Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 11 June 1937 — Page 21

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

From Indiana—Ernie Pyle FRIDAY, JUNE 11, 1937

. umns of anything about railroads. Today is

“believe I'll go back to Chicago to buy a ticket for’

anybo

They had another man from the mechanical depart-

1 Center.

except for a brief interval when I dashed over to

' reteive a degree and we are all attending. "orl a few people come in for tea. and at 7 o'clock Mrs.

ihat we can see the Government in the red. { fairy story will have a happy ending. The fadeout will

+ Goodby to Railroads Which Did | Themselves Proud in Showering Attentions on Traveling Reporter.

SEATTLE, Wash., June 11.—Hold your . horses, everybody. Don’t go away yet. Stay with me just one more day. This is positively the last appearance in these col-

the finaie. It’s a promise. ‘It cost me $80.09 to come from Chicago to Seattle. Plus about $7 for tips and meals. I came the long Way around (through Denver) and had the best ac-

commodations mest of the way. It can be done much cheaper. Just listen to a few of these fares. Say you want to go from Chicago to any West Coast city this summer. Here's what you can do it on, plus about a dollar a day for meals: If you sit up all the way, $34.50;" if you lie down (tourist style), $52.86; if you lie down (first class), $82,28. Or if you want a round-trip ticket, it’s like this, in the same order as above: $57.35; $85.50; $117.50. Or you can go from Chicago to Denver, by sitting up one night for a mere $20.71. Sounds so good I

Mr. Pyle

the West Coast. - It’s only in recent years that rates like these have been available. The Southern Railway, on the Eastern seaboard, hacked out the first chip three and a half years ago by dropping its basic fare to a cent and a half a mile. - But the hig break for progress came just a year ago—June 1, 1936. At that time the new low rates were approved by the Government—2 cents a mile on coaches, 3 cents on Pullmans (it had been 3.6 cents straight before that). Any road can go under the new figure if it wants to. Basic fare on all Southern and Western roads is now a cent and a half a mile. Most lof the Eastern roads fought the low fares.

Big Shot Feeling

An 3 now I want to tell you how it feels to be a big . {You know, there’s no organization in the.world an go to bat like a railroad when it really: goes

Imaking arrangements for training from Chicago to the Coast, I didn’t ask or want any special consideration from the railroads. I bought my ticket like iv else. - But here’s what happened: The Burlington had a man at the gate in Chicago to give me special papers for riding the Zephyr cab.

ment aboard the train, to go part of the way with me and-explain things in the engine room. At important stops along the way the roads had men who met me and drove me out to the home of friends where I was to Visit, helped rearrange my schedule, picked me up at the house and drove me to the train. Every conductor and every engineer had orders of Some kind about me. When I'd get on a new train the conductor would say, “The train is yours. Go wherever you want to.” .

He's Let Down

By the time I reached Portland I imagined I was an East Indian potentate. And when I got off at Seattle and looked around and there wasn’t a soul to meet me, I made such a fuss the waters of Puget Sound are still boiling. Of course I've been in this business long enough to know that railroads don’t go to these extraordinary lengths because you're such a nice fellow. They know you're going to write some pieces, and they want you to write favorable pieces. That may or may not be a good way to report. But whether it’s right or wrong, there it was, and I didn't ask for it and I couldn’t stop it. And to tell you the truth, I loved it! Lo :

Mrs.Roosevelt's Day By Eleanor Roosevelt

Back in Capital, First Lady Finds

Her Desk. Piled High With Mail.

