Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 22 July 1937 — Page 13

" Vagabond

From Indiana — Ernie Pyle

Vignettes From the Yukon River: Yahn Peer-sohn Needs Some Specs; Ernie Gets Peek at Caribou at Last.

TEAMBOATIN’ DOWN THE YUKON, July 22.—Little glimpses of things in the Far North that don’t mean anything especially: Roaming in the thick mushy woods back

of the woodcutter’s cabin, we ran onto a campfire. All around it were pots and pans, and clothes hung on trees, and boots and tin cans and chewing tobacco, lying on logs. On a log, drinking a cup of coffee, sat a large, oldish man. His face was huge, and his stomach big. His hair curled uhder on the back of his neck. His overalls and coat were dirty, and so was the underwear which stuck out his shirt neck. He wore rubber boots folded down below his knees. His eyes were redrimmed for an inch around. Hiss name it wass Yahn Peer-sohn. He wanted to know if we would do something for him. When we got back to Juneau, would we ask the eye-doctor to send him one of them charts that you go down the list and the last line you can read you mark it and send it back and he sends you glasses to fit your eyes. They hadn't ought to cost over $5. That other feller that was through here he charged $45 and the glasses wasn't no good after you got them. Maybe he could have the new glasses before winter set in. He'd got so he could hardly see. At last I have seen caribou. A Mountie yelied, and I dashed out my cabin door, and there were two of them just a few feet away, swimming rather unconcernedly although the boat had almost run them down And this afternoon we saw six lined up on shore, but they were so far away we had to look at them through glasses. The pilot always gives the whistle a little toot when he sees something like that. There have been times when this river has been solid with thousands of swimming caribou, and the boat would have to stop till they passed.

Farewell to Sister

Sister Mary of Holy Cross joined us at Dawson. She is one of the pleasantest of women, and she sits on deck in her long black habiliments, with whitelined hood, and delights in the scenery.

She has been nine years in the hospital at Dawson. She's going out now to Victoria, the headquarters of the order. She doesn’t know what awaits her. The morning she left the hospital she went around to say goodby. Some of the patients started to cry. But one old fellow saved the situation by saying, “I'm glad to get rid of you Sister, get on out of here.”

Fuel Boss

The man who has charge of gathering wood for the Yukon River line is aboard our boat. He has been telling me about it. The river steamers burn close to 10,000 cords & year. They have contracts with abcut 30 men along 2000 miles of river to supply this wood. Each contractor hires three or four men to help him. They use sticks four feet long. The cuiter gets around $8 a cord for it. A cutter with a good contract will cut 500 or 600 cords a year. At every stop we take on from 10 to 25 cords. Sometimes it takes a couple of Lours to get this aboard. Going downstream, we burn about a cord an hour. Going upstream, the firemen are poking in wood almost constantly. The woodcutters lead pretty lonely lives. They do their work mostly in winter. Our boat™is the first one they've seen in more than seven months, and yet they sit on shore and don't even get up when we swing in for wood.

Mrs. Roosevelt's Day

By Eleanor Roosevelt

Ex-convict, Unable to Find Work,

Presents Problem to First Lady.

