Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 26 November 1937 — Page 19

Vagabond

From Indiana— Ernie Pyle

Tugboat Annie of Desert Lives Alone Amid Wealth and Rubbish; Reporter Spurns ‘Strike’ Chance.

WINNEMU CCA, Newv.. Nov. 26.-—losie Pear] lives 35 miles from town, all alone in a little tar-paper cabin, surrounded by nothing but absolute desert. From a mile away vou can hardly see the cabin amidst the sagebrush. There really isn't any road to Josie Pearl's cabin It’s merely a trail across space. Your creeping car is the an appalling cloud of dust, and the sage scratches long streaks on your fenders Josie Pearl comes out to meet you, for she is friendly, a "woman of the West. She is robust, me-dium-sized, happy-looking and much vounger than her years, which are S0-some There is no gray in her hair; her dress is calico, with an apron over it; on her head is a straw hat, on her feet a mismated pair of men’s shoes; and on her left hand and wrist—3$8000 worth of diamonds! Her whole character is just that kind of contradiction. She is a sort of “Tucboat Annie” of the desert. Her whole life has been spent in that weirdest of all professions—huntfor zold. She has bern at it since sh2 was 9 She has plaved an’s part in a man’s ame She is a prospector Sh» is what I like to think of as the Old West. She . peen worth 3100000 one dav. and the next day cooking in a mining camp at 330 a month. She has packed grub on her back through 20low Nevada blizzards, and has spent vears &s the X woman among men in mining camps; vet there nothing rough abdut her. She has run mining-camp boarding houses all over the West. She has made as much as $35.000 in the boardmez-house business and pwt every cent of it into some hole in the ground She has been marred twice. but both husbands are dead now. She never depended on men anvhow She has lived as long as nine years at a stretch at one of her lonely mines

Found First Mine at 13

first mine when she was 13, and it, for $5000. She has just sold her last mine and is well off azam. but she stays on in the desen Her cabin is the wildest hodgepodge of riches and rubbish I've saver seen. Letters and boxes and clothing and pans are just thrown everywhere And in middie of it all sits an expensive wardrobe trunk, a 3700 sealskin coat inside. She has lost $15,000, and $60,000, and $8000 210.000, and I don’t know how much more She has been rimmed out of fortune after fortune by crooked lawyers, greedy partners and -drunken helpers. Yet she still trusts everybody, and loves the human race and the whole wide world On one hour's acquaintance she said to me, “You friend and come out again and I'll take to a place where vou can pick nuggets up in hand. and I'll make vou rich . . it if 1 got rich I'd have lawsuits, and even one lawsuit would put me in my grave. so I started back to town— goldless, and untroubled. But on the way. a stinging little flame of vellow-metal fever started burning in my head. Me? Rich? Maybe just one

little old lawsuit wouldn't kill anybody.

My Diary By Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt

Small Gathering Enjoys Thanksgiving Day at White House.

WA SHIROSTOR. Thursday.—Now that Thanksgiving Day is over, 1 wonder how many people really searched their hearts and found some definite thing or things for which they were truly thankful? I notice that on the dav before Thanksgiving one of mv fellow columnists devoted his column to a comparison between the meager life of the Pilgrims and our more abundant civilization. f course, he is right; we should be grateful that we live in a land of plenty. though heaven knows a goodly number of our people are not so conscious of the plenty as they might be. Of course, we should be erateful that our people are resourceful and selfreliant, but those qualities do not always bring them the plenty which seems to be so close at hand. I often wonder if the Pilgrim fathers did not have an easier time being thankful because the contrasts in their cay were not so clearly defined. Everybody was more or less in the same situation. The Indians might have scalped them all at any moment. Some may have been better husbandmen or better weavers, still the soil and the climate were alike for all and the ability to weave a few more yards of cloth did not make such a tremendous difference in the comfort of any household.

