Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 18 August 1937 — Page 11
‘Vagabond From Indiana — Ernie Pyle Steamboat Collides With His Plane,
The Indianapolis Times
Second Section
So Correspondent Has Ample Time To Enjoy the Pleasures of McGrath.
'GRATH, Alaska, Aug. 18. — You remember that old gag where you mention some town and the fellow says “Yeah, I spent a week there one afternoon last summer.” Well, I've just spent a month in McGrath the last two days. I've never been in a place that I wanted to get out of so badly. And it all happened because a steamboat, of all things, ran into our airplane. Our takeoff from Anchorage was auspicious, and certainly boded no ill. We flew in a cabin monoplane on ponteons, headed for faraway Good News Bay, on the coast of the Bering Sea. Six hundred miles, and we started at 3:30 in the afternoon and expected to be there that night. Pilot Ralph Savory wore hip boots and overalls, a leather jacket, and a canvas hat around which was draped a mosquito net. His wife sat beside him, riding as far as McGrath to visit some friends. : The other seats were filled by Pete Brevik, a sourdough prospector from Good News Bay; “Tex” Beeler, “bulldozer” driver for the Alaska Road Commission, and poor me, scared to death after hearing them talk about going through the pass at 8000 feet. Well, we made the pass all right, and it wasn’t bad at all. In fact it was wonderful. We flew right across the great Alaska Range, dog-legged through between the peaks, with snow-topped mountains on either side.
Felt Fine on Arrival
Well, we made McGrath at 6 in the evening, feeling fine. This log-cabin town sits stringily on the bank of the Kuskokwim River. “Well, guess we'll stay here all night,” the pilot said. We didn’t know why, and don’t know why yet, but that’s what the pilot said. So we stayed. Pete Brevik rustled us a log cabin back of Mrs. McLean’s store. They put clean sheets on the two beds, and fresh mosquito nets, and we had the nicest place in town to sleep. Everything went fine till about 11 o'clock that night when somebody yelied that the steamboat was coming. It came, all right—full blast around the bend, and smacked right into the tail of our eirplane. I could hear the frail canvas ripping, and it was like a rip in my heart. The thought passed through my mind, “We're stuck here forever.” And we were. (Or so it seemed). Two days have passed. The pilot has been patching and fixing and doping up holes. We'll soon be ready to go. And none too soon for me, either.
Battle With Mosquitoes
For two days we have fought mosquitoes and cold. There's nothing to de. You're too miseravle to read. A good part of the population, both native and white, is drunk. The whites shake their heads and say how awful it is to see the natives drunk, but I can't see that color makes much difference. You sit in your cabin and spray until you can’t stand the cold any more. You go out and walk up and down the “street,” which is the river bank. Three times a day you mosey into the roadhcuse and dine to the jovial tune of a buck and a half per meal. So this is McGrath.
Mrs. Roosevelt's Day
By Eleanor Roosevelt
Health and Vocational Program of Girls' Camp Wins First Lady's Praise.
YDE PARK, N. Y. Tuesday.—Yesterday afternoon we went to pay a farewell visit to Camp Jane Addams in Bear Mountain Park, N. Y. It filally has been decided that the cost per girl does not justify its continuance, and it will be closed at the end of August. * The girls who were there looked happy and healthy. On their work project many of them learned to sew, which should be a help. Some of them have sewed for a livin in New York before they came to the camp, and :nany who have never had a job may sew for a living in the future. It is a useful art, though many of us seem to forget it these days. As an avocation the giris have learned a number of skills which will perhaps provide entertainment for leisure time. I sat in and listened to an English class which seemed to me to be conducted in a very stimulating way. It was held in the open and the girls sat under the trees and on the grass or rocks. The teacher read some poetry and at the end of each poem would let the girls express their opinions or ask for a comparison between the poems they had read. They would discuss the thoughts and philosophy involved as well. I noticed one girl struggling with some knitting and longed to go over to offer my assistance. But I discovered afterward it was not really needed. Whatever else these girls have learned, they have learned to live out of doors. We went down to the dock and many of them told me how happy they were in their life there and how much it had meant to them to have had the experience. One girl even told me that she thought camps were just as important as public schools, and she thought they should be included in the school system. I told her that at present the people of the State of New York had not agreed that they were a vital part of education and they were not included under the law. Perhaps it will be possible to find a way to run camps cheaply enough so that the head of a family making a living wage may be able to give his children that experience during the summer, or a boy or girl at work making a living wage may be able to save for that kind of a holiday. One vivid and attractive face will stay with me for a long while. It shone with health and spirit, but the girl used crfftches to get about. She had had infantile paralysis as a child, but proudly told me she was one of the best swimmers there. When I asked her how much she could do she said: “You'd be surprised. I can do almost everything.” I arrived home for a swim before dinner. An old friend, who went abroad with my mother-in-law and my son John, but who had come home ahead of them, spent the night and gave me an amusing account ot many of their experiences. He left this morning to go back to his work, and Mrs. Scheider and I to doing as much work at our desks as we can.
