Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 16 December 1937 — Page 17

agabond! ~ From Indiana—Ernie Pyle Lei Is Hawaii's Symbol of Love anc

Friendship for Visitor and Native, | Custom Also Has Its Drear Side.

H ONOLULY, Dec. 16.—The “lei” custom

is, so far as I know, peculiar to the trop-

ical islands of the Pacific. It is in tune with the whole gentle personality of Polynesia. And it is a custom which, I suppose, is

one of the very few taken to heart by the whites who came encroaching upon these islands. A lei (pronounced “lay”) is a necklace of flowers. Men wear them as much as women do. T've seen |. bankers wearing them on the streets. And brown garage mechanics wearing them at their greasy work. | Over here you send your girl a lei instead of a corsage when you're going dancing. You send leis- at weddings, and at funerals. Every now and then you just buy somebody a lei out of pure love. : But the lei custom reaches its peak when people arrive or go : away. In these islands that means boat day. (And now airplane day, too.) r When you arrive in Hawaii your friends, if any, come out to the liner on a tug, long before the ship docks. The ship lies offshore for about an hour while people drape their friends with leis. And when you leave Hawaii the leis are even more riotous. All your friends come down to see you off. They drape you with leis as you go aboard. I've seen people with so many" leis around their necks you couldn't see their ears. . After you're in Hawaii you don’t know what to do . with your leis. They're so beautiful and smell so sweet you just can't throw them away. So you leave them on the dresser a couple of days till they start to die, and then put them in the wastebasket. When you leave you're supposed to keep them on until the ship passes Diamond Head, then throw them into the sea and the waves will wash them back to Hawaii—making a contact which in time will bring “What's that got to do with it?” you, too, back to Hawall demanded the gorilla. Agnes Makaiwi, a robust Hawaiian lel woman, told > iv # me about the prosaic side of the business.” There are HAT was jist the point.’ And | 500 or 600 women in Honolulu who make leis. A T it was funny that the gorilla few depend entirely on it for a living. So ok or JUL HL IeW en Eo whaustion Were { Few of the lei women raise their own flowers. | seconds before I had been watch- concerned. : They're raised back in the valleys Dy Orientals. who ing Shai policeman uhcopsciously aa | bring them down in huge lots an em e | clenching those two massive inaul- : yn cae Be pee down no the a may 5s sh

: . hatch. ; J _ Lei Custom Is Genuine If the harmless: citizen whp had had og ehaved |themsslves en 3 is the day before | thus spoken out of turn had had s a a re ox soil De of them work at Ns youd have Tolisd : x De hue But: : their flowers and . ; 2 : an Sear oe pr Sed | DA Ton nol in ver tro i rings. oes) : , : sit there on the ground stringing Bowers on =u ngs. em out and then attend to them. case of Irusiration. But it was A fast<=working woman tan ina ke a le E nie That was the attitude of the soon eased. couple of the Sanpomera flower in five minutes. But there are higher command. Otherwise, Why 2 tela passengers, young men that require hours. : there is de'al should the Santa Lucia upset 8 town, Sime tootling back The usual lei costs 25 cents. here A grace 2 her entire unloading’ routine to a 2 argo 2 Js . As they came 35, and a carnation lei sets you bac , gon . Jou save three miserable wretches who i 2 oc 3 8 where - no order a special one for your girl, made 2 ey 0! had deliberately got themselves Sino ig i peri ’ Jue of them Er oi oy fn | uh a De Geral Satie clear in bo — EY es ol em all she keeps them I know that was the chief (per- gong us ® orl had put it ol 2 tri ain if there's another boat within two haps only) emotion that animated jn his mouth. Then he plucked it Says. If there lent, it’s just too bad. © 7 | everyone engaged In the scene out and stamped on it. . © "At least a couple of dozen kinds of flowers are p

j including spectators. Just plain Xr entdl tite young used. They have such names as ilima, pikake, maile, :

¢ curiosity. 0 ie 8 fmamo, lilpoe and ki-ka. They all look beautiful and “Ll bet theyre squashed flat Br no} Smiling: they all smell sweet.

as frogs!” said one of the local i Headilri. Action? “Th me : newspapermen. was beautiful. Action e The on jd BOE ED oo A The youngest of the ship's thing that poor King Kong had tourist without friends g Rg Le popular long-time officers grinned at him tolerantly: been waiting for all evening. As genuine. You will notice t aL 2 popu az a He “Didn't think that the coffee was others. of the Santa Lucia pasresident of Hawall, Teusrning jon 8 Vi ise. 1°| on top of them, did you? No, semgers got out of their taxies— i Sd via eyo 8 | ay a eet hit? Sy sgn dn 40 0 ; theyll hang me with a rope of flowers. = 2h er. jackets—the Canal

