Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 24 June 1937 — Page 17

Naqabond

From Indiana—Ernie Pyle

Montana Cowboy in Alaska Makes ~ Good with Farms and Canneries; Invents Shrimp - Picking Machine

PETERSBURG, Alaska, June 24.—Earl

Ohmer is a Montana cowboy who came to Alaska and made good in a big way. He is the leading citizen of Petersburg, as well as its leading “character.” He is the shrimp king of ‘Alaska, a crack shot, the only honorary chief of the Thlingit Indians, and a regular Barnum as a showman. He is about five feet and a half, walks with a

swagger, wears a long mustache and a thick Van Dyke and the following haberdashery: Tailored riding breeches; shiny puttees; wide brass-studded belt; a knifechain that loops almost to his knees, with. a whistle on it; a leather watch strap, with a deer’s foot dangling from it; a red 7 checkered lumberjack shirt; a heavy gold watch chain across his chest, with a big gold medal on it; a sleeveless jacket of soft yellow leather, all spangled with fringes, and a black ten-gallon Stetson, rising to a peak like a cathedral tower. : . Ohmer was born in Ohio, and his parents still live in Dayton. But he has always been a creature of the frontier. 2 : He was in northern Minnesota. He rode the ranges for years in Montana, Wyoming, Idaho and eastern Oregon. He worked the cattle ranches of Alberta. He drifted back into eastern Oregon, in the

Mr. Pyle

" cattle business, and stayed there till the fences drove

him out. _ He hates fences. That's why he came to Alaska. “I've always liked rough men and rough country,” he says. He rode into British Columbia, and drifted across from Prince Rupert. He came and looked things over, and then went back to the States.

Started Business on $250

A few months later he arrived to stay. He had $250 left to start into business. He started on shrimp.

Today he-employs 5060 people, owns four big canneries and 20 ships, and two huge fur farms. The turnover in his mink and fox ranches alone will run around $100,000 a year. He's in his 50s, and has been here 21 years. Ohmer has a habit, at the end of the day when he’s tired, of pulling out a six-shooter, leaning back in his chair, and taking 2 half dozen fast ones at a target. He had a steel plate behind a cardboard target to receive the bullets. One day he missed the plate completely, and the bullet went through the wall and bounced all around the next room, where people were sitting. He hasn’t been shooting so much lately. He is responsible indirectly for a new machine which may be to the shrimp-canning industry what the Rust Brothers hope their picker will be to cotton. This month he is equipping his Petersburg cannery with shrimp-picking machines—the first in the world. :

Dane Lightens Labor

Millions of shrimp are canned every year. The meat is inside a shell, and this shell has to be removed. People do it with their hands. It isn’t hard to do, but a shrimp is a funny thing to handle, and there's a krack to picking them. Getting a machine to do it is about as hard as getting a machine to put. on your pajamas for you. s : Ten years ago Ohmer set a machinist to work on a mechanical shrimp picker. He is a Dane, Viggo Bottker. He built and discarded, built and discarded. Time and again they thought they had it. But there was always a catch somewhere. But this time they're sure they've got it. It’s extremely complicated, and there's no sense in my trying to describe it. But they'll have 10 of the machines in use by the time this is printed. Each machine will do the work of 10 people. :

Mrs.Roosevelt's Day

By Eleanar Roosevelt

First Lady Had a Hard Time Finding Reception at Which She Gave Talk

EW YORK, Wednesday.—We came down to New York yesterday afternoon and the nearer we got to the city the hotter we felt. When I actually got out of the train, I realized it was, on the whole, a rather cool summer's day and that my imagination was working overtime: just because I was leaving the country for the city. 1 picked up a friend, and Mrs. Scheider and I sat on the porch and talked earnestly with her until IT suddenly realized I should be dressed and started for the reception at the Hotel Pierre which the Junior Literary Guild was holding before the Newberry Medal dinner. I was late in arriving at Pierre's, and a very competent looking young man told me that I was to go to the 29th floor. I went there and the elevator boy said: “Around to the left.” There was one door facing me and I rang the bell with no results. A little maid came out of the other apartment, looked at me and retired promptly, so I rang and rang again and finally went back to the elevator and down to the first floor again. This time I went_to the desk and inquired where the reception was being held. They told me on the second floor, but I was to go to the 29th floor. With a great deal of firmness T refused and went directly to the second floor. There I found Miss Ferris, Mr. Patri, Mrs. Gruen-

berg, and my other hosts, and spent some time apolo-

gizing and justifying my additional loss of time. I think, however, I shook hands with everyone before we actually went in to dinner.