YDE PARK, N. Y., Wednesday—it is a gorgeous day today and we are driving down to Lake Mahopac to have luncheon with some friends. Yesterday a most interesting letter came in the mail. It brought up a situation which has been before many of us for a long time. As a rule we all think of it as ‘mass problem and it is only when an individual comes before us, as in this case, that the problem becomes a personal situation. Here are some excerpts from this letter to me: “But why do convicts, particularly those who mean to reform, return to a life of crime? Perhaps my situation, typical of many, may briefly show this. I was released from prison nine months ago with $12 in casnh—$9 dollars I had saved through prison work, $2 personal cash and $1 from the State. Well, I did have a place to go to—a job as caretaker of a small country house at $2 per week. After being there 16 weeks without receiving salary and being half the time without food because the owner failed to bring any, I came to Paterson, N. J. to the home of my brother. “He couldn't afford to support me, but willingly did, believing that I really wanted to de the right thing. I've made every effort to get a job and go straight. I've sought the help of anyone who might be able to, including city officials. All IT want is a chance to earn an honest living. I've been told I would not be accepted for CCC camps «nd I can understand why. Is there anything strange in the fact that IT don’t go to the proper authorities in order to inquire, because I have tried desperately hard to forget my past life and don't want to sit down and go into full details? The same thing applies to relief, What chance have I got? I don't want to go wrong. I love outdoors, animals, etc. I'm unusually strong and 34 years of age.” It is needless to say this is not something about which to be sentimental. These men who come out of prison have offended against society. They cannot expect that society will immediately forget their offense. On the other hand, for its own protection, society would do well to make it at least possible for such men and women who really wish to go straight, to go straight. We must face the fact that once a person has found it possible to get a living by crooked means, he has a knowledge which makes it easier to return to those ways than if he had never known then... Therefore it is harder to keep in the straight narrow path of virtue. I wish every community from which indiviauals go to prison had an organization which would be notified when they are returned to society. This organization’s responsibility should then be to find ‘hese individuals a job, suited to their capacities and training, which would bring them a decent living. At the same time, some one person beside \the parole officer, who has a few hundred .people ‘to look: after, should have the responsibility of helping these men and women to adjust themselves back to their environment.

Walter O'Keefe —

Joran is breaking its neck in preparation for the 1940 Olympics. It’s easy to understand. Look at all the goodwill and popularity Germany gained by the way the Nazis handled the games in Berlin last summer. The Japanese anticipate such tremendous crowds that right now they're taking over parts of China for the overflow. The athletic carnival promises one novei event. The Japanese are going to see how far they can

i “

a A AR E : 3 a L

Mr. Pyle

The Indianapolis

Imes

Second Section

to best available records.

brought under absoiute control by determined intelligent co-operation between health authorities and government. For instance, Norway and Denmark, with a combined population approximately equal to New York State,

have less than 1600 cases a year, and all cases are reported there. In one month last year,

21,894 cases were under treatment in upstate New York alone, excluding New York City. In Sweden, with about the same population, only 431 cases occurred during the whole of 1935. In Great Britain and Wales, the rate of admissions to clinics has been cut in half since 1920, now being about .52 per thousand population. ” n ” CW as public ‘health authorities insist must be done utimately, reporting of cases becomes mandatory, few cities will be able to handle all cases. To handle syphilis as an epidemic disease, which it is, the health departments should have staffs of trained experts to trace and record every source of infection and put it under control. Routine Wassermann tests should be universally given and supervised. Free clinics should be numerous and accessible. All this would cost money, of course. But the cost would be a mere bagdtelle compared with the general social cost of letting such a frightful scourge continue to take its toll, the cost of divorces, broken homes, parentless children, the insane, the degenerate criminals and so on. un ” os N some cities the problem has been partly solved by establishing treatment clinics under endowments furnished by philanthropic citizens, such as Public Health Institute of Chicago. The advantage of such establishments is that patients can receive expert service at very low cost, enjoy the same privacy as in a physician's office, and be protected against the seductions of quacks, all without feeling they are a burden on public charity. The Chicago institute has treated a quarter of a million patients in its 16 years’ existence, only 5 per cent of whom were able to pay standard fees charged

IVHE apparent decline in the ratio of farm tenancy during the depression is wholly illusory, according to. a pamphlet entitled “Farmers Without Land” by Rupert B. Vance, just published by the Public Affairs Committee. Despite a slight drop—from 42.4 to 42.1—in the percentage of farm tenancy for the country as a whole, the ratio of tenancy actually increased between 1930 and 1935 in every stote of the North and West with the exception of New Mexico, the pamphlet points out. Only in the South was there a decline in the ratio of tenancy, and even here there was an actual increase in the number of tenants. The decrease in ratio is found to be due entirely to a sharp rise in ownership among the “poor whites” who opened up small farms in rough upland ‘areas of poor soil.

