Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 25 June 1937 — Page 19

agabond

From Indiana—¢Ernie Pyle

Petersburg Is Richest Town in U. S. Territory, Roving Reporter Finds;

The Indianapolis Times

Second Section

a

FRIDAY, JUNE 25, 1937

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

PAGE 19

Woealth Dye to Fish and Norwegians.

PETERSBURG, Alaska, June 25.—Peters-

burg consists of fish and Norwegians. Petersburg has the reputation of being, per capita, the wealthiest town in the United States or its possessions. This is due to the

combination of fish and Norwegians. It is a town of about 1500 people. Many of them are thrifty Scandinavian fishermen. There are probably a hundred men in Petersburg who own their

own fioats. They'll average around $5000 or $6000 a year, just fishing. They conserve their money. The banks here have more money than they know what to do with. They have trouble getting it invested. Last year they .stopped paying interest altogether on savings accounts. - I was told there is $350,000 in savings accounts alone in Petersburg banks. Petersburg has two movie theaters, and one traffic light. The light never changes, however. It is always red. There are two herds of cows and two dairies here. They claim the only cowbarn in ‘the world built out over the water, like a ‘pier. All streets except the main street are made of heavy planking, set up above the ground a couple of feet like a Coney Island boardwalk.

Mr. Pyle

Muskeg Underlies Streets

The reason for this is the muskeg. The stuff is so | soft a street would sink right down into it. Some people might call it topsoil. Some might call it peat. It is the accumulation of centuries of growth and decay by plants and trees. } Below the muskeg lies hard blue clay, and then rock. When they built the main street (now surfaced . with oiled crushed rock) they had to dig an immense ditch five feet deep, down to solid ground, and then fill it with rock. i This muskeg is rich and black. But the country is so mountainous, and the rain so heavy, that it isn’t much for farming. This is country for wild game, and fishing. It is chilly and rainy in Petersburg, as it has been elsewhere since I've been in Alaska. Now, on the edge of summer, there is still snow within five minutes’ walk. On the low mountaintops nearby they had fresh snow a week ago. ‘Forty miles to the east are great jagged peaks which look not more than 10 miles away at the most. Snow stays up there the year around. On top of this ridge is the line between Alaska and Canada. Petersburg is on an island, but you wouldn’t know 1t without looking at the map, for the island is big. Deep water in the form of a strait runs past Petersburg. You'd think it was a river, but it isn’t. On the . other side is another island, whose limits you can’t see.

Writer Outshoots Mayor

While here it was my great honor to spend some time with the Mayor of Petersburg. He is a man about my own age, who runs a small men’s clothing store. “His name is Bill Holt. He took the afternoon off, and we drove out along the narrows as far as the road goes (about eight miles), tacked a pasteboard target to a tree, and did some shooting with a new .22 rifle. I was just out of the hospital, and every time I'd aim, the end of the gun would seem to float around like a kite. So all I could do was try to pull the trigger just as the sights went by the target. Bill must have been having the same trouble, for the first round we both missed the whole target with all five shots. But grew better, and wound up by shooting a 44 and 45 out of a possible 50. And I beat him every time but one. That is my one accomplishment in Alaska to date. A pale tenderfoot, beating the Mayor of Petersburg at shooting. It makes me very proud, and if I can just go on from there and shoot a few people, maybe my inferiority complex about Alaska will be completely dissipated.

Mrs.Roosevelt's Day

By Eleanor Roosevelt

Prime Minister of Belgium and Lady Astor Merry White House Guests.

