Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 17 November 1937 — Page 17

. Vagabond

From Indiana— Ernie Pyle

Vagabond Gets Race Thrill Story; Midget Auto Driver Placed Bolts Through Tire to Prevent Skidding.

ENVER, Nov. 17.—Being still considerably agog over seeing my first midget auto race, I called up one of the crack drivers the next night and asked him if I could come over and write a column about him.

The driver was Burton Spickler. He gets the biggest applause from the Denver crowds, because he is a Denver man and also a crack driver. He placed second in point-standing for the summer racing here. When he came in, he looked much younger than he did sitting in his car on the track. I asked him how old he really was. He said 22. He has been driving midget racers for two years and a half. He is a good-sized fellow. You can hardly imagine him in one of those tiny cars. He is strong, and has big hands. He doesn’t smoke, has never had a drink and eats carefully. He has a beautiful big scar over his left eye, and one on his right jaw. “How did you get those?” I

Mr. Pyle

asked. “Right here in Denver, this summer,” he said. “I hit the tail of a car stalled on the turn, and rolled four times before my car hit the ground.” . Spickler has rolled (that's the term for turning over) on three different occasions during the summer. He has spent several days in the hospital, and used up all his summer’s winnings rebuilding his car after wrecks. “I should have played my hunch that day,” he said. I asked him if he had a premonition. “Well, not exactly. But I knew that something was going to happen to somebody. Didn’t necessarily feel it would be me, but I knew it would happen to somebody in that race.” “Did your wrecks slow you up?” “Were you a little timid after that?” “Never bothered me,” he said. “If you're the least bit afraid you've got no business on the track. We all know we're taking a chance, and you've got to be willing to take it. I did have an awful funny feeling that day I rolled four times, though.”

He Builds Cars, Too

By trade, he is a body and fender man, as well as an expert mechanic. So he and his brother are going to set up a body and fender shop. Furthermore, Spickler will build midgets on contract. He can ‘turn one out in three weeks or so. Early in the summer the track was hard and slick, and the long skids were tearing up tires at an awful rate. Spickler once wore out $20 worth of tires in one race, and first-prize money wouldn't have been that much. So he worked out an idea to keep the tires from sliding. He took a tire off, got a brace and bit, and bored 148 little holes right through the casing, clear around the tire, like a tread. Then he stuck a quarter-inch bolt through each hole, from the inside, and screwed the nut down on the outside. Then he put the tube back in, put the tire on the right rear wheel, and started out. He tore two inches off. the track clear around. They never let him use that tire again. And Spickler has a job on the side that I didn’t tell you about. He works out of the Colorado Courtesy Patrol, a division of the State Police. He wears a uniform and rides a motorcycle. And his job is— to escort funerals!

My Diary

By Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt

Cleveland Housing Program Found

Model for Low-Rent Homes Project.

LEVELAND, O., Tuesday—We reached Cleveland yesterday, making the mistake of getting off at the wrong station and disappeinting our hosts who were waiting for us at another station. This morning I spent two hours seeing some thrilling things, three slum clearancz projects which really have people living in the houses. We drove past two of them. That was enough to get an idea of the architecture and planning and the general social life which will be possible. The buildings usually are two-story small houses, or apartments running from three to five rooms. The rents vary from $18 to $30 per month. You may live in the more expensive group with a maximum income of $1500 a vear. We visited one young man living in one of these small houses whose income was $1500 a year and who had three small children under 3 years old. The buildings are simple, but black brick has been used to relieve the red and give it a decorative appearance. Playgrounds are available away from city streets and traffic. In two places they have a community house. A good job is being done and it is developed far enough for one to see its possibilities. NYA Aiding Vocational Work

The National Youth Administration too, is doing an exceptional guidance project with some posters, which ought to be in every office, for they offer so many suggestions of possible vocations. In addition, they are having their work projects evaluated and are getting out the findings. They have found alreaay that even more important than acquiring a skill, is the acquisition of work habits and character traits. These give a prospective employer the hope he will not be wasting time in giving training in the particular skill needed in his industry. Finally, we visited a WPA domestic training center. They have set this project up with an advisory committee on household training. Mrs. Wiliam C. Mather, chairman of this committee, is deeply interested in the work and has discovered some of the things which many of us have discovered, namely; it is not enough to train a good employee, you must also have a good employer. Unfortunately, we have heard that in many places in the country some prefer to remain on relief rather than take household positions. Many women were indignant over that statement. Mrs. Mather has found, as many of us have found in other places, that a little further investigation sometimes brings out the fact that the positions offered to women on relief are not always desirable.