Side Glances

THURSDAY, JULY 22, 1937

Syphilis—The Secret Scourge

Double that figure and you will have the estimated number of cases actually existing in this country, for, remember, not more than half the cases are reported. With that astounding total of 1,360,000 you can see ample basis for the assumption by Dr. Thomas Parran Jr.. U. S. Surgeon General, that one out of every 10 persons has been or is a victim of the disease, And the trend in the United States is upward! To the utter shame of this country the reverse is true in northern European nations where the disease is being

by private physicians, an indication of the great need for ample facilities for this type of patients in every city. Regardless, however, of Whether the cost shall be borne by public budgets, private endowments or the victims themselves, the job of wiping out syphilis in the United States has got to be done. ” n 5

“YN New York State,” says Dr. Parran, ‘‘the Department of Health bears upon its letterhead the slogan ‘Public Health Is Purchasable’ Nowhere is this more applicable than to syphilis. Freedom from syphilis is purchasable. And sooner or later the people’s money in this democracy of ours is spent for what the people want. In getting folks to understand the need for action, the fathers of the tuberculosis movement have done a splendid job since 1904. There seems good reason to believe we can do at least as well against syphilis.” The United States has put up a tidy sum of money for the fight and may add more. Eight million dollars have been set aside under the Social Security Act for venereal disease control. Congress is being asked to increase this to $25,000,000. ” o 2 MERICA must turn to the Old World to learn what can be done, particularly to the Scandinavian countries and Great Britain. In essence, the Scandihavian plan calls for (1) reporting of all cases without exception, (2) compulsory treatment of all cases, (3) free treatment available to all, and (4) hospitalization of patients when necessary to protect others from infection. Sweden has reduced syphilis virtually to the vanishing point. Its laws have real teeth. Patients who do not follow prescribed treatment may be compelled by law to do so. Those who knowingly transmit the disease to others are subject to severe punishment, Parties engaged to marry must certify their freedom from the disease in a contagious stage before they can obtain their marriage license. Public health authorities must publish information about clinical service available,

2 s » O it is that visitors are astonished to see on streets and highways of Sweden posters on billboards and walls giving loca-

tions, hours and other information about free clinics. Venereal

Farm Tenancy Problem Is Growing, Public Affairs Report States

ORE than a fourth of the new farms were located in the Appalachian counties of West Virginia, Kentucky and Tennessee where many unemployed miners returned to farms that had previously been given up as unproductive. Although a slight decline occurred in the rumber of Negro tenants, this was more than counterbalanced, in the South alone, by the increase in the number of white tenants. At present, no less than twothirds of the South’s two million tenant farmers and sharecroppers are whites, the descendants of the small owners and frontiersmen of pre-Civil War days. Incomes of farm tenants, particularly in the South aré~shown to be incredibly low. The tenant families of the Southern plantations have an average net income of $309, or $73 per person for a year’s work. Share-

- By Clark

throw a Russian. If some of our American stars cop gold medals in Tokyo as they did in Berlin last summer we'll soon have all the gold the world owes us. : With all the shooting going on over there, it's going to be tough on the entrants. are they

going to know which 1s the starters gun

"Mrs, Doyle wants you

fo let some othe

diseases are dealt with as openly as tuberculosis or whooping cough. Great Britain uses no compulsion, but emphasizes the abundance of Government-supervised facilities for diagnosis and treatment which are free to all. Cases have been reduced 50 per cent in 16 years of scientific control in the British Isles. Germany and Belgium have had remarkable success also with regulation on a nation-wide scale, The largest-scale experiment in the United States in venereal disease control has been that of the Army, with a degree of success surpassing even the Scandinavian record. Startling disclosures of the prevalence of infection came with the great draft during early stages of preparation for America’s entry into the World War. Army medical authorities tackled the job. By the end of the war the prevalence of disease was reduced amazingly and within a few years afterward the U. S. Army was practically free of it, and still is.