Walter O'Keefe—
USTICE HUGO BLACK at 51, and here in New
York Jimmy Walker at 56, are both up for new jobs. Apparently, life begins at 50 these days. After watching Jim's star-spangled career, it's simply unbelievable that ex-Mayor Walker is how older than a Supreme Court judge. Jimmy has landed a job with the Transit Commission, and in two weeks will be eligible for a pension of about $12,000 a year. Jimmy is apparently smarter than the rest of us. He's getting his social security at 56. "Jimmy at 56 coming into $12,000 a year explains why so many guys are running for Mayor in New York. As for the new Supreme Court Justice, his critics argue that he was sent to Washington by the Ku-
(Second of a Series) By Ruth Finney
Times Special Writer ASHINGTON, Aug. 18. —The new Supreme Court Associate Justice, Hugo L. Black, apparently believed, long before the New Deal began, that the Supreme Court’s power to pass on legislation might have to be curbed. On May 12, 1930, as Senator, he put into the Congressional Record a newspaper article on this subject, written in 1906 by Arthur McEwen. (The Senate had been discussing its recent rejection of Judge John J. Parker for the Supreme Court and the nomination of Owen J. Roberts.) The McEwen article said: “There are no present formidable indications that the people want te abolish the Supreme Court but it
is easily thinkable that the
time may come when that will be their desire and should that time arrive the Supreme Court will have to go. . . . Meanwhile it does that tremendous tribunal no harm to be reminded . . . that it is part of a Government founded upon the people's will and not a divine institution.” It continued: “When a court ceases to be a just tribunal, impartially doing justice, and so promoting the public interests, the worst service the citizen can render his country is to continue to respect that court.” ” n ”
S a member of the Senate Mr. Black has been consistent in his careful scrutiny of the backgrounds of men nominated for the bench and has opposed confirmation of those he thought were controlled by big business. In addition to voting against confirmation of Charles Evans Hughes and Judge Parker for the Supreme Court, he opposed confirmation of Richard J. Hopkins in 1929 to be a Federal District Judge in Kansas, although Mr. Black was a dry and the attack on Mr. Hopkins was opened oy Senate wets. Labor complained, however, that Mr. Hopkins had tried to invoke vagrancy laws against strikers, Senator Black said: “This gentleman who is now to be a judge and is to be invested with the vast and supreme power of issuing injunctions in labor suits discharged District Attorneys in his state because they would not use the vehicle of the vagrancy law to trample and oppress workmen who dared to attempt to improve their condition by going out on strike.” = a n
HE opposed confirmation of Albert L. Watson to be a judge in Pennsylvania when it was charged that he was beholden for his appointment to the late President W. W. Atterbury of the Pennsylvania Railroad, then a Republican National Committeeman. Mr. Black also opposed appointment of both Judge Jones of Knoxville and Hugh M. Tate te the Interstate Commerce Commission. Of Mr. Jones, he said in February, 1930: “Judge Jones had been an attornéy for the railroads before he went on the bench . . .
| The President then, out of hun-
dreds of thousands of men he could have named in the South, repeated his action by nominating an attorney for the Southern Railroad.” Discussing appointment of men who have represented large corporations, Mr. Black said: “I have no sympathy with the idea some people circulate to the effect that that is ‘just the lawyer’s opinion.’ If the lawyer does not believe in the rights of his client, if he does not believe that the principles he asserts for his client are true and righteous, then I assert that the lawyer is not an honest man.”