New Books Today

Public Library Presents—

NCE upon a time the swish-swash of an approaching Viking ship struck terror to London. But that is long since, and now a descendant of the Vikings, Steen Eiler Rasmussen, architect, town planner, and social student, gives to the Londoners a thoughtful and thorough study of the character of their city. His book is LONDON: THE UNQUE CITY | (Macmillan). Among the numerous descriptive books | on London, this one is distinguished by the fact that it gives a complete picture of the growth and particularly the architectural development of the city. The author fears an infection is abroad—the infection of continental experiments. He feels that the difference between the “scattered city” of London and the “concentrated cities” of Paris and Vienna, stems from the life of the people. And he begs London not to sell her birthright, the cottage and the open fields, for a “mess of permanent slums.”

F you have a stubborn piece of office machinery which refuses to function when you need it most, this is the book you are looking for. THE ALMANAC OF OFFICE EQUIPMENT (Harris) will give you instructions that will make the contrary office machine your friend. This manual gives a detailed description of every" type of machine any modern office needs, and furnishes information as to their proper care and han-

I asked him.

The Indianapolis Times

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 17, 1937

Roosevelt's ‘Toughest Congress

Norris Again to Enter Fight for ‘Little TVA’ Program

(Fifth of a Series)

By Rodney Dutcher

ASHINGTON, Nov. 17 (NEA).—The aims of the regional planning program which will be before Congress are so many and diverse that it is difficult to comprehend the program at one gulp. Under the Norris bill in the Senate and the Mansfield bill in the House, the nation would be divided into seven planning regions, among which the Tennessee Valley and

adjacent area would be one.

Regional authorities similar to TVA would plan—or initiate—the carrying out of the Roosevelt dream of substituting planned development and conservation of natural resources for the familiar congressional “pork barrel.”

Flood control, prevention of soil erosion, reforestation, storing of water for irrigation, cheap electricity, decentralization as against urban congestion, new opportunities for millions and employment for the unemployed are among the objectives. on # » ENATOR NORRIS (Ind. Neb.), recently ill, is back here in good health. He has a remarkable record of success on legislative objectives, so something seems more or less bound to happen. His own bill, after putting the Cumberland River basin and sections of the Mississippi Valley under TVA, would create six other planning development authorities. These would be set up in corporate form, with administrative power over regional power, water, forest and soil projects. Each authority would operate, as does TVA, with a lump sum and discretionary power to decide how, when and where the money should be spent. : Rep. Joseph J. Mansfield (D. Tex.), House Rivers and Harbors Committee chairman, also has a bill. It provides for planning—but not for actual development—of similar regional districts by regional boards which would make recommendations to Congress. Congress would then, if it saw fit, have the regular departments of Government carry out the recommendations. Any power develop-

ment begun in this way would have its own individual administrator.

= = #"

HE issue between the two bills, involving Congressional delegation of power, is likely to be solved by a. compromise which would create authorities similar to TVA for two new regions and create planning authorities for four others. The Columbia Valley Authority, for the drainage basins of the Columbia and of rivers flowing into the Pacific north of the Califor-nia-Oregon line, would be one of the two new authorities under such a compromise, Whether the other would cover the St. Law-rence-Great Lakes area or the Southwestern Authority—covering the basins of the Colorado, rivers flowing into the Pacific south of the California-Oregon line and the Great Basin—is speculative.