The dinner was presided over by Mr. Frederick

Melcher, who established the Newberry Medal for the

best children’s book of the year. This year it was “Roller Skates,” by Ruth Sawyer, one of our choices in the Junior Literary Guild. ; I enjoyed the evening and the opportunity to talk to Mr. Melcher and Mr. Guinzburg, who were neighbors at my table, very much. The speeches were short and good, but the crowning event of the evening was the Irish story told by Miss Sawyer. She said her nurse, Joanna, said it was a grand story “to put manners on children,” and I am not at all sure it wasn’t just as good a story for all of us grownups. ~ It would do us a lot of good, if on a midsummer night’s eve, the “wee folk” could pinch the calves of our legs until we were willing to think about other people. The enforced weeding of the garden, which was filled with all the disagreeable things the child has ever said or done to others and which, therefore, nearly choked the few little flowers struggling to bloom, is a grand idea. If we all had to sit down and weed out of our minds the unkindnesses we do, the world would be a better place to live in. After leaving the dinner*I dashed around to my mother-in-law’s house in 65th St. to see my daughter. and her husband who had arrived from the West earlier in the evening. We had a grand time together; and this morning Mrs. Scheider and I met Anna at a department store where we often get clothes.

Walter O'Keefe —

OEN BARRYMORE and Elaine have called their second battle a draw. The divorce lasted about as long as their marriage. If they fight a third time and Elaine wins again that certainly should entitle her to permanent possession of the bridgroom. : ‘It was just a lovers’ spat.’ You know how headstrong a kid like John can be. What a place for romance that Hollywood - is! Furthermore, age makes no difference. There's a new romance out there now between a young girl and a famous character actor. The gal is 19, going on 20, and the bridegroom is 64, going on social security. But don’t believe that other rumor. There's no truth in the report that George Bernard Shaw is run-

ning around with Shirley Temple. In fact, it’s not

true that he’s running around. §

The Indianapolis T

3

Second Section

THURSDAY, JUNE 24, 1037

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

"PAGE 17

(Third of a Series) By Willis Thornton

NEA Staff Writer THE man who today handles the Rockefeller millions earned his: first money before he was 10 years old, mending fences at 15 cents an hour. John D. Rockefeller Jr. was offered a proposal one day as he wandered about the pambling Forest Hill estate in Cleveland, where the Rockefellers then lived. “A penny for every fence post you find that needs replacing,” offered the father. The boy found 13 of them. Then his father proposed “If you want to earn more, you can go to work replacing them. I'll pay you the going rate of common labor—15 cents an hour.” . So from boyhood, John. D ! Rockefeller Jr. was taught the value of money and what it means to earn it, in so far as it can be taught to one whose destiny is to rule millions. He was reared like those occasional European crown princes, who are brought up in an austerity and simplicity which a mere commoner of means would not dare attempt. ” E-3 ” T was a leisurely life in Cleveland in those days of the Eighties and Nineties. The Rockefeller town house was only one of the Gothic brick or stone mansions, set far back from the street amid spacious lawns and gardens, that lined then famous Euclid Ave. The elder Rockefeller walked to work in the morning along the avenue and back at night. The Rockefellers did not even have an iron deer in the front yard.

Summers at the “country house” at Forest Hill were idyllic and simple, and it was largely there that Rockefeller formed the impressions of his father that are so inconceivable to anyone who knew him only in the muckraking magazines of 30 years ago, or in the photos of the tottering old man who spent recent precarious winters in Florida. :

For the elder Rockefeller, whatever sort of terror he may have been to business competitors, was a kind and loving father to his children. He liked to swim with them in the pond at Forest Hill, and to skate with them in winter. John D. Jr. recalls how his father always went out on the ice first to test it, and how thoroughly he enjoyed leading a parade of splashing youngsters atound the pond as he taught them to swim. He remembers that his father “never uttered a harsh word” in their home. ” ” ”

T is because of this unusually close father-and-son relationship that the careers of the two generations were fused so perfectly it is very hard to tell exactly when the plans of the son became dominant. The two were always one to a greater or less degree.

SIAR

Mrs. John D. Rockefeller Jr.

