Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 12 June 1937 — Page 9
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Vagabond
From Indiana—Ernie Pyle
‘Ernie Discovers That a Day Off Isn't “All It's Cracked Up to Be, but He ' Does Get Equipped for Alaska Trip. SQEATILE, June 12.——No man is so ornery
that he isn’t entitled to a day off once in a while. Even I occasionally feel I have
_ earned ’a slight surcease from toil.
Since it would be inconvenient for my boss to tag along behind me with a stop watch 2nd a production yardstick, the selection of these d:=ys off is largely up to me. I've just taken a day off here in Seattle, For
two days I had fiailed away at my typewriter like -a jack-hammer. Got myself all clear, and completely shed of responsibility. Now for my free day. I was saturated with such an immense consciousness of nothing in the world to be done that I woke up at 6 o'clock. I dressed and had breakfast, and the rest of the day went like this: Started out to buy a coat suitable for wearing in Alaska. Had pictured in my mind just what I wanted. It was a cordu5 roy coat, coming about half way to the :nees, pleated, and with a belt and big sporty buttons. Something that wouldn't look too dressy on a fithing smack, or too rude at a dinner party.
Somebody Was in Error
I started with the waterfront outfitters and worked up to ‘he classiest store in Seattle. Along the water= front |. was told, pt so making coats like them
M: Pyle
six yeirs ago.” Up at the classy store the man said, *You'r> six years ahead of your time. Coats like hat will be all the rage in ut six years.” So 'T wound up with a sh®Epskin-lined duck coat. The nan said it was doeskin, but it looks to me like an old canvas sail painted brown. I'll probably never wear the thing. And then I got shoes. Somebody told me that the mosquitoes in Alaska are so bad you must always wear long gloves and high-topped shoes. Ne:t I spent an hour with the Coast Guard. We vere trying to figure out some way for me to catch one of their ships somewhere in Alaskan waters this summer. Seems it all depends on the ice, and the ice is extremely late this year. I hate ice anyway. Then I went to the telegraph office to get some mone that had been wired me. The girl asked if I hac any cards of identification. That was my chance. I've been waiting two solid years for an excuse to show somebody that White House press card. So I flashed it first, and then in rapid succession I dealt the following before her ever-widening eyes. ; : Senate and House press cards, Washington police cards, driver's ‘permit, auto registration card, telegraph company collect cards, honorary membership card in the D. C. Air Legion, pass to RKO theaters, pocket calendar put out by the Burlington, 1936 receint for entrance inte Glacier Park, 3-cent stamps, and a card upon which was mysteriously engraved “Mr. Edward Lawrence Carter—Rhinelander 4-2078.” 1 go’ the money.
Pain in the Neck
Ater that I went to an osteopath to get a pain taken out of my neck. The osteopath said I didn’t have a pain in my neck. He said what I had was intestinal flu, and that I better take some vitamin tablets and get built up. stopped in twice at the Canadian National dock e a man who owns a ferryboat line. He's the Samaritan who gave me a job working my way 1ina many years ago. He was out each time. bought a new traveling bag, ate lunch, arranged to store a couple of suitcases for the summer, wrote jetters, bought some socks and undershirts and a box of salt, called on a friend, went to. see the movie “Camille.” ate dinner, and bought steamship tickets. was nearly 11 at night when I got back to my roor:. and I was so relaxed and limp from having dons nothing all day that when I went to raise the window I crumpled and fell out of it, and dropped eight stories, and it tock six passersby to identify me.
