Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 6 September 1937 — Page 9

agabone

From Indiana— Ernie Pyle Matanuska Is No Heaven on ‘Earth,

_Colony's No. | Farmer Confesses, _ But He's Making a Living in Alaska.

ALMER, Alaska, Sept. 6.—Walter Pippel | is often spoken of as Matanuska’s prize exhibit—the colony’s No. 1 farmer. There really are others just as good, but he is unquestionably one of the best. ;

Mr. Pippel doesn’t look like a farmer. In fact, get him dressed up and he looks like a young ‘businessman. He hardly opens his mouth when he talks, and he speaks so low you can hardly under-

stand him. But when he speaks, he doesn’t mind saying what he thinks. Although he’s successful, Mr. Pippel doesn’t consider this place any heaven: on earth. And he thinks it has been pretty badly managed by the Government. In fact, I got the impression after talking with both sides that Mr. Pippel and the management are thorns in each other’s side. Mr. Pippel is a prize exhibit, but the Government sort of hates to admit it. ‘ thick a Mr. Pippel is a truck gardener. Mr Pyle He used to raise vegetables around Minneapolis, and as soon as he landed here he started right in on vegetables exclusively. He knows “the game and he works hard and his wife and three children help. Mr. Pigpel is one of the 15 self-support-ing colonists. He has about $3000 worth of machinery around— {ractor, truck, spraying] wagons, vegetable washers and so no. It is all paid for, too. And he hasnt a chicken or cow on the place.

Things Won't Grow Fast

Mr. Pippel says it is a lot of bunk about stuff growing much faster here than in the States. He says it takes radishes a week longer to mature here than in Minnesota. I had heard that things grew so fast and so big up here that they had no taste. But Mr. Pippel says .the | | quality of vegetables is as good as in the States. | Mr. Pippel is one of those quiet individuals with a lot of get-up-and-go. He has worked up his own market in’ Anchorage, 55 miles away, and makes a couple of trips a week into town, delivering vegetables. And he is going to Fairbanks in a day or two (his first trip! into the interior—300 miles north b; train) to see about marketing stuff up there. I asked Mr. Pippel what would happen: if the Government were to cut off all money to the colonists right now. He said it would just be the survival of the fittest, .and only a few would survive. Of course ¢ Walter Pippel would be one of them.

Elmer! and Bérnice Heroux are new cofbnists. They paid their own way from Minnesota, and have been here only about four months. Mr. Heroux was a roving lineman for a railroad. ‘He was always being moved from one place to another. Last spring his brother- in-law, one of the colonists, wrote him to come on up here. He came, and did odd jobs until a vacancy in the colony opened.

Their First Real Home

Mr. Heroux’s predecessor had done practically no clearing on the place. So Mr. Heroux jumped in with his ax, and the trees began to fall. He showed me

Jiow..much he had-.cleared, single-handed, in four .|

months. If was almost unbelievable. The Govern- «+ . ment men, when T asked them, said he actually had done it. By next year he’ll have stuff growing on it. We at in the house and talked for a long time. Mrs. Heroux is young and pretty, just a girl, really. They have twin boys, handsome and shy, and a baby girl just a few months old. “Do you think you can make it go?” 1 asked them.

And I've never heard such. yearning in the voice of 4 man as was in his answer. “Oh, I hope so,” Mr. Heroux said. “I've really got my heart. set on this place. It’s the only real home of our own we've ever had.” And Bernice Heroux said: “It would break my heart if we had fo leave! We love it here. 2

My Diary

By Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt ’

Empty Honor Held No Lure for Busy Curies, Deep in Radium Experiments.

YDE PARK, N. Y., Sunday—The other day I wrote a word in praise of Eve Curie’s life of her mother, but I had not entirely finished it. I have finished it now ahd I must speak of it again, for it seems to me no one should miss reading it. The ‘tears were in my eyes as 1 read Mddige Curie’s diary written to her husband after his death, and yet she went on with her work and did it as well as she could to. make it worthy of him. One other thing I hope many people will note, the little conversation on whether’ they should keep their secret as ‘regards the process used in finding radium, or give it to the world. The instinctive reaction of both of them, that to give all the knowledge they had was the only scientific way, is an illuminating revelation of their thought. Their shrinking from the mere meeting of people » 77 for the sake of saying you had met them, their dislike of the more empty formalities which were offered them as honors, strike me as a lesson many of us should learn. These people who were busy with such great things could not spare the time to be praiSed,

