Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 24 July 1937 — Page 9

~ Vagabond

From Indiana — Ernie Pyle

Widow Has Taught in Alaska 25 Years and Adopted Seven Native Girls While Waiting for Retirement.

IRCLE, Alaska, July 24.—There is a book or a play or something called “The Captain Hates the Sea.” I've never read it, but I’ve always loved that title. And when I left the house of Mrs. Corinne Call the words kept running over and over in my head. Mrs. Call is one of Alaska’s wonderful women. She is a teacher for the Indian Bureau. She and her husband came to Alaska in 1911. A year later her husband dropped dead. This was over in Kulukak, on the bleak west shore. I don’t know why Mrs. Call stayed on after her husband's death. But she did. She has taught in a dozen posts, all of them hard to find on the map, all of them little, and drear, and lonely. Her stay has now run into 25 vears. And she has only five more to go till retirement. All her life plans are based on that point five years from now. “Are you going Alaska when you retire?” I asked her.

to stay

“Am I going to stay in Alaska?” she said, startled- |

like. “I'll say I'm not! I'm going to southern

California, where it's warm and there are lots of |

people.”

I told her I was surprised, for every other person |

I'd talked to who had been here a long time raved

about Alaska and said he never intended to go back. |

“Well. it’s more that way with the men,” she said. “They live in the woods, and don’t have any responsibilities. and it’s easy for them. WRen they get some money they go to town and spend it for lhquor, and it doesn't make any difference because nobody is depending on them.”

Girls Keep Her Going

The thing that has really kept Mrs. Cal! going all these vears is her girls. She has seven. Yes, seven adopted girls—all Eskimos. She has two left now—Sally Ann and Shirley. They will be her last. She has it figured out so that Shirley will be with her until she retires. One of her girls, Melba, often is called the “Helen Keller of Alaska.” She was two years old when Mrs. Call took her—and she was blind. She was 6 before she learned to walk. Today she typewrites, and plays beautifully on the piano and violin, and does magnificent needlework. She has been through fine schools in the States, and now she teaches in the school for biind at Eklutna. This summer she is going “outside” for graduate work. All have been educated in the States, except the two little ones, and they will be,

‘Captain Hates the Sea’ “How have you done it?” I asked Mrs. Call. She laughed and said, “Well, by not wearing very fine clothes, and saving here and there. I don’t have anybody depending on me, and I always said I might as well spend it as to die with it and have them dancing over my grave after R “But the girls have made things endurable for vou in Alaska,” I said. “1 couldn't have stayed without them. have stood it.”

So she has been happy in a way, with her Eskimo |

girls. They've been something for her to hang her life on. through all the years of jsolation, and the cold winters and the summer mosquitoes and lonely nights. Twenty-five years of sacrifice, teaching. helping, building for others _ and waiting. Only five years to go. Looking ahead. Planning. Hoping. ing the days. hates the sea.

Mrs. Roosevelt's Day

‘By Eleanor Roosevelt

Congress' Action on Bill to Repeal

Married Persons Clause Is Lauded.

YDE PARK, N.Y, Friday—I am particularly happy today that the Senate has followed in the steps of the House and sent the bill repealing the so-called married persons clause of the Economy Act to the President for his signature. This bill has worked a great deal of hardship among Government employees. It was probably necessary as an emergency economy measure, but it is very satisfactory to feel Congress considers the emergency to be at an end.

