Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 20 July 1937 — Page 15
Vagabond
From Indiana — Ernie Pyle
Alaskan Dog-Team Postman Is Tough As Nails, but He Confesses His Job Is Hard Sledding When It's 40 Below.
AGLE, Alaska, July 20.—Adolph Biederman is the sort of man we in the States think of when we think of Alaska. He's a small man, brown as leather, and wiry, and he walks with a thump-thump. He speaks with an accent, and with that jumpy, hard-to-follow narration of events you frequently find in transplanted foreigners.
Ed Biederman is the winter mail man between
Circle and Eagle. For 35 years he has driven the dog team mail routes of bitter central Alaska. He's one of the mushers you read about in the poems. He's 68 and tough as nails. He was born in Bohemia, and came
to this country when he was 13. He wound up in Alaska at the turn of the century, and has never been out since. And never intends to go. He married an Indian woman, and has seven or eight children. Some are grown, and others are tiny kids. The things Ed has been through would fill a book. He walks with that thump-thump because the front half of each foot is gone. It happened 12 years ago because he lost his regular dogs. Ed's dogs were coming up river on a barge which a rock upset. All the dogs drowned.
Got His Feet Wet
So Ed had to borrow a team and start the winter mail run with green dogs. His sled got stuck in an overflow spot. His regular dogs would have circled it. The new ones didn’t. Ed's feet got wet. It was 42 below, and his moccasins were frozen on him before he could cut them off. He got to an empty cabin not far away. He built a fire, and got his boots and moccasins off. And then he went outside, at 42 below and walked in the snow in his bare feet. But it was too late. He couldn't feel anything. He was in the cabin four days. When they found him, they sledded him into Circle, where a doctor amputated his feet about half way back to his ankles. He was running the mail again the next winter. He wears shoes in summer, and has phonograph springs in them to keep the toes from flying up. In winter he wears three pairs of socks, and stuffs the toes full of rabbit fur. And over these he wears moccasins. It is 162 miles from Eagle to Circle. The winter mail makes the round trip every two weeks. Ed has cabins strung along the route, 25 to 28 miles apart. Sometimes he makes it from one cabin to another in four hours. Sometimes it takes as long as 18 hours, depending on the weather. ; When it gets under 40 below it's almost impossible to go on. Because dogs perspire through their tongues, and if a dog sticks its tongue out at 50 or 60 below the tongue freezes. Also, the sled’s runners seem to stick at that temperature, and it's like pulling a sled over bare ground.
Boys L3zy—or Smart
Ed's boys have grown up, and they run the mail most of the time now. Horace brings it halfway, Charlie sleds it on in. I asked Ed if he rode the sleds, or mushed behind all the way. He laughed and said, “Well, I never Tide the sled, but I'll have to say my boys do. I don’t know whether they're lazier or smarter than I am, but they ride the runners most of the time.” Ed cusses mightily, But he doesn’t drink or smoke. Quit drinking 28 years ago, because he got drunk and missed collecting $190 somebody owed him. He quit smoking because it was hurting his wind. He used to wear a mustache to cover up his bad teeth. Now that he has false teeth he still wears it. He says it frosts over in wintertime and protects his mouth.
