Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 8 January 1938 — Page 9

Vagabond

From Indiana=Ernie Pyle Priest Now at Leper Settlement

Is One of Few Cured of Disease; |

The Story of Charles Bedaux

everyone has heard of |

He Is Father Damien's Successor.

ALAUPAPA, Island of Molokai, Hawaii, Jan. 8. —Nearly Father Damien, the Belgian priest who came to Kalaupapa and gave his life to the lepers. He arrived in 1873 and died in 1889, still

in his 40s. Many books have been written about his life. He has become an almost legendary figure. So perhaps you would like to know who Father Damien's prototype among the lepers is today. He is Father Peter d'OrgevalDebouchet, a Frenchman. He has been in Kalaupapa 12 years. You never saw a more lovable character. Father Peter is nearly 70. He weighs less than 100 pounds. He has a steely gray beard, and when he talks he talks all over. It takes at least six square feet for Father Peter to talk in. He is healthy and extremely active. He can climb the steep pali trail in 65 minutes, which is only > five minutes slower than a horse. Mr. Pyle Ordinarily Father Peter doesn’t smoke. But during my visits, purely out of courtesy I assume, he smoked cigaret for cigaret with me. And he puffed and waved his arms so furiously he scattered ashes all over himself, and I became seriously alarmed about his beard. He served as a chaplain throughout the World . War. After the war he had what he calls, in his cute English, his “nervous years.” He was figuratively shot to pieces, and went into semiseclusion for two years. Then, well once more, he decided to apply for transfer to Kalaupapa. “What put it into your head to come to Kalaupapa?” I asked. “Ah!” Father Peter jumped, sat on the edge of his chair, gesticulated. “Ah, it came to me in one secOND! In one sec-OND it came to me, like that. Twice in my life things have come to me in one secOND. First—to enter the priesthood. Sec-OND, to come to Kalaupapa. I do not know why. Just came, like that.” Within two years after his arrival Father Peter had contracted leprosy. It is generally agreed that he was utterly indifferent to the usual precautions. Some even say he wanted to contract leprosy—to follow literally in the footsteps of Father Damien.

Gives Own Answer

There is some justice in this theory, although perhaps it should not be put that flatly. I asked Father Peter himself about it. He gave me the answer:

“I could not serve until I had made the sacrifice:

of putting myself in a position to become a leper!” Those aren't his exact words, because there is no way of putting Father Peter's machine-gunned crazyquilt English down on paper. Father Peter is the fourth and last man in the colony's 70-year history to contract leprosy by working with the patients. His condition was noticed immediately by Settlement physicians. It showed itself as a dark spot high on his forehead. He was operated on at once, and the spot removed. Ten years have passed since then. And today Father Peter shows no indication of leprosy whatever. Father Peter says the doctors told him his case was one in a million. He is more careful now, and there seems little likelihood of his contracting leprosy again.

My Diary By Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt

First Lady Urges a More Careful Study of the Phases of Rural Life.

ASHINGTON, Friday.—I enjoyed the dinner to the Vice President last night even though my

partner on my left said such kind things to me that I began to worry about being able to keep my head! I had a delightful time with the Vice President talking about the rural arts exhibit. I was glad to have Senator La Follette uphold me in my statement, that it was really well worth a visit and that all those who missed seeing it must look forward to advising the Secretary of Agriculture to hold another next year. The Vice President grows lyrical on the subject of nature, trees, fields and animals. He wants rural life made so attractive that boys brought up in the city will long for the opportunity to make their fives in a rural district. I agree with him wholeheartedly, but I think we must have greater development along the lines which the rural arts exhibit pointed out. In talking to Dr. Latham Hatcher and the two young people with whom she was broadcasting today, I was interested in her statement that not more than one quarter of the young people born in rural districts could make an adequate living purely out of agriculture. The cities, she said, would need a certain percentage of rural youth to build up their constantly decreasing population. At least another quarter of the young people living in the country will have to combine farming or gardening with some other occupation to earn an adequate livelihood.

Book of Safety Songs Used

The statement has also been made that agriculture as a profession, as well as a way of life, has not been adequately studied from the point of view of the training of youth. I think this is absolutely true and I hope it means we are going to study a great many phases of rural life far more carefully than we have in the past. There has just reappeared on my desk a most delightful book of songs, “Sing a Song of Safety,” by Irving Caesar. It has been accepted in the public schools of Greater New York, I believe, for use by the children. It covers many of the childish activities which may lead to danger. I think this is a way in which a difficult lesson may be easily learned and remembered.