The other day I received an appeal from an organization which has as its purpose the removal of any married woman, whose husband earns enough to support her, from all employment. Who is to say when a man earns enough to support his family? Who is to know, except the individuals themselves, what they need for daily living or what their responsibilities are—vesponsibilities which are oiten hidden from the public eye? There are few families indeed who do not have some members outside of their own immediate family who need assistance. Added to this, who is to say whether a woman needs to work outside her home for the good of her own soul? Many women can find all the work they need, all the joy they need and all the interest they need in life, in their homes and in the volunteer community activities of their environment. Because of this I have received many critical letters from women complaining that other women who did not need paid jobs were taking them. That they were working for luxuries and not for necessities; that men who had families to support were being kept out of jobs by these selfish and luxury-loving creatures. I have investigated a good many cases and find that, on the whole most women work because of some real need. There are a few, however, who werk beause something in them craves the particular kind of work which they are doing, or an inner urge drives them to work at a job. They are not entirely satis fied with work in the home. This does not mean they are not good mothers and housekeepers, but they need some other stimulus in life. Frequently they provide work for other people. If they suddenly ceased their activities many other people might lose their jobs. Asa rule, these women are the creative type. It seems to me that the tradition of respect for work is so ingrained in this country that it is not surprising fathers have handed it down to their daughters as well as to their sons. In the coming years, I wonder if we are not going to have more respect for women who work and give work to others, than for women who sit at home with many idle hours on their hands, or fill their time with occupations which may indirectly provide work for others but which give them none of the satisfaction of real personal achiqyement.

in |

I couldn't |

Count- | Counting the hours. The Captain |

The Indianapolis Times

*

Second Section

The

(Fourth of a Series) By RODNEY DUTCHER

NEA Staff Writer VW ASHINGTON, July 24. —Many forms of power are wielded in any modern state. Chief among these are political and economic power. In past years, economic power in the United States has been largely wielded by boards of corporation directors who handled billions of dollars—usually other people’s money—and partially controlled millions of other people's lives. The same [ men also carried heavy influence in the political affairs of the country.

President Roosevelt has sought

to shift some of this economic power where it will be under the control of Congress and the Executive—on the theory that he and Congress are directly responsible to the people, and that such a shift of power from the privately controlled economic field to the publicly controlled political field is necessary if democracy is to be preserved. At the same time he has definitely curtailed the power of the industrialists in the political field. This contest for power, involving radical changes in the rules of the game, is an essential phase of the feud between the President and those he calls “economic royalists.,” But there is much more to it than that.

» ” ”

HE New Deal has moved gradually toward extended use of the taxing power. First, to help pay costs of its relief-recov-ery-reform program. Second— and this is partly an accomplished fact, partly a threat for the future—it gradually has become convinced that the taxing power is the one big, effective tool for reformation of the social-eco-nomic system along the general theory of redistributing income and preventing dangerous concentrations of wealth. Few rich men enjoy this sort of thing. Many of them say and many unquestionably believe that it will send the country straight to ruin, The anti-Roosevelt feeling extends down through ranks of me-dium-sized and smaller business- | men, to lawyers and other professional groups and probably to most well-to-do urban citizens and many among the conservative middle class. As F. D. R. projects his social-economic programs further, and his political alliance with labor becomes more obvious, an increasing section of that middle class becomes alarmed and hostile. n » ”

ANY who thank Roosevelt for a job well done now want him to call it a day. They fear his “glorification” of working people, with its triple aim of improving living standards, bolstering the economic structure and attracting political support. Millionaires, especially, object to paying large tax sums which they see going into the pockets of the unemployed, farmers, Federal office-

SATURDAY, JULY 24, 1937

holders and other - beneficiaries who unquestionably represent a great political asset for the Administration. The hire of expensive lawyers to help evade onerous taxes also is a heavy drain. ‘The “economic royalists” and thousands not so “royal” distinctly do not see these taxes as what Mr. Roosevelt calls “the price we pay for civilization.” Many liberal businessmen are worried by constant doubt as to what will happen next in Washington, and as to how far Mr. Roosevelt expects to go. They fear what might happen in another economic crisis with a national debt of $36,000,000,000 and an unbalanced budget.

T looks now as if the GovernI ment were about to stop borrowing and raise money for its program through taxes—higher taxes if necessary, but preferably present taxes on a higher national income. But Big Business thinks Mr, Roosevelt seeks to dose it with castor oil when it feels perfectly swell, It says it would expand plant and venture into new enterprises if it could feel more secure. It says: Increased costs, caused by higher wages and heavy taxes, will surely slow down business activity. Big profits and prosperity go hand in hand with an expansion of the capital goods market at rising prices. Don’t rock the boat. Cut Federal expenses and let's have less Federal regulation, not more. “Natural forces” will accelerate recovery. Strikes are bad and John Lewis, ally of Mr. Roosevelt, is a menace. The gambling factor, the chance for big profits in new enterprises is what has kept the capitalistic