Jy nero, Thursday—My guest on the radio last night, Mrs. Ida Harris, came down on the train with me and we chatted together during an hour of the trip. She is a very fine woman and told me both her children are now at work, though ‘her son, after four years with one firm, was told the other evening that he was temporarily laid off and given no definite time for his return, so he is trying to find some new work temporarily. Her daughter works as a salesgirl in a downtown department store where conditions are not of the best. “But,” said Mrs. Harris, “it is better than noth-

ing and we can’t complain. My husband has a steady job.” After our radio talk I came back to the White "House to find that the President, who had taken his Belgian guests down to Mount Vernon by boat, had returned. They were resting, so I did not disturb them until just before dinner. But my husband, poor man, was hard at work and I did not get a chance to talk with him until the Cabinet officer who was in his study had left. Then I told him all I could of Anna and John and we talked for a short time about the strike. Suddenly I discovered we only had 20 minutes left to dress for dinner. The dinner was pleasant and I found the Belgian Prime Minister a very interesting person to talk to. He and his wife seemed so young, it is hard to realize he has carried such heavy burdens in government. Yesterday, much to my joy, Lady Astor turned up too. I know no one who can enliven a party more than that lady can. Once, when I looked across the table, I saw her giving her two neighbors, Mr. Sumner Welles of the State Department and“Mr. Harry Hopkins, a reai lecture. But from where I sat I could not gather what the subject was on which she was discoursing. ; After dinner we all went upstairs to see some movies and they opened with a Walt Disney picture on the Aipine climbers. The President always adores these; how much they appeal to our other guests, I don’t know. They were followed by some of the pictures which had been taken of the Belgian Prime Minister and his wife since their arrival in this country. Even those taken yesterday morning had been flown to New York, developed and returned here in time to be shown last night.

Walter O'Keefe ii

"NOVERNOR EARLE of Pennsylvania is behind President Roosevelt for a third term and it hardly seems fair to Franklin D. Most people think he deserves time off for good behavior. These days American mothers shouldn’t tell their boys that some day they may grow up to be President. It’s no use. It looks as if F. D. R. will have the job from now on. However, it might be just as well for the country if the President did have another Administration. Imagine what would happen to the unemployment situation if all those “deserving Democrats” had to go out and look for work. ° : Running Franklin D. for a third time would be an awful blow to the Republicans who were just beginning to believe that life begins at ’40. : Naturally Governor Earle’s suggestion should not be taken too seriously. With the industrial war and: all that shooting in his back yard he's{§#obably suf. fering from “shell-shock.” bak Se :

(Fourth of a Series) By Willis Thornton

NEA Staff Correspondent OT long after he began to assume an important role in handling his father’s vast interests, John D. Rockefeller ‘Jr. ran smack into a situation that brought him a taste of his father’s unpopularity, a soul-shaking experience that left its mark on him forever afterward. Among the properties in which by 1913 he personally had assumed a large stock interest and a directorship - was the Colorado Fuel & Iron Co. These mines were operated on the feudal plan of company-owned mines; houses, land, stores and company-hired deputy sheriffs so common in mining regions. Late in the year the miners were on strike. . Forced to leave their com-

pany-owned houses, they took refuge in a hillside tent camp near Ludlow, Colo. Sporadic fighting between the miners and company-paid depu- ‘ ties marked the months at the end of the year, and the following April, in a pitched battle, militia and deputies assaulted and burned the Ludlow tent camp. Two women and 11 children were among the victims. Crazed with grief and .anger, the miners opened a guerilla warfare that shook the Black Hills region for a month. Scores died. Public opinion turned angrily again .on ° the Rockefellers. For the first time the junior Rockefeller handled a major situation himself. The father, retired and glad to be out of it, resolutely kept his hands off as the son advanced a solution that would have been impossible, and probably repugnant, to the elder man. » 2 2

IRST, Rockefeller hired himself the most expert public relations man of the time, Ivy Lee. A genius in his line, Lee sold Rockefeller on the idea that .it was necessary actually to change certain conditions before the public could be convinced of Rockefeller good will. So when the most oppressive of the mine camp conditions had been relieved, a careful study resulted in the Rockefeller Plan of Industrial Representation, which became the father of company unionism in the United States. Now the subject of bitter criticism and even outlawed by the Wagner act, this plan was remarkably progressive 25 years ago. Certainly it was a great improvement over feudal conditions that preceded it. But Rockefeller went further. He always had maintained that his position was merely that of a stockholder, and that he was not directly responsible for policies carried out by managers on the

John D.

a

Copyright, Underwood and Underwood

Labor and capital were face to face for a heart to heart talk when this picture was made in 1919, showing Frank Morrison, left, secretary of the A. F. of L., and John D. Rockefeller Jr. conferring in-

formally in Washington.