New Books Today

Public Library Presents—

AMES HOWARD WELLARD, in his book, UNDERSTANDING THE ENGLISH (Whittlesey House, McGraw), has attempted to explain his countryman to those who are interested in him and who have misunderstood him heretofore. The Englishman at work and at play, in his public 1®e and in his home life is described by Mr. Wellard. He explains what effect the national heritagé of the Englishman as to race, religion and politics has made upon his present day manners and customs. The Englishman's ideas on his language, his education, his class-system, his sports, and even his dampening weather are explained, with some humor, the lack of which attitude of mind in the Englishman so exasperates the American. Mr. Weliard readily admits that “the history of the English has been determined by these three factors: Rain on the English roof; beer in the English stomach, and heathenism on the English mind.”

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HE introductory chapter to THE WAY OUT by Sir George Paish (Putnam) paints a gloomy picture of the future of the world and eivilization, Poverty, war, revolution and chaos are now threatening unless. . . . It is the “unless” that provides the optimism apparent in the main part of the book. After a careful diagnosis of the principal ills suffered by the world the author proceeds to tell how the great nations can confribute something to the betterment of these ills, ‘which automatically means betterment of their own condition. Great Britain, the United States, France, Italy, Germany, Russia, China, Japan and the smaller countries, by lowering economic barriers, by opening their lands to immigration and by giving colonies, can pave the to peace. .

EE aR

he Indianapolis Times

SATURDAY, JANUARY 8, 1938

ntered x m Postof

Two Major Defeats Mark Life of Duke and Duchess’ Industrialist Friend

By Bruce Catton

Times Special Writer

HERE is many a success story in the annals of American industry, but none quite so bizarre and mysterious—or so hard to get the truth about—as that of Charles

E. Bedaux.

Mr. Bedaux was introduced to the American public, via newspaper headlines, when the American trip of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, sponsored by him, failed

to jell.

Before that, he was well known to factory heads, industrial engineers and labor leaders as perfecter of the “Bedaux system” for measuring human effort in industry. He was known to New York society as a wealthy and spec-

tacular good liver.

He was known to the slightly dazed

frontiersmen of upper British Columbia as an explorer

whom the wilderness licked. newspaper reader he was not Nor is that surprising; for his life story is

But to the ordinary known at all.

strange and a little mysterious.

Much of the little that

has been printed about him has been in error. He was born in Paris on Oct. 10, 1886. His family lived in the unprepossessing Charenton suburb, and when he left for America—somewhere between 1906 and 1908 —he had barely enough money to buy a steerage ticket, and his possessions consisted of a wicker suitcase containing

six pairs of socks.

Most of the stories that have been printed about him say that he got a job as “sandhog” in a subway excavation project as soon as he landed in New York, and that it was

by studying the actions of his fellow workers on that job that he got the ideas

about labor-saving methods which were later to make him rich. This is wrong. Mr. BedauX never worked as a sandhog, his stay in New York was brief, and his labor-saving methods were devised a later on, on on E SDRArLY had a job as a H drill hand in a river tunnel in New York, for a time. Later, he worked in a New Jersey silk mill, and still later he worked for a time in Philadelphia; but before 1908 was ended he had reached St. Louis, where he got a $10-a-week job teaching French in a commercial language school. He staved a short time, then took a $0-a-week job at a chemical works. Mr. Bedaux married a St. Louis girl, Blanche de Kressier Allen. He got along well in his work at the chemical plant. He recently told an interviewer: “After I learned English better they promoted me to clerical work. They were very good to me. I must have been an unbearable little Frenchman and they treated me like a child, showing me and teaching me.” He left St. Louis late in 1910, saying that he was “off to South America to seek his fortune.” With him went his wife and Charles Jr. Whether Mr. Bedaux ever got to South America is not quite clear; at any rate he turned up back in Paris again sometime in 1912.

h % 6 T may have been in his idle, . unproductive months in Paris that Mr. Bedaux worked out in his mind the efficiency system which was to bear his name. It must have been; for he returned to America before long, and this time he blossomed out as an industrial engineer. Most of the stories about him say that he spent some years in the French Army during the World war. Here, again, there is an exaggeration. Before the war was six months old Bedaux was in America, not to leave it until after the war. He did, apparently, have some genuine war service to his credit, however. In one document he listed his service as four months and two days in the French Foreign Legion. At any rate, he went to work in Grand Rapids in 1914, getting a place with the Valley City Milling Co. at $50 a day—which indicates that already he had considerably more to sell than just the skill and muscle of a hired hand. During the next three years or so he made more and more of a