system working. Does Mr. Roosevelt seek to repair a system whose motive is profit with a remedy which is bound to kill that motive power? » ” ” R. ROOSEVELT refers back to the pre-election Madison Square Garden speech which promised a curb on monopoly, higher wages, shorter hours, consumer protection, abolition of child labor, cheaper electricity and crop control. He also recalls his Chicago declaration of faith in free private enterprise as America’s backbone. He laughs at post-elec-tion attempts to make him “forget Madison Square” in an “era of good feeling” which he blew sky-high with his Supreme Court plan, causing the “economic royalists” to resume their solid front against him.

Mr. Roosevelt distinguishes vaguely between “reasonable” and “excessive” profits. This runs square up against the fact that we're still the great laissez faire country of the world—the only country where anyone seriously suggests “letting nature take its course” in the industrial-economic field. The New Deal holds that monopoly here has killed “the free play of economic forces.”

” ” ”

URTHER New Deal theory: There must be no more fantastic speculative booms, piling up and pyramiding debt. Increase of purchasing power among unemsployed, wage earners and farmers, plus other New Deal policies has produced recovery—so let's have more of the same. In the years 1921-29 labor income increased 8 per cent, production 37 per cent and profit 87 per cent, throwing the system out of whack. Profits must con-

By ROBERT D. POTTER Science Service Writer ASHINGTON, July 24-—Did you know that right now— given money enough for the development of mechanisms—scientists could design a space rocket to take a trip around the moon? And that such a flight could be achieved without invoking any imaginary physical features or laws of nature? Dr. Edwin Fitch Northrup, one of America's best known veteran electrical scientists of Princeton, N. J, is authority for these statements and “proves” them in his new book, “Zero to Eighty.”

of an imaginary scientist, one Akkad Pseudoman, who was born ir 1020 and achieved the Jidles Vernian goal of a trip around the moon and back to the earth. Written as an autobiography, it is completely fiction; but fiction without one single fact of fancy in it. Dr. Northrup merely chooses the fiction form of narrative because he is wise enough to know that the layman likes to read about people rather than about their works.

LL the scientific material skilfully intermeshed with the

“Zero to Eighty” is the life story! fiction tale has been worked out in

Side Glance

La wen

oASR

y Clark

Rocket Trip Around Moon Possible Now, Scientist Claims in Fact-Fiction

considerable detail and “is believed to be entirely consonant with current proved facts and well tested technical knowledge,” as the author puts it. Behind the book is a considerable expenditure of money and much labor in building small laboratory models of rockets initially propelled by magnetic “guns.” Because “Zero to Eighty” does represent much experimental work and much of the technical material is presented for the first time, Dr. Northrup takes the precaution in his foreword to point out that there are many patentable ideas in his fiction brainchild and that he reserves the right to protect these ideas by patents at some future time. ” n » R. NORTHRUP—pardon, Akkad pseudoman—has little faith in the hope of launching space rockets by terrific blasts from liquid-air rocket engines. Scientist Pseudoman uses the magnetic gun method which allows a more gradual acceleration to the terrific speed needed to get beyond the sphere of the earth's gravitational influence. Then, once in space, his space ship uses rocket motors to steer it and

slow its velocity once it has journeyed around the moon and back to the earth. Dr, Northrup has built small elec-tro-magnetic guns in his laboratory

Entered as

at Postoffice, Indianapolis,

ight for Power in Washington

Roosevelt and ‘Economic Royalists’ Clash

John L. Lewis . . . Roosevelt's ally?

tract to make the system work and proper use of the taxing power will keep the system in bal-

ance, as in England. Excess profits must not be invested in new plant capacity to produce for a nonexistent market. Siphon it off the top and pour back in at the bottom. Prices must not get ahead of purchasing power. Emphasis should be laid on the “high annual wage.”