In squash togs, John D. Rockefeller Jr. is pictured center at the opening of the Whitehall Club’s courts, New York, in 1923, and at right as he appeared in 1918 when church circles were much stirred by his suggestion that the Baptish church abandon immersion as a

requisite for church membership.

ground. But Lee persuaded him -to make a trip to Colorado and see things for himself. This took some courage, for feeling had been so bitter that even in New York his office had been picketed and men carrying guns had been caught in his outer offices. Rockefeller went to Colorado.

® 8 ”

'E went down to the mines in , denims. He ate in company: cook shacks, he visited miners’ homes, he danced with miners’ wives. Not only would such proceedings have been impossible for the father, but they showed the son a phase of life he never had seen in a sheltered existence, and probably never even read about. The Ludlow episode colored the remainder of the life of John D. Rockefeller Jr. In many cases he has displayed a liberalism that shocked men who were merely rich. ‘ One of those who had assailed Rockefeller most bitterly was Mother Jones, “the angel of the mine camps” and a radical orator and agitator of the most uncomprcmising type. Rockefeller had a long talk with her and even partly persuaded her that he meant to do his best according to his lights. : Sixteen years later Mother Jones celebrated her 100th birthday, living to a greater age than even the elder Rockefeller. And on that birthday she received from John D. Jr. a cordial note of congratulation and- good .ishes

saying “your loyalty to your ideals, your | fearless adherence to .your duty las you have seen it, is an inspiration to all who have known you”, If the deft hand of Ivy Lee is to be seen in a gesture like this, it is no less to the credit of Rockefeller that he had the intelligence, the wit, and the sense of humor to go through with it.

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HEN the World War came along, both Rockefellers were apparently antagonistic to it, on humanitarian grounds and because it caused widespread dislocation in their international business. But when America entered the war, they were lavish in contributions to war work of all kinds, and in buying Liberty Bonds. The Rockefeller war contributions are supposed to have been more than 70 million dollars. ! Following elder

this, the

Rockefeller faded into the legend- >

ary golf-playing, dime-bestowing legend that persisted until his recent death. The hand that directed the multiplex Rockefeller affairs was that. of the present John D. Jr.

His independence and his reliance on pure reasoning for his conclusions is well shown by his sensational switch on- prohibition which gave such a strong boost to repeal. The Rockefellers always have been strong temperance peorle, and Rockefeller himself

By RAYMOND CLAPPER

ASHINGTON, June 25.—One of the best things that Mr. Roosevelt could do for himself and the country would be to take note of recurring third-term speculation and end it, definitely, flatly, finally, once and for all. All he has to do is to say that he will not serve beyond the end of his present term. He can put it just that bluntly if he wishes. Or he can make an occasion of it by delivering himself of something fancy like this: “My friends: Last March I told you that my great ambition on Jan. 20, 1941, is to turn over the White House to my successor, whoever he may be, with the assurance that I am at the same time turning over to him as President, a nation intact, a nation at peace, a naticn prosperous, a nation clear in its

knowledge of what power it has to serve its own citizens, a nation that is in a position to use those powers to the full in order to move forward steadily to meet the modern needs of humanity—a nation which has thus proved that the democratic form and methods of national government can and will succeed. “Now I want to tell you that not only is that my ambition. It is my determination. Our unbroken custom which has limited the service of our Presidents to two terms is a wise tradition. In these times particularly it stands as a safeguard of our democracy. I shall not, under any circumstances, be a party to the breaking of it.” “. f gs x =#