YY iweron, Thursday—After my broadcast last night, we went over and had dinner in one of the restaurants off the plaza in Rockefeller It was nice and cool and we were all very warm- so we had |a light dinner and then proceeded to the theater. : The theater was air-conditioned so we laughed in comfort through “Brother Rat.” It is very well cast. The-boys really look like boys and acted their parts so naturally we almost forgot we were not livmg through scenes in real life. It ‘has been a wonder to me that boys ever graduate from any place, but when it- comes to a military academy, that is just beyond belief. I imagine nearly all masters of schools must firmly shut their eyes to a great many things which they know go on around them, remembering the days of their own youth and the fact that youth must be foolhardy and recklessness is simply a sign of the undergraduaté age: We arrived in Washington this morning to find a breeze blowing even though the atmosphere is heavy. My husband seemed very well when I went in to see him. I had gone for a swim and therefore was very late for breakfast and so expected to spend only a minute saying, | “Good morning.” However, he Jaunched into the explanation. of a point which: I brought up and I stayed there for 15 minutes. Eventually, I dashed down to the porch and my breakfast tray. where my brothe: shortly joined me. The rest of the morning I worked at my desk,

try to get in between callers to ask my husband a forgotten question. Governor Winship, of Puerto Rico, and Dr. Ernest Gruening were in his office and so I sat in Mr. McIntyre’s office and talked to a few Governors who were also waiting to see the President. : I made my visit brief and dashed back to the White House, for my desk looked exactly as if someone had dumped the contents of one of those large postoffice vans on top of it. I have always had a passion for getting it all straightened out and piling up the letters in little piles so I can work through them systematically; number one group—to be attended to immediately; number two group—bills to be paid; number three group—letters to be dictated a little later on; number four group—letters to be written in longhand, and, sad to say, this is the group that waits longest for attention. I carry those ters around in my brief case for weeks! | At 4 o’clock this afternoon Miss Lehand is to Later

eider and I will take the train again, going to whallace, N. €.. for their strawberry festival and a visit to the Penderlea Homesteads which I will tell you about tomorrow.

alter O'Keefe —

HE Democratic National Committee has turned literary and is selling the 1936 convention book at $250 a Copy. ‘Wow! Two hundred fifty smackers!! I'll wait unti! Macy's reduces it to a bargain and sells if for only 48.98. : A book is being sent to a list of corporations and it should make more money than “Gone With the Wind.” © I'm dying to see the screen version of the Democratic book. There's a role similar to Rhett Butler that'll probably be ‘played by Tyrone Farley—the allAmerican boy. There ought to be a great comedy scene showing vice President Garner coming out to attend the jrauguration. Then ‘he goes back to his hotel and

jeaves a call for 1940. The whole picture should be done in technicolor so

If it gets the typical Hollywood treatment, this

America's Footloose First Lady

She Turned Awkwardness and Shyness Into Usefulness

(Fifth of a Series) By Ruth Finney

Times Special Writer

ASHINGTON, June 11.—If Eleanor Roosevelt had not been the plain child of a beautiful mother, if she had not felt herself awkward and unattractive and suffered keenly over it, she probably would not be today “the best social agency the United States has known in many a decade.” For she learned early in life she could win admiration and liking by being useful, even if she could

win them no other way, and

to her sensitive heart this was balm. From that time on “the feeling that I was useful was perhaps the greatest jov I experienced,” she says in her autobiography. Birth and circumstance seem to have played equally important parts in shaping the person Mrs. Roosevelt is today. In the first place she was born a Roosevelt, with all that means in the way of strong physique and zest for living. Her father was Thzodore Roosevelt's brother. and of all the next generation of Roosevelts she seems most to resemble her strenuous uncle. Her birth into a well-to-do family of impregnable social position saved her from other sorts of inferiority complexes. Her early introduction to the sufferings of the less fortunate, through the charitable activities of her older relatives, impressed her deeply. Her schooling in Europe gave her a cosmopolitan background. But although it is easy to put

one’s finger on these significant -

points when she tells of them in her life story, little of the present Eleanor Roosevelt can have been

, Times-Acme Phé6to.

When the First Lady was a bride: Dressed in taffeta, for her

wedding in 1905. |

evident in the child and young woman. ; ” 2 o ' HE was brought up to be a “little lady,” and she says she was very prim, very shy, and very serious. At 18 she had a formal

debut, and at 20 she was married. She was so ignorant of public affairs that when an acquaintance in England asked her just what a Federal Government was like she couldn't answer. Her six babies— one of them died in infancy—took

Our Town

By ‘Anton Scherrer

Tables of Round Variety Credited For High Status Attained by the Art of Good Conversation Here.