” ” 8 ODEL legislation to guide states ‘enacting laws to aid in curbing the disease has been worked out by Dr. Russell V. Lee, Stanford University resident physician. The laws would require physicians to make immediate reports of cases of venereal disease coming under their observation, the records to be kept by number instead of names of the persons, thus preserving anonymity that will encourage individuals to seek medical advice. Physicians are made responsible for following up their cases and seeing that patients continue

croppers receive $312 per family, or $71 per person, while wage hands obtain an average annual income of only $180 a family.

8 ” ” HE effect of such incomes on living standards is described vividly: “Tenant housing is the poorest in the nation, often consisting of two or three-room unpainted shacks with but one thickness of boards. Their custothary clothing of patched overalls or faded gingham dresses show that tenants, black and white, get very little of the finished products of the cotton they

grow. Their basic diet—fat, cornbread, molasses and sweet potatoes | —has been publicized . . . in a study | of the basic causes of pellagra. . . .| Women struggle with wash tubs, | flat irons heated before open fire- | places, ‘tote’ wood and water, work | longer in the fields, and bear more | children than any other women’ in America.” = ” » HE cost of tenancy in social and economic terms is borne out by citations from a number of studies. Soil erosion has been found to vary directly with the insecurity of the farm operator. Few tenants have exhibited interest in maintaining their farms or restoring soil depletion, since they themselves would receive only incidental bénefits from such improvements. Similarly, tenants have done little toward developing community contacts. Many rural schools are disorganized by wholesale changes in pupils around moving time. Tenants usually lag far behind owners in participating in community affairs, and in reading newspapers and farm journals. Yet where they have attempted to organize in order to improve their conditions, they have been met with violence and violations of their civil rights. ” ® ” N accordance with the policy of the Public Affairs Committee, the pamphlet suggests no program for ameliorating these conditions. It does, however, summarize the recommendations of the President's Farm Tenancy Committee for legislation to improve the leasing contract and landlord-tenant relationships; to modify the taxation of farm lands with ‘a view to favoring

provisions for safeguarding the civil liberties of tenants on the land. It raises the question whether the small holding does not run counter

Legislation Proposed as Means to Combat Disease

(Last of a Series)

TOTAL of 680,000 persons constantly are under medical care for syphilis in the United States, according

Dr. Russell V. Lee prepared a model law to combat syphilis’ spread.

treatments as long as necessary. It is required that infected persons or physicians treating them shall report the sources of infection. The board is authorized to subject persons suspected of infection to immediate examination and persons having the diseases in an infectious stage are forbid-

den to expose others to infection,

either by intimate contact or through the dispensing of services.

‘Robin Hoods’

BSecond-Olass Matter ool Thainnapolis, d.

at Postoffice,

in cases of refusal to comply with orders of the bureau or re=quirements of the act the bureau is authorized to compel compliance by mandamus action.

” # "

ENALTIES under proposed law as set up in California

follow: “Any persons violating any rules or regulations of the board, or refusing to give information, or to make a report, or to submit to treatment, or examination, or ex=posing to or infecting another with venereal disease, or marrying or having sexual intercourse while knowingly having the disease in an infectious stage, is guilty of a misdemeanor and punishable by a fine of $500 or imprisonment not exceeding six months or both.” Another section of the measure seeks to preserve the anonymity of sufferers from venereal diseases by prohibiting publication, with=out the person's conscnt, of the name of such person in any newspaper or magazine. Violation of this provision is punishable by the same penalties.

BUREAU is authorized and required to co-operate with all other state and local health agencies for prevention and control of venereal diseases. This law is said to be the most progressive ever written in America. It follows generally the lines of the Lex Veneris of Sweden which has been so effective.

in Taxation

Assailed by Rep. Lewis

Times Special

what do we owe social order?