3 a / Mrs.Roosevelt's Day By Eleanor Roosevelt
. Visits North Carolina Berry Fete; New Fruit May Be Named for Her,
to se 200¢ to C
V7ALLACE, N. C., Friday—We got off the train
¢ at 7 o'clock this morning to be greeted by gorzeous sunshine. Kindly clouds protected us somewhe: from the full strength of its warm rays. We drove in an open car from the station to the home of Dr: John D. Robinson. There we left our bags, anc Mrs. Robinson, who is the official hostess of the anrual strawberry festival, introduced me to a number of people including her own small daughter. “his child had hardly said, “How do you do,” wh n she burst forth and asked me if I would come across the street to see a friend of hers who was not wel enough to come to see me. Childish enthusiasm cannot be denied. Hand in hand we went to the other house, for I had an idea the child to be visited wa: an invalid of long standing. On the way I discov cred, however, that it was only a temporary indis yosition. It occurred to me that the mother might ha e some objection to having her child visited withou permission, so I waited at the door until the father and mother appeared from the street and took us upstairs. Back at Dr. Robinson’s we had a press conference and then put on our hats and drove out to the Coastal Plain station where a delicious breakfast was served under the trees. We started with muscadine -grape juice, made from grapes grown at the station ard now sold commercially. In addition to other de icious Too we-_had four different kinds of berries, fo: this station makes a specialty of developing small fruits. The boll weevil has been particularly bad in this part of the country and diversified farming is of great importance. ‘I met some young people from New Jersey who are growing a particularly large variety of blueberry. T.ey told me that instead of the little bushes close te the ground which I know in Maine and New Hampst ire, they grow bushes here high above their heads. * A very lovely box of strawberries was presented to mo. It representec a development obtained by 200 crosses of various varieties. - This berry is called ‘““hree-thirty-seven,” not having been given a name yi, and they offered to name it after me. | At about 9:30 we visited Penderlea, a Resettlement homestead just outside of Wallace. It is an entirely azricultural project. The homesteaders presented a pageant this morning covering the settlement of this part of the state and the history of the project itself. I: was well done and I discovered an interesting fact, ramely, that there is a similarity in the type of people who make up these homesteads. : I don't know whether it is an expression which c mes from the fact that they get an ideal and strive for it, or whether certain types of people are attracted to the adventure oi a new homestead. In this homes ead are many younger people, but young or old, as I looked over them this morning,’I felt there were familiar faces suck as I had seen on other projects.
Walter O'Keefe —
o IGHT more Russian generals have written their 4 stories for Joe Stalin’s true confession magazine. “hey’ll probably be playing harps when you read
his, J © It’s awfully easy to get to the top in Russian mili‘ary life because the army is always making room ‘or more generals. These same generals get im‘1ediate advancement into the next world. © And speaking of dictators, I learn that Musolini’s ehum, Hitler, has got a new mad on. He's furious at Hollywood's new war picture, ‘The Road Back.” ] ’ Adolf wants all war pictures to end showing “Fermany winning in the last reel. : Rumor says that: Charlie Chaplin has been rered for years, end that Hitler really makes those ictures. This can’t be true. Adolf couldn’t possibly
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30 six reels without shooting off his modth.
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America’s F
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SATURDAY, JUNE 12, 1937
napolis
ootloose First Lady
Mprs. Roosevelt's Tact Has Steered Her Clear of Blunders
(Sixth of a Series)
By Ruth Finney
Times Special Writer
ASHINGTON, June 12.—Has Mrs. Roosevelt estab- . lished -a new pattern for First Ladies, or is she a unique phenomenon flashing across the political sky? For the present, guesses must suffice. But it's safe to say that anyone who tries to follow the path she has marked out will have a difficult time. ; Republican strategists guessed last year that the American public would like to have the old type of First Lady in the White House again. Mrs. Alf M. Landon was a capable and intelligent person, but they resolutely kept her in the background and emphasized only her domestic qualities. Apparently they guessed wrong. Mrs. Roose-
velt’s popularity was never more apparent. So in another year candidates’ wives may try another tack. When they do they may gain a new respect for Mrs. Roosevelt's ability. Her role has been| vastly difficult, and one false step might have done inestimable harm to her husband. She has made almost no blunders. In her countless public appearances and ° sallies into print she might have said the wrong thing, might have hurt many feelings. So far as the record shows she has slipped only once. At a meeting in Atlantic City in 1935, just before Hauptmann was to be executed, she was asked what she thought of a death sentence imposed on circumstantial evidence. She thought it was dangerous and said so, and had to do a good deal of explaining afterward that she had not meant to_ criticize the Hauptmann