THER authorities proposed by Senator Norris would be the

Atlantic Seaboard, Missouri Valley

and Arkansas Valley authorities. The TVA record is a strong talking point for proponents of the Norris bill, as is the idea of submitting specific projects in specific regions to a board which theoretically would have a scientific approach and a maximum localized representation. Army engineers, with a firmly entrenched lobby and a distaste for public power development, are opposed to the Norris plan because it would take from them jurisdiction over inland navigation flood control and other aspects of regional planning. ww W

HE whole proposal is involved with the running battle between Mr. Roosevelt and the public utilities. Power interests

are sending

their shock troops in against the Norris plan, claiming it would destroy and displace the private power industry. But aside from the proposed St. Lawrence development, contingent on an international treaty, the only area available for largescale public power development is

that of the Columbia River area, which already has the Bonneville and Grand Coulee projects, municipal plants in Seattle and Tacoma and widespread public power sentiment. The real purpose of the power

Entered as Second-Class Mattel Indianapolis,

at Postoffice,

The 36 ‘million-dollar Norris Dam in the Clinch River in East Tennessee is shown above, impounds more than three and one-half million acre feet of water in a 705-mile shoreline reservoir, This fourth largest

for flood and navigation control.

Senator Norris, veteran Nebraska political leader, pioneer in Government power development, is the sponsor of the Norris Bill now in the Senate which would divide the country into seven planning regions on the model of the gigantic TVA for conservation and development

purposes.

interests is to wreck TVA and their suit arguing against TVA constitutionality will be heard by the Supreme Court in its present term. Congress is unlikely to act on regional planning proposals before the Court hands down its TVA decision. = = » N opening test on the constitutionality of the entire TVA program was begun this week at Chattanooga, Tenn. where a three-man Federal Court heard TVA Counsel James Lawrence Fly argue the prime purpose of the program. Mr. Fly contended that navigation and flood control were the real purposes of the Government project. He denied the contention of 18 southeastern power companies thai the creation and

sale of power was the first purpose of TVA. Mr. Fly argued that the power right followed naturally

from the development, since impounded water was of no use until it had been created into electric energy. Another of the private companies’ arguments was contested by Mr. Fly, who denied that TVA was a “public ownership” plan. Mr. Fly said project initiative always came from communities affected, and the projects were not foisted on any region by Washington. Senator Norris recently indi-

cated the Government has laid an intricate and comprehensive defense of the “Little TVA” plan. Senator Norris, as the father of the Muscle Shoals Act, has hinted that the Government case will rest chiefly on the conservation of national resources and secondarily on the “welfare” clause of the Constitution.

NEXT—Budget, and Business.

Taxes, Relief

The dam

Rep. Joseph J. Mansfield (D. Tex.) sponsors a different type of program from the Norris plan. Rep. Mansfield would provide for national planning, but not for actual development, leaving that to the regular departments of Government,

dam in the world, 265 feet high, 1872 feet long and 204 feet wide at the control, is one of seven that Sendtor Norris (Ind. Neb.) would set up in his extension of TVA development authorities throughout the United States.

Fight Pests

By Science Service ERLIN, Nov. 17.—Enemies from America now pressing against the western border of Germany have already invaded the Saar region and the country around Trier on the Mosel. They are potato beeties. which came with American troops to France during the World War,

and have been spreading through French fields since then. agricultural authorities have gone into action with a battery of eight heavy tank sprayers on trucks, to fight against the invasion with lead arsenate.

German

The beetles are reported to have

been growing worse every year, and in addition to other damage which

they have done, they are now menacing the famous Mosel wine grapes.

Unless the beetles are destroyed

this yéar experts say a major pest problem will be on their hands next summer.

The equipment with which the

‘German Government is fighting the

beetles resembles wartime armament. Converted military tanks and modified war gasses are used in the attack on the insects. It has even been proposed that military planes be enlisted to spray the infected areas.

Ludlow Wins For War Referendum

Times Special ASHINGTON, Nov. 17.—The question whether a popular

| referendum shall be required to take {this country into war will almost | certainly be a major issue on the | floors of Congress within the next | four months.

Last May, as reported in dispatches, Rep. Louis Ludlow (D. Ind.) had gathered 100 signatures for a petition to discharge from the House Judiciary Committee his resolution for a constitutional amendment which would require that the people vote on any proposed declaration of war. Today he has 185 such signatures. This means that the proposed amendment, assuming Rep. Ludlow is correct in his assurance that he has enough additional signatures in sight to make up the necessary 218, will come before the House by February or March. Subsequent processes of adding it to the Constitution would include passage by two-thirds vote in Senate and House and ratification by three-fourths of the states. House passage would require 290 votes if all members were on hand.