Mrs. Roosevelt's Day
By Eleanor Roosevelt
Not Having to Bend Over, First Lady |
Finds Picking Raspberries Is Fun. YDE PARK, N. Y., Monday—I harked back to my H childhood yesterday afternoon and picked a few quarts of raspberries. Raspberries are about the easiest things one can pick, no bending over unless
Mr. Pyle
you feel you must get special ones on the lowest |
branches. We are such creatures of habit, however, that every time we do something a little bit different from our usual form of exercise, we discover that our training for the ordinary occupations of life is rather poor. I can ride, I can swim and I can drive a car and never feel it. But if T go out in the sun and pick raspberries, in half an hour I begin to wonder how many hours I have been there. I suppose this is why all of us, young and old, men and women, should do different kinds of work at different times, for unless we do. we never know how long it takes and just how it makes us feel. I remember when our eldest boy was about 16 vears old, my husband told him he would like him to spend about six weeks of his summer vacation doing some kind of manual work. So that he could have a varied experience, he shipped him off to a place in Canada where they did the whole process from cutting down trees to the final making of paper. The main thing was that he should understand what it meant to do a manual job for eight hours a day. Our son was somewhat reluctant to go and leave * a pleasant summer vacation and couldn't see much point to it. Once on the job, he met some difficulties we knew nothing about and had not planned for him, but they were just as valuable experience as any other part of the work. He told me later he considered that six weeks had been a really valuable part of his education. Two summers ago my hushand was buiiding a road in the backwoods. The mosquitoes and flies were very disagreeable, there were plenty of rocks and the mud was deep in spots. He invited our two youngest sons to become part of the working crew, just so they would know what it was to be on a job at 8 a. m. till 4 p. m. with only the lunch hour to rest in. They made good and got on with the other men, but I think they discovered it was a very different thing to be an athlete in college and a workman by the day. Their respect for the exercise of throwing stones into a cart from the ground was enhanced. It wasn't as entertaining or as exciting as rowing a shell in a four-mile race and it was even harder work. Varieties of working experience are good for us all. If you ever feel like bragging about what good condition you are in, go out and join the hay makers for a while. When I drive through a rather lonely road in the morning, I see the tiniest rabvits. They sit up and listen and, as I come near and blow my horn, they run down the road ahead of me and finally scoot off into the underbrush. I am glad I have no little children with me, for IT know I would have to try to tame those rabbits. They fascinate me. No child could possibly see them and not want to bring them home.
Walter O'Keefe —
HOSE three Russian fliers who landed in California last week felt right at home when they visited Hollywood. They thought Hollywood was a lot like Moscow—the only difference being that in Hollywood the only thing they shoot is pictures.
They met Shirley Temple, had a long chat with her about conditions in America, and certainly Shirley can | tell them as much about the state of the nation as |
anyone in Washington.
She very graciously gave them her autograph, but 1 don't think she asked for theirs, because she knew | that by the time they got through signing their |
names it would be long past her bedtime.
They may have been impressed with the Arctic ice
floes, but I'll bet the biggest thrill they got was seeing { Wipiece'af doe with Sonia Henle on it, 20. J
wa ER
{he Indimmapolis T
imes
Second Section
TUESDAY, JULY 20, 1937
Entered as Second-Class Matte at Postoffice. Indianapolis,
PAGE 15
Ind.
Syphilis—The Secret Scourge
Disease Among Easiest to Cure When Brought to Light
(Fourth of a Series)
SHOCKING to the nation was the recent announcement that more than 36,000 persons were killed in automobile accidents last year and several times that many injured or permanently disabled. Yet in 1936 syphilis attacked and disabled over half
a million persons in this country.
If the mask of secrecy
could be ripped from it so that complete statistics could be obtained, this disease would stand revealed as the greatest killer of all in America. Whereas press, pulpit and radio raised a hue-and-cry about motor traffic casualties, scarcely a whisper was heard about the ravages of syphilis. Obviously this is a situation that needs mending. And the first necessity is to spotlight syphilis with the same glare of publicity that has been centered upon auto accidents or tuberculosis or infantile paralysis or cancer.
Public ignorance about it is as dense as a fog, and until recently public educa-
tion on the subject was im-
possible due to the social habit of shushing all open discussion because “it isn't a nice subject to talk about in polite society.” Well, what is this thing nobody dares mention? We have traced its history. We know its background. Now how does it attack, and what does it do to the individual human victim? Syphilis is a contagious disease caused by an organism known as spirochete, which, once lodged in the system, may desiroy any organ or tissue of the body. Unless expertly treated, it is permanently disabling or fatal in most cases,
It causes 10 per cent of all insanity, 18 per cent of all diseases of the heart and blood vessels, a heavy ratio of stillbirths and the deaths of thousands of babies in the first weeks of life. Although not hereditary in the strict sense, it frequently is passed from an infected mother to her infant at birth.
un un ” URGEON GENERAL Thomas Parran Jr. of the U. §, Public Health Service calls it the ‘mad-dog of communicable diseases.” Because of its appalling spread in this country it bids fair to become the great American disease. Usually the first sign of its attack upon an individual is a sore or lesion. The lesion appears usually irom 12 to 40 days after contact, is not very painful and may persist from three to eight weeks. If adequate treatment is begun in this period
‘ the disease may be cured in 88 per
cent of cases.