verdict. 2 ”
zn OR the rest, her quick, intelligent thinking, her poise and her tact have been remarkable. Would-be emulators will do well to subject themselves and their motives to stern security before attempting to take up her burden, for if Mrs. Roosevelt had had about her any taint of in-
sincerity, any faint trace of selfseeking, of condescension or of sham the American people would have found her out. * Her success has been due in large part to the: genuineness of her interest in people and theirs problems, her
forgetfulness of self, and the sim-
ple naturalness of her manner. Take the day last winter when she went to Ithaca, N. Y., with her inauguration clothes in a saitcase, and modeled them all before an audience assembled for Cornell University's farm and home week. It took a rare woman to do that without being accused of egotism or exhibitionism. Mrs. Roosevelt felt that farm women who had not been able to attend the inauguration would get pleasure out of seeing for themselves what the President's wife wore. She made it clear that she felt their interest was in the President’s wife, not in Eleanor Roosevelt, and that it was therefore a legitimate interest and one which should be satisfied. ” ” 2 T took a rare woman to be so worried about her friends, on that most pompous and formal of occasions, Inauguration Day, that she left the platform where the ceremony was to be held and went down to Capitol Plaza in the rain to find them; to conceive and carry through the project of entertaining at the White House a group of girl inmates of a District of Columbia “training school”; to campaign for Mrs. Caroline O’Day for Congress; to join the Newspaper Guild; to meet with dignity the various crises in her children’s lives; to receive the adulation she has received and to retain the
Entered as Second-Class Matter at Postoffice, Indianapolis, Ind.
When Mrs. Roosevelt modeled her inauguration clothes at Cornell.
honest conviction that it came to her as the President’s wife rather than as an individual. It seems probable that whether anyone tries to follow all the way along the path she has marked out, First Ladies in the future can hardly be the remote figureheads they have been in the past. Some of her departures from routine will surely become precedent even if others do not.
THE END.
Indianapolis Not Alone in Requiring rs to Wear Shirts
Male Swim By L. A. : N the not so long ago, the problem of suitable attire for female bathers, at public beaches and public pools bloomed each spring, along with dandelions and forget-me-nots. But times have changed. In A. D. 1937, the big headache’ at public swimming places is the male bather who insists upon dispensing with his shirt. Like milady’s “one-piece” suit of a decade or two ago, the “trunks only” vogue for men has got moralists in a dither,
W. H. Middlesworth, City Recreation Director, has announced that men must wear shirts at the municipal beaches and pools. Trunks alone are not sufficient, he said. Editorial Research Reports sent a questionnaire to recreational supervisors in numerous representative cities, asking what they intended to do about trunks, and shorts and things like that. Some 30 replied, from which it appeared that about half the public authorities in cities
me
not yet made up their minds—and that the others have promulgated more or less elastic regulations ranging from outright banning of shorts and “trunks only” to somewhat vague rulings that any attire worn in public shall be “decent” or “conventional.” ,
2 2 s
ITIES which reported no regulations were Akron, Cincinnati, Detroit, Houston, Portland, Ore.; Richmond, Seattle and Washington, the implication in all being that
intend to ignore the issue—or have |
bathers and those who play in pub-
lic parks will be allowed ‘broad latitude, so long as they do not offend too crassly. Canton and Columbus, O.,; Hartford, Conn.; Newark, N. J., and Oklahoma City also replied that they weren't very excited about the matter, and that no official action was contemplated except in extreme cases.
Male bathers must wear shirts along with their trunks in Baltimore, Birmingham, El Paso, Evansville, Minneapolis, St. Paul, St. Louis, Springfield, Mass.; Syracuse and Toledo as well as in Indianapolis. In most of these cities, this is the sole “modesty” regulation this year, though St. Paul goes further and bans shorts from public places. Toledo ard New Bedford, Mass., allow women to wear shorts on tennis courts, but not on golf links or city streets. Shorts, on the other hand, are specifically permitted in public in Akron, Birmingham, Evansville, St. Louis and Springfield. One of the most spectacular edicts against “bareback” male bathers has been handed down in Atlantic City, where City officials have told bath-ing-suit manufacturers that “there is nothing beautiful about a man’s chest” and “we’ll have no gorillas on our beaches.” There is no indication as yet whether other Jersey beach resorts will: follow suit.
