Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 20 August 1937 — Page 15

Vagabond

From Indiana — Ernie Pyle

Platinum, Site of Alaska's Newest Stampede, Is Bleak and Industrious "Village," Where People Are Sober.

PLATINUM, Good News Bay, Alaska, Aug. 20.—You come to Good News Bay by airplane. Up rises Boluga Mountain out of the squashy flat tundra, and the water takes

form above the engine nose and makes a bay. Beyond the bay are bare mountains, and over to the right is the vastness of the Bering Sea. Two long arms reach out toward each other, and don't quite touch, and there inside them you have the most perfect lJand-locked harbor I have ever seen. That is Good News Bay. On the south arm (South Spit, they call it) sits a little bunch of board houses with tin roofs, and some bright white tents. You look down again unbelievingly. For Platinum is the new, the great, the fabulous city of metal—Alaska’s latest “strike”—the place they are stampeding to, the Dawson of 1937. And this is it. It cannot rightly be called a city, or a town, or even a village. If vou were to crowd it up close together, it wouldn't cover a city block. Iiven scattered as it is, it doesn’t cover more than four. ; It does well to muster a population of 100, counting Eskimos and a dog or two. It has 15 buildings, including the four Chic Sales. It has 15 tents. fabulous city of Platinum!

In Bleak Region Good News Bay is in far southwestern Alaska, so far away from anywhere else that you can only dream gbout it. It is in a country that is bleak and without trees. A country that has bitter, blowy winters, and summers that aren't much better than a gusty March morning. If the sun shines for a total of three days in summer, it sets a weather record. “So you've come to write up Good News Bay,” they said when we landed. yO see your papers probably won't print it, because it'll be dull. We're supposed to be wild and woolly over here, but things have been badly exaggerated outside.” And the people of Platinum are right. Platinum is not a hell-roarin’ hot spot, rich and wicked. It is the soberest, hardest-working, most serious of the many villages and mining camps of Alaska that I've been in. Speaking. journalistically, I was badly let down by Platinum. On the strength of stories printed about, it, on the strength of urgings from officials in Juneau, on the strength of whisperings all over Alaska, I spent good money to fly here in order to gather a little blood and thunder. And here is what I find:

Mr. Pyle

There isn't a gambling hall in Platinum. There | There isn't a dance hall. There |

isn't a beer parlor. are eight white women, and not a one of them is a floosy. There has been only one piece of crime— a cutting scrape.

Populace Not Rough The people aren't rough. One storekeeper went to a law school. Many drillers are college graduates. You see engineers around in green uniforms. And Government men making surveys. And honest Swedes going about their jobs. One store sells beer and hard liquor, but I have

seen only two cans of beer drunk here. I haven't seen - a drink of whisky taken; I haven't seen anybody

drunk. Everybody is working, making good money.

to make good money. and save it too, if you make it here. For it costs you $200 to fly in here and back out again to Anchorage; and your working season lasts only five months, from late May to late October.

Mrs. Roosevelt's Day

By Eleanor Roosevelt First Lady Gets Police Escort and

Tip on How Not to Use Auto Horn,

EW YORK CITY, Thursday.—One of the papers this morning carries an amusing tale of an incident which happened as we passed through Waterbury, Conii., yesterday. I lost my way because there was a detour and had to stop and ask how to get back on Route 14. The policeman recognized me and asked me to drive around the corner and park while he went to get another officer, who stood at the intersection, so that they could give me correct directions. I was entirely unconscious of his humorous and kindly description of me to his fellow officer, but I did shake hands with them both. Then my first friend insisted on riding on the running board of my car for several blocks to be sure we got on the right road, even though I protested mildly that it looked as though I was being arrested! Mrs. Scheider and I left by train this morning at 7-30. We found New York City a hot place in comparison to the country when we started to do one or two errands. On the train we found Mr. Matthew Hasbrouck, who built our swimming pool at Hyde Park. He came to sit with us and tell us about a remarkable undertaking in Florida which will make a study of the habits and lives of the great fishes of the sea possible for scientists and for people in general. It will also make movie photography of the actions of these monsters of the ses possible. It is a very in{eresting undertaking, but a very difficult engineering feat. Mr. Hasbrouck said that he had never worked so hard. However, I thought he seemed so interested that the work has been no drudgery. My taxi driver was caught behind a truck which he thought was going to block the way and he blew his horn. Before I knew it, a policeman stood beside him and he was lectured on the subject of using a horn as a warning and not as a method of moving traffic. He was only warned and not given a summons, but it was a very good lesson for me, for I often drive in New York City and might have done the same thing without thinking.