Ample Cause for Thankfulness

Let the necessities of life,

center oi

Mr. Pyle

in

She found her

sold

the with and

your girl

Family

us make a plea to those who have at least to turn in thankfulness to the friends who surround them. On Thanksgiving Day and all through the vear. I think we should be not only: thankful for material things, but also for a few of the intangibles which cannot be calculated in dollars and cents, but which do contribute considerably to the joy of our existence. Our Thanksgiving dinner was eaten in the middle of the dav because we wished to have at least one grandchild with us. We were a very small party indeed. I imagine my mothar-in-law did not have many more with her this Thanksgiving, so it is too bad we could not join forces and all be together. This is the first time we have been in the White House for Thanksgiving, so we felt it was rather an historic occasion. We observed all the traditional customs and ate more turkey than one should eat, and had kindly thoughts of the Arthurdale homesteaders who sent it to us.

New Books Today |

Public Library Presents—

AS expatriate German author who is not afraid to tell the truth, Bruno Frank, has written a novel portraying the suffering and loss of the German nobility, under the Hitler regime. Prince Ludwig is the second son ot a provincial monarch whose power passed away with the war. The story carries the prince from childhood to young manhood, telling of his education, of his devotion to his teacher, and of his struggle to make his wa} in the world after he had been driven from his country. LOST HERITAGE (Viking Press) is the expression of Mr. Frank's own thoughts and beliets concerning the present conditions in his country. This is a book about events that occupy the present and are molding the iives of living people. Although the names used are fictitious, the events are reat and “thus, precisely thus, were men and women treated in the Thirties of the 20th Century in the heart of Europe.”

» n u

N his earlier novel, “Europa.” Robert Briffault described the decadence of European society in the years before the war; in his sequel EUROPA IN LIMBO (Scribner) he pictures the evils of war and of the society wiich permits it. This later novel takes up the story of Julian Bern and Zena, Princess Hruzov. from the outbreak of the war, when, caught in Europe, they escape to England. Zena, after some difficulty, returns to her Russian home; and Julian “joins up,” also after some difficulty. He sufers three years in the trenches, is taken prisoner, and, shortly after the Armistice, escapes from his German prison to Petrograd, where he joins Zona. Russia is then at the beginning of the Bolshevist revolution. Julian joins the Reds, Zena dies, and he returns to Eng.and, where he is fourd in abject poverty by his friend, Laurence Foster. The whole tragedy of “the lost generation” and the hopelessness of life for them is summed up in this last picture of Julian.

The Indianapolis

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 1937

37,000 Traffic Victims (Second of a Series) By William Crabb SOME of Indiana's roads, fine by comparison, are laid on wagon trails. They orginally were platted as connecting links for waterway and railroad arteries. Little did their builders realize the blood of 1200 persons would stain them annually. When the automobile made traffic an over-power-ing menace, tougher and wider surfaces were laid on the old road-beds. And for a few years the 20-mile-an-hour roads were adequate. But as each revolution was added to automobile motors, deaths continued to increase. In 1913, the national toll was 4000. By 1918, it had reached 10.000. By 1923. the annual rate was 18.000, 1928's total was 28.000, and last vear's 37.800. America’s World War dead was little more than 50.000. Engineers sweated with ideas. They sought to make highways strong enough to bear up under heavy trucks, and tough enough to wear under the increasing number of vehicles. A

few trucks had pounded the first six-foot pavements into the mud.

road

" = » HARLES FPF. KETTERING, General Motors vice president, recently told a group of Detroit civil engineers that some 37 million motor cars. a 50 per cent Increase over the present registration, will be using United States traffic arteries by 1960 To handie them safely, he said, 50,000 to 60.000 miles of “superhighways” will be needed, crisscrossing the nation in all directions It must not be inferred that Indiana officials are not subscribing to the system of safetvengineered highways. Slowly. as money and opportunity have presented themselves, they have modernized our roads, First steps were begun a few vears ago when two “death intersections” were eliminated by construction of “cloverleaf crossings.” an improvement included in the plans of Dr. Miller MeClintock, Harvard Traffic Research Bureau director. These are on Road 20 in La Porte and Lake Counties. Officials say they have paid for themselves by increasing safety at the intersections. Meanwhile, three and four-lane roads were being constructed and shoulders were added to narrow two-lane roads. New impetus was given the ever-rising death toll. » » » NE of the principal danger areas were the heavily-trav-eled Lake County highways. The Dunes Relief Highway was completed in 1932—a superhighway designed for “safety.” The results were deadly. It consists of four lanes out nothing divides the opposite flows of traffic. Headon crashes at high speeds have been numerous, officials sav. Profiting by this experience, engineers designed an express highway to supplant 15 miles of the old Lincoln Highway, starting four miles east of the Illinois line.

