secretary, writing her column—all of which is strictly her own—and buying clothes. All of this in 1937, which still young.

is

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HE mail is a burden from which she never escapes. In one year she received 105,000 letters.

And her press conferences this vear are no longer routine affairs concerned with social engagements. She has added to her confidence and poise, and answers questions about any of her many activities; expresses opinions about the variety of subjects in which she is interested. As a source of news her conferences rank, now, those of Cabinet members. Impressive as all this is in terms of sheer physical stamina, it is more impressive as a new design for public living. For the letters are not mere fan mail, the trips are not purposeless

1 sightseeing, and the lectures are

not political addresses or sweet nothings. And the country, lookIng on with calm approval, is accepting new standards of public and private obligation.

NEXT—Chalk up up these things to Mrs. Roosevelt’s credit.

with

The stop was At

the left is Rexford Guy Tugwell, at that time Assistant Secretary of Agriculture who went to Puerto: Rico to study economic conditions.

Mrs. Roosevelt is an expert horsewoman.

Here she is on Dot, her

favorite mount, exploring the long wooded paths in Rock Creek Park,

Washington.

§

Majority ‘of Indiana Representatives Backs $1,500,000,00 Relief Bill

By E. R. R.

ASHINGTON, June 8—Final|’

approval has been given by the House of Representatives at Washington to a relief appropriation of $1,500,000,000 for the fiscal year beginning July 1 and the problem of relief ‘is now in the hands of the Senate. The Senate has three principal questions to decide: (1) Whether the appropriation shall be reduced below the figure fixed by the House; (2) whether any matching of Federal relief funds shall be required of the states and localities; (3) whether any part of the appropriation shall be earmarked for expenditures on particular types of projects. Only the last of these three questions gave any serious difficulty in the House—but it gave difficulty aplenty. L On a formal roll call to determine whether the appropriation should be $1,000,000,000 or $1,500,000,000, the House approved the larger sum by a‘ majority of well over two to one. The vote for the

$1,500,000,000 fund was 271 yeas to 107 nays.

On the amendment for the larger sum, Indiana Representatives voted as follows: Yea, Schulte, Farley, Jenckes, Greenwood, Crowe, Larrabee and Ludlow; nay, Halleck, Griswold, Boehne and Gray; announced for, Pettengill.

2. A Republican motion to recommit the bill to the Appropriations Committee with instructions to rewrite it so as to return administration of relief to the states and require that they contribute 25 cents for each dollar made available by the Federal Government was rejected by the overwhelming vote of 79 (Congressional Record June 1, page 6813.) |

3. The difficulty created by three amendments, ‘previously adopted by the House, which earmarked" $505,000,000 of the relief fund for flood control, public works, ahd highways was solved by a combination of promises, persuasion, and pressure from the White ‘House during a

.| three-day armistice which preceded

the final voting. Each of the earmarking amendments was stricken out by the House, but an attempt to write them back into the bill will be made when it reaches the floor of the Senate. v

Pettengill.

AID itty Leader Rayburn: “If $505,000,000 is earmarked for other purposes . . . between 500,000 and 600,000 persons will have to be dropped from relief rolls, in addition to the approximately 400,000 who will go off due to some curtail-

ment in the relief program from The plea on behalf

last year.” of relief clients was less persuasive in bringing about the reversals on earmarking than various “understandings” with the President which the Majority Leader was able to report to the House. Members of the flood-control bloc, who had been able in combination with other blocs, to earmark $55,000,000 for flood control, were completely satisfied with a promise that “much more” than $55,000,000 would be spent for that purpose if the President were given a free hand. They allowed their amendment to go out of the bill by default. . Members of the PWA bloc had succeeded in earmarking $300,000,000 for public works. Most of them were satisfied with promises (a) that funds would be made available for grants to communities which by bond issue or appropriation had provided their share for projects heretofore approved by PWA; (b) that requirements as to relief labor which have impeded PWA projects would be relaxed; (c) that funds for rebuilding hazardous schools would be given to communities which cannot afford the necessary outlays, On reconsideration, the PWA amendment was voted down, 147 yeas to 231 nays. ° ? Indiana’s delegation voted as follows: Yea, Halleck, Farley, Griswold, Jenckes, Greenwood, Boehne, Crowe and Gray; nay, Schulte, Larrabee and Ludlow; paired for,