The second stage is marked by skin eruptions looking to the unfamiliar eye like measles or light chickenpox. The rash may or may not be accompanied by falling hair, fever, sores in the mouth, headaches or other symptoms associated with common ailments. This intermediate stage lasts a variable length of time, but ultimately disappears and there follows a period in which the victim seems entirely well. Sadly to the contrary, the spirochetes are burrowing into every part of the body. It marks the beginning of the third or tertiary stage of the disease. The germs begin their
work at the point of contact with the infected carrier. Usually sex contact is involved, but many cases are from Kissing, drinking from contaminated vessels, using implements or instruments that have been handled by infected persons, or receiving services from attendants in improperly regulated barber and beauty shops or massage parlors. A record case is that of an infected boy who gave it to seven girls in a kissing game. n n » O further signs are observable to the victim for a considerable period, sometimes months, sometimes years. The awful truth does not become manifest until some part of the system begins to break down—the heart, the brain, the organs of digestion, the nervous system. even tha bony skeleton. Sir William Osler has called syphilis the "great masqueracder” due to its imitative characteristic. Many are the diseases of later life caused or complicated by this stealthy intruder. A stabbing pain at the heart—aneurysm ot the aorta; or the legs become too weak to support the frame-—locomotor ataxia; or delusions of grandeur invade the mind—general paresis; these are three of the many. When they come the victim knows, or should know, that syphilis has done its disastrous work.
Into insane asylums, sanitariums hospitals the legions of these pitiful victims march, most of them to become public charges. Too late to do anything for them but make them comfortable until they die! The time of hope for them was when their cases were in the early stage, when simple tests and simple remedies would have sufficed to free them of the
scourge. I its inception syphilis is an easy disease to cure. It can be detected unerringly by the Wasserman test. Medication with arsenical and bismuth compounds is painless and practically infallible. In fact, no disease responds more readily provided treatment is kept up faithfully for the required period of several months.
But neither simplicity of treatment nor certainty of cure should encourage sufferers to administer to their own cases. Treatment of syphilis must be by experienced physicians. One of the most serious impediments to general wiping out of the disease is the common practice .of self-treatment, what is referred to as “drugstore or corner poolroom” method, a di-
» n »
Dr. Thomas Parran Jr., Surgeon General of the U. S. Public Health Service, calls syphilis the “mad dog of communicable diseases.”
rect result of the taboo that has enshrouded the malady for centuries. The victim, either ignorant of the dangers or feeling he will become a social outcast if his plight becomes known, consults a crony at the poolroom and is sent to the drugstore for some patent preparation sold under a reassuring label, or to some quack who guarantees an instant cure. There is no such thing as an instant cure. Public health authorities or reputable physicians see less than 50 per cent of the victims. The rest are treated, when treated at all, “under the rose.” " on " VEN preventive prophylaxis, and that is useful in stopping infection after exposure, is dangerous unless employed only under competent medical direction. In every community there is a known reservoir of infection in what is called “the oldest profession,” put which, now that spades are to be called spades in discussions of this subject, it is better to term prostitution. Being known and usually organized, prostitution affords public health authorities a better opportunity for control of the disease than the thousands of indiscriminate cases arising from other sources. Women of the “profession” can be isolated when necessary and forced to accept treatment until cured. Although prostitution is responsible for a considerable percentage of cases, in spite of health policing, its most serious influence has been to give the disease a bad name which has brought upon it the blight of shame and secrecy that, until now, has defied every effort of the medical profession to overcome. Among the major objectives of the campaign now being waged by United States Public Health Service, under Surgeon General Parran, is to break down forever this false doctrine of suppression.
NEXT—What is being done about syphilis in Indianapolis.
"Ghosts’ of 1918 Stalk British in Efforts
To Draft Trade Treaty With U.S.