AMUEL JOHNSON used to say that he loved to stretch his legs and have his talk out. The statement lets in a world of light, not only on the habits of Dr. Johnson, but on the art of conversation in general. For example, it proves that Dr. Johnson did his talking sitting down. The directness of his statement leaves no doubt as to that. By implication, it leads one to suspect that Dr. Johnson had his feet

under a round table when he did his best talking. I'm sure he did, because ever since I've been old enough to observe the relation between cause and effect, I've noticed that a good conversation nearly always originates at ‘a round table The reason isn't far to seek. For one thing, a round table hasn't a head. Neither has it a foot. It governs itself, and because it does, it comes as near solving the com- | munal experiment as anything I know. Like all communal adventures, things are allowed to drift. I don’t know whether you've ever thought of it in that light, but a conversation that

Mr. Scherrer

: ¥ is allowed to drift is the best Stalin, Anybody

can impress you by sticking to a single point and «laboring it hard, but only an ingenious person can entertain you with irrelevance and digression. Any« how, a round table is the best device yet invented to exterminate the self-centered mind, and once you've done away with that kind of mind, you have a promise of a good conversation. I know whereof I speak because I remember the time when conversation flourished in Indianapolis, It was always hitched up with a round table.

Is

Mrs. Roosevelt with Eleanor and Curtis Dall Jr., grandchildren,

and her son John,

most of her time and attention and her only other activities had to do with war work. = Then came her husband’s grave illness and her determination that it should not prevent his continuing in public life. Her friend, » Nancy Cook, persuaded her that

Indiana Is Among States Providing Aid To Private and Parochial Schools

ARIOUS forms of aid to private and parochial schools are provided by the State, Floyd I. McMurray, State Superintendent of Public Instruction, said today. Where the lines of the private and public school coincide, transportation is provided by the State ior both. If a private or parochial corporation needs textbooks, free textbook libraries may be established. Also, he said, tewnship trustees hire teachers. Therefore, if there are only parochial schools in a community, the township trustee may hire the teachers as long as the parochial school maintains the standards set by the State. Despite the prohibitions of state constitutions against use of ‘public money for sectarian education, several state legislatures have found ways of evading the letter of the law and have provided certain assistance to individual students in private and parochial schools, a national survey showed. It is important to note that in most cases the assistance is given

to the student or his parents and

never to the private school directly. # nn. = N a case coming up from Louisiana, which makes free textbooks available to all school children, whether in public or private institutions, the U. 8S. Supreme Court placed its stamp of approval upon this practice. Noting that the Louisiana free textbooks were to be provided from a “severance tax” fund, wholly separated from public school monies, the High Court used these words: “We cannot doubt that the taxing power of the State is exerted for a public purpose. The legisla-

schools, or their pupils, as its beneficiaries or attempt to interfere with any matters of exclu-

1 Attorney General tion does not segregate private |

sively private concern. Its interest is education, broadly; its. method comprehensive. Individual interests are aided only as the common interest is safeguarded.” : Following somewhat the same reasoning, a handful of states provide free transportation to and from school for private and parochial as well as public school students. States in this category besides Indiana, in¢lude Illinois, Kansas, Massachusetts and New York. : Bills proposing free textbooks, free transportation and other types of assistance for private and parochial school students have failed of passage in recent years in Connecticut, Delaware, I ] Michigan, Minnesota, Nebraska and Ohio, and new proposals have been offered to 1937 Legislatures in California, Connecticut, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, Oregon and Pennsylvania. ” # a HE rejected Minnesota proposal would have levied a special one-mill tax, and distributed parts of the income of permanent school funds, to public, private and parochial schools alike on the basis of average| daily attendance. It failed in 1935. In Michigan a bill seeking to apportion funds to private and parochial schools died in committee in 1933. In Maryland several “free transportation” bills for individual counties have been enacted in the past. A similar bill this year was Killed. In New York, free distribution of

textbooks to students in a Catholic

school in Ogdensburg was outlawed by the courts in 1922. In South Dakota a sweeping ruling by the has - prohibited any contribution of public funds for any purpose to students of private or parochial schools.