” ” ”

R. ROOSEVELT'S assaults on the “power trust,” his TVA and other projects, PWA power loans, the holding company act and his successful campaign for rate cuts probably have stirred up as much “economic royalist” attack as anything. But businessmen also remem-

ber the securities and stock market acts, the corporation surplus tax, graduated corporation tax, intercorporate dividend tax, in= creased estate taxes and higher surtaxes. Current proposals for legislation on wages and hours, crop control, public housing, farm tenant relief and the series of “regional TVA's” are anathema to such groups as the National Association of Manufacturers. And the “economic royalists” know—or ought to know—that the next New Deal proposals will be for antimonopoly legislation and tax revision, the nature of which is uncertain, but the possibilities of which make them fear the worst.

NEXT-—Labor versus labor and the rise of John L. Lewis,

Sulphur Fumes in Smoke Declared Menace

By L. A. LTHOUGH most smoke contains “sulphuric gases dangerous to human life,” City Combustion Engineer J. W. Clinehens said today that very little can be done about it unless the public is aroused to a point where funds will be budgeted to control it. Sulphur is found in large quantities in low-grade bituminous coal, he said, which frequently is burned in apartment houses. It also is dense around copper and lead plants, he added, where sulphur is inherent in the process of manufacture. While Indianapolis has a smoke abatement ordinance and is seeking to eradicate the waste and evils of smoke, Mr. Clinehens expressed doubt whether anything will be done about sulphuric gases in the air which are even more hazardous. The machinery for controlling it, he said, would be far more expensive,

” ” ” F high concentration, these gases are a potent menace to public health, but even in the small concentrations probably present in most cities, they attack and disintegrate metals and other building materials, and kill vegetation. Leaves wilt, air conditioning systems have been put out of commission, and even the stacks and boilers of offending plants and residences have been destroyed far short of their normal life span. Investigators assert that the prevalence of these gases is increasing, because more and more coal of high sulphur content is being burned in relation to consumption of the less-sulphurous anthracite, How dangerous are the gases? Scientists say that even three parts of sulphur dioxide in 1,000,000 parts of air will give a detectable odor, and that this concentration is “on the threshold of a nuisance.” Eight to 12 parts in a million will cause throat irritations, 20 parts will cause irritation of the eyes and cough-

plants. It has been estimated that as much as 90 per cent of the sulphur in coal is discharged as sulphur dioxide or sulphur trioxide. There is, as yet, no definite standard for limiting gas concentrations in the stacks themselves, but two practical control methods exist. One involves “washing” the stack gases. This method is costly but effective. Washers installed in stacks at Battersea, England, reduced the sulphur dioxide in stack gases from 3.556 per cent to .22 per cent. A less costly method involves removal of the sulphur content from coal at the mine. This method is being tried in St. Louis, where a recently enacted smoke ordinance requires that all coal containing more than 12 per cent ash and 2 per cent sulphur on a dry basis must be treated before being brought into the city. In Ohio County, West Virginia, a circuit court recently granted an injunction sought by the county commissioners restraining -a mining company from continging a nuisance caused by the discharge of sulphur gases from a burning pile of waste. Fumes fromthe fire, it was alleged, destroyed paint, killed vegetables and constituted a menace to public health. Another widely recognized problem of modern times is posed by the carbon monoxide emitted by automobile exhausts. Extensive research is being undertaken in an effort to devise a workable method of changing this deadly gas into carbon dioxide before it is released from the exhaust. Most “exhaust pipe” ordinances today merely prohibit the emission of visible smoke extending more than a few feet behind the vehicle,

Heard in Congress—

Senator Burke (D. Neb.)—The Senator declines to yield? Senator Minton (D. Ind)—I will yield later on. The Senator's questions are quite involved, and it takes

Second-Class Matter

PAGE 9

Ind.

v

Qur Town

By Anton Scherrer

Indianapolis’ Audubon Folio One of Most Valuable, and Chronicler Tells About Its Early History.

XCEPT for Miss Florence Venn, who watches over the William Henry Smith Collection in the State Library, I wouldn't ba able to tell you about the Elephant Folio of Audubon’s “Birds of America” over there.

Miss Venn keeps it locked up in a fireproof vault and goodness knows she ought to, because it's worth a king’s ransom—$10,000, anyway. I bring up the subject at this time because Life in a recent number (July 12) didn't say a word about our copy, despite the fact that it spent the better part of six pages to tell about Mr. Audubon and his work. Well, it just goes to show that Life doesn’t know everything. Either that, or there's room for somebody to take up where Life leaves off.