they could not spare the time for genuine love, friendship and helpfulness. The little story of the dinner with the French . President, when Madame Curie was asked by Madame Loubet if she would like ta be presented to the King of Greece, and answered frankly that she saw little use in it; made me chuckle and yet sigh, for how many people have been presented to the kings and queens of the world when there was little use in it. But how few people 100k, at it from this point of view, I cannot help hoping this life will be shown on the screen. Last year, when I saw the life of Pasteur, I felt it was a great picture and I feel that the material in this story is even more arresting and moving. . This being a holiday, I will tell you that while my husband is cruising on the water, I am cruising a little on the land, visiting one or two of my friends’ and having a very pleasant lazy time, I was much amused to see a photograph in one of the papers of three ladies sailing for Europe. The names of the ladies were under the picture and one of them was designated as my secretary. I fear the lady must be much annoyed, for her affiliation with the White House staff is on the President's side. On . the other hand, my real secretary is tapping away at her typewriter day after day. I haven’t been able to drive her away for a holiday, thoug h she certainly deserves it.

These little inaccuracies are apt tol occur, but they |

amuse me a little when I know how many people are "likely to accept the printed ‘word as gospel truth. I § will be getting letters for days saying that, since my secretary is away, I cannot have reteived such and such information which has been sent me, or my espondents will regret they w 10 a secretary to “and :

ianapolis

Second Sedation

937 Brings Changing Labor Picture

MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 6, id

+

af. Se. nd-Class Matter fice, Indianapolis, Ind.

Enter. at Postoffice, Indiana

Increase in Union Membership to 7, 000,000 Is Greatest in History

By Herbert Little

Times Special Writer ASHINGTON, Sept. 6. —Last Labor Day there were approximately 4,000,000 active members of American trade unions. This Labor Day the total exceeds 7,000,000, enrolled under the banners.of William Green’s American Federation of Labor and John

~ L. Lewis’ Committee for In-

dustrial Organization. This increase is greater than in any other year in history. After Samuel Gompers started the A. F. of L. 56 years ago, it took him 10 years to round up

. 250,000 members.

This 12-month gain is one result of a series of phenomenal happenings which have changed the whole labor picture in America. The change affects the whole national economy and it may revolutionize political alignments. ” ” ” (QULSTANDING -events of the labor year include: 1. The Supreme Court’s decisions upholding the Wagner Act, the Social Security Act and state mini-' mum-wage legislation. 2. GC. 1. 0. Union. contracts signed by U. S. Steel, Jones & McLaughlin Steel, . Genéral Motors and Chrysler. 3. The first serious governmental effort (except for NRA) to raise the wages of several million substandard wage earners, through the. wage-hour bill which is deemed certain of enactment next year. .. 4. The almost unanimous labor support thrown to President

Roosevelt in last fall's election, uniting the votes of labor for the first time on an effective scale. ‘5. Abandonment by the C. I. O. unions of the traditional Gompers doctrine that labor organizations should be nonpartisan and should restrict political activities to voting for their friends and lobbying for favorable legislation. 6. Widespread organization of white-collar, office and professional workers, both by the A. F. of L. and the C. I. O., for the first time. 7. Sit-down strikes, which waxed and waned. almost to zero during the year. \ 8. Widening. of the breach between the A. F. of L. and the C.

| William Green

I. O., which is scheduled to be considered by the A. F. of L. convention in Denver in October ‘in dealing with 10 big C. I. O. unions, suspended a year ago. Purging of C. I. O. unionists from A. F. of L. city and state labor bodies, spreading the warfare generally. Jurisdictional strikes and boycotts resulting from C. I. O.-A. F. of L. rivalry in the same fields.

2 8 = S Mr. Lewis says, “Labor is on the march.” But where it

is not so clear. Many of the

changes appear certain to be permanent. But some believe that the internal controversies already

in evidence may rob the labor : "movement, of much of its power

and momentum before aly more months.

There are al least five menacing situations, which overlap to a considerable degree. - One is continued resistance of some big industrialists, demonstrated successfully by Reming-ton-Rand, Inc. last fall in an A.