2 8 = Zone - policeman very quietly ‘My Diary

TIE explained how heavy ‘planks : 1K picked up that young man and H >= the hatch that went put him (the pie-wagon with the By Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt

Second Section

PAGE 17

Our Town |

| By Anton Scherrer

Chronicler Finds Mystery Story in The Unrighteous Lee Sing Laundry, But His Father Found the Moral,

ALWAYS went by way of the Circle, I re member, to get to the old Turning School at the corner of Illinois and Ohio Sts. It was the longest way to get there—the most inconvenient, too—but it was the only way

left if you wanted to see Lee Sing who operated a laundry in the basement of the old Ross Block, Lee Sing was the only Chinaman I ever knew who ran a basement laundry in Indianapolis. He had his

ironing board in the show window, I remember, and I still recall how he used to fill his mouth with water and eject it in a thin, vapor-like ‘stream to dampen the shirts preparatory to ironing them. He plied his trade right out in the open with a kind of professional pride that was unlike anything around here, unless, perchance it was the kind of self-esteem the restaurants displayed when they put their flap- ; jack tossers in the show window. Me Serres At any rate, it was worth going out of your way to see Lee Sing’ at work, I never saw anything like that man. He seemed to get so much fun out of his work, and it always struck me, young as I was at the time, that maybe Lee Sing was hep to an Oriental secret that hadn't got around to us yet. Well, one day when I went to Turning School, I saw the Black Maria drawn up in front of Lee Sing’s place. Before I knew what was happening, I saw the policemen put three Chinese and a white man in the wagon, and start off for police headquarters. Lee Sing was one of them. Fortunately, one of the policemen was left behind “to guard the laundry in Lee Sing’s absence. I don’t remember just how it happened, but before the police= man had time to get things organized, a crowd of us followed him, and that’s why I know what the inside of Lee Sing’s laundry looked like,

The Truth Is Out at Last

The laundry had three compartments besides the show window. The first compartment appeared to be an office, and immediately behind were two rooms . rudely furnished. The rooms were about 10 feet square, and in the corner of each was a bunk of smooth, unpainted pine boards. The bunk was about six feet square and about two feet above the floor. Upon it was spread a cheap quilted comfort, and agaist the wall stood a small bench-like arrangement which was probably four inches high. The rest of the evidence was in the Black Maria. According to the policeman, it consisted of three pipes, three little glass covered lamps, three trays, and seve eral small bowls filled with sponges. It turned out, of course, that the ironing board in the show window was just a blind. - Sure, Lee Sing wasn’t running a laundry at all, but an opium joint instead. The cop said he got a dollar a smoke. Well, I was so full of my discovery of an opium joint in Indianapolis that I gave a detailed account of it at the supper table that night. I remember father stood it until I reached the part about Lee Sing getting a dollar a smoke. At that point, father stopped eating and said, “My goodness, what is the world coming to?” Next morning at breakfast, however, father turned to me and said, “Did I understand you to say last night that Lee Sing got a dollar a smoke?” I said “Yes,” grateful that my vivid account had finally

he Indianapolis Transgressor in the Tropics Under Ship’s Coffee Cargo

tered as Second-Class Matter 5 Postoffice, Indianapolis, Ind.

Stowaways Saved From Death | A (Fourth of a Series) By-Negley Farson

- ‘Author of “The Way of a Transgressor”

HE Santa Lucia lay at Cristobal in the Canal Zone with three stowaways under 180 tons of coffee in her forward hatch. They had been down there ever since Gauyaquil, in Ecuador—four days. Nobody had known they were there until they made their presence known that morning by a frantic banging. It was now nearly midnight. An officer had managed to locate them in the lower hold, get past the coffee, and send them down some soup With a hot-water bottle and a tube. For several hours no ! sound had been heard and no soup had been sucked from the tube. The betting

was they were dead. " “Serves ‘em right,” said one of the men. peering down the hatch to where two gangs of Jamaican Negroes were piling the 154-pound bags of coffee into cargo-slings just as fast as their glistening ebony arms could make it. The rest of the men lopking down at this scene—ship’s officers, a couple of privileged | local correspondents, and a gorilla dressed in the uniform of a (Canal Zone policeman — turned and stared at the fellow. “Well, it’s their own fault, ain't 2?”