2 ” » \ HATEVER it may mean elsewhere, the Court of Appeals of New York State has recently upheld the right of New York citizens to wear shorts in public if they
Side Glances
’
By Clark
Fa -
"I'm atraid yl have to ask ypu to change a five-dollar bill"
} |'cerned about swimming attire, and
choose to do so. In a cafe coming |
up from Yonkers, the Chief Justice ruled:
“The Constitution still leaves some opportunity for people to be foolish, if they so desire.” The varying attitude of park departments toward modesty in public: is shown by the following quotations from replies to the Editorial Research Reports questionnaire: Baltimore— “Bathing suits have to be ‘decent,’ with the appearance of the person in the garment more important than the type of garment itself, which the park management does not undertake to specify. The sky is not the limit, but ‘reasonably good taste and decency’ are demanded. When the issue of trunks or shorts alone for adult bathers came before the Park Board last July, a motion to allow was lost by a lie vote.” _ Celumbus—“We are not in a position to regulate personal taste in bublic commercial pools, but we encourage modesty in both our cityregulated swimming pools and recreational centers, indoors or outdoors. Comfortable clothing with the body well covered is the only attire acceptable to the .City Recreational Department.” : ” ” ”
_ Detroit—“Departmental regulations in the matter of bathers’ attire follow a reasonable middle course, the aim being to have all suits within proper bounds. Prevailing’ trend Is recognized and an attitude that Is neither too severe nor too lenient is attempted. Trunks for men are permitted and adequate cover insisted upon in all cases. Judging is in the hands of experienced attendants who have the right to reject or pass.” 2 Oklahoma City—“All town pools require moderate and sensihle cover. Beach rules are more or less open. Some sentiment is against too much sky limit. Family units want less emphasis on nakedness.” Portland—"Decency is dictated by public opinion. Convention is what governs peoples’ manners. We formulate no rules or taboos on costumes; try to see to it that an individual may not offend and thereby prejudice attendance of ‘regular folks’ who wish to enjoy our parks. I might say that the sky has been the limit on our opesn-minded-ness—since the days of quartersleeves and stockings.” Seattle—“Attempts at - regulation abandoned four years ago — too much bickering.” ” ” ” ROM Birmingham, Ala., came a friendly letter from R. S. Marshall, superintendent of parks, indicating that aside from requiring shirts as well as trunks on male bathers, the city wasn’t much con-
that. the question of shorts on women had been settled to some Stent by the law of specific ‘gravy. “ : “Our managers,” he wrote, “have instructions to request any person with an absolutely indecent suit to. either put on some- - thing better or leave the pool, and once in a while they have to assert their authority. 1 don’t remember a single instance last year. The year before there were one or two. The suits that were - objectionable were the scantiest of scanty syits and had great ovals cut ouf in them that
At the Polls
Times-Acme Photo.
NDIANAPOLIS ranks lowest of 10 cities of more than 300,000 population in per capita governmental expenditures and per capita bonded debt, it was revealed today by the Chamber of Commerce. Chamber officials said a survey shows this city also has the lowest per capita governmental receipts of the 10 cities and spends less for support of its Chamber in relation to the total dollar volume in wholesale, retail and manufacturing income. : The per capita’ expenditures in government, for all purposes, averages $36.02 in Indianapolis against a high of $51.41 in Minneapolis. - The governmental expenditures range -as follows: Indianapolis, $36.02; Houston, Tex., $36.57; Louisville, $39.07; New Orleans, .$39.37; St. Louis, $45.08; Kansas City, Mo., $46.20; Baltimore, Md., $48.10; Portland, Ore. $49.10; Chicago, $49.31, and Minneapolis, $51.41. : ” : on 2 ] HE net bonded debt here per capita is $80.16 against a high of $161.60 in Cincinnati. Bond experts and Chamber of Commerce officials point to the low per capita
eral years that a number of young men and women Were playing tennis in shorts and we are not bothering anything about that. No one has raised any question about it and we are not going to unless it becomes a nuisance. . : “Some years ago when we first started women’s baseball, there was some protest in neighborhood groups about girls wearing shorts. We regulated them that year but since then the girls have found that it isn’t advisable to play baseball in shorts because it tears up their knees if they ever have to slide, so without any word from us they have automatically adopted - white duck trousers. “The- question of dress seems to be a personal matter and as long as things are reasonably decent Isee no reason why any community
early made them no suits at all.” “1. have noticed In the last sev-
or = organization = should become,
‘alarmed over the situation.”