NSTEAD of losing prestige and influence by sawing himself off from the possibility of a third term, Mr. Roosevelt would strengthen

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Roosevelt Would Do Well to End All Talk Of a Third Term, Clapper Declares

public confidence in his purpose to keep this a democratic nation. It is infinitely more harmful to Mr. Roosevelt to permit such talk to continue and to corrupt affairs at Washington than it would be to knock it off dead. Designing men are making a football of him with third-term talk. Governor Earle of Pennsylvania, who is running for President as hard as he can, finds himself embarrassed in his recent strike move ordering partial martial law at Johnstown. He is charged with acting in a way to further his Presidential ambitions. To get out from under that charge, he announces that he is unqualifiedly for Roosevelt for President in 1940. That takes the heat off him and throws it on Mr. Roosevelt, giving Administration critics a fresh opportunity to scream again that Roosevelt is trying to become a dictator. Furthermore, such statements as Governor Earle’s stimulate a demand for Mr. Roosevelt to run again. In the absence of any repudiation from the President, people are given to wondering if perhaps after all. . . .

” ® ” ESS than a week ago a Cabinet member, Secretary of War Woodring, said that unless a stronger man than Mr. Roosevelt appeared

succeed himself. In that event Woodring promised his support. A former Democratic Governor of a

Western state, supporting Mr.

frank to say that I can conceive of a situation which would demand that Franklin D. Roosevelt should again be placed in the White House.” A letter today from a Midwestern editor says: “I suppose nobody really knows—perhaps not even the President—whether he will be a candidate for a third term. But certainly an interesting situation is developing.” question is running’ through the public mind all over America. It crops out in Congressional comment. It is significant that this question is a matter of such acute discussion three years early. Does it reflect public apprehension over the danger of dictatorship and of a relatively permanent President? I have never thought Mr. Roosevelt would consent to a third term, much less seek it. I do not think so now. But a vast number of people do think, not only that he would consent, but that he wants it. Unless he removes himself from this situation, it will spread its

: Bp corrosion, over the remainder

he would be a logical candidate to

Roosevelt, writes in that “I am.

The same speculative.

Ca a a rama

never has tasted wine or liquor. Together, ‘father and soh had given hundreds of thousands of dollars to the prohibition cause, including some $350,000 tc the Anti-Saloon League. But in 1932, when observation had told him that the prohibition experiment was a failure, Rockefeller startled the nation by coming out for repeal and a different line of approach to the problem. The Rockefellers have been Republicans just as naturally and inevitably as they have been Baptists. Yet in 1933, when the NRA was being improvised hurriedly to fill the breach in the country’s economic walls, Rockefeller was among the first to rally to its support. In a radio . speech he urged whole-hearted support of the venture.

» 8 #

N the campaign of 1936 Rockefeller supported Alfred M. Landon, and gave, jointly with other rich men, $5000 to the Republican campaign in Maine. When criticized for this by a Senate committee investigating ex-

r. Gives Away Millions

Visit to Mining Strike Scene Colors Scion’s Whole Life

penditures, ‘Rockefeller was the only one of the group to answer the criticism in a letter ih which

he admitted the contribution, and stated that he believed it not only

* the right but the duty. of every

citizen to contribute to the-party whose cause he believed in. He also noted that it was better so ‘than to make sly contributions to other organizations indirectly working in the political field, which he had not Hone. *

It was an indirect slap at a,

course less straightforward than his own, taken by many other men of wealth. The campaign over, Rockefeller wrote a much-quoted letter to Jim Farley congratulating him on his radio speech on election night as “one of the most statesmanlike utterances made on either side during the entire campaign.” Few other Republicans of great wealth were feeling that way on the day after election. During the worst of the depresion, Rockefeller not only gave more than two million dollars to various direct relief funds, but made one of his rare radio speeches on behalf of a re-em-ployment campaign. But greater, perhaps, than either as a depression antidote, he launched into the greatest privately financed building project of modern times, directly in the teeth of depression and abundant jeers from the majority who thought his idea fantastic.