F. of L. strike and by Tom Gird-

ler and other steel magnates in this year’s unsuccessful steel” strike by C. I. O. Another isthe resistance of

“little -

Southern industrialists to the C. I. O’s organizing drive—and also to the wage-hour bill—because of fear that the deep South’s .cheap-labor attraction for industry will be destroyed. Third is the C. I. O.-A. F. of L. split, which may alienate public favor if interunion squabbles bring many more strikes and boycotts.

Another is the activity of Communists in C. I. O. unions, already a favorite theme of A. F. of L. leaders. 2 » » LL four of the above situations, if allowed to develop further, may head into a fifth possibility, Congressional . and

state legislation aimed to “make

labor responsible” and curb its most effective weapon, the strike. Three factors outside of labor’s ranks will probably have as great an effect on union progress in the next year as they have had in last year. One is the generally understood New Deal licy of friendliness to self-organization of workers. Another Pas Supreme Court, which will have new cases further interpreting the

Wagner Act and the Labor Board’s powers, plus another on the va-

Grade-Crossing Construction Goes on As Death Toll Rises, Clapper Says .

By Raymond Clapper Times Special Writer ASHINGTON, Sepi. 6.— The other night a man was killed when his automobile struck a freight train on_a grade crossing just outside Washington on the Defense Highway. This is a heavily traveled road, connecting ' Washington and Annapolis, the capital of Maryland and the seat of the U. S. Naval Academy. It also is the main route of the many Maryland and Delaware summer ' communities. Traffic

‘|is heavy. Bus lines travel the road,

as. do a large number of Government officials and Naval officers going back and forth between Washington and Annapolis. Yet, within a mile of the capital, this highway goes across a railroad track. A watchman is on duty, but accidents still happen, There is no safe grade crossing.

ow, on human life being held so cheaply in China and Spain .and elsewhere it may seem in poor grace to complain about our Government, which certainly has no such reckless indifference as that to human life. ‘But why, with all of the millions the Government is spending on public works, roads, dams—or, as they. say, building bridges and then putting rivers under them—why with all of this money to spend does the Government permit the deadly . grade crossing to survive? Uncle Sam will spend thousands of dollars building a new road only to send it across a railroad track so that it becomes a death: trap. . The grade crossing is growing more deadly every year as traffic increases. In the first five months this year, 752 persons were killed in railroad grade-crossing accidents,

Side Glances_

By Clark

which is 110 more than were killed during the corresponding period last year. These figures go only through May, before the heavy summer travel began. There were 2226 injured, an increase of 224 compared with the previous year. A total of 1919 accidents took place, compared with 1674 in the first five months of 1936. The figures are likely to go higher before they go lower, because we are only nibbling at the grade-prossing menace. 2 2 T THE od of last year there were 232,902 grade crossings in the country. Official statistics will tell you that some 2000 grade crossings are being eliminated each year. But that is a trick. figure. Most of that “elimination” is due to the junking of small branch railroad lines which constituted only a minor hazard, anyway. When you look at the figures on the number of crossings that were

~ John _L.

lidity of sit-down strikes, when it meets in October. The third is the Labor Board, ‘whose cases have increased tenfold since the Wagner Act ruling by the Supreme Court. Its cases may be labor's strongest aids against the remaining recalcitrant employers; they also include pos-

Lewis or peaceful adjudication, of many of the A. F. of L.-C, IT .O. rows.

"Quins Thrive During Fourth Summer’ will appear on this page tomorrow,

; sibilities of further open warfare,

lce Age Story From Bottom

Read in Mud

of Ocean

{ By Science Service

ASHINGTON, Sept. 6.—The " million-year history of the Ice Age summarized in 10 feet of ocean-bottom mud and sand. That is the meaning read from 13 core samplings of bottom material by a group of U. S. Geological Survey scientists. They are still working on the material, first ever obtained by a new device, developed in

‘the laboratories of the Carnegie In-

stitution of Washington by Dr. Charles S. Piggot. Evidence thus far obtained strongly supports the

theory that the several strata with- an

in this very small depth record cold periods of ice advance, with warmer intervals of ice retreat. The Geological Survey team consisted of Dr. John B. Reeside Jr, Wilmot H. Bradley, Milton N. Bramlette, Kenneth E. Lohman, L. G. Henbest, and Joseph A. Cushman.

Each man brought to bear a spe-

cial knowledge of his own, from recognition of the shells of one-celled animals to classification of types of mineral fragments. Active direction of the work was in the hands of Dr. Bradley.