It is 13 miles of four-lane concrete and is divided by a 44-foot parkway. Each lane is 11 feet wide. The old Lincoln Highway was built 20 years ago. Its general course follows trails along which

This aerial view shows part of the state's “limited motorway”

the Forty-niners drove their horses and oxen. The new road is straight and level, cutting two miles from the motoring disiance, n n » TS non ducts over railroads insure motorists against grade accidents and a raised walk with heav) guard rails safeguard pedestrians. A 200-foot right-of-way puts the fence-lines 56 feet from the pavement. The drainage slope is so gradual that a speeding automobile might leave the pavement and not upset. Culvert walls are 17 feet from the highway. Separate bridges have built for each line of traffic. guard rails are 30 feet apart Two other super-highways of similar co.struction are being planned. Earl Crawford, State Highway Commission chairman, said One would he Road 20 between Michigan City and South Bend, a distance of 30 miles. The othe: would be Road 40, the three miles between Dunreith and Knightstown. So in the Indiana motorists total of 46 miles neered roads. Forty-six miles out of 9000! ” » » N 1916, Thomas H. MacDonald founded the U. S. Bureau of Public Roads. He has been its

chief since. Under the law, he could build no Federal roads. but he could match State money in building state roads that met approved design. He specified still lower degrees of curvature, lower gradients, longer sight-distances and superelevations. In line with America's favorite illusion that anything bigger must be better, the three-lane superhighway was widened up to as many as eight lanes. And more murder was the answer. But after pouring $2.500.000,000 Federal funds into roads without research, Congress two years ago gave Mr. MacDonald 16 million dollars for a study. So far he has learned enough to commit the Bureau to nothing less than designs for 60-mile-an-hour average speeds. and the divided type cof construction.

via -

been The

immediate future, can expect a of safety-engi-

” " » R. MACDONALD estimates the country needs 2.000 miles of limited Motorway. _ That

“clover leaf” intersection,

State Safety Director Donald Stiver claims that

program in northern Indiana.

four-lane highways like

Second-Class Enter ved as ann pols.

Our Town

Post office,

In the lower right is a

this one,

without dividing islands, are “death traps.’

limited and Rlevhighways

work. 12.000 new miles of motorways especially around metropolitan state and national enter Indianapolis alone. This

would relieve existing roads of the traffic that now congests them. All roads need not be limited HI AIDS. just a few things are not } hopeless.

is only one-half of 1 cent of

system, Construction of that one-half of 1 per cent would immediately make the other 99.5 per cent more

nearly adequate and safe. That big investment is not lost, Tt needs adapting at some points to make it work. But ‘Chiefly it

per our in Areas

en

needs to make it Re-

Estate of Bonateite Now Lies in Ruins

ORDENTOWN, N. J. Nov. 26 (U.] Joseph's first home was destroyed ) Point Breeze, the country | by fire in 1820, but there remains no estate that was home to Joseph | trace today of the manor house he Bonaparte, Comte de Survilliers and | built to replace it. The only house former king of Naples and of Spain, |at Point Breeze now is a mansion during 20 years of his exile, has | built 80 years ago and remodeled in been sold under the auctioneer’'s | 1912 by Harris Hammond. son of the hammer. late mining engineer, John Hays Little remains on the delapidated | Hammond | estate to identify it as the Ameri- | Bonaparte bought the 1000-acre can home of Napoleon's brother. A | estate for $10,000 shortly after his beautiful artificial lake once doi- | flight to Philadelphia with his sected with swans and pleasure craft is | retary and nine servants following a dry, weed-filled depression, rem- | his brother's crushing defeat at V/a- | nants of the lake house crumbling | terloo. at one edge | Charles Forko, caretaker, and his | The lake house was built by Jo- | family have attempted to keep the seph for his daughter. the Princess | grounds well groomed, but weeds and Zenaide, and nearby is the entrance | the elements have done much to reto a subterranean passage which tU*n Point Breeze to a state of dehe built to protect her from bad |lapidation. weather on her frequent visits to| Recently Hammond filed a petiher father's home, of which there [tion in bankruptey in New is no trace. The stone-lined passage | Federal Court and the remnants of now is clogged by debris and earth | Bonaparte's once proud estate were +20 feet from its entrance. ‘sola to satisly a Judgment.