NEVER saw a ship unloaded so fast in all my life. The level of the 154-pound coffee sacks sank like water in Gatun Lock. It really was a race against death. Finally a space was cleared and the sandy-haired young officer crawled along: and flashed his hand torch into the lower hold.

“There they are,” he said. “See ‘em?” . Then, like a dog entering a rabbit hole, the first officer vanished from the waist up. Then his feet began to beat a tattoo on the hatch-cover. Was he trying to pull someone up, or was someone. trying to pull him down? Neither. He withdrew and stood up holding a long knife in his hand. He held it up to show us and grinned.

. They were three Ecuadoreans. ‘One was nearly dead from suffocation, starvation and heat—the man with the knife; one slightly dopy, and one who might have been traveling first class, as far

Mr. Pyle

tobal, Negley Farson saw three ship stowaways saved from death under coffee sacks, where the trio had been imprisoned for four days.

Gobs at a dance hall in Panama City as the fleet comes in. The photo shows a typical street scene in Canal Zone towns, in one of which, Cris-

unk in, “Well,” said father, “how can anybody pay a dollar for a smoke when he can get a Henry Clay cigar for

” Times-Acme Photos. quarter? ; ?

Ancon Hn, while the night life of the dance halls Jane Jordan—

and outdoor amusement places was at its height. Shocked Reader Misconstrued Reply

On Modern Girls, Jane Contends.

by ~ ‘ % 1

into- that hold—they were under | no pressure—but OY it was a three stowaways. To the driver: “Okay,” he said.

vefy dark place, with no headroom ; NEX3S The Lost Souls.

©

Here is a night view of Panama City, glittering under tropical skies. The picture was taken from.

Independence of Japanese Military Prompts

and practically no ventilation. - King Kong, the Canal Zone policeman who had been listening to all this with the deepest . attention, then surmised: |“Maybe they're suffocated?” “you've said it,” said the ships officer.

White ‘House Musicians Acclaimed; Chill Mist Envelops Washington.

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ASHINGTON, Wednesday.—J.ast night and this WwW morning, we had some beautiful music in the White House. Last night Mr. Richard Tauber could have gone on for many hours and held his audience spellbound. The young American | violinist, Miss Ruth Posselt, was not only a joy to look at, but a great pleasure to hear. The two were a perfect cominbation. : One friend remarked: “You can’t live up to this -concert for the rest of the year.” I am always glad when people who are often phlegmatic show they really enjoy a concert. It must be a real gratification to the artists when they get a warm response. So often you feel an audience is applauding in a perfunctory way out of politeness, and yet I imagine that is due often to shyness and uncertainty, for, as a nation, we do not let ourselves go very easily in showing our enthusiasm and many people are nof sure of their musical taste. When I drove along the bridle path this morning, it seemed like an entirely different place. Everything was gray and misty. It had rained and frozen.

Mist Caps Washington Monument

The top of the Washington Monument was en- * yeloped in mist, two planes zoomed over our heads and were soon lost in the low ceiling. The leailess _ trees and the gray light had the quality you sometimes see in.a Japanese painting.

All of the out-of-town guests who stayed with

us for the Cabinet dinner left this morning. Some ladies arrived for the luncheon which I give every year to the wives of the members of the Supreme Court. Afterwards, Miss Ruby Elzy, who has a most beautiful soprano voice, gave us a short program of songs which we:all greatly enjoyed. "This afternoon, the Good Will Industries, which are doing a very good piece of work, are to hold an antique exhibition and a sale of dolls. will attract people’s attention to the work which

they are doing. Iam dropping in to buy a doll which, |

. ¥ am sure, will find a home at Christmas time.

New Books Today

Public Library Presents—

of begging the reader to consider his char1 acters as mere fabrications, as most modern novelists do, Hugh Walpole in his foreword to JOHN COR‘NELIUS (Doubleday) purports to place his hero definitely. John Cornelius, mythical English author, best known for “The Bright-Green Shoes” and “The Flight of the Swans,” asked Walpole, his closest friend, to write in novel form the story of his life as Cornelius disclosed it. It began in 1884 the unusually ugly, and an impoverished gentleman. The boy made his pwn way, loving the world, expecting—and getting— much from it. Here are revealing pictures of his childhood, of his mistakes and ambitions and of his later life when he was surrounded by: men and women of social and literary England. The narrative ends with his death umphs. Walpole has made his imaginary friend live for those who never knew him, and the passionate sincerity of the novel will appeal to new readers: as well as to the Walpole enthusiasts. F J # ”