Walter O'Keefe—

OVERNOR GRAVES of Alabama is sending his wife, Dixie, to Washington to fill the vacancy created by Hugo Black's appointment to the Supreme Court. This proves that a Governor is luckier than most husbands. If he wants to get the missus out of town for a while he can simply send her to the Senate. Mr. Black, her predecessor, showed that he's a man of politeness. He gave up his seat for a lady. It must be great news for Hattie Caraway of Arkansas, who until now was the only woman Senator. Now when the boys go off on one of those stag love feasts Hattie will have someone to keep her company. With two gals in the Senate, the boys will have to watch their language when they talk about the boss.

HEARD IN CONGRESS—

Senator McKellar (D. Tenn.)—My recollection is that six times now we have voted in relief bills to reappropriate unexpended balances. Is not that so? The Senator has voted six times. What reason does the Senator have at this late date to come to the conclusion that he has been wrong six times heretofore? Senator Adams (D. Colo.)—The Senator belongs to a group who always believe that there is a place of repentance on the mourner’s bench. Senator McKellar—No, sir; I am a Presbyterian and believe that whatever is is and whatever will be will be, whether it is or not. (Laughter). = = ” Senator Connally (D. Tex.)—I am not going to he led off into the miasma of the swamp by the Senator from Michigan (Senator Vandenberg). His heart is not in the present plan of relief. He does not believe in it. He is against it. Why should he now ask the Senate to follow his plan of relief? He ought to vote against it all. I do not want a doctor fooling with me who does not believe in recovery. (Laughter. I do not want a surgeon operating on me who believes in predestination and that nothing can be done about it. (Laughter in the galleries.) i

The |

“Well, if you write what you |

Wages run around $7 to $15 a day with keep. But you have |

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"The Indianapolis Times

Second Section

| | |

(Fourth of a Series)

By Ruth Finney

Times Special Writer WW ASHINGTON y AUG. 20.—In the last session of Congress before the New Deal, Associate Justice Black, as Senator, was concerned—as were most liberal Senators— with the unemployment problem. On Dec. 15, 1931, he interrupted a fight over the election of a president pro tem. of the Senate to introduce a resolution directing the Senate Finance Committee to prepare a bill authorizing a billiondollar bond issue for public works. “Before long we shall probably adjourn for the Christmas holidays,” he | said. “At least seven million men are out of work and there is plenty of capital in this country to place them to work in useful public projects. . . . If we do not do something of this sort before long we are going to be confronted with a proposal which at that time probably will be irresistible, that we make contributions out of the public treasury to give what some have said would be a dole.” The Black resolution got nowhere, and by February the Senate had before it the La FolletteCostigan bill for relief of the needy. Mr. Black did not go along with these liberal colleagues on their Relief Bill. He opposed it on the ground that it left distribution of funds in the hands of Federal employees in Washington. He offered a substitute which would turn relief funds over to the 48 Governors to spend as they saw fit. He was joined by Senators Walsh of Montana and Bulkley of Ohio in offering a substitute and

in fighting for it in the early days of the session. ”

» ”