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 18, 1937
Senator Davis
Chief Justice Hughes
F something he said during the Tate debate is true of Justice Black, his point of view on economic matters wili not change when he mounts to the bench. He said: “Show me the kind of steps a man made in the sand five years ago and I will show you the kind of steps he is likely to make in the same sand five years hence. Show me the course he was pursuing then and unless there has been some great cataclysim which has absolutely changed his character I will show you the course he is going to follow in the future. It is not merely according to the law of nature; it is written on the human heart, it is inscribed on the tablets of eternal government—the government of nature.” During the icng fight made by the late Senator Walsh of Montana to recall confirmation of Federal Power Commission mempers whose first act in office was dismissal of men whose sole offense, to quote Mr. Black, was “preventing the padding of capital accounts of power companies.” Mr. Black voted with Senator Walsh and against the commis-
Side Glances
sioners. Bv Clark
a) ~,
Klux Kian; so before he dons that bia ihe, hey Want to make sure he never wore a white one.
Suggestion Court Might Have to
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Hugo L. Black: The New Justice
Be Abolished Put on Record by Justice
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Times-Acme Photo.
President’s Letter Nominating Mr. Black
Justice R. J.
E opposed confirmation of Edgar B. Brossard, accused of being too close to sugar interests, to the Tariff Commission. He voted for an investigation of the right of Senator Davis ‘(R. Pa.) to his seal. He voted to confirm Eugene Meyer as a member of the Federal Reserve Board.
Eugene Meyer
In 1931, as in later years, he voted to override the President's veto of the Soldiers’ Bonus Bill. He opposed an attempt to bar compulsory military training from schools and colleges. He opposed an attempt to kill off the Mothers’ and Infants’ Aid Bill, forerunner of today’s Social Security Act.
Edgar B. Brossard
As early as February, 1930, the question of wages was troubling him. He called to the Senate's attention a report from the Labor Department on low wages paid to girls in B5-and-10-cent chain stores.
NEXT-—Justice Black cham-
pions civil liberties.
Black Nomination Debate Called American Politics at Its Worst
By Raymond Clapper Times Special Writer ASHINGTON, Aug. 18.—Fjyom start to finish, the Black Supreme Court nomination has “rovided a thoroughly sickening exhibition of American politics at iis worst. It is bad enough at its best. But at its worst we see it as a cheap, hypocritical, brazen trade, a disgrace to this self-governing nation. The episode showed us that in politics a man will stoop to almost anything. Seldom does one episode produce such a concentration of ugly sights as this one. In the selection of Senator Black, it appears as if President Roosevelt took great care to pass over men of
| unquestioned availability like Circuit | Judge Sam Bratton, a former Sena{tor who voted with the New Deal
| d of New York delivered a
and subsequently distinguished himself on the Federal bench, a man who probably would have been confirmed unanimously. Passing over all such figures, Mr. Roosevelt apparently sought for the bitterest pill he could make the Senate swallow. The choice had all the earmarks of an act of vindictiveness. This Supreme Court vacancy, in spite of the importance which Mr. Roosevelt has attached to the personnel of the Court, was seized upon by him as an opportunity for revenge. He knew the Senate would gag at the nomination. He knew also the Senate would have to swallow it. That's politics. » ” ” ” NQUESTIONABLY Senator Black cultivated the support of the Ku-Klux Klan when he first ran for the Senate in 1926. Senator Black is a man devoted to what he thinks will improve the lot of the average man, He has exposed graft and sordid influence at Washington. Yet he thought it necessary, in order to be elected, to cultivate an order which was dedicated to intolerance, terrorism, persecution and other things for which America does not stand. The chickens have come home to roost on his step and they are a sorry flock of which no man could be proud. That's politics. Shortly before the Senate voted to confirm Senator Black, Senator
up his hands
Clark Buisde
“in
ge
horror that a Senator should have these Constitutional questions then. | They wanted to put Mr. Roosevelt |
used the Ku-Klux Klan to get votes. Senator Copeland is running for Mayor of New York and that is why he made the speech. He kicked Mr. Black around in the Ku-Klux issue because it is hot stuff for a vast number in New York with whom he is anxious to curry favor. La Guardia has been kicking Hitler around and that has made him solid with thousands of New York voters. Hitler is La Guardia’s issue. The Klan is Copeland's. These seem curious issues to be involved in the election of a Mayor of New York, But that's politics.