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N combination with the other blocs, the highway bloc had won the adoption of an amendment to earmark $75,000,000 for paved highways, $50,000,000 for feeder roads, and $25,000,000 for grade-crossing elimination. These are projects on which 80 per cent of the outlays goes for materials and only 20 per cent for labor. No promises that satisfied the highway bloc were made by the White House. It decided to fight. With the flood-con-trol and PWA blocs split off, however, the Administration could face

the test with equanimity. When the

roll was called, the highway amendment failed by a vote of 168 yeas to 207 nays. Schulte, Halleck, Farley, Gris-

wold and Gray voted for the

amendment; against it were Jenckes, Greenwood, Boehne, Crowe, Larrabee and Ludlow; Pettengill was paired against. The House ratified amendments fo require (a) that the $1,500,000,000 appropriation be so spread as to last the full 12 months; (b) that preference in WPA employment be given to American citizens, war veterans, and first-paper aliens; (¢) that agricultural and unskilled workers who refuse private employment at wages equal to relief rates be dropped from WPA rolls. The amendment by which the $12,000 salary of WPA Director Hopkins had been cut to $10,000 was rejected, 96

yeas to 273 nays (Congressional Reo- |

ord, June 1, page 6811). The bill was then sent to the Senate, 326 to 44. Vote of the Indiana delegation was: Yea, Schulte, Farley, Jenckes, Greenwood, Boehne, Crowe, Gray, Larrabee and Ludlow; Nay, Halleck; announced for, Pettingill; paired against, Griswold.

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EFORE it passed the relief hill, the House took time out to

override a Presidential veto for the |

first time this session. : The vetoed bill became law when the Senate took similar action later in the day. The measure gave 23,000 veterans of the World War the privilege of extending temporary government insurance policies for five more years, at premiums considerably below those paid by veterans who have converted their policies into permanent insurance. The vote in the House was 372 to 13. (Congressional Record, June -,’ page 6747.) -Nays— Democrats: Boland (Pa.), Bulwinkle (N. C.), Cox (Ga.), Ford (Cal.), Johnson, L. (Tex.), Kocialkewski (Ill), O'Connor and O’Day (N. Y.), Rayburn (Tex.), Ryan (Minn.), Sabath (Ill). Republicans: Culkin and Wadsworth (N.Y.). The vote in the Senate was 69 to 12. (Congressional Record, June 1, page 6726.) Nays—Democrats: Adams (Col.), Bailey (N. C.), Bankhead (Ala.), Brown (N. H.), Guffey (Pa.), Hughes (Del.), Minton (Ind.), O’Mahoney (Wyo.), Radcliffe (Md), Robinson (Ark.), Schwartz (Wyo.). Republican: Borah (Ida.).

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Our Town

By Anton Scherrer

Shortridge Girl Graduates Looked. Like a Million Dollars; Dresses Cost Parents $5000

NASMUCH as everybody elise mutfed it, 1 guess it’s up to me to tell you that it cost somewhere around, $5000 to dress the Shortridge girls for their graduation. It surprised me, too, because the girls certainly looked like a million dollars when they walked down the aisle the other night. I'm sure of my facts, however. For two reasons} (1) Because I counted 342 girls 3 in the procession, and (2.) because I know enough about the inside workings of Shortridge to know that $15 represents the average price of the outfit the. girls had on that night. It amounts to $5130. You can figure it out for yourself. The reason I know so much about it is because I saw the letter Bob Brown, the president of the graduating class, sent to the parents. I don’t imagine it was an easy letter to write—at any rate, not for a boy—and I guess Mr. Brown had to try several times before he got i% to sound all right. It sounded all right, though, when he got done. Anyway, when the parents got Mr. Brown's let

Mr. Scherrer

| ter, they learned that their girls had to appear mm

outfits not to exceed $15 in cost. To be sure, Mr, Brown put it in the form of a request, but anybody who knows anything about Shortridge knows that a request up there amounts to a command.