R. BLACK explained his position, when he was chided by Senator Costigan, in this way:

By Raymond Clapper Times Special Writer . ASHINGTON, Aug. 20.—It is . only a small cloud on the horizon but it may be the first distant warning of what is to come. C. I. O. forces of John L. Lewis have gone into primaries in two Ohio cities, Akron and Canton. The winning candidates for Democratic nominations for Mayor in both places were those backed by C. I. O. Of 12 C. 1. O. candidates for City Council nominations, 11 won. The Lewis group is deeply involved in the mayoralty race in Detroit. The American Labor Party, the New York political branch of C. I. O,, is active in the fight to reelect Mayor La Guardia. Leaders of C. I. O. say it is inevitable that labor will find political expression. The very existence of large labor organizations, with their docal forums and meetings, leads naturally to the discussion of political questions that concern labor. Mr. Lewis believes that labor must have political power as well as economic power. He does not think that labor should be content with only economic expression through its unions. He wants it to make itself felt politically as well as economically. Or rather he feels that political power is necessary to enable labor to fully realizz its economic desires,

Opposed Federal Adminis

UJ. S. Labor Embarking On Political Sea, View

ABOR'S Nonpartisan League is a political by-product of C. I.| O. and Mr. Lewis intends to con- | tinue it as the political adjunct of

FRIDAY, AUGUST 20, 1987

Senator Norris

Senator Bulkley

“I do not desire to be placed in the attitude, either inferentially or otherwise, of being opposed to utilizing the wealth of this nation, which has been accumulated by the toil of all the people, to relieve human distress in a perfectly legitimate manner. . . . I object to creation of a new Federal organization in the city of Washington, to tell the people of Alabama how charity shall be dispensed to those in need there. I object to having the President of the United States appoint men, even though they are confirmed by the Senate, to determine how charity raised from the wealth of the nation shall be administered to relieve my people down in my state. . . . I readily concede that I may be entirely wrong. . . .

“How much more in line it is with the principles of Jefferson, to which the Senator and I both adhere, when the Government

his labor movement.

1940 probably Mr. doesn’t know yet. that far ahead with certainty. Lewis doesn’t know what circumstances will arise and he wants to remain free to adapt himself to meet them, depending upon what they may be. As for the Congressional elections next year, Mr. Lewis will go into them. His organization will be active in trying to defeat Senators and Representatives who are regarded as hostile. There is likely to be a little vengeance. Mr. Lewis is bitter toward some Senators and Representatives. who received his help last year and then failed to come to his aid when he was being pounded in the controversy over the sit-down strikes, and the recent steel strike. Some Governors may expect to find Mr. Lewis moving in against them. He is bitter toward Governor Davey of Ohio, with whose election he had something to do. Mr. Lewis can be counted upon to do every-

| his present term.

Side Glances

7 ¥

3 #1 x a T.M. REC. U. 8. PAT. OFF.

hall repagred after all.” |

“At the rate Joe has been pinching ’em we'll get our city

What C. I. O. will do politically in | Lewis himself | Nobody can see | Mr. |

thing in his power to retire Mr. | Davey to private life at the end of!

| sary to prevent abuses of facilities

| rublic hospitalization.

Hugo LaFayette Black as a boy

in Ashland, Ala., on the porch of

their farm home with his father, William LaFayette Black, and his mother, Martha Ardella (Toland) Black.

Senator Costigan

helps, not to say that the money shall be distributed in Alabama

® and Colorado and other places ac-

cording to rules established by a Washington bureau but to let them have the money directly, and then trust the states and the people to distribute it as they should.” Mr. Black's substitute was defeated, 31 to 48, and he then helped to defeat the La FolletteCostigan bill 35 to 48.