ND the Republicans. They had little to say about the Black nomination and nothing aboutghis pro-Klan past. Because about the time Mr. Black was courting the Klan, a good many other politicians were discovering it had votes and they were currying its favor. Mr. Black never worked harder to accumulate Klan votes than did Republican henchmen in 1928.
Then there was the dreary metaphysical argument put on by the Senate hair-splitters as to whether there was any vacancy, and if so whether Senator Black, a Senator, was eligible. There was a lot of talk about emoluments having been increased by the very Senators who a few weeks ago were demanding that Mr. Roosevelt appoint the late Senator Joe Robinson to the Court. Senators weren't worrying about
Heard in Congress—
Senator Logan (D. Ky): I will say that I think there are men under 60 and really some under 50 who have no business on the bench, and there should be some way of getting them off the bench. I think age has sometthing to do with it. If I were President and had the appointment of some one to the bench, I should not hesitate to appoint the distinguished senior Senator from Idaho (Mr. Borah), although it iz said he is past 70 years of age. Senator Borah (R. Ida): Other Senators may quarrel with the Senator from Kentucky, but not I! (Laughter.)
Salt ang a
in a hole. Now they try to do it by reversing themselves. That, again, is politics. And in the Senators’ gallery sat a number of men, listening to the debate. They were the lobbyists, representing the numerous interests on whose toes Senator Black had stepped in his investigations and who wanted to beat him because of his economic views. It was their fight that a number of Senators in the pit below were making. But during all of the hypocritical debate, not a word was breathed about that. That's real politics.
DAFFY DRIVERS
By National Safety Council
HAVE READ THERE BEFORE 1 HAD | THAT ACCIDENT.
MAYRE I WERE f
THE ROAD RAT
VEN the dirtiest, most ill-kept jail is too good for the bird who rushes away from the scene of an accident without offering to help those who are needing aid. The hit-skip motorist is probably the most despicable person who drives an automobile. Each year many deaths occur where lives could have been saved if only offending motorists had stopped long enough to offer the aid that ordinarily would be given to an injured dog. “Left to die” is a terrible indictment.
x 4 ™
Second-Class - Matter Indianapolis,
PAGE 11
Ind.
Qur Town
By Anton Scherrer Discovery of $2 Jonah Bill Starts
Hard Luck Tale of Homing Pigeons That Ends With U. S. Intervention.
‘M old enough to remember when $2 bills were in circulation around here. They were looked upon as Jonahs, and I distinctly recall that most people, including myself, ale ways tore a little piece off the edge when
they got one. That was to remove the curse, It didn’t do much good, though. I'm sure it didn't do any good because I remember the time I found a $2 bill in the old Illinois St. tunnel that used to run under the railroad tracks of the Union Depot. I'm old enough to remember the old tunnel, too. I can’t remember when I first saw the old tunnel any more than I can remember when I first saw the old transfer car. Of the two, however, I seem to recall that the tunnel was the most fun. It was fun whether you went through it on a streetcar or on foot. On the streetcar, you always had the fun of seeing the boy hitch the third mule to the car to help pull it up the steep incline, and on foot, you always had the adventure of listening to the strange echoes which, for some reason, had a more hollow sound than anywhere else in town.