Side Glances—By Clark

¥

' ed, forgotten,

A WOMAN'S VIEW

| By Mrs. Walter Ferauson |

York |

design of a few new portions will clean up the worst of the mess, " ” no HE the rub. But the cost of death and destruction on the highways last year was $1.640.000.000, according to the National Safety Council In addition there is one billion dollars a vear being collected in motor taxes, gasoline, registration and carrier fees. The large sections of this revenue which were diverted to other uses during the depression, will be coming back to highways in the near future, With a billion dollars a vear, and another billion that can be saved in damage and slaughter by the improvements, this society of ours has a good start toward rehabilitating this huge investment.

NEXT—The limited motorway,

Teeth

Science Servi TLANTIC CITY, Nov barracuda—the tiger of seas—was shown at the meeting of the American Association here. teeth, states its exhibitor dore Buest of Louisville a half dozen rooted tgeth, feature, said Dr

cost is

26

Dr

fish Known to Another

Buest, is

its teeth lie a snake sheds its skin.

| | Jasper—By Frank Owen

N the morning of Nov. 11 a man wrote me a letter. It said: “I am a hero but can't recommend the job. I was wounded in the Argonne and ever since have lived in a hospital for war veterans. The care we get is excellent, but being a hero is a mighty lonesome business. “Nobody knows that I am alive except a few nurses and doctors and a handful of other wounded men. Nobody cares since my parents died several years ago. The only relatives I have left are several cousins who are not concerned about me at all—and why should they be? ‘Once I had friends, dear close friends, but they are too busy now to bother. I am as apart from your world as if I were on another planet. “Today great celebrations are going on. I can imagine what they | are like. Speeches, bands playing, parades. Lightly these celebrations touch us shutaways. This afternoon visitors will come here. They will talk to us for a little while. It will make them feel sentimental and noble, but tomorrow they will forget us until next Armistice Day.” Naturally I sat down and sent a reply to this letter, making it as cheerful as possible. But he knows

| I too shall forget him soon.

There is so tragically little to be done for these martyrs of our generation, victims of something so sinister that the heart shrinks before its menace. When they marched off to preserve democracy they entered first a purgatory of shellfire and then, being wounded. passed into a phantom world where they now, exist, wast~d human beings, See

Copr. 1937 by United Feature Syndicate, Ine

-

The the recent Dental " This fish has 330 could I don’t think the judge would treat us fairly. Theothe University of The barracuda is one of have novel dental “that the | replacing teeth are entirely formed | within thnse which are to be shed.” |

"Thus the barracuda sheds old

"Yes, he was wearing my muff to keep warm—and it wasn't the cat you put out last night!"

Second Section

Master PAGE 19

sy Anton Scherrer

Here's Regular Cinderella Story And It Happened in Indianapolis; You'll Have to Guess Last Page,

ORTY years ago, everybody around here was interested in the size of Mrs. May

Kee’'s feet.

Mr. May Kee, a Chinese, came to Indianapolis by way of California, and opened a tea store on Massachusetts Ave. in the block between Pennsylvania and Delaware Sts, Everybody felt sorry for Mr. H. H. Lee when they heard of it, because up to that time Mr. Lee had the tea business pretty well sewed up in Indianapolis. Mr.

Lee, however, had nothing | to worry about, because the way things worked out, the tea trade Suge the least part of Mr. May Kee's business. His big turnover [was in bric-a-brac, as it was known at the time. Mr. May Kee's store. I remember, was a veritable mine of bric-a=hrac His shelves ‘were piled high with Mr. porcelain, fans and lacquered ware the like of which had never been seen around hers before The most gorgeous fan mother ever had came from there, and I don’t mind saving, too, that Mr. May Kee's stock of Blue China, especially the willow pattern depicting the story of the mad mane darin making love to the mincing maiden on the | rickety old bridge. somehow had the quality of an [ unexpurgated edition | Besides all these lovely things, Mr. May Kee also | had a wife. He brought her along when he came te | Indianapolis. Bverbody said she was exquisite, and it was no secret at the time that she lent lustre to her husband's shop in very much the same way as (he lacquerware on his shelves. She was just as anthentie, too, hecause it wasn’t long after she arrived that somebody discovered she was a Chinese lady of high caste. Those who weren't in on the secret from the | start heard about it when the two policemen turned up.