Even in sta which grant cer-

Side Glances

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- COPR. 1937 BY NEA SERVICE, INC. T. M. REG. U, 8, PAT. OFFN

By Clark

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will you check on this? - My parents say they haven't ‘me for two - :

‘months.

Maryland,

tain assistance to students of private or parochial schools, laws or interpretations usually stipulate that such aid is not to be given if the schools are operated for profit, and in some instances even a tuition charge is sufficient to make them ineligible. In a separate category are the so-called “Catholic District Schools,” which exist widely in Indiana and Ohio, to a lesser extent in Iowa and Wisconsin, and sparsely in New England, the South and other sections. . : These are in reality public schools —situated in communities where the population is wholly Catholic. They derive their name “Catholic District Schools,” from the fact that Catholic sisters often are emploved as teachers. It has been often pointed out, however, that. they really .are no more sectarian than similar public schools in Baptist, Methodist or other “one-sect” communities. in which school authorities of a certain religious persuasion employ teachers of that persuasion. . Such “district” schools usually receive as a matter of course all public assistance given to other public schools. In February, 1932, however, the Nebraska Supreme Court handed down an opinion which serves to define their status in that state, at least: j “The State Superintendent of Public Instruction will not be required by mandamus to recognize a school district as a public school district entitled to share State educational trust funds created for secular public school purposes exclusively, if the only school in the district is sectarian, though organized, officered and certified as a public school district.”

Heard in Congress

Rep. Thomas O'Malley (D. Wis.) — I am getting a little sick and tired of self-appointed purveyors of

prejudice, people who never held public office, being solicited by bureaucrats to send me telegrams to vote the way some directors of relief want me to vote so they can keep their soft jobs distributing money the Congress should control and allocate where needed most. ” n ” Rep. Marvin Jones (D. Tex.)—I read a story one time about a fellow who was dipping up muddy water in a stream and trying to throw the water out on the land. : They asked him what he was coing. He said: “I am trying to dip the muddy water out of the stream.” Somebody told him: “Go up yon= der to the source of the stream, scare the old sow out of the spring, and it will clear up itself.” If we start at the source of the rivers, make ponds, and dam up the draws it will help the flood-control problem. It will really solve the problem and it will be solved in no other way. We will be attacking this problem at the proper place. Then follow it on down to the

she could help her husband if she would take part in a movement to organize the Democratic women of New York. She began it reluctantly, forcing herself to speak at small meetings. From that point on her horizon broadened steadily and her abilities increased. She had been taught as a child that curicsity was a fault. But Mlle. Souvestre, whose school she attended in Engiand, taught her another point of view which she quoted recently in a “Defense of Curiosity.” y Mlles Souvestre taught her: “Curiosity will prevent your being closed behind a barrier and will add day by day to your imagination and make your contacts increasingly easy.” The advice meant little for years, but when her husband's illness revolutionized her life, it was there waiting to become the consuming need for finding out how life actually is for others which characterizes her today.

: % ”n 2 O the circumstances of her youth can be traced, also, Mrs. Roosevelt's most impressive quality—her interest in the person to whom she is talking, to the exclusion of any interest in the kind of impression she herself is making. The self-conscious-ness of her youth’ she has managed to convert into an unconsciousness of self which is vastly appealing to those with whom she comes in contact. As a child she lived constantly

which, perhaps, is'why fear is res olutely barred from her life today. An assassin’s bullet barely missed her husband a few days before his inauguration, but she put the thought of danger from her, explaining that the two of them had decided long before that life lived in fear was intolerable. Since then the President has driven his Secret Service men nearly out of their wits by insisting on taking one chance after another, but there has been no protest from her. She has freed herself and her children completely from the surveillance in which other White House families have lived. # 2 =

HE "was a sober, serious child and today she has an unquenchable sense of humor, but she makes fun of no one "bu herself. : She was constantly managed, supervised and ordered about as a child, which perhaps explains her anxiety today to let her own children live their own lives without undue interference. a Her sufferings as a. young girl in dresses that were too short for her long legs, and at parties where all the other girls were prettier and more popular and poised, may account for her extraordinary consideration today for the feelings of others, particularly of young people. : ’ Yet neither birth nor circumstances can entirely account for Mrs. Roosevelt. She has that “something extra” that has never been adequately explained in anyone, that touch of genius in human relationships that is probably the rarest quality among mortals.