Dandy Place for Murder
There was always the sound of dripping water, too. It came from somewhere in the ceiling, and I always had an idea that the moisture had a lot to do with the ghastly green color of the lights, With the sour smell inside the place, too. Indeed, the old tunnel had everything that made for ade venture, and I often wondered why a setting so pere fect in its details had never produced a good murder. At any rate, I never ran across a story-book murder that had a setting half as good as that of the old Illinois St. tunnel. Well, to my "knowledge nobody ever staged a murder in the tunnel, but it was good for some minor adventures—like the finding of the $2 bill, for instance. I was coming home from “turning school” one evening, I remember, when I stumbled onto the $2 bill, and the moment I picked it up I knew I was headed for trouble. The signs were unmistakable, because the bill had all its edges frayed, showing that perhaps a hundred people before me had tried to remove the curse. The only thing for me to do, of course, was to get rid of the bill as quickly as possible, and for this purpose I picked a little boy who lived on Chestnut St. He and I had been negotiating for some time over the possibility of my acquiring his collection of fancy pigeons, but we never got anywhere be= cause he wouldn't accept my collection of cigaret pictures in exchange. My collection, I don’t mind saying, included pictures of Della Fox and Amos Rusie. He wanted the pictures all right, but he wanted $2 besides.
Bad Luck Begets Worse Luck
Well, of course, here was my chance. I not only got the pigeons, but got the boy to help me bed them for the night. Next morning when 1 woke, every pigeon was gone, and when I went in search of them I discovered they were all back in Chestnut St. at the home of the original owner. I suspected, of course, that the boy had lured them back with anise seed, which was a common enough trick in those days. Now that I think about it, however, I don't bee lieve the boy had anything to do with it. It was the curse working. I'm sure of it, because I remems= ber that the boy wasn't any better off than I was, He invested my evil $2 in a pair of weasels, and the next thing I knew the weasels ate up all the pigeons. The curse went even further. The man who sold the weasels spent the $2 for a hound, and believe it or not. the dog bit the man. Got blood poisoning, too. I don't know what would have happened if the Government hadn't stepped in and removed the curse by calling in all the $2 bills.
A Woman's View By Mrs. Walter Ferguson
Mr. Scherrer
Enlistment of Society Women in 'Leftist' Labor Groups Is Lauded
FTENER and oftener we see pictured the faces of lovely young debutantes who have the means to be playgirls but who are enlisted heart and soul in
some phase of the labor movement. College graduates and society women in increasing numbers swell the | ranks of the “leftists.” To the tory-minded these individuals are betray ing their class, for what the real tory never can see | is that eventually these renegades will save it, if it | can be saved. | A good deal of false sentiment has been built up around the idea that the brave man never surrenders, . when the facts often prove that it is the coward who holds out when he knows he is wrong. One of our most beloved heroes, Gen. Robert E. Lee, gave up his sword, and to our notion he is a much greater man than if he had died upon it. The intelligent modern is beginning simply to understand that unless capital and labor sign a truce, all that each is fighting for may be lost. As our friend Oscar Ameringer puts it: “What we are confronted with is not a problem of ethics but of mathematics. There is nothing new in men exploiting each other. What is new is that the time has arrived when men could live better by not exploiting each other.” We are happy to see that so many alert young men and women are aware of the crisis now confronting their country. The contest between poverty and entrenched wealth has already begun. It must be finished before permanent peace and prosperity will come. Assuredly there is enough and more than enough for us all in this enormous country—enough wheat for bread, enough material for clothes and warmth and shelter. Only the misdirection of produce tion is at the bottom of our woes. No worthier pure pose could be had for any young life than the social betterment of the world.
New Books Today
Public Library Presents—
- AY in and day out, the dining table was a forum with Lyman Beecher taking the wrong side of every argument to train his children to defend the right.” No wonder his large brood grew up into champions of causes, teachers, preachers, moralists, orators and holders of opinions on every question that vexed mankind--those Beechers who were resented by some because they were too respectable and ree sented by others because they were not respectable enough. HARRIETT BEECHER STOWE by Catherine Gile bertson (Appleton-Century) concentrates on her whose name is synonymous with “Uncle Tom's Cabin,” the book which sold into the millions, was translated into scores of languages, the book which gloriously libe erated the slaves or damnably precipitated a needless war. But Miss Gilbertson presents Harriet Beecher Stowe as more than the author of “Uncle Tom's Cabin.” She presents her in her naturalness, her shrewdness, her romantic yearnings, her religious perplexities, her serenity and homeliness as the composite portrait of
the Nineteenth Century American woman,