Ready to start from Edmonton on the most fantastic exploring expedition of the century, Charles E. Bedaux stands above beside the five big tractor-

Companions on Mr. Bedaux’s fantastic attempts to cross the Canadian Rockies by motorcar were his wife, left above, and a guest, Mme. Alberta Chiesa, of Switzerland. Mrs. Bedaux also took her maid,

Josephine,

reputation as an efficiency expert. By now he was becoming prosperous. He bought a country place east of Grand Rapids, along the Thornapple River, which he called his “chateau.” He also remarried —a divorce, apparently, having ended his first marriage—taking to wife Fern Lombard, daughter of a moderately prosperous Grand Rapids lawyer. 8 » = Y 1919 there came another change of scene, with Mr. Bedaux opening offices in Cleveland and applying his “system” to various factories in that city. The system works as follows: In a given factory Bedaux engineers study the production of work each man turns out per minute. That is the B unit. The standard on which pay is based is 60 B units an hour, whether a workman reaches it or not. Men below the 60 Bs per hour are below standard, and those above are paid a premium of about 75 per cent. Mr. Bedaux continued to do a certain amount of work in Cleveland until some time in 1923. Then he devoted all of his attention to New York. It should be remembered, in this rise to fortune, that it was not merely an industrial system which Bedaux had to sell. First and foremost, he was selling himself— selling his personality, his driving energy, his indomitable belief in his own ability. By the early 20s he was a very rich man. It was in 1927, or thereabouts, that New York first became con-

scious of Mr. Bedaux. He and his wife began attending Metropolitan Opera performances on Monday nights, started giving small dinner parties in their Fifth Ave. apartment, and began to appear at cocktail parties. The apartment was not large, but it was—er—sumptuous. It had a music room, a green and gold Georgian drawing room, a library paneled in walnut, a long hall leading to Bedaux’s study (paneled in oak) and some large bedrooms. Mr. Bedaux's office, in the Chrysler Building, was also something to see, with its weathered oak walls and its quiet, restful air as of a medieval monastery. Then there was a “play apartment” which Mr. and Mrs. Bedaux maintained in Greenwich Village.

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UT Mr. Bedaux did not confine himself to New York. He bought a hunting preserve in North Carolina, a shooting lodge in Scotland, and a $600,000 castle in France—the famous old Chateau de Cande, in the Loire dis trict, where he startled the natives by uprooting a vineyard and laying out a private golf course. One of his few unsuccessful ven= tures grew out of his fondness for strenuous outdoor life, That was in 1934, when Mr. Bedaux decided to prove that whoever told him you couldn't cross the Rocky mountains of upper British Columbia by auto was wrong. Never did the Canadian Northwest see so completely de luxe an expedition, five tractors, a hydro-

ARRIVES IN STRRRAGE

#9 A WEEK LABORER

$50 A DAY EFFICIENCY EXPERT

From the earlier life of Charles Bedaux.

plane, three river batteaux and a vast amount of equipment. Amid all of this came Mr. and Mrs. Bedaux; a guest, Mme. Alberta Chiesa of Switzerland, and Mrs. Bedaux's maid, Josephine. Away the cavalcade went—gal= lantly and laboriously. The tractors kept breaking down, or getting stuck. Rainy weather set in, and small rivers became foaming torrents. Two tractors slid off a mountainside and were lost in a river. Another was lost in an attempted crossing of the Halfway River A horse-wrangler was drowned in the Kwadacha River. Some 30 horses died in two days; those which survived became too weak to carry the loads.

” = » EARY and bedraggled, the caravan turned about and came back, leaving all its de luxe equipment in the rivers and swamps. But Mr. Bedaux was unsubdued. When he came out he grinned and said, “The trip Has been unique, and was justified if only for its fascinating experiences.” He was not to know another defeat until 1937, when he attempted to stage-manage the American visit of the Duke and Duchess. This friendship began because Mr. and Mrs. Bedaux' conceived an intense admiration for two people who could sacrifice as much for love as the Duke and Duchess.

trucks with which he tried to conquer the Rockies. The tractors were loaded with every comfort. The expedition failed, but not Mr. Bedaux’s spirits.