Indianapolis Government Cost Low, Study Reveals
bonded debt as a reason for the ready market demand for City and School bonds. : By comparison, the per capita net bonded debt in 10 cities follows: Indianapolis, $30.16; - St. Louis, $97.28; Mijlwaukee, $98.9; Louisville, $107.10; Minneapolis, $114.67;
Second Section
PAGE 9 |
Our Town By Abion Scherrer
Latest Version of What Hens Say Is Presented From Mail Bag Full Of Cackles From Pens of Fanciers.
YOouD be surprised to learn how the letters have been pouring in since I ran the noisy piece about the hens. I mean the one where I tock the Colonial Bread people to task for making a hen say “Kut, kut, ka
docket” after it lays an egg. . It would have been all right had I stopped there, but I didn’t. I went on to set the Colonial Bread people straight (which is always a mistake), and before I knew it, I was telling them how to run their business. As it was, I told them that if they knew a little ‘more about the way a hen goes after it lays an egg, they'd be using the Columbia University version. I didn’t even stop there, because|I have a ghastly recollection of giving away the Columbia version, which you may recall is “cut, cut, cut, cadaakut.” Well, it turns out that I tackled something way over my head. There was the letter of Mr. R. Kost, for instance. Mr. Kost, it appears, has been studying chickens all his life—even to the point of loving them—and iit is on the basis of this friendship, he says, “that I consider myself gualified to make an authoritative statement on the nature of the cackle of the domestic hén.”
It's a New Version, Too
Mr. Kost, it appears, knows exactly how a hen goes after it lays an egg, and .it needn't surprise anybody to learn| that it isn’t anything like the Co« lumbia version. Or the Colonial Bread people’s way, either. I won't hold you in suspense any longer, According to Mr. Kost, a hen goes “tk, tk; tk, tk, tk, tk, t'’kuh!” And thai’s all there’s to it. “The vowel is eliminated entirely,” said Mr. Kost. “It is only the rare hen with unusual voice who permits herself the indulgence of a vowel. The ‘tk’ is sounded as though you were saying a cross between ‘took’ and ‘tuk’, yet made sharp and stac=cato, so that the vowel is quite eliminated. “The standard version,” said Mr. Kost, “contains usually six ‘tk’s’ or preliminary clucks, all very rhythmic, and the ‘t’ preceding the final note comes on the down beat. The rhythm of this could be produced quite faithfully musically in three-four time.” i
Stress Changes Tune
“The hen,” continued Mr. Kost, “delivers these preliminary clucks with the precision of gun-fire. They are regularly spaced, and, in the normal cry, of the same pitch. There is approximately the interval of a fifth between the short grace-note and the culminating cry, but this cannot be exactly de termined, at least not by me. “In times of great stress, that is with heavy com« petition from other triumphal hens, in her agitation Madame Hen sometimes eliminates one or more cf the ‘tk’s,’ and if she tends to become hysterical she will cry rapidly [‘t’kuh, t'’kuh, t’kuh,’ stretching her neck high and glaring about her with challenging mien. Then io and note will sometimes be given a
Mr. Scherrer
special inflection and a slight variation in pitch, be« coming phonetically ‘t’kuh-aw-uh!” People make me tired when they say this column doesn’t contribute anything to culture. eerie
A Woman's View By Mrs. Walter Ferguson Salary for Housewives Idea Seen
To Possess Big Pessibilities for Men.