NEXT—Rockefeller Center in New York exemplifies the type of enterprise that draws the present Rockefeller, as contrasted with his father. How Rockefeller lives, and what he likes and dislikes.

By Science Service EW YORK, June 25.—A telegraphic robot which grabs words up from a number of separate teleprinters, counts and records them and then sends them in mixed-up order over main trunk telegraph lines has been developed for speedier and cheaper commuhication here. 5 5 At the other end of the line an auxiliary mechanism sorts the words out into their respective messages and speeds them to their separate destination. The object is to use, at all times, the full capacity of the multi-channeled telegraph lines and so permit lower costs to the users. Subscribers to the new system, in effect, pay for their telegraph tolls, by metering the volume of business they have. Where many subscribers are using the channels together the charge for the total carrying capacity of the circuit is split between them. - » ”n FJ HE system, developed and now in use by Western Union, was the answer to those busy businesses who carry on much of their vital matters by linking teleprinters in their offices in widely separated cities and asking and answering

Telegraphic Robot Cuts Expense of Messages

questions back and forth in practically instantaneous communication. A motion picture company .on the West Coast, for example, may sign up a new star and start production on its latest “super-colos-sal” production. A direct tie-up is made with the New York office and swiftly the various departments of the company are set in

motion and innumerable details ironed out.

” 2 ” MPROVED and cheaper service of this kind is now possible by the robot message sorting system which is in use between New York and Chicago and between Chicago and Los Angeles and Chicago and San Francisco. k With. the new system, known as Varioplex transmission, the teleprinters of the several users feed their messages into the central office. As the words of the messages are grabbed off and counted they are turned into perforations on a separate tape. This tape does the actual sending of the conglomerate message over the main trunk telegraph line where it .s sorted out automatically into its component

parts and fed into the teleprinters of the respective recipients.

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— AND HERE'S MR. PUTITOFE'S CAR AT THE BOTTOM OF THE HLL!

SPEAKING OF SAFETY

0 Hix

WHERE'S THE ‘HILL MADE FAMouS BY MR. PUTITOFF

HERE'S MR.PUTITOER'S RESOLUTION __THE ONE HE DIDN'T KEEP

—AND HERE'S

| 1we

Our Town

By Anton Scherrer

'Umbrella Dance' of Gay Nineties And De Gray's Barefoot Frolics Were Forerunners of 1937 Strip Act

ODAY I want to clean up Epes W. Sargent’s “History of Nudity on the Stage,” which appeared in a recent number of Variety. After that, I'll promise not to mention it again. Indeed, after that I'll go even further, and promise not to mention William George Sullivan's deep-rooted enthusiasm for the subject. As near as I recall, I've already told you about Miss Menken’s performance of “Mazeppa,” which according to Mr. Sargent was the start of every-. thing. I've also told you about “living pictures,” I believe. Well, there was a lot after that. For example, after the “living pictures,” circa 1890, came the “Umbrella Dance” by the Sisters Leigh. “The curtain’s rise,” says Mr. Sargent, “disclosed a pair of white umbrellas headon to the audience. Below the edge of each gimp appeared a pair of bare and rather overdeveloped legs. At the close of the dance, theparasols were raised to disclose white dancing dresses that fell almost to the knees, but it was a sensation In a day when Scotch dancers had to wear pink tights. between their half-hose and the tartan.” ; Apparently, the Leigh sisters paved the way for Mildred Howard De Gray, because according to Mr, Sargent, Miss De Gray “saw: the Leighs and went

them inches better by baring her legs to half-way between the knees and the hips.”

‘Barefoot Dance’ Ballyhooed

Well, that brings Mr. Sullivan back into today’s column, because in his revealing little note to me he says: “I remember the large posters of Mildred Howard De Gray in her ‘Barefoot Dance’ gracing the Wabash St. signboards of the Empire, but that was ‘out of bounds’ for me at that early age. I did, however, rush the gallery at English’s to see ‘The Turtle’ with ‘Sadie Martinot in the leading role, and it seemed even at thay time to be a pretty tame affair. The screen, thag

valuable piece of stage property which had been honored for over a hundred years by hiding Lady Teazle; was used for about as phoney a disrobing act as had ever ‘shocked’ the natives.”