Be that as it may, the time has come to say that the copy of Audubon’s “Birds of America” in the State Library is unlike any other copy, unless, perchance, it's the one in the Museum of Comparative Zoology in Cambricige, Mass. Both are believed to be the oldest copies of Audubon’s book in existence. And here's the proof: When Audubon was ready to publish his work, he couldn't find anybody in America to tackle it, and so he went abroad in 1827, and engaged William H. Lizars of Edinburgh to do the engraving. Mr, Lizars was & bit slovenly, it appears, because by the time he had 10 plates engraved, Audubon dismissed him and handed the work to Robert Havell Sr. and his son,

Indianapolis Copy Untouched

The Havells started from scratch and retouched Lizar's work, after which they went on executing the rest of the plates. They finished the job in 1838, after completing 435 plates. For some reason, however, they didn’t retouch the Lizar plates of the Indianapolis copy. The only reasonable explanation is, of course, that Audubon had already painted the Lizar prints before the Havells got on the job. I'll leave it to you if that doesn’t make the Indianapolis copy one of the most valuable in tle world—certainly, one of the oldest. All of which leaves me room to tell a pretty story about the Havells and Mr. Audubon. Seems that Mr. Havell wanted his oldest son, Robert, to be a doctor or something—anything but an artist—but Robert didn’t like the idea, and so he ran away in 1825 to shift for himself. J A few years later, Mr. Audubon called on Mr. Havell Sr. and asked him to help him out. Mr. Havell said he was too old to participate, but he volunteered to find a substitute. And so the two went to Mr. Colnaghi, the famous London publisher. Mr. Colnaghi immediately showed them the unsigned proof of a beautiful landscape, exquisitely drawn and engraved by an apprentice in his establishment.

Father and Son Reconciled

The elder Havell, after examining the print care= fully. exclaimed: “That's just the man for me!” “Then,” said the publisher, “send for your own son.” And that’s the way father and son became recohciled. What's more, they became partners, and Audubon’s monumental work was launched. That leaves me to jell you what Elephant Folio means. It's the 39%: by 29%-inch size of Whatman'’s drawing paper, the kind painters and architects use

to this day.

A Woman's View

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

Lack of Domestic Help Traced to Psychology of Superiority Complex.

ISQUIETING stories follow the abandonment of D WPA projects in various localities. Many men and women who have been thus employed are refusing to take up other work. A story from Pittsburgh is an example. Five hundred seamstresses cut off from WPA say they will not accept the private domestic jobs offered to them. “We don’t want to be domestics,” their spokes= woman says. “We would: have to go out and be drudges in someone's home for $5 to $7 a week. Besides there have been schools to train girls for domestic service. Let these girls work as maids. I've qualified for clerical work so why should I take a household job?” The reluctance of women to earn their living as servants must be recognized for what it is—not the fear of drudgery, for do not thousands of factory and office workers drudge harder than any kitchen Cinderella?—but as a fear of social degradation, Decades of false teaching must be at the bottom of this false pride. Homes, schools, the church, the press, all the forces for education stand indicted to= gether for a system which has taught the individual to take no notice of his limitations when he chooses a career, and to think more of the Wage he gets than the service he gives. Today thousands of girls who can't spell, punctuate or construct a simple English sentence are storming .the doors of business offices for secretarial jobs while the work they might do well, the domestic trades, goes begging.

New Books Today

Public Library Presents—

8 King Edward VI lay dying, you will remember, there was a well-conceived plot to secure the throne of England for Lady Jane Gray. At this time a message was sent to the orphaned Tudor princess, Elizabeth, which, acted upon, would probably have meant her death. However, Elizabeth received—and heeded—a warning delivered at the same time. As far as Elizabeth herself is concerned, the rest is history. But what of the unknown messenger who risked his life for her? History does not even name him, but in QUEEN'S FOLLY (Harcourt), by Ellswyth Thane, his story is reconstructed—and it may have been somee thing like this, the author tells us. When Elizabeth became Queen she rewarded this man (called here Anthony Brand) with some land and a ruined priory, out of which he built, a beautiful estate. It’s manor house, Queen's Folly, became a shrine for Elizabeth's picture. This picture was the only thing Brand, with his undeclared and idyllic love