By United Press ASHINGTON, July 20.—Sub- | the necessity for constant and free
|
stantial progress toward a basis upon which to start negotiations for a reciprocal trade agreement between Great Britain and the United States have been made during the past three weeks. It also has been learned that “ghosts” of the World War days stalk British Government representatives at every step on their “exploratory conversations” seeking a basis for trade agreement negotiations. These “ghosts” are the close brush
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tion during the war; realization of
access to American raw materials markets at any time that Britain is at war; the war debts, particularly the British debt to the United States now in default more than half a billion dollars.
The Trade Agreement Act under which reciprocal trade treaties are
negotiated gives President Roosevelt and Secretary Hull no authority to treat with foreign powers concerning the war debts. Despite frequent assertions in the Senate and the House that some proposal for settlement of the debts problem was
which the British had with starva- | about to be made in connection with
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trade agreements, State Department officials have maintained their denials of any development in this regard. = ” » UMORS and reports that Great Britain is considering some definite proposal for a settlement of her debt to the United States have persisted both here and abroad. State Department officials have as persistently denied all knowledge of such proposals. “There has been no development, either here or abroad, during recent months which would indicate the truth of such reports,” one high State Department official said. “I am confident they are wholly false,”
It is believed that the persistence of the reports is due to the public admissions by State Department officials and British authorities that, sooner or later, the debts problem must be taken up for discussion and settlement. Added to this is the realization, here and abroad, that the proposed British-American reciprocal trade agreement is a war preparedness move by the British Government. She is seeking an open corridor to American raw materials markets.
HE war debts and the Johnson act, however, hover at Britain’s shoulder as a constant threat to that open corridor. The Johnson act prohibits the extension of loans or credits by this country to any foreign government in default in its debt to the United States.
A way around that obstacle is provided in the “cash and carry” provisions of the neutrality law. Great Britain has the fleet to protect her merchant ships, and sufficient Merchant Marine to guarantee the “carry” requirement. Officials here are confident that if the pressure were great enough she could produce the “cash” required for raw and manufactured materials for war uses,
The “exploratory conversations” looking to a British-American trade agreement, begun last fall, were practically suspended until the new neutrality bill was enacted and continued access to American markets during wartime was at least partially assured.
The distribution of syphilis between men and women is shown in this chart by the magazine Survey Graphic.
How the disease was spread from one woman to 18 men and girls
in a Midwestern city is shown in this chart. men (B) were traced to one prostitute (A).
The infections of three Further tracing showed
that one of the men had infected nine girls, six of whom were under 18. Of a total of 24 exposed persons examined, 18 had syphilis, were given treatment and cured. Black figures represent syphilitically infected, white figures those who escaned although exposed.
[One Year of Conflict— Spain's War in Brief
By E. R. R. { IVIL war in Spain broke out a year ago this month. A brief history of the conflict follows: | JULY, 1936—The elections of five | months before, giving the Popu|lar Front a substantial Cortes ma- | jority, but no popular majority over | the Rightists, had consolidated both factions. There had been constant clashes, murders, mobbings, strikes. Politically active officers of the army with Rightist tendencies had been retired or transferred to distant posts. The war spark came when Sotelo, prominent Rightist leader, was assassinated.
Revolt successful in more conservative and religious parts of Spain. Leadership goes to Gen. Franco when Gen. Sanjurjo is killed in an airplane crash on July 20. From Burgos Gen. Mola starts drive south on Madrid. He is checked in Guadarrama Mountains. Rebels driven back in other sectors, until airplanes from Italy and Germany give Rebels control of the air and keep Loyal Spanish navy in port. AUGUST—Franco starts drive north on Madrid from Seville. Badajoz taken near Portuguese frontier, opening access to Rebels from Portugal and establishing contact with Mola. Mola starts drive against Basques in north, France opens negotiations among powers. Britain bans exports of war materials. All other great powers agree to take similar action. " " ”
EPTEMBER — Irun falls to Mola’s force, then San Sebastian, closing main gateway to France and isolating Basques. First meeting of international nonintervention committee, representing 27 nations, great and small. Catalonia, anti-Rightist, re-establishes autonomy. Franco relieves besieged Rightists in Alcazar of Toledo and captures city. He is only 40 miles from Madrid, and is named head of the Rightist government.