Daring Disrobing Act: Mr. Sullivan, it appears, has a mighty good meme ory. As good as Mr. Sargent’s, anyway, because Mr, Sargent in his history does the very same thing, and follows up Miss De Gray with “The Turtle.” “This,” he says, “was a comedy from the French with what was, for then, a rather daring disrobing act. Not altogether new, for in ‘Fra Diavolo’, Zerlina had been preparing for bad for - decades, and the actress in ‘The Turtle’ did not do much more of a strip, stopping short at an elaborate chemise.” Historically, however, it was an important performe ance, because ac¢ording to Mr. Sargent, and Mr. Sulli-

van, too, it was the beginning of the “strip act.” It was the beginning of the end, too. As far as the actual .end is concerned, it, too, appears in sight, because, goodness knows, the way things are going now, It doesn’t seem possible to carry it any further. Anye way, it’s a good place for me to stop.

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

Mr. Scherrer

Back to School Brings Memories Mixed with Gladness and Sadness

ONGS; the sound of hurrying feet; girls’ voices echoing down long corridors—and there you are, right back in hoarding school after years and years and years of being grown up. It’s wonderful. When I was invited to be the guest of the dormi« tory hostess I| accepted with shameless eagerness. Why should one refuse to recapture some of the lost magic of youth, when the opportunity offers? . And recapture it I did. All at once, I was assailed by memories. The tiresome cadence of scales, the jar of slamming doors, the constant din of girls coming and going with last-minute examinations and come mencement plans—all these things were like ‘fairy elbows nudging at my heart. And the sudden waking at night to the same glimmer of moonlight across the white bed, the same vine scraping against the same window screen, and the same stillness—as if (God were holding his breath. How cushioned in security the girls sleep, just as I slept a long time ago when the future beckoned with promise and life was mede up mostly of roses and romance. It’s grand to go back again to the noises one hears only at boarding school and to see behind the bright masks of girlish faces the ghosts of other girls one used to know and love. Yet it’s even grander to realize that in spite of a good many hard knocks life did not really let you down. Between every heartbreaking experience there have been interludes of romance and roses that will never ccase to bloom in memory’s garden. : : : Life is like that for all of us—for you and me and for every girl who holds out her hands to it as she hurries from the schoolroom in springtime. Sadness, gladness, glamour, gloom. The pageant of days brings us a little of them all. If it were only possible to teach girls that they have in their possession the essentials of happiness, and that to each of them life offers rich gifts. And yet, a woman who finds herself, as I did, enveloped in the atmosphere of her past, would not wish to save any one of those girls from her fair share of tribulation, for she understands at last that our real strength comes from pain instead of joy.

New Books Today

Public Library Presents—

Rp M'BROWN. simple' London policeman, was really quite pleased over the prospect of an addition to the family; but when Win presented him with quintuplets, he thought it was rather too much of a good thing. “Five little McBrowns. Five little mouths. Ten little ears. "Fifty little fingers, 50 little toes. Five little voices crying in the night.” Truly it was enough to appall a stronger man than Ronald. As for Win, when given her first glimpse of the phenonienal group, she said faintly, “What nonsense. Must be some mistake,” and shut her eyes, “hoping it would pass off.” Overnight the bewildered young parents found themselves famous, gifts for the quins pouring in by the dozen and a horde of curious citizens established on their doorstep. This unpleasant notoriety was more than the embarrassed couple could bear—so they sailed away to Parrot Island, where, no doubt, the natives being naturally queer, the quins would cause no excitement at all. The hilarious adventures of the McBrowns in their sear"; for quiet privacy are told in Rose Macauley’s LD BE PRIVATE (Harper). -