MES ROOSEVELT’S suggestion about paying the American housewife a regular weekly wage was not received with noticeable enthusiasm, even by the homemaking brigade. The men, shorte sighted as usual, laughed off the idea. There is more than a hint of fear in some of the feminine reaction, because a large number of wives know they could never qualify for their domestic jobs under any system which demanded a square deal between employer and employee. The person who draws a regular salary is supposed to give service in return for the money. Ree luctant as we are to suggest it, many a homemaker doesrrt do this—and can’t, until she rearranges her schedule and takes lessons in cooking and cleaning. Certainly a good deal of this domestic ine competence is due to the fact that nobody has ever considered homemaking important enough to be paid for—in money. It has always been a kind of hit-or-miss business, and as women are not methodical by nature housekeeping has suffered. If the men were smart they would take the suggestion into | serious consideration, for only by adopting different measures can they demand domestic service from women. For instance, when a husband comes home to find his supper uncooked while his wife lingers to finish the last bridge rubber, he could dock her wage and even threaten to fire her. Knowing women, I think this would be effective, At any rate the, scheme ought to be tried on child-
Chicago, $131.15; Cleveland, $155.97; Houston, $160.38; Kansas City,
$161.27, and Cincinnati, $161.60.
‘In per capita governmental receipts, this city averages $42.67 among ‘the 10 cities. Cleveland tops the list with $71.47.
" ” ”
hd OVERNMENTAL research and study by the Chamber over a period of years has been helpful in holding Indianapolis in tHe present position of leadership,” one Chamber official said. The low bonded: debt .and record in governmental expenditures is regarded by the Chamber as an inducement to new industries. With a dollar volume of $667,969,000 in 1935 wholesale, retail and manufacturing industries for every dollar of support to the Chamber, $16,675 was returned in business volume. Comparable statistics on dollar volume in I1 cities and relative support given Chambers of Commerce to the income from trade volume follows:
per dollar in relation to trade volume.
Support to «Chamber of Commerce
ow
Trade Volume
income
wo — --]
Ft. Worth $ 276,055,000 Houston 536,538,000 Kansas City, Mo. 1,111,438,000 St. Paul 429 940,000 Des Moines ... 232,238,000 Milwaukee 962,840,000 Columbus «.... 361,524,000 Toledo 519,767,000 St. Louis 1,809,149,000 Cincinnati 992,702,000
5,818 6,937 5,655 8,513 11,005 11,592
cose
Indianapolis ..
~ 667,969,000 16,675
less women. | A mother’s job could never be set up ! on any such basis, but so long as society is trying to weed out the grafter and parasite in other fields, why not tackle the welsher on the home job?
New Books Today ;
Public Library Presents— N the title of his autobiography, LET ME LIVE (Random House) Angelo Herndon has epitomized his life. Born in poverty, denied opportunity because he was poor and a Negro, he early learned that if, indeed. any $ort of a life were to be allowed him, it must be as g result of his own struggles. While still 2 mere child he began to work in the coal mines. His growing -eenviction of the helpless= ness of the unorganized worker and of the discriminae tion against the Negro worker, led him to the Communist Party. His story of arrest, torture, threats of lynching, the unspeakable horrors of the jails, is one of indomitable courage, a certain boyish gaiety, and a touching eagerness both to learn and to teach. Arrested in 1932 for attempting to “undermine” the Government of the State of Georgia, and sentenced to 18 years on the chain gang, he was only last April freed by the decision of the Supreme Court. LET ME LIVE, written before the final decision of the Court, shows a boy barely 24 years old whose bitter experiences have leit him with a premature disillusionment combined with an incorruptible faith in the worth and- destiny of man. . . 3 ” s OR those who have developed an inferiority come plex on the subject, Lancelot Hogben has write ten MATHEMATICS FOR THE MILLION (Norton), He leads you by pleasant and painless stages through some of those mathematical horrors you have always dreaded. You will learn how mathematics can help you understand your world. And you will enjoy the brilliantly told story of. the development of mathematics. ~ Some of the ground covered is expressed by chapter headings: Euclin without Tears, or What You Can Do with Geometry; From Crisis to Crossword Puzzles, or The Beginnings of Arithmetic; The Dawn of Nothing, or How Algebra Began; The Reformation Geometry, or What Are Graphs; The Arithmetic of Growth and Shape, or What Calculus Is About, and Selig or The Arithmetic of Human Welfare.