Backing

EAVY drive will be placed bhehind the proposal. A national committee of veteran, church, farmer, labor, war mother and other leaders is being formed to lend weight. Proponents think they can defeat opposition by insisting that America mustn't be asked to “save the world for democracy” again without some democratic process for deciding whether the American section of democracy is interested. Rep. Ludlow’s amendment wouldn’t apply in case the United States or its territory were invaded and any of its citizens killed. But otherwise, in case of threatened trouble, no war could be declared unless a majority of citizens voted aye on the question: “Shall the United States declare war on —?” ‘Some opponents of the Ludlow amendment argue that American troops could still be sent to war areas without recourse to the referendum, since modern warfare tends to avoid formal declaration of war. American Marines recently have been sent to the China war zone, it is pointed out, even though this country was not directly involved in the conflict.

4 & - .

Side Glances—By Clark

"Yes, he's in, but | wouldn't advise you to discuss bills with him. -He'sina nach temper this morning.’

|A WOMAN'S VIEW

| By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

Y Day in Columbus, O. was some day. Vivid and exciting enough to make a proper column for E. R. herself. On one point my curiosity was satisfied. The city is really named after the great Christopher himself because, so the history books say, “to him we are primarily indebted in being able to offer the refugees a resting place.” But Columbus was no resting place for me. I daresay the refugees would be flabbergasted if they could see what's been going on since they settled there in 1812. Where the | Scioto joins the Olentangy sits one of the most beautiful and prosperous | cities of the Middle West. It is | hard to realize that where hun- | dreds of miles of paved roads now | wind, moccassined feet once roamed | the woods. | A magnificent civic center, an imposing Capitol, parklands of rare loveliness, 92 schools, 15 hospitals and the Ohio State University with its dignified ivy-covered buildings and its breathtaking stadium covering 10 acres and seating 72,000— that is the Columbus of 1937. Unforgettable impressions: The round-faced little girl amid a bevy of women; the sharp regret that there was not time enough to talk to her mother; the graceful plume of smoke floating from the top of the high tower in the center of the city like an everburning torch raised to some unknown god, the cute monkeys decorating the walls of the cocktail room at the Neil House; my newspaper folk, who always seem to me the very grandest in the world and meeting Helen Welshimer. a, Ee

Jasper—By Frank Owen

Second Section

PAGE 17

r Ind.

Our Town

By Anton Scherrer

Ernest Thompson Seton and His Disciples Fought First Roosevelt To Draw on Nature Fiction Issue.

T gave me a bit of a turn to learn that Ernest Thompson Seton was in town last

Sunday. I don’t know whether you remember it or not, but 30 years ago Mr. Seton was in

a pretty tight place, and curiously enough, it wasn’t his fault at all. He had written a number of books, among them “Trail of the Sand Hill Stag” and “The Biography of a Grizzly.” They were so

good in their way that they started a school of imitators, who in their zeal to keep up with Mr. Seton went far beyond him in attributing human qualities to birds and beasts. It finally reached the point that animals took it into their heads to behave like proteges of Emily Post. It was at this stage, I remember, that President Theodore Roosevelt horned in with an article in Everybody’s Magazine, in the course of which he brought out the Big Stick. The article was labeled “Roosevelt on the Nature Fakers,” and the fight was on. As I recall, Mr. Roosevelt handled Mr. Seton rather cautiously, and allowed that he had made some ine teresting observations of fact, and that much of his fiction had a real value. The worst thing Mr. Rcosevelt said was that Mr. Seton ought to tell his readers when it was fiction, and when it was not. Later it turned out that Mr. Seton went to great pains in his prefaces to point out the difference. It didn’t faze Mr. Roosevelt in the least. With Mr. Seton out of the way, Mr. Roosevelt threw caution to the winds. Of Jack London's story of the bulldog’s fight with a great northern wolf (in “White Fang’) Mr. Roosevelt said, “the very sublimity of absurdity—in such a fight the chance for the dog would be one in a thousand.” He finished the indicte ment with the observation that “Mr. London’s realism is a closet product.”