OCTOBER—Steady advance of
President Roosevelt and Secretary Hull while the Neutrality Act was under consideration in Congress. An authority close to the White House asserted that Mr. Runciman discussed British-American trade problems, but that the subject of the debts was not discussed. The same ‘assertion was made re--garding the recent visit here of Premier Paul Van Zeeland of Belgium,
While an eventual settlement of the debts is held vital to any permanent restoration of world trade, currency and exchange stabilization, State Department officials are confident that the debts will not be treated in direct conjunction with any trade agreement. To do so, they pointed out, would | necessitate submission of that particular trade treaty to the Senate for ratification, since only Congyess has the authority to make any reduction or other change in the status of the debts,
Heard in Congress— Rep. Wilbum Cartwright ©. Okla.)—Some seem to think that this vocational program will conflict with the educational program in the fine
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Franco toward Madrid. Portugal breaks off diplomatic relations with Madrid.
NOVEMBER--Anarchists and syndicalists, in theory opposed to political action, join government; they are more numerous than Communists in Spain. Franco gets to gates of Madrid, but is there halted. Incessant bombardment of Madrid from land and air. Government removes to Valencia. Germany and Italy recognizes Franco. Government invokes Art. XI of League covenant. DECEMBER France and Britain send joint protests to Berlin, Rome, Lisbon and Moscow against “volunteers” sent to Spain. At end of vear Loyalists hold about 40 per cent of Spain; the east and a northern strip country.
o Ld ”
ANUARY, 1937—United States neutrality resolution made applicable to Spanish war. Britain bars all volunteers to Spain, asks other powers to follow suit.. By end of month Germany, Italy and Russia agree to join France in following Britain's example. FEBRUARY—Rebels capture Malaga on Mediterranean. Ban of volunteers becomes effective. International committee orders naval cordon, effective in March, around Spain. Portugal refuses to join scheme and Russia withdraws from it. MARCH=Loyalists defeat Rebels, including Italian troops, in Guadalajara. MAY-—Anarchist revolt in Catalonia. Madrid again asks League of Nations for protection. German battleship bombed; German fleet bombards Almeria in reprisal. Germany and Italy quit naval patrol. JUNE—Great Britain offers safety zone patrol system, agreed to by Germany and Italy. Mola dies in
| airplane crash, but his troops cap-
ture Bilbao and move on toward Santander. Italy and Germany quit new patrol system. JULY-—Ttaly and Germany reject new scheme for patrol, Franco-Brit-ish. Government troops make gains around Madrid. France takes over from neutral “observers” policing of French-Spanish land frontier. Powers again agree on war isolation efforts. “Biggest” battle waged at Madrid.
SHORT SHORT STORY
in the Basque |
| |
| said, was Temple's sentence on Life:
oa | Katherine
Our Town
By Anton Scherrer
Book by Ralph Adams Cram Recalls Author-Architect's Visit to City, When an Admiring Optimist,
ODAY’S mail brought me news of a new book, “The End of Democracy,” by Ralph Adams Cram. I'm sorry Mr. Cram feels that way about it, because really when you get to know him, he’s quite an optimist, I happen to know that, because once upon a time—I guess it's all of 15 years ago-—a group of us had lunch with Mr. Cram at the University Club, The menu card embraced everything under the sun that day, but for some reason Mr. Cram chose sauteed kidneys. I mentioned the fact to show that Mr. Cram, at one time, had. a good deal of optimism in kis make-up. Well, after the sauteed kidneys we all walked up to inspect the Central Library, which wag a brand new building at the time. And it was on that memorable occasion that Mr. Cram delivered the opinion that the Indianapolis Library was the greatest modern example of classic architecture he had ever seen, He didn’t seem to have any mental reservations about it whatever, which was all the more surprising, bee cause up to that time, Mr. Cram had led us to bee
lieve that he didn't have any use for anything outside of Gothic architecture.