“ ANOTHER book about Mexico,” you may. say

with the birth of John Cornelius,

skeptically when you see Howard Vincent s NOTES FOR A BOOK ABOUT MEXICO (Willett). But this book makes you want to know py first-hand contact the bewildering patiern of Mexican life, and the nature of this enigmatic people * whom the author says he found to be “the precise opposite of all: he feared they would be.” “+ "And you will almost long for permanent abode Rt ‘a people who the cosmo ian Mr. O’Brien

. WAC 0) > & ft

I hope this |

clownish’ child of a washwoman .

in 1921 after final, unexpected tri- -

/

There was not even raricor in although _ thel'e was

it would be hard to beat.. Th? spotless white superstructure of the Santa Lucia almost blinding in the big deck lights, a pale blue tropic night with silver-rimmed clouds floating past the stars, the rows and rows of lights shining through the portholes of a big German liner just going out

the scene, soon to be good reason for it. For a dramatic stage et,

past Toro Light.

Beauty to burn. They would be dancing on that liner &nd the crowd from the Santa Lucia were either over in Eilgray’s Tropic Bar or watching the United States soldiers and sailors making whoopee in the cabarets of Co-

lon. And can’t they make it! “Look’s

aways aren't much. always snatching ‘em out,

... Boy, this is where I hit the first

page, ‘specially if they're dead.”

like a good story,” opined a local reporter. “StowThey're Stick ‘em Colon jail, then send ‘em back in the brig of a koat of whatever their own country is again. But four days under 180 tons of coffee . . . and feecling ‘em with a hot-water bottle and a tube

By William Philip Simms Times Foreign Editor : ASHINGTON, Dec. 16—The _ immense difficulty which the United : States and other Governments are having with the Japanese in China is chiefly due to the fact that the Government at Tokyo:has little or no control over its armed forces. x Two men, in effect, control Japanese policy in time of war. These two are the Minister of War and the Minister of the Navy. They are, respectively, a general and an admiral. They are never civilians as in the United States and most other democratic countries.

These two officials, while members of the Imperial Cabinet, are responsible to the Emperor, not to the Pre-

rect access to his sacred presence. Thus if the Ja)anese Army .and Navy were sufficiently hostile to the policies: of any Prime Minister, they could wreck .his Government by withholding co-operation. Such are the facts behind the unusual handling of the American

protest against the bombing of the U. S. S. Panay and other ‘craft

Side Glances—By Clark

Uso SSN ZN

\ ll

mier. They have immediate and di- |

in the Yangtse. That is why President Roosevelt requested that his indignation be ‘expressed to Emperor Hirohito himself. In that way only could he be reasonably certain of making his protest felt where it would count. Tose 8 ” TE the Emperor, however, will personally make apology to the President is something else again. The Japanese Emperor is sacred to his subjects. Hs is supposed by them to be a descendant of the Sun Goddess, the 125th heir in direct line from Jimmu Tenno, her first offspring. He can do no wrong. He will hardly acknowledge, therefore, any mistakes in China. The notion that the Emperor is too far above ordinary mortals to be spoken of directly is responsible for th: old name, Mikado. “Mi” means exalted. “Kado” means gate. Thus the “exalted gate” of the palace grounds, or Mikado, came to be used to represent the ruler of Japan

| who dwelt within the gate.

Under the Japanese Constitution the Government is a patriarchal affair with the Emperor as its sire. Ordinarily he is. above party and

A WOMAN'S VIEW

By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

AL year the patient postman plods his route, getting few

rest of us, his load grows heavier.

pack laden with parcels for you, but millions of other workers who speed business at the year’s end with will-

their debt. It’s Christmas for everybody, of course, but for many of them it means extra physical weariness, frayed nerves and greater mental strain. The women who smile at you from behind their counters, who patiently show their merchandise and make out tickets and hand back the change; the men who sojt the floods of greeting cards, letters and par-

‘| cels; waiters: trudging under the

trays of food which feed the hungry mobs of shoppers; the truck drivers delivering ‘their mountains of ‘merchandise; the people whom we do not see, men and women who unpack the new goods, file invoices

‘land check rge accounts—could SPE Se |

we celebrate them? {

excitement of crowded shops and

creation of these alluring displays? Sure, they're paid to do it. But the

thanks for his punctuality. As the | Christmas festivities begin for the |.