NEXT—Can others do what she has done?

with a hundred different fears

By E.R. R. - ASHINGTON, June 11.—The hearings so far on the Connery wages-hours-labor = relations bill have shown intense interest by Congress in the question of whether Southern industry should be grant-

ed a wage differential, as under

NRA. The ' pending Connery bill empowers the contemplated labor standards board to make exceptions, as circumstances may warrant, in the “nonoppressive” wages and hours fixed. The bill does not specify that the variations may be as between North and South; but if the example of NRA were followed, the South would get a wage differential in most industries. The NRA codes allowing wage differentials covered about fourfifths of all employees. And many of the remaining one-fifth worked in industries so heavily concentrated that wage differentials would have meant nothing. More than 80 per cent of the wage differentials were based on geography —either by itself or in conjunction with size of population. The geographical demarcation varied. Out of 46 codes classified as covering “manufactured products,” 11 set a lower minimum

carried 10 different boundary lines for the South. In other codes a distinction was drawn between the South and the “Deep South.” Sometimes a differential existed between the East and the West, as in the case of the clothing and the coal codes..

mouth of the stream and we will] ¥ 8 »

have attacked the thing logically.

s 7 ” Rep. Sam D. McReynolds (D. Tenn.) —Some of you will remember that play of “Brewster's Millions” some 30 years ago, where a young man inherited several millions provided he should spend a million in 8 year, You remember what an awful time he had to do it. If that had heen in the days of Harry

‘Hopkins, he could have spent it akfast ext morning.

HE President's re-employment ~ agreement (blanket code), originally and as expanded, differentiated in minimum wages and maximum hours by number of employees, by size of community, by location near or away from & metropolitan distriet. but not directly as between North and South, 2 There was no greater headache for . the NRA administrators than the argument that the South should or should not enjoy a wage differs

wage for the South, but these 11:

North-South Wage Feud Revived in Congress

ential. The South claimed one because Southern labor on the whole. was less efficient in attending to machines, which therefore needed more repairs and wore out more quickly than in the North. The North retorted that mills should have thought of that before locating in the South; if they.didn't, why should the North suffer?

The South pointed out that its cost of living was lower than in the North. The North retorted, first, that it was ‘‘standard” not “cost” of living which was lower in the South as against comparable localities in the North; secondly, that high wages would help, not hinder, the South as they helped the North until Southern low-wage competition cut. in. The North pointed out, further, that in many industries, such as cotton textiles, the South was nearer the raw materials. The South replied that it was farther from the source of skilled labor and had to ship longer distances to the larger markets. The North said that its climate was harder” on equipment and imposed © greater heating costs; the South answered that its labor was less productive. The North held that it was unfair competition for plants to emigrate South to get longer hours, lower wages, and nonunion labor. The South replied that that was all water over the dam, and the function of the Government was to recognize a situation which existed, not to. try to unscramble eggs. Certain mugwumps in the argument took a third position: That the status quo should he recognized by granting differentials, but that these should be gradually withdrawn so as to aim ultimately, at national rather than sectional standards. President Roosevelt stated his attitude on April 22, 1934, thus: “It is not the purpose of the Administration, by sudden or explosive change, to impair Southern industry by refusing to recognize traditional differentials. On the other hand, no region has any right, by depressing, its labor, wages, and hours, to invade with its cheaper produce an area of higher wages and hours and thus to impose its lower standards on an era of higher ndards.” a Re & Sg he

Big Table Best

I still recall the one in Frank Arens’ place. Mr, Arens used to run the Bismarck Cafe on Pearl St. back of the old New York Store. | It wasn’t a big place, but it had one of the biggest round tables in Indianapolis. It had to be'a big one, because it had to take care of Herman Lieber, Albrecht and Robert Kipp, August Kuhn, Fred Rush, William Bertermann, Emil Martin and Richard Lieber. That wasn't all by any means, but it's all IT can think of at the moment. :

These men met at 11 o'clock every morning, with the exception of Sunday, and probably did as much to cultivate the| art of conversation as anybody around here. . All were blessed with the discursive temperament, and it had its effect, because I can’t recall another crowd gthat covered as many subjects in the course of an hour.