” n ” ATER in that session, when a compromise relief bill acceptable to President Hoover had

been drawn, the new Justice voted against amendments designed to cripple it. He opposed leaving initiation of a public works program to the President; opposed allotting public-works money on a population basis; and opposed striking out public-works sections of the bill. At the end of the session he voted against agreeing to the conference report on the bill—the last record made in its progress through the Senate—and Sena-

T. V. O’Connor

tors La Follette and Blaine voted with him. Mr. Black's brcak with former Senator Heflin of Alabama, whose vociferous attacks on Catholics

had echoed down Senate corridors for years, became complete in this session. Mr. Heflin had opposed Al Smith in the 1928 election, and when it came time for him to seck approval in the Alabama primaries he was confronted by a party resolution barring all candidates who could not swear they had supported the Democratic ticket. He was denied the nomination but ran anyway, and when he lost he induced the Senate to investigate charges of fraud. Mr. Black told the Senate there was “not one vestige of evidence . . . to show that there was any fraud and corruption.”

o ” ”

R. BLACK was still in favor of restricting immigration but when the question of alien seamen came before the Senate he said: “Somehow, I cannot believe it

Entered as Second-Class Matter Indianapolis. Ind.

at Postoffice.

Hugo L. Black: The New Justice

tration of Relief Early in Depression

Former Senator Heflin

Senator La Follette

would be morally justifiable on our part to pass a law which would say to a Chinaman, because he is a Chinaman, that he could not be employed on a Swedish boat which might land in America. I am wondering if it would not invite—and justly invite—some kind of retaliatory legislation which would prevent an American from getting a job on some other boat.”

During the economy fight that |

year he opposed cutting public works appropriations but fought for a cut in mail subsidies. He opposed cutting the appropriation for prohibition enforcement in half, and opposed the Bingham resolution opening the way for repeal or modification of the 18th Amendment. un ”n 5

E voted against all crippling amendments to the Antiinjunction Bill, supporting Senator Norris throughout that fight. He opposed confirmation of William E. Humphreys to the Federal Trade Commission and T. V. O'Connor to the Shipping Board. He voted against an attempt by the Senate Finance Committee to transfer a tax on electric utilities to electric consumers. He also voted against a sales tax and for the Conally amendment increasing income-tax rates. He tried to put an amendment in the Relief Bill limiting salaries of corporations receiving RFC loans to $25,000 a year, and again tried, unsuccessfully, to require candidates for President, Vice President, Senate and House and the Cabinet to file a statement showing their ownership of foreign and domestic securities. Although formerly he had opposed the Wagner Unemployment Exchange Bill in this session he put into the record a speech by Senator Wagner urging passage of the bill.

NEXT—In Semwate Mr. Black made mail subsidies his target.

‘Medically Indigent’ Can Secure Proper Care In Indiana

By L. A. RESENT-DAY conceptions of public welfare, involving vastly | enlarged participation by all gov- | ernmental units—Federal, state and | loccal—have intensified interest in| the problem of providing medical | aid and hospitalization for the semiindigent, the individual who in normal health is amply able to provide for himself, but who is unable financially to meet a medical emergency. This type of person is known clinically as “medically indigent.” From a strict legalistic viewpoint he is not a charity case, yet he cannot pay. Rigid admission standards in publicly-operated hospitals, neces-

provided at public expense, operate to deny to persons of this class medical aid or hospitalization which they may need. In Indiana, the “semi-indigent” is being cared for by either private or

Thomas Hendricks, Indiana State | Medical Association secretary, said “There is no class of people in Indiana not receiving medical treatment in some manner when it is needed. «point out an isolated case and it will be found upon investigation that the percon fails to take advantage of t' € medical treatment or hospitalizat’ /n waiting for him,” Mr. Hendricks said. He said that Hoosier hospitals were not overcrowded with the exception of mental institutions. Mr. Hendricks asserted that the “medically indigent” may be cared for by the township trustee. In the past, State Public Welfare authorities have held that monthly grants for old-age assistance may be based, up to $30 monthly, on the medical needs of an individual. Social and welfare workers believe in time medical aid might be considered as a legitimate reason for increasing the maximum

monthly award for the aged to

STEP toward m-zeting

State in its Public Welfare Law enacted in 1930. That statute defined poverty as the inability to pay for a specific necessity.