Policemen Visit Shop

Forty years ago, the policemen of Indianapolis patrolled their beats in pairs, and to do a good job they always made it a point to drop in and pass the time of day with their patrons. It wasn't | thing out of the ordinary, therefore, that stopped in to see Mr. May Kee one day The extraordinary thing was that on this occasion | the cops went farther. They went into Mr. May ( Kee's private apartment which happened to be back | of the store. There they saw the beautiful Mrs. May | Kee sitting in front of a table, dressed in her Oriental | splendor. What's more, on the table was a little glass | slipper not over two inches long at the most, One of the cops picked it up, so runs the story, and [marveled at the size of foot it would fit Nobody knows for sure what happened after that, {but that night Mrs. May Kee broke down and told her husband that one of the cops had asked to see her feet. Of course, Mrs, May Kee didn’t show them, but nevertheless it made her husband so mad that he dropped everything and rushed to headquarters to see Chief Quiglev about it The following Saturday, the Chief had everybody [in his office to hear both sides of the story For some reason, however. Chief Quigley had his door locked that morning. and to this dav, nobody knows whether the two-inch slipper ‘on Mrs. May Kee's table fit her foot or not.

Scherrer

any= the cops

Jane Jordan—

Seek Legal Aid to Regain Daughter From Relatives, Mother Is Advised.

[Ens JANE JORDAN-<Nearly three vears was granted a divorce from my husband, but my 6-year-old daughter was placed in the custody of her paternal grandmother who is nearly 70 years old, Since then I've only been permitted to see her twice ia week for an hour and to have her all day Sunday, It's the same through summer months and holidays, I'm positive of the fact that the child's father, with the help of his family and friends, had the case fix»d, not only because he later told me so, but because he has committed several crimes and has been let off His brother served a sentence on a Federal charge anc most of his sisters have been in trouble with men. Y mv girl was put in the care of an old woman wh couldn't give her own children the proper training, By law a woman has to be proved unfit to lose her children. They got around that by saying I didn! have a permanent home, which I did, and by saying that the grandmother could have her temporarily, but it has stood that way ever since. Now I have married a very fine man and we have |a comfortable home, but with hospital bills and such we have been unable to go into court But if we

ago I

Mv daughter's health is suffering -from the poor cars she is receiving. She is kept up late and allowed to have candy and the wrong kind of food. Do you know of anyone who miaht help me. or must I just sit back and look on at such an unjustifiable condition? MRS. X, Answer-Your case is one for a lawyer, not a (ole umnist. You simply must save enough money to pay a reasonable fee to a lawyer who can present your case to the court with eonvineing evidence that you are fit to be granted the custody of your child. I do not believe that our justice has gone so far | astray that a virtuous and financially able worhan | cannot get the custody of her own child. Tt is the | disposition ot every court to leave small children with their mother unless there is definite evidence that she is an unsuitable person to have charge of them. In your divorce there must have been evidence other than the fact that yr had no permanent home which at least aroused doubts in the mind of the court. Now that vou have settled down and have a good home, the picture has changed. Have your case brought up again, and if your skirts are clear, you'll win out.

” ” ”

EAR JANE JORDAN--I am a girl of 19 and I have been going with a boy who is 21. My mother | and stepfather do not want me to see him. He is nice | looking and makes good money. I don't see him very | often any more, but he seems to think lots of me and | always has treated me nicely. What should I do? R. W, | Answer—You do hot tell me what your parents’ obe | jections to the boy are. Maybe their reasons are good; | maybe they are bad. How can I tell without knowing? | Where there is confidence between parents and their children, these things can be talked out and concessions made on each side. All T know for you to do is to get your parents’ reasons. Then if you can't | decide for yourself whether they are right reasons or | wrong. I'll try to help you; but first I must know what thay are. JANE JORDAN,

Put your wroblems in a letter to Jane Jordan, who will answer vour questions in this column daily,

Heard in Congress—

Rep. Harry B. Coffees (D, Neb): I'll tell you what the whole thing boils down "to (speaking of the farth bill)-<cash for cottoh and control of corn.

Rep. Baton R. N. J):