8 ” ”

NHE samples were taken from 13 widely separated “stations” strung clear across the North Atlantic. Dr. Piggot’s apparatus is essentially a short, heavy, cannonlike affair that shoots a long tube into the mud or sand, with a smhll charge of gunpowder when it touches bottom. It was carried on the cable ship Lord Kelvin, which stopped at the, desired points to

lower the heavy apparatus into deep

water. Greatest. depth at which a core was taken was approximately 16,000 feet. During the long time in which the upper 10 feet of ocean bottom

were being slowly , deposited there were two periods of major volcanic activity, perhaps in Iceland.- This is shown by two layers of fine volcanic ash that serve as con-

venient landmarks by which the |:

strata in the various samples can be identified and correlated. ” ® o8 HE cores show four zones con-

taining sand, with pebbles of a

wide variety of minerals. In these

layers remains of living. organisms are scarce. They appear to have been formed in part from materials carried by floating ice strewn on the bottom. terspersed bet w e e n these sand-and-pebble zones are layers rich in shells of one-celled ani-

mals that indicate marked changes

in living conditions. Examinations wers made: separately of the biological and the inorganic evidence, each scientist keeping his results to himself until finished and then checking with his colleagues. There . was a remarkable agreement between the interpretations ¢hus independently determined. » t-4 ” i y WO of the cores did not bite full length into the bottom, because they hit something hard. One struck solid rock; whether a boulder dropped by an iceberg, a ridge or pinnacle of the ocean bed itself, or a fiow of basaltic lava, it was impossible to determine. The other went a little deeper, but found going into coarse gravel too tough, on top of the mid-Atlantic Ridge, a strange narrow submarine mountain range that runs the whole length of the Atlantic Ocean. It is conjectured that slow bottom currents flowing over this ridge carried off the finer stuff, leaving only the heavier pebbles behind.

eliminated by separating the rail-|. E=

road and the highway grades, vou find that it will take 50 years, at the present speed, to get rid of the grade . crossings. In. 1933, tracks were separated from highways at 221 crossings; in 1934, at 231 crossings; in 1935—and that was when we had work relief money to burn-— only 165 crossings were eliminated by reconstruction. - Last year the number shot up to 521. It still leaves'a long way to go.

t s28 9 Sa FTER one tragic accident in which a dozen or more school children were killed on another grade crossing just a few miles from Washington, — President Roosevelt said the grade crossing must go. But in spite of that the effort has been lackadaisical. It has never got into the relief program on any considetable scale. Of the billions for relief, Congress has authorized a total of $250,000,000 for grade crossing elimination. It is a trifling sum as public-works money goes. The worst of it is that the Government is building new toads, pumping money in by the millions and making two new grade crossings grow in place of every one it eliminates. Worse than ‘that, in 1935 road building created 1482 new grade crossings while by separation of grades only 165 old ones were

‘abolished.

The chief gain in elimination comes through the junking of old railroad trackage. Of course, if the railroads would all go out of business, that would solve the gradecrossing problem. But if they are to continue running, then it- Joos s like) a long pull to get rid o ings, unless the ¢(

National Safety Council.

About 600 people lose their lives each year through carbon monoxide gas inhalation and a great many of these cases occur in closed garages.

Ui tries Eh

to warm up his car without.

PAGE 9

Our Town |

By Anton Scherrer

Mr. Shea's Pet Crow, Jim, Terrified . Dogs Around Kingan's Pork House, But Was Fond of School Children.

'M old enough to remember when Indian apolis dogs had the run of the streets. They had their own way all over town, with the possible exception of the district around Kingan’s pork. house. I can explain that, too. Right across from Kingan’s retail butcher shop on |

W. Washington St. and adjoining the old building | which was the start of the present Oscar C. McCul= |

- loch School, was the little store

of Henry W. Shea, a lively Irish man who made his living selling chickens and eggs. At any rate, that’s what the sign outside his place said. The sign didn’t tell everything, however. It didn’t say a word for instance, about the little room in the rear of the store where Mr. Shea kept his supply of live pigeons, ducks, geese, squirrels, rabbits and guinea pigs. I don’t know how the guinea pigs got into Mr. Shea’s store. It worried me a good deal at the time I remember, because the more I thought about it the more I wondered why a food purveyor of Mr. Shea's ability would want to ine . clude something as unpalatable guinea pigs with all his other good things to eat. = don’t mind saying, too, that my concern was considerably increased one day when I learned that Mr. Shea was. a cook by profession,