Charles Bedaux today is a successful industrial engineer. His second defeat came when he attempted to manage the proposed American tour of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor,

At the time of Edward's abdication, the Bedauxs did not know either of them; but they at once offered the Chateau de Cande to them, and it was to this place that Wallis Simpson went when she left London. It was here, too, that she

and the Duke were married. When the Duke planned his tour, it no doubt seemed natural enough to him to intrust the arrangements to this wealthy American. But he reckoned without the hostility which Bedaux and his system had aroused in the ranks of organized labor. This hostility rippled gently, then rose to a roar of protest. And at last Mr. Bedaux had to make his second acknowledgment of defeat, in the telegram which read: “Sire: I am compelled in honesty and friendship to advice you that because of mistaken attacks upon me here I am convinced that your proposed study will be made difficult under my guidance.” And so the Duke dic not come. His prestige was somewhat diminished. The affair had only one definite, tangible result: It had at least made America~ all of it, not just factory execu tives, labor leaders and New York society—acquainted with dynamic, strenuous, irrepressible Charles E. Bedaux.

ond-Class Matter oe Indianapolis, Ind.

Side Glances—By Clark

pr

(Y

uld drop i in this evening.”

"Andrew and } were just sitting here thinking how nice it would be

A WOMAN'S VIEW By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

N operation performed in the

nick of time prevented a San Francisco woman from becoming a man. Such a story printed in my childhood would have turned the neighborhood upside down; nowadays it is just another item of the day's news. I remember when I was a little girl I wasted hours wishing I were a boy. As the years passed the desire dimmed, and right now there are moments when I am moved to give thanks that I am a woman. The world I knew as a little girl has vanished. And while I am glad to have known the simpler life of a simpler age, I am also tremendously grateful to exist in a period when vistas of opportunity have opened for feminine eyes, Today those of us who are wise will not wish to be men; instead we will rededicate ourselves to faith in the new womanhood. That subtle quality of femininity, if followed as faithfully as the pilot follows his radio beam, will lead us surely to our best goals. And our best goals must always be those where we can exist and work and dream as women and not as imitation men. Right now there is confusion in our midst because so many millions have sold their noble birthright for a mess of masculine pottage. They have repudiated their héritage, betrayed their natural instincts by behaving and thinking and working

like men. The work a woman does |.

may be a man's work, measured by

conventional standards, but always it should be done in a woman's way. Otherwise there will only be stag-

nation for us and disaster for our | nation.

Jasper—By Frank Owen

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Second Section

PAGE 9

Our Town

By Anton Scherrer Columnist Believes the Thief Who Showed Good Taste in Stealing Two Paintings Also Has Courage.

NOTHING thus far this year has stirred me quite as much as a little news item that a thief got into the studio of William A, Eyden, over in the Columbia Security Build ing, and stole two of his paintings. To tell

the truth, it put ideas in my head. The first idea to pop into my head was, of course, the rather obvious one that thieves had broadened their field of activity to include examples of art. Next to pop was the revelation that the

thief in this case had stolen the work of a nice conservative painter, and not that of a radical. At a time, too, when he had his choice of the big collection of modern art now on view at the Herron Art Institute. Certainly this means something. I won't go so far as to say that it means a victory for the conservatives, but I have a hunch that if the radicals ever found themselves in the enviable position of having one of their painte ings stolen, you'd hear about it, you bet. And if they had two paintings stolen by the same thief, which is what happened to Mr. Eyden, I'm pretty sure they'd capitalize the event and point to it as a modern trend, Thank gooeness, I don’t have to go into that today, because as far as I know nobody ever went out of his way to steal the work of a radical painter. That ought to be enough to keep me from worrying, but it doesn’t dispose of my bewilderment. For one thing, it still leaves me wrestling with the thief who, given his choice, turned down the modern paintings now on display in Indtanapolis and walked off with two of Mr. Eyden’s pictures.

Mr. Scherrer

Police Can Expect Fight

Whatever possessed him to do it? I'm sure I don’t know, unless his good taste was responsible. I don't know g#hat good taste is anymore than you do, but I have a sneaking suspicion that it’s the gift of liking and disliking the right things. Anyway, the older I grow the more I am convinced that to know what to love and what to hate is the sign of a connoisseur (and a good thief, too). Taste implies even more, because if you travel with the kind of people I do, you can’t help learning that

good taste is something tied up with independence of judgment and a capacity to think things through. Which, of course, leaves me no alternative but