ASHINGTON, July 22.—In his | government which supplies it and

indictment of the Supreme Court for its butchery of Federal income-tax laws, which he blamed for the tax avoidances practiced by the rich, Rep. David J. Lewis of Maryland also paid his respects to the demagogs of Congress who pander to the great voting middle class. Following are excerpts from his speech: “I am not one of those who is carried away by the illusion that we can rely on skyscraping rates on the skyscraping incomes or fortunes as a sufficient source of revenue. “I have no patience with these Robin Hoods in taxation. Look, if you will, at the skyline of New York. See its skyscrapers jut out like dragons’ teeth, 100 stories, 75 stories, 50 stories. That is the visual image you retain of New York; but New York is not a 100-story town, it is not a 50-story town, it is not a 20, not a 10-story town, and if its budget makers had to rely on even skyscraper rates on its skyscrapers for revenue, the schools would close, its firemen would drop their hose and the police resign. ” ” s " SKYSCRAPER budget will not suffice. We cannot rely on it alone. And why should we? The very rich are not the only debtors to society, e®en though they are its chief debtors, judged by their often unearned or disproportionate gains from social aid and protection. The middle classes are also debtors and grossly delinquent debtors, 00. : “I know how the $5000, the $10,000 man feels about it. I know he says to himself, unless he is a very thoughtful man, ‘I earned this $5000, this $10,000 myself, earned it all by

my foresight and persistency. It is mine—all mine.’ The trouble with him is that he has forgotten his silent partner, his truly

ner, civilization, to whose prodigious

‘farm ownership, and to make better | f

mighty part-

sustains civilization as the sun supplies heat and light to its planets.

” ” ” " HAT is the explanation of lower brackets, especially when we are facing a now insolvent Treasury? There is such a thing as unconscious class discrimination in this world, and I fear that the human material which composes our Congress has not

shown itself fully proof against its temptations. “I, myself, belong to the middle class, and wish only to belong to it. If I understand the class, I wish to say that it will not thank its representatives in the Government for such favors in taxation if they are to be secured by putting the Government in peril for its life. Instead, they would repel us with disgust as unfaithful public servants. They know that this is a world of duties as well as of rights, and that their first duty is to maintain the great Government in which we are partners. They know that mere skyscraper taxation will not suffice to maintain it in peace or in war, “A demagog may cry ‘Rights! Rights!” but they know that it is duties valiantly accepted which insure them the profits of government with the civilization it alone can protect and sustain.”

SHORT SHORT SIORY

To |

PAGE 13

Our Town

By Anton Scherrer

‘Marion’ and 'Good Intent’ Called for Water, and Cisterns Dug for Them Became Sources of Handy Chasers.

OR reasons which escape me, I said somes thing yesterday about the start of. the Fire Department in Indianapolis. There was a casual reference, 1 remember, to the bluepainted fire buckets and the end-brake en

gines, apd the ringing of church and tavern bells to indicate the alarm, but there wasn’t anything, as I recall, to tell you how or where we got the water with which to fight the fires, Well, that's what I'm coming to today. The water supply was for a considerable time dependent on private wells, although as early as 1840, or thereabouts, one or two public wells were dug for the “Marion” and the “Good Intent,” the two end-brake engines we had at the time, Back in those days, Indianapolis had some pretty good pri=vate welis, Two were especially good. One was where the Ayres people now do business, and the other at the corner of Massachusetts Ave, and Delae ware St., where the Ardmore Block now stands. Curiously enough, both sites were occupied by grocery stores, and when you dig into it the way I have, you'll know why the groceries were there, A grocery, back in those days, was allowed to sell hard liquor by the pint, or better, but not by the drink, and in order to make it as easy as possible for the customer, the grocery keepers had wells dug in front of their places. It worked all right, because by the time the customer had his bottle uncorked, he found

his “chaser” ready for him, even if it was out on the street,

Streetcar People’s Example?