in ‘the category of public charges so far as food, fuel and shelter are concerned, but when their wellbeing is jeopardized by accident or disease, the law enabl2s public hospitals to extend aid (or withhold it) on the merits of the individual case. Few state or local statutes, however, are so clear-cut, according to Editorial Research Reports. A recent survey by the American Public Welfare Association, covering 54 communities in Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Michigan, New York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Washington, showed such wide variations in legal provisions as to create “confusion as to what degree of responsibility should be assumed by states and relief authorities for medical care of various types of cases.” It should be noted that this confusion applies primarily to the “medically indigent.” It i> generally recogmized that a definite public responsibility exists to provide medical care for the totally destitute, whose hospitalization when neces-

sary can be effected readily through |

established relief channels, One important factor in solving the problem of the medically indigent is the present scarcity of adequate hospitalization facilities owned and operated by the public, according to Editorial Research Reports. Such public hospitals, however, have largely incrcased their capacities in the last dJdecade—a total increase of 47 per cent in pub-licly-owned hospital beds, against a 17 per cent increase in privatelyowned hospital beds. Notwithstanding this enlargement of facilities, the survey showed that 39 per cent of. the counties which

Thus, an | individual or a family may not be |

week or month, and in some cases

take the form of annual “lump sum” appropriations—$15,000 a year in Portsmouth, Va.; $1500 a year in Staunton, Va.

. _ YEAR... OUR Nit ENGAGEMENT!

SERIOUS BUSINESS

T'S good business to keep both hands on the steering wheel when you drive. Lovelorn Luke, yielding to the romantjc setting of a June moon, was driving with one arm and hugging his best girl with the other. No, it didn’t work out so well—for what his sweetie is telling him is plenty. To drive safely through the maze of auto traffic it is essential that the driver keep his hands on the steering wheel, his eyes on the road ahead, and his mind on the Lejon of

arriving safely.

PAGE 15

Qur Town

By Anton Scherrer State Library Staff Scores Scoop Again With Data on Historic Flag

| —And They Have the Banner, Too.

QEEMS like the people over at the State Library are always up to something. This time they have on display the oldest United States flag in the state. As a matter of fact, it's the only known remaining example of the

flags presented by Gen. Anthony Wayne to Indian chiefs at the Treaty of Greenville (1795). You don’t have to take my word for it. Ask Dr. Chrise topher Coleman.

Dr. Coleman says the flag came to the Indiana Historical Bureau in 1931, by way of Dr. Perry G. Moore of Wabash. It's quite a story, even if the newspapers haven't got around to it yet. To hear Dr. Coleman tell it, Dr. Moore was practicing somewhere near the Wabash-Miami County line in 1868 when he got a call to attend James A. Aveline, a Frenchman, whose family consisted of an Indian wife and five children. When Dr. Moore diagnosed the case as typhoid fever, Mr. Aveline got scared and asked him to write a letter, describing his condition to Mrs. Mary Aveline, Ft. Wayne. “She is my wife,” he said, “and she will come immediately.” She did, too. She arrived the next day and remained during his illness. Get the drift? Sure, Mr. Aveline had two wives. I wish I could stop a moment at this point and philosophize a little about “the good old times,” but I'll have to be on my way if I want to get in the whole story.

Harmony in Household

Well, according to Dr. Coleman, the two wives got along fine. In a few days, so runs the story, the white wife observed that Dr. Moore was interested in Indian relics and the like. We're getting pretty close to finding the flag now. The old flag wasn't in the Aveline house, how= ever. It was over in the tepee of Mrs. Dixon, an aged Indian lady who was not only a cousin of Mr, Aveline's wife, but also a granddaughter of She-Moc= E-Nisnh, a Miami Chief who was present at the treaty signing and signed it under the name of “Soldier.” For the life of me, I don’t see what you're going to do with all this information, now that you've got it. Dr. Moore wanted the flag most awful bad, but Mrs. Dixon wouldn't sell. Soon after, she died. Her daughter, being the sole heir, took possession of her | mother’s effects, and soon married a white man, Soon, too, she was in need of money, and asked Dr. Moore if he was still interested. Sold. Dr. Moore wanted more than the flag, however, | He wanted its history, too. The bride replied: “All I | know is that my great-grandfather, She-Moc-E-Nish, captured it from Anthony Wayne.” She added, how= ever, that if Dr. Moore would go to Roanoke, 15 miles away, and look up Kil-So-Quah, who was also a granddaughter of She-Moc-E-Nish, that possibly she could help him out. Nci being able to get an interpreter, years went by, and Dr. Moore, presuming that Kil-So-Quah had died (she was very old at the time), concluded that he had lost his opportunity and let things slide.