The Rockefellers moved to New York when business required John D.’s more constant presence there. Some say they moved under pressure of a huge tax suit against the family in Cleveland. In New York the same simplicity of life was apparent. John D. Jr., got 5 cents an hour for practicing his violin. He still plays it occasionally, competently if not brilliantly. There was no theater-going in the lives of the Rockefeller children. The family never tried to cut any swath “in. society,” and does not today. To this day, Rockefeller does not smoke or drink. Long observation of the example of his equally temperate father strengthened a conviction against both drinking and smoking that came naturally to him. When .it came time for college, the comparatively small Brown University was chosen. Rockefeller was a quiet, studious, model young man with no bad habits. An allowance of $100 a month was more than enough for the scale on which he lived. His {fellow members of Alpha Delta Phi Fraternity remember his earnest way, his especial attention to orthodox Baptist theology and regular attendance at chapel. In his third year he made Phi Beta: Kappa honorary scholarship society, but when he was graduated in 1897

Auto Deaths Top

Times Special ASHINGTON, June 24— While the first few days of June brought a slight decline in the number of motor deaths in 127 large cities, the total for the first 22

weeks of 1937 ran 20 per cent above the same period of 1936, according to the American Automobile Association. . Basing his statement on official figures reported to the U. S. Bureau of the Census, Thomas P. Henry, Detroit, A. A. A. president, declared only 38 cities of the 127 reporting showed a decrease in motor deaths. The rate of increase in the other 89, including the larger cities, “is a challenge to traffic and enforcement authorities,” he said. Two Indiana cities were among the 38 which Mr. Henry said had decreased their motor fatalities. The 38 were Albany, N. Y.; Atlanta, Ga.; Beaumont, Tex.; Binghamton, N. Y.; Birmingham, Ala.; Bridgeport, Conn.;. Cambridge, Mass.; Charles-

1936 Toll

ton, S. C.; Duluth, Minn.; Durham, N. C.; East Orange, N. J.; Evansville, Ind.; Ft. Worth, Tex., Glendale, Cal.; Hammond, Ind.; Hartford, Conn.; Hoboken, N. J.; Kansas City, Kas.; Kenosha, Wis, Miami, Fla.; Minneapolis, Minn.; Mobile, Ala.; Mount Vernon, N. Y.; Nashville, Tenn.; New Haven, Conn. Oakland, Cal.; Oklahoma City, Okla.; Portland, Me.; Rochester, N. Y.; Sacramento, Cal.; St. Louis, Mo.; St. Paul, Minn.; San Antonio, Tex.; San Jose, Cal.; Schenectady, N. Y.; Seattle, Wash.; Topeka, Kas., and Waterbury, Conn. § ” E-4 ”

ITH reference to the upward trend in motor deaths in leading cities, Mr. Henry said it is due to many factors, but it is evident that a greater degree of individual care on the part of both motorists and pedestrians, in the final analysis, will do more than anything else to solve the problem.

Side Glances

\l

SINE A

By Clark

&24

"Take my advice, mister. | know how to get along with women. Hii ioisund YE Deen ivorced four times, Ll

Er

. guests and a king's

he stood midway between the middle and the top of his class.

t 4 2 »

T was during those coilege days that he met and won Abby Aldrich, daughter of Senator Nelson W. Aldrich of Rhode Island. Aldrich, a haughty Mark Hanna henchman of high tariff and big business attachments, insisted on a fashionable wedding with 1000 ransom in presents. The shy, youthful Rockefeller no doubt shrank from the ordeal, but insisted on a “no wine” rule at the wedding breakfast and on the choice of the aging Congregationalist minister who had married his father and mother 35 years before. : The pair was well mated and always congenial. Despite the baronial surroundings in which she had been reared, Miss Aldrich was also a serious minded young woman who cared little for “society” as such, an ideal partner for the kind of life Rockefeller visioned for himself. They remain so today, and they have well carried forward the example set by the elder John D. of being “home and family” people. Destined as the only son, to inevitable administration of the huge fortune of his father, Rockefeller entered the offices at 26 Broadway. He did not start out like so many rich men’s sons “to work his way up from the bottom.” He did not have any special job, or title. It was simply understood that he was his father’s son, and that some day all these complex affairs would be his to. administer.

2 2 2

E sat in on conferences, listened to older and more experienced men. He began to learn, to assume responsibilities by de-

John D. Jr. Cives Away Millions

Learned Value of Pennies When He Mended Fence As Boy

RRR RRO nn

John D. Rockefeller, fathér and son

- “John D. Jr.” at 4

grees. The father allowed the son a rather free rein. Gradually this

interest or that, this property or -

the other, were transferred to the

son. Even the Sunday school class at the Fifth Avenue Baptist Church, formerly taught by the father, now passed on to the son, who succeeded Charles Evans Hughes as teacher. As a college youth, Rockefeller had felt the sting of the criticism of his father’s methods and career. College boys discuss these matters without gloves. As he entered business, the younger man was keenly conscious of the cartoons, and special articles, the

And as a young man

exposures that pilloried his father as a grasping octopus, a bloodless, greedy monster. He always defended his father stoutly, and still defends his- memory. How could

he do otherwise who remembered the skating pond at Forest Hill, and could only say simply, “To me he is the most loving, understanding, inspiring father any son ever had.”