And so it came to pass that every time a new grow cery started up in Indianapolis, the Fire Department was just that much better off, The day came, howe ever, when the groceries couldn't keep up with the Fire Department, and that's when somebody around here got it into his head to build cisterns. The great period of cistern building came in 1852 when a cistern tax was levied, with the result that 16 were buiit all at once. The way Indianapolis was torn up at the time, it looked like the streetcar people were up to something. By the time I was a kid, which was sometime in the Eighties if you haven't already guessed it, Indi= anapolis had 150 cisterns, some of them big enough to hold 2000 gallons. By that time, too, Indianapolis had a water system of “direct pressure” which pers mitted a hose to be used directly from the hydrants. It wasn't any fun to watch, though.

Glamour Rung Out

Since then, it strikes me, the Fire Department has lost a good deal of its glamour. There is no ringing of bells any more, for instance. When I was a kid there was a man stationed in the Court House steeple, and whenever he saw a fire, he got busy and the bells started ringing. Before that, there was a bell ringer in the tower of the Glenn Block (the site of W. T. Grant's store). He was so good, they tell me, that he could spot the ward the fire was in. Anyway, he designated the locality of a fire by striking the num ber of the ward. I'd like to see somebody with enough imagination to do that now. The other day, too, somebody told me there's a man on top of the Merchants’ Bank Building who spends all his time looking for fires, but I don't bee lieve it. Seems to me a man lucky enough to have such a job would make more noise about it.

A Woman's View By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

What Point Is in War When Principle Sought Is Lost in Fight, Writer Asks.

(Srems the dilemma of a pacifist, Dorothy Thompson puts a question which, it is now bee lieved, most of us will ultimately have to face. Shall we stand by and watch the slaughter of the innocents in Europe or must we take a defensive attitude and, to quote Miss Thompson, declare: “We want no war, but we shall not be blackmailed nor condone violence in others. We are not disinterested in the fate of free government in the world?” Briefly, there is a growing sentiment that men must war for those things in which they believe, and by which they live. And how fine and brave the words sound! They would move us more, however, {f experience liad not taught us that the things we take up arms to win are the things we are most apt to lose. ‘ All those people who write of war as if it were a way of preserving democracy are using the thought processes of 1776, for the history of 1914 proves their theories unsound. Miss Thompson knows—far better than most, since she had some sad experiences in modern Germany—that all our efforts to wage war in defense of freedom in Europe failed ignominiously in 1817. Does she ask us to repeat the mistake?

Mr. Scherrer

New Books Today

Public Library Presents—

Fou the first line of this new book by Francis Yeats-Brown, LANCER AT LARGE (Viking Press) you know that you are to be introduced to India by a new method, through all your senses as well as through intellectual comprehension. You are not disappointed. Confessedly a man who is more at ease with Hinda ascetics than in a London Club, the author describes and interprets mysteries and signs, ancient customs, extraordinary people, a pageant of religious history, The Yogis recognize in him a kindred spirit. He goes amongst them in places where other Englishmen cannot enter. His readers are the benefactors of the acceptance accorded him and rejoice in the impressions he sets down and the moods he translates as he pauses by the wayside or witnesses a traditional rite. Nor does he neglect the places that from time immemorial have stood for India. Delhi, Calcutta, the Ganges, Bom bay and the Taj Mahal, each receives interpretation that excites admiration and reveals Yeats-Brown to be both lover and devotee of India. uw 5 ” INNEAPOLIS is like a man in his late 30s who made a tremendous success at 25 . . . he is pugnacious and his friends wonder where he is going next.” AMERICAN CITY (Farrar), by Charles Rumford Walker, is a brief labor history of this economie

Jl | capital of the Northwest, with its background of

early Minnesota empire building. Because conflicts have been sharper there than elsewhere, the author ‘has chosen Minneapolis as a “laboratory for the dye namics of social and economic struggle” in this

of the book is devoted to an account tw drivers’ of 1934, and its effects, lives of the citizens, and on ) gt the nation. The