Informal Dress Defined

Mr, Brown's letter went even further and said that the girls had to appear in white, ine formal dresses. If you don’t know what an informal dress is, allow me to say that Shortridge defines 1% as a gown with a back in it. Moreover, Mr. Brown worded his ee to make it appear that the appropriation of $15 was to include everything the girl had on that night. Well, that got me to thinking how anybody would go to work to apportion a budget of $15 to make it cover everything for a girl's graduation. And I'm here to tell you how it’s done. At any rate, I can tell you how some of the girls did it, because they wera sweet enough to tell me. It works out something like this: Lingerie, $1.98; dress, $8.95; stocking, 79c; shoes, $2.53; flowers, 7T5c—total, $15. : .

Bridal Outfits Appear

Of course, some of the girls spent morc on their gowns because they were lucky enough to have relatives who gave them parts of their lingerie—slips and the like, you know. Some of the girls, too, it paing me to report, didn't pay any attention to Mr. Brown's letter, and appeared in bridal outfits. The less said about them the better. Anyway, that’s the type that makes life miserable for a statistician.

As near as I can make out, too, the beauty shops of Indianapolis came in for an extra $513. Anyway, there wasn’t a Shortridge girl that night ‘who didnt have her hair washed (50 cents) and waved (50 cents), The manicuring brought it up to $1.50 per.” I noticed, too, that lipstick was more in evidence {hon rouge, I thought you ought to know. Mr. Brown's letter didn’t have a word to say about boys except that they were to come in something “light.” As a result, nobody paid any attention to the boys.

; / . | A Woman's View By Mrs. Walter Ferguson |

Common Language Needed, for Word May Have Many Meanings.

OW badly we need a common language! I attended a congress of writers recently and listened to several very good talks. “We must be aware that our profession is endangeredsby fascism,” said a fervid young man. Many of us agreed. But any number of men and women in the audience immediately jumped to.the conclusion fet the lot of us were Communists. For communism is a word that is bandied about by those who haven't the slightest |idea | of its real meaning, |

Democracy—could any term be| misinterpreted more often? And patriot—that noble-sounding wor —has a thousand meanings in the United States. To some of us a patriot is a man witl¥ a |gun.. To others, it brings up the benign face of Abraham Lincoln, or ° the saintly gaze of Eugene V. Debs who loved his country so well he refused to be silent when he saw her committed to murderous ways.

“I prayed,” says a man., Instantly there comes \before our eyes a bowed head, crossetl hands and lips speaking the ritualistic iwords so long repeated. But ‘is that prayer? In our dictionary the word prayer has 10 definitions. If can be anything from selfish supplication to a complete uplifting of the spirit. It is strange. but true that illiterate people can often communicate with each other better than educated men. Their language is simple and each word has the same meaningifor them all. —————————————————————

New Books Today

Public Library Presehlos

S 30 years a long enough period of time in which to develop |an- art or- an-industry of the first rank? Paul Rotha thinks it is, and in MOVIE PARADE (Studio Publications) presents evidence that the move ing picture industry has acquired a technique pecus= - liarly "its own. He believes also that this new art dur= ing the years of its growth has produced certain films which stand out historically and aesthetically, that certain artists have been pre-eminent, and that a record of these should be preserved.

Mr. Rotha has preserved scenes from prominent movies, since the “one reelers” awakened the world to the importance of flickering pictures, to the elab- . orate epic. He has arranged the scenes which he presents both as to subject matter and as to chronological order, so that, for example, all the westerns which were outstanding are shown in the order of production. An historical sketch precedes each pictorial section.

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NOWN already to many readers for his novel, “Europa,” and his writings on anthropology and related subjects, Robert Briffault now presents in REASONS FOR ANGER (Simon & Schuster) a selece tion of previously published essays dealing with the human race, its collective stupidity, its curious system of morality, and its hope of a more rational future. ~ Readers were variously shocked or stimulated by “Europa.” Anthropologists may - quarrel—and some have done so—with his findings concerning the history of the human race. For Robert Briffault is not .a

. writer - to be passively accepted. Writing brilliantly

and provocatively, often scathingly, he delights in challenging what he considers stupid tradition and unintelligent convention.