- Topics Without End

It was nothing for them, for instance, to begin with Plato and end up with astigmatism. But before they got around to discussing astigmatism, they settled everything there was to know about ihe Apostle Peter, pasteurization, Eugene Debs, tripe, the fitness of snails for;food, the future of the church and the invisible hairnets. the ladies were wearing at the time. The remarkable thing was the ease with which they invented [the gambits to introduce the irrelevant subjects. I know, because I once had the _ privilege of hearing them do it. 2 I wouldn’t have thought of the old Eleven o’Clock Club today had I not seen Richard Lieber taking lunch at the round table at the Athenaeum the other noon. He was as good as ever. The fact of the matter is that he used the same technique that made the Bismarck conversations a success.

A Woman's View

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

Word of Encouragement Makes Big Difference in Day's Events,

Xa ‘was one of those horrid days when everything goes topsyturvy. » To begin with, Ferguson Jr. and his gang, lately released from school, imagined themselves to be a pipeline crew and dug a tunnel through the front yarc, dislodging bulbs and grass on their way. The Family Princess spilled nail polish over her best dance frock, and the cook broke three dinner plates. But these were small matters compared to typewriter troubles. The keys stuck and then the old brain did the same. Not an idea. Complete mental stagnation. Devastating fear. Lordy, what a world! . What a life! The postman brought only bills and a few complaints from readers. Nobody loves me. Weli, to make a long story short, I slid right into the dumps, like Alice down the rabbit hole. Things looked blacker and blacker. By midafternoon I was - certain I carried the burden of the ages on my -shoulders, and was thinking of going to the attic for a cry when the postman came again. : And one little letter lifted all the gloom. It ended with these words: “Keep up the good work, and al~ ways remember there is one admirer of yours away out-in Diego, who is interested in what you write.” Presto—the sun was out again. Somebody had taken the time and trouble to do something nice for me, which set into motion at once my better feelings. I remembered that I had not yet gone to see the womar. I knew on the other side of town who had buried her baby last week. Across the street was a sick man with a tired wife watching beside his bed. Three notes of congratulation or cheer should also be started on their way.

Instead of crying I went about these neglected duties. Thus, the day which had begun so badly ended well. By evening there was a glow in my heart, and all because somebody on the Pacific Coast, whom had never seen, acted on a good intention. If we would take a little more time to encourage one another, who knows what a powerful force for goocl might be loosed upon earth!

New Books Today

Public Library Presents—

MA people have considered murder at a bridge table, but seldom would they pick a quiet one looker as victim. In Agatha Christie’s new mystery, CARDS ON THE TABLE (Dodd, Mead), the host ta eight serious bridge players, himself a collector, is murdered as he Sits by his fireside, the weapon having been selected from his own collection of unusual daggers. : At one table are four potential murderers, each with opportunity, hi each with a motive. In the next

room are four ace high crime investigators. One is a writer of detective stories, who uses her woman's in= tuition as her method of detection. One is a member of the Secret Service, who relies on files and records: one is a superintendent at Scotland Yard, who uses the careful, unemotional checking and rechecking of the police. Last is an ex-member of the Paris Surete, Hercule Poirot, humanist and psychologist, who ana= -lyzes the mind of the murderer. : Miss Christie always gives the mystery fan a good time. She arranges a dramatic murder early in the story, provides plenty of clues and in this case even several very definite solutions; and in the end she ‘allows: the little Poirot to pick up all the losing cards, rearrange the bidding, and win the game hands.down, AX vir ] 4 SF dad