Saved Best for Clergyman

He had it in, too, for Charles G. D. Roberts, especially his story about a lynx taking the aggressive against eight wolves (“On the Night Trail”). “It is utterly ridiculous,” said Mr. Roosevelt, “the lynx in that storv would stand no more chance than a housecat in a fight with eight bull terriers.” Mr. Roosevelt saved his best shots, however, for William D. Long. How Mr. Roosevelt hated that man! Mr. Long, a Congregational Church clergyman, had written a number of popular nature books and claimed they were minutely true to fact. “It is grotesque,” said Mr. Roosevelt, “to claim literal truthe fulness for such a tissue of absurdities. I don’t be= iieve for a minute that some of these nature writers know the heart of wild things.” That was just what the Rev. Mr. Long had been waiting for. “As to that,” he said. “I find after read=ing two of his big books that every time Mr. Roosevelt gets near the heart of a wild thing he invariably puts a bullet through it.” Well, that sort of put an end to the great controversy. It was a draw, I guess. Most of the people sided with the ‘Nature Fakers.” The scientists, hows ever, stayed with Mr. Roosevelt to the end,

Jane Jordan—

Self-Discipline, Not Divorce, Urged For Unhappy Wife Wed Three Times.

EAR JANE JORDAN-—I married at the age of 15 because I wanted to get out of school. After three years a son was born. His father didn’t love him and it destroyed cur home, after which we both became untrue to each other. After our divorce I met the one man whom I adore. We were married and I was as happy as I could be. We lived together three months when his parents began trying to separate us because we didn’t marry in their church, I begged him to get married in church but he didn't want to. We both began to drink heavily and quarrel, I didn’t want to do or say the things I did, but drink and worry caused me to do it. We got a divorce, I was sick in bed for three weeks over it. That has been two years ago and all that time I have been grieving over him. For spite I married my third husband a year ago. He is good and kind to me and the baby and adores us both. When I married him I told him I didn’t iove him for I am still in love with my second husband. Saturday night I saw my second husband and it all flamed up again. My husband caught us together but he is just sorry for me because he loves me and understands. No. 2 said if I got a divorce he would marry me again within six months, but No. 3 says he can’t and won’t give me up. All my people say that No. 2 isn't worth it, but my heart leads me a different way. Please tell me what to do. I can’t stand it much longer. BROKEN HEARTED JANE,

u ” s

Answer—It wouldn't surprise me if your people wers right about your second husband and that their opinion is closer to the truth than your rickety heart. Your attempt to blame the trouble between you on his parents isn't very convincing. If he wanted a church wedding and you didn’t I could see where it might cause conflict between you; but this was not the case. The trouble, I believe, lay in the spoiled, childish natures that could not stand the slightest breath of advérsity without anesthetizing their discomfort with alcohol. Nor can I see that your natures have changed for the better since your divorce. You have married again “for spite” without regard for the damage you

Mr. Scherrer

| ings do not concern you at all.

did an innocent man, your third husband. His feelYou're only thinking of yourself and your own wants. Your second husband, too, shows no disposition to He had his chance to live with you Now he has disturbed a peaceful situation Does it matter to No. All

stable at best.

These facts make me believe that neither of you has changed; that the same old problems which caused you to fly apart in the first place are still present. Even if you contrived to cast off your third husband and remarry your second, I am afraid that the two of you would soon be quarreling and drinking again. I'm not at all sure even he would marry you for his mind doesn’t stay made up for long. Within six months he might have some other idea. I do not know what you should do. Since your troubles are caused by yourself, I doubt if there is any external rearrangement which would guarantee happieness for you. A course in self-discipline would be more beneficial than another divorce. JANE JORDAN.

Put your problems in a letter to Jane Jordan who will answer your questions in this column daily.

Walter O'Keefe—

HERE must be times when F., D. R. gets terribly discouraged. Only Sunday night he talked aboug unemployment and urged everyone to fall in and do a yeoman's job. Then Congress met at noon Monday, listened to his message and took the afternoon off. Following a couple of months rest, they come back on the job and immediately take a run-out powder after a few minutes’ work. Washington insiders say this Congress will have a new independence. The word “no” has crept into the

‘Washington ie Den Bid saying it louder ‘hgh. they did on the } o Court issue.

s and I are sailing for Week: in