Maybe Chef to Blame
I don't know what got into Mr. Cram that day, but I've always suspected that the chef of the Unie versity Club kitchen had something to do with it,
All of which doesn’t mean that our library isn't a mighty fine piece of work. It is, of course. The surprising part was to hear Mr. Cram admit it. Curiously enough, the same mail that brought me news of Mr. Cram'’s book also included an article labeled “Horsepower and Pegasus” by A. M. Sule livan, in the course of which he says that “many of our best poets, no longer able or willing to bea endowed by court favor or patrons, earn their own keep in the field of business.”
To prove his point, Mr. Sullivan cites such exe amples as Wallace Stevens, an insurance executive at Hartford; T. S. Eliot, for years identified with a London bank, and Archibald MacLeish, associate edi tor of Fortune. He might have added dozens of others, including Mr. Cram, who makes his living practicing architecture, and very good architecture, if I may say so.
Building With Words
Somehow, all this got me to thinking (you heard me), and it occurred to me that Havelock Ellis, once upon a time, did the very same thing. To support his claim, he cited Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir William Temple, the one a man of action, the other a man of affairs, as having written the two greatest sentences in the English language. Mr. Ellis, I remember, pronounced Raleigh's invocation to Death as the most magnificent. The most beautiful, he “When all is done, human life is, at the greatest and the best but like a froward child, that must be played with and humored a little, to keep it quiet till it falls asleep, and then the care is over.”
Maybe so, but I doubt whether the ability to write a beautiful sentence is a sign of great writing, Indeed. I doubt whether a single sentence is of any more significance than a beautiful brick or a richly veined slab of marble. Neither achieves its final beauty until it becomes an integral part of a wall, In support of which I cite Havelock Ellis’ own writ= ing. It's a style fraught with exquisitely turned sentences, but, somehow, I never think of their in« dividual beauty. It's the piling up of the beautiful sentences into a sequence and structure of their own that bowls me over.
A Woman's View By Mrs. Walter Ferguson
Mr. Scherrer
Traffic Peril and Leisure Seen as Unwelcome 'Unemployment Cure.’
CYNICAL young man was discoursing upon the five-day week recently adopted by his company, “It will probably solve the unemployment problem sooner than we expect,” he drawled. “Twice ac many workers can be Killed off on the highways in two days as in one, fo continuous replacement will Ye necessary. The fellow who thought up the idea probably counted on our instinct for traffic suicide to help the movement along.”
Newspapers verify the statement. Longer weeks ends seem to mean added midweek activity for undertakers.
The problem has grown so serious it is high time for us to do for our children what every self-respect= ing animal and bird does for its young—educate them to meet the hazards of their surroundings. With all the expensive college courses, boys and girls have not yet learned to avoid being knocked about by motor cars, or to refrain from knocking other people about. They understand disease germs and antiseptics, and are frightened out of their wits by “pink toothbrush,” but most of them don’t know how to cross a street and mighty few are smart enough to be turned loose on the roads.
During the last 20 vears the horse has accustomed himself to side-stepping the highway menace; dogs, although many of them bark when cars whiz by, are fairly adept at keeping out of their paths. Even the chickens are developing a protective instinct. Few hens these days deliberately cross the asphalt when they hear a car approaching, We're sorry we cannot pay humans a similar compliment. Our youngsters are familiar with steering wheels and gear shifts, but so far there's little evie dence that they are improving either in their mane agement of machines or their ability to avoid being harmed by them.
Certainly future education will have to include courses on “How to Behave on Highways and Aire ways,” or else we shall meet the fate of the Great Auk that grew so strong it lost its power to fly and was exterminated about 1844 by boat crews exploring the Arctic.
New Books Today
Public Library Presents—
N this era of specialists, it is highly improbable that one man would or could interest himself in the theater, pugilism, movies and polities; but to William A. Brady it was all a part of the busie ness of getting along in the world,
* He made a champion of “Gentleman Jim Core bett” primarily for theatrical reasons—it assured good boxoffice returns for the play in which he was Corbett. The theater was his real love, and in the story of his first 40 yea» —SHOWMAN (Dut= ‘meet a brilliant galaxy of theatrical stars; , Grace George, Helen Hayes and
Yat
time--luck, bull