And not only the postman, his|

ing service and smiles, put us in|}

Most of us are carried away by the

We “Oh” and “Ah” at the gorge 3-4 2 ousness of the windows, but do we |} consider the thought, effort and} weariness that have gone into the}

does not intervene in affairs of state. But in time of extraordinary crisis, as during a major war, his immense prestige is invoked to rally the population.. = The Emperor is making his influence felt in that way now. An Imperial War Council has been formed with Hirohito as its head. His righthand men, of course, are the War and Navy ministers. When recruits are needed, only a word is sufficient. And so it is with money, supplies or whatever other backing Japan's fighting farces require to keep them in the field. = FE Secretary of State Hull merely to protest to Foreign Minister Hirota, which is the normal process, would hardly be worth the time and trouble. ie : In fact, Mr. Hull has already protested against the‘ repeated violations of American rights by Japanese troops. But always to no purpose. Japanese militarists are in the saddle, and have been since they seized Manchuria in 1931. And they

U. S. to Send Protest Direct to Emperor

pay little or no attention to the civil members of the Government at Tokyo. . Back in 1931 and 1032, Secretary of State Stimson sent vigorous protest after protest to Tokyo against

its violation of the Nine-Power Treaty. For a time he seemed to be making headway. The Tokyo Foreign Office and Japan’s Ambassador in Washington informed him repeatedly that, given time, all would be well. Japan would withdraw to her own special zone in Manchuria and the old status quo would be restored. | : And they meant it. They sincerely believed what they were saying. But the Japanese Secretary of War was the real authority at Tokyo, not the Premier or Foreign Minister. ither of these gentlement was in asposition to make good any such promise. | : Today Secretary Hull is up against similar difficulties, which is why President Roosevelt personally took a hand, as only he could do, in a protest to the sacred Emperor himself. That may do some good. Maybe.

Jasper—By Frank Owen

value of the simple words “than you,” ely u not be

uery was shoeking to me. You say: “To be sure some (girls) drink, smoke and neck too much,” which is nothing less than a candid approval of such unladylike business. Or, it is all right to do those things— in fact, you will make better wives if you do, just so you are moderate! A great bit of advice that is from an intelligent adult! It seeins to me that you utterly misunderstand what young men want in. the way of wives and homemakers. Of course it is not the timid, helpless creature who faints at the sight of a mouse. Fundamentally men are no different now from what they were in other generations. They want sweet, feminine girls for wives; wives they can be proud of; capable wives, ones who will help them in the struggle of making & living. And from all the tobacco and gin girls consume these days it is evident not many of them can truly qualify. You do not regret the demise of the Victorian “purity ideal.” Perhaps you prefer the spectacle one can witness now in so many of our downtown and roadside joints. I say, and believe many will agree with me, “let’s have a return of some of the scorned Victorian ideals and the consequent unie versal respect men then held for wo - ?

De JANE JORDAN—Your answer to a recent

F.E M.

Answer—If I said, “To be sure there |are some murderers in Sing Sing,” would you interpret it as a candid approval of murder? Would you think that I had said virtually that it is all right to kill just so you don’t kill too much? A Your letter calls to mind a remark of Mark Twain’s in regard to the wholesale amount of conclusion one can reach from a retail amount of fact. Another way of saying the same thing is that some people do not distinguish clearly between wishing and knowing; they do not draw & sharp line between fact and fancy. Because I stepped on a pet theory of yours, you wish to regard me as an inky-black person and you are not hampered by any need for consistency. : To be honest, I do not regret the demise of the Victorian purity ideal, There is much in the Vice torian concept of women which definitely is harmful, It tended to make women too remote from reality, too precious and unapproachable, The woman cap= able of helping her husband earn a living by working side by side with men in offices and factories was not to be found in this group. I do not believe that a woman should be placed on a pedestal and worshipped for angelic qualities which she does not

possess. On the other hand, there was a great deal of good in the Victorian ideal of woman which should not be lost sight of: Her femininity, for example. Among today’s girls we do find girls who are poor imitations of men. Very likely this is what you really object to .when you refer to “tobacco and gin girls.” They are too much like men to suit you. : : #78 8 3 Note—I: ackngWwledge a letter from Mrs. Collins #8 defense of J. B. P. I am sure that she will agree that its subject matter cannot be published. : JANE JORDAN.

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

Valter O'Keete— ] oon. Dec. 16—With the bombing of those four American boats by the Japanese, the natural alliance. between the English-speaking nations has gotten a shot in the arm of vi 5A, B and D. Franklin D. had better send Joe Kennedy over hera in a hurry. Somebody has got to explain to the English that in the event of a new war we can pay only our own sharé of the check. io Son The Japanese must be punch drunk. They think the whole world is a shooting gallery and everyone in it except themselves clay pigeons. | : Now, having apologized, they say that the inciden is closed. It certainly is closed, especially for

TN RE