NEXT—BIlood runs red in Colorado and Rockefeller Jr. disarms a menacing public opinion as he begins to turn to a point of view that is even today mildly progressive among men of great wealth.

2

Richmond Tax Rate Cuts Credited to Municipally-Owned Power Utility

Richmond, Ind., has been able to reduce its tax rates substantially because of revenues from its publicly-owned electric plant. Richmond’s estimated population is about 33,000, with 161,000 people in its trade area. It is 68 miles east of Indianapolis. L. M. Feeger, managing editor of The Richmond Palladium, wrote this frank appraisal of the results of municipal utility operation. 2 8 8 AXPAYERS of Richmond have | convincing evidence of the earning capacity of a municipal electric light plant that is kept free from politics and is operated solely - for the benefit of its owners. In the current year, $315,000 will be transferred from the earnings of the plant to the general fund of the city

to reduce the tax load. This sum represents a saving of $1 in the cur-

rent tax rate, which is $2.60.

Between 1922 and 1933 the light plant turned over $245,451.46 to the city to be used for general municipal purposes. In 1934, however, the plant diverted $118,135.16 of its earnings to general municipal use, thereby saving the taxpayers 37 cents on each $100 of taxable property; in 1935, $110,000, a saving of 341; cents on the tax rate; 1936, $315,000, a saving of $1, and $315,000 in 1937, also a saving of $1. J The plant, moreover, has not been milked to provide money for the general fund. It has no bonded indebtedness. Its entire generative equipment was renewed in the last few years at a cost of $900,000. The depreciation and reserve fund contains $514,000, an excess of $14,000 over the limit placed by the State Board of Accounts in August, 1934. Improvements and betterments in the last year represent an outlay of between $325,000 and $350,000.. The office of the plant has been remodeled at a cost of $25,000 and a new coal dock and siding, soon to be used, cost $60,000. Three hundred ninety-four blocks of city streets are illuminated by a boulevard lighting system. The distribution

system in the business district |

Nigierstound,

ONSUMERS have not been overlooked in the administrative policy of the plant which has been under the direction of D. C. Hess for the last 15 years. Fourteen reductions have been made in rates since 1923. The percentage of the rate reduction end the amounts involved for most of them follow: November, 1923, 83 per cent, $50,000 saving to consumers; July, 1924, 8 per cent, $44,000; March, 1926, 9 per cent, $52,000; May, 1929, 12 per cent, $13,000; January, 1930, free

current to Reid Memorial Hospital;

March, 1932, 812 per cent, $60,000; |:

July, 1935, lowered minimum consumption requirement from $24 to $18 annually; October, 1935, 5% per

cent, $37,000; October, 1936, 9 per.

cent, $50,000. One of the administrative policies of the plant‘is that low rates induce greater consun'ption, which in turn is reflected in the earnings. In 1936, the plant sold 19.8 more current than in 1935." The total production or switchboard cost in 1936 was 4 mills per kilowatt-hour.

TAKE THE WORST CHARACTERISTICS OF THE SNAKE

—AND YOU HAVE A COMPOSITE CHARACTER STUDY OF THE HIT-AND RUN DRWER.--. - WHO LEAVES HIS VICTIM To DIE /

‘—AND ALSO THE RAT

— AND ALSO THE SKUNK;

| SIGN IN EMBROIDERY (Scribner).

Our Town By Anton Scherer

White Nag Had Important Part In Show of 1860's, but 'Scanties' of Baggy Trunks Got Most Attention, Y ESTERDAY J started telling you about - Epes W. Sargent’s “History of Nudity on the Stage” which appeared in a recent

‘number of Variety. There’s a lot more to

tell, however. ;

For example, Mr. Sargent credits Adah Isaacs Menken with starting everything when she put on her performance of “Mazeppa, or the Wild Horse of Tartary.” If that is true, and I haven’

any reason to doubt it, Indianapolis was in on the beginning of things, because it’s a matter of history that Miss Menken appeared in “Mazeppa” on the stage of the Metropolitan, which was the name of Valentine Butsch’s theater at the corner of Washington St. and Capitol Ave, It must have been sometime around 1860. “Audiences gasped and the clergy denounced when the big scene was reached,” says Mr. Sargent. “In this the unfortunate Mazeppa was supposed to be lashed nude to the back of an untamed stallion and driven into the desolate Siberian steppes to meet what fate she might. After leaving the stage, if headroom permite ted, the horse cantered up a runway at the rear, At the Thalia, down on the Bowery, the nag negoe tiated three such ascents, the all-time tops in sensation, -