Jim Hated Dogs

That wasn’t the only strange thing “about. Mr, Shea’s place. He also had a crow, Jim by name, who in his way was just as hard to explain as the guinea pigs. Fact is, he was twice as hard to explain, because Jim had two natures, a good one and a bad one—Ilike Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, for instance. I don’t expect you to believe it, but it’s a fact, nevertheless, that when recess time came around, Jim was always at the schoolhouse making friends and playing with the children. And when the kids

had to go inside and do their lessons, Jim went over to Kingan’s and raised Ned with the dogs over there, He always licked them, too, because Jim had a bill like a rapier and used it like a professional. It ended up, of course, with Jim cleaning out the whole West Side. So much so, that when 1905 came around there wasn’t a dog to be seen anywhere on Washing= ton St. between the river and California St." :

° Mr. Scherrer

Grounie Was a Prophet

" Nor was that all. Mr. Shea also had a groundhog, Grounie by name, who was the best weather prophet Indianapolis ever had. She. (that’s right) also stayed in Mr. Shea's back room. It was Grounie, for instance, who predicted the awful winter of 1903-04. I know how she did it, too, When September, 1903, rolled around, Grounie went 4 into the cellar under the back room, and started Sn 1 nelling toward the street. She then tore paper, old — hats, clothing and rags into little pieces and carried them into her hole. The work continued until Thanksgiving Day, and then the ground hog dis-

appeared. Believe it or not, Grounie didn’t show up again until the second day of February, 1904. I hope I don’t have to tell you what the winter was ‘like that year. The next winter (1904-05), the ground hog didn’t do any digging at all, much less build a nest. Sure, the winter that year was a mild and balmy one, just the way Grounie said it would be. _»

A Woman's View By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

Masterpiece of Artist Stands as Sis lent Rebuke to Hastily Done Work.

ACATION NOTES—On our last Sunday“in Los Angeles Charles and Mary ick us to the famous Forest Lawn Cemetery to see the Wee Kirk o’ the Heather and the Little Church of Flowers. Marriage and funeral parties of the great and near great form an almost continual procession to these shrines. Frequently bride and groom wait to enter until a casket with its mourners can pass out. This mingling of happiness and tears is a part of the enormous confusion of thickly populated areas. The lovely sculptured marble group at the turn of the entrance drive into the cemetery was done by Gazzeri, who called it “The Mystery of Life.” He

began the masterpiece in his youth and did not

complete it until he was past 60. That is something moderns might. well ponder. The groups of men and

women who stand staring at the gracefully posed, enigmatic figures should be impressed not only by its beaufiy but by the .fact that it took one man a lifetime’ to perfect. It is a silent rebuke to our hastily and often badly done work. How many of us at the end of life can point to one impeccable accomplishe ment? Compared with the Gazzeris of the world we are a scatterbrained lot, who in attempting to do so many things do nothing well.

New Books Today

Public Library Presents—

T= British Broadcasting Co. claims the credit for the present wide use of the term “swing music” which they decreed should be substituted on all their programs for the more vulgar term, “hot jazz.” : We soon learn in reading the recent translation of Hugues! Panassie’s HOT JAZZ (Witmark & Sons), that swing is a technique, a way of playing musie, rather than a kind of music. It may appear strange at first that®a Frenchman should write with so much

- authority and genuine understanding on what seems

to us essentially an American phenomenon, especially since his knowledge was acquired chiefly from records, but he possesses the perspective necessary to judge swing music fairly. ”»

ever-present hint of adventure and pares

1 excitement which pervades railroad stations

forms the background for VICTORIA FOUR-THIRTY (Macmillan) by Cecil Roberts. It is from Victoria Station, London, that the 4:30 train leaves to make connection with the Arlberg-Orient Express and Mr, Roberts selects several of the passengers from widely differing walks of life and with deft and vivid chare acterizations gives us glimpses into their lives. There is Herr Gollwitzer, the renowned conductor, who leaves London with a heavy heart, but changes his whole outlook on life during the night journey across the continent. The little Greek waiter is hurgying to Athens to marry the girl waiting for him. There are a newly married couple, a well-known novelist, nun, a German film star, a Turkish tobacco merchant each intent upon his problems; yet chance finds the

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