Princess Went to Town

In 1887, Dr. Moore moved to Wabash. (I trust you're still with me). Soon after he arrived, he picked up the evening paper and learned that the Indian Princess Kil-So-Quah was in town. Dr. Coleman even knows why she was there. She was attending court to defend the title to her home. Nasty business. Well, Dr. Moore and Kil-So-Quah got together finally, and when she saw the old flag, she broke down and wept. She said her grandfather (She-Moc-E-Nish, remember?) got the flag because just before the Peace Treaty Conference was held, George Wash« ington ordered Anthony Wayne to have the flag made, and, after the treaty was signed, to present it to the Chief of the Miami Nation and say: “Keep this flag in sight and as often as you see it, remember that we are friends.” That's all T know about the flag now on display at the State Library, except that Kil-So-Quah fooled everybody and lived to be 105 years old.

’ ‘ A Woman's View By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

Mr. Scherrer

Proposal to Utilize Army for Road Safety Patrol Declared Fine Idea.

N Oklahoma country columnist, Col. Clarence Douglas, suggests that one of the inexpensive ways of stopping highway slaughter would be to utilize the U. S. Army as a road patrol and to regulate traffic. He argues, and very sensibly, that we maintain the War Department to protect us and that certainly the gravest danger we now face is the menace of our own carelessness. We welcome the idea, because for a long time we've had ¢ feeling that the Army ought to be doing more to earn its keep. There will be howls about this state« ment. Somebody always howls when one discusses the soldiers and sailors; nevertheless, we repeat it with all the impertinence of the impractical female who believes we ought to get value received for the money we spend on our fighting force. Every time we see the cavalry boys putting on jumping exhibitions at some swanky horse show, or establishing records at polo, we voice the suggestion that they might be busy at something a little more important to the welfare of the people they serve. We think the Army costs too much, and that it should be made to dig in like the rest of us during the inter= vals between conflicts. The taxpayer doesn’t pursue his usual] life when the mobilization begins so the soldier might contribute a little extra when the war is over.

New Books Today

Public Library Presents—

ARY, Queen of Scots, has been a figure of never failing interest. Reams have been written about her. She has been vilified and praised, damned and defended. Every facet of her character, both as woman and queen, has been examined. For some strange reason, however, little attention has been paid to her son. The son, who, ironically enough, became King of the country in which his mother lost her head—England's James I. James was ashy, sensitive, bookish child. He was of interest to those around him, not as a person, but as a potential ruler. He knew little of kindness, of tenderness or of humor. With harsh handling he de veloped, of necessity, into a sly, hard, shrewd young man, devoured by ambition. Power, power was his most urgent need, and before he was 40 the English crown placed upon his head seemed to answer that need. Jane Oliver in MINE IS THE KINGDOM (Lip pincott) ends her book at this point. »

”n » NNOUNCEMENTS of the Inter-American Peace Conference in Buenos Aires prompted Lewis R. Freeman to visit again the South American countries which he had first seen 30 years earlier. Traveling by airways, highways and waterways, he went from Panama down the Pacific Coast, across the Andes, and north through Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro. In DISCOVERING SOUTH AMERICA (Dodd) Mr, Freeman describes the richness and beauty of the countries which he saw. He illustrates the utter inadequacy of words to portray the grandeur of his scene by quoting a packer at the Grand Canyon of the Colorado: “Words was made to cuss mules along with, not to tell that big hole-in-the-ground over there how much you of heaven or hell.” - .