Mr. Scherrer

ing, 50 to 60 parts is the maximum concentration that may be inhaled for an hour without serious disturbances, and 400-500 parts is distinctly dangerous within 30 minutes to one hour. Tests in Chicago last winter, however, showed no concentrations of really dangerous proportions. In the vicinity of railroad stations, concentrations ran as high as three parts to a million—sometimes a trifie higher. Business, industrial and densely populated residential districts showed concentrations ranging from one-tenth to about one part per million. In high-type residential districts, the gases were virtually nonexistent,

for Elizabeth, had ever asked of her. Anthony Brand’s descendants maintained this shrine and its tradition through four centuries; and its story is abe very simple question—one that the sorbing and beautiful, a romantic tale with historical Senator could understand, © background. Senator Minton—If the Senator . q.n should propound it, I doubt if any- MOST amusing new book of “tall stories” is one could understand it. x “DOWN EAST” (Harcourt) by Lewis Pendleton (1) —being, as the title page tells, “the remarkable ad~ ‘Seater Bally A ) wHow ventures on the briny deep and ashore of Capt. Isaac that the letter and spirit (of the Drinkwater and Jedediah Peabody.” The captain, a Constitution) are the same, in view | title perhaps promiscuously bestowed along the coast of the teaching of a very great| in the last century, sailed from Penobscot Bay each teacher concerning the ancient law, | Year with most respectable cargoes, and returned “The letter killeth, but the spirit | after amazing adventures with equally astonishing maketh alive”? I know that the | foreign goods. Senator from Kentucky is & great On the other hand Jedediah was a farmer. How=Bible scholar. i ever he “carried a captain’s license around in his hind Senator Logan - (D. Ky.)-—I am | pants pocket most of his life,” and he also sailed * =» =» very familiar with Saint Paul, and | the seas when life on land began to pall. ESTS have shown that air-|some of these days, if the Senator The stories are told in the form of letters to the conditioning © plants will ' re-| will sume Dal my Sunday school | “Cooseport Weekly” written by the grandscns of the move about 60 per cent of the sul- |class, to instruct him | men- the yrivalry for the most phur dioxide from incg : he Ou ) un ~of accomthe most effective os

and gives detailed methods of their

Walter O'Keefe — || BN “NSE CN | oars

a great deal of my time to get them straightened out. Senator Burke-—This would be a

T= rumor is persistent that Postmaster Jim Far- S, at sdmiitedly Hiageehing ley may resign from the Cabinet. nd with a barre) about 50 inches in The chances are that Genial Jim doesn't like the diameter is built. Tt is really dikind of mail that's been going through the Post- vided into five sections energized office lately. You can imagine how he felt last Mon- with currents of different and inday when that letter from Governor Lehman to creasing frequency going from 1000 Senator Wagner arrived and he had to be the one to | cycles a second at the start to 5000 see that it didn’t get lost. | les a second at the muzzle of On the other hand maybe he wants to get back to | 53s oS a So feet higher up. that old position of his as prize fight commissioner | At 2000 cycles a second these elecin New York State. That's a nice quiet job com- trical waves travel down the barrel pared to handling gig free-for-all brawl like the of the oun with 8 Velouity = Shree Supreme Court fight. kilometers a second. S spee I hope Smiling Jim doesn’t desert public life. To they would circle the earth at the offsét the newspaper pictures of Hitler, Mussolini, equator in 222 minutes. From the Stalin and John L. Lewis we certainly need that | instant the nose of the hollow metal beaming Farley smile. rocket “bullet” enters the gun until the President’s wishes lately, it won't be a good idea

" gi : ’ accelerated, trying ever to catch up to carry a letter of reference from F. Gh R. when you You never can tell by her facial expression what kind of cards she |with these speed electric waves go looking for & new job.

; iy ‘ Wo Yau

7-24 COPR. 1937 BY NEA SERVICE, INC. T. M. REG. U. 8. PAT. OFF.