Sensation in Costuming

“But it was not the horse that made the sene sation,” says Mr. Sargent. “Rather it was Miss Menken’s costume, for authentic portraits of that day depict her in a daring costume of baggy trunks, containing sufficient material to fashion three or four modern-day bathing suits. J “She also wore a sash in lieu of a brassiere. For the rest she was clad in tights and fleshings. Tights were then relegated chiefly to male circus performers, They were also worn by Shakespearean Violas, Rosa=linds and the like, but never with such a barefaced attempt to suggest nudity. 5 “In no time at all rather more than a dozen actresses were touring in the play, and 20 years later (1880) the show wes still being revived now and then. Reversing the present-day gag about the rarity. of white horses, it was not the nags which got the attention,” observes Mr. Sargent.

Who Was the Star?

I really wonder whether Mr. Sargent knows what "he is talking about. At any rate, I bring up the subject of iMiss Menken’s thriller because of something funny William George Sullivan told me the other day. Young as he is, Mr. Sullivan remembers Austin Brown telling him about Miss Menken’s performance of “Mazeppa” at the old “Met.” The funny part, in the light of Mr. Sargent’s history, is that Mr. Brown never once mentioned Miss Menken’s lack of clothes. Apparently he was only concerned with the magnificent performance of Miss Menken’s white horse.

A Woman's View By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

Motherhood May Be a Difficult Job, But It Is Held Best Bet for Women.

HY careers so often prove unsatisfactory for women is defined in a prize letter printed in

Mr. Scherres

| the current issue of Independent Woman. The anony=-

mous writer puts her finger on the exact spot where a career caves in for many girls. - “I face a dead-end street,” she says, “with only monotony and frustrae tion ahead.” ; Being a practical person with a mind well steeped in 20th Century ideals, she knows that she has little chance for advancement from her present position as principal secretary for her firm. It’s still the men who are promoted to the head of the class in the University of Hard Knocks; the women, or most of them at least, must be content to remain in the rear. This, ‘let me hasten to explain, is not senseless complaining. It’s cold fact, and the individual woman simply has to swallow it. -

However, even if the secretary could eventuaily occupy the boss” walnut-lined office, she’d probably find monotony anc frustration still standing hehind her chair. Because the boss, if he is a sensible man, has what very few business girls can wangle out of existence—a normal family life and a professicn.

Until. our economic system is so arranged that women can do the same, monotony and frustration will continue to loom before America’s working sistere hood. : The homebody herself becomes very well acquainte ed with the former. When her family is grown up and scattered and her real job in life is done she knows the blank face of monotony. But she has experienced the rich fulfillment of motherhood, and has done the finest bit of creative work it is possible for mortal to do, so frustration in its deepest sense she never feels. | . Motherhood has| two tremendous advantages over all other jobs for al woman. It's the only occupation in which you do not have to practice to be perfect. Your first production is sometimes the best of the output. And it’s the only business where woman is the real boss, taking no back talk from men.

New Books Today Public Library Presents— :

MBROIDERY, an age-old time-honored craft, may be studied as a creative art instead of being meree ly the reproduction of the designs of others. Em broidery even in its simplest form may become the expression of personal thought and feeling.

To enable the modern embroideress to acquire the knowledge and experience for individual design and work, Rebecca Crompton has written MODERN DEShe applies the best progressive study methods of today; and it is surprising what possibilities are opened. Fach person is ‘asked to meke her own designs and encouraged in producing original work to induce modern style, life, and thought into the craft. The book is full of illustrations, sketches and dee signs by the author. It is not intended that these should be copied, but they show what can be done; even an embroideress without gift for drawing can train herself to be creative, to produce individual work that mirrors her own personality.

# ” =

IFE within the walls of a prison and the many problems which such a life creates are discussed in PRISON LIFE IS DIFFERENT, by James A. John= ston (Houghton-Mifflin). The author is now warden of Alcatraz Prisor, but it is his experiences as warden of Folsom and San Quentin prisons in California which he recounts here. The book abounds in anece dotes, comic, pathetic, and tragic, and in personal sto= ries of convicts, one of whom is the famous Tom Mooney.

Mtr. Johnston also discusses many of the vital probs lems of the prison, including the education and ree habilitation of men, criminal insanity, the parole sys=

tem, and the gallows, And it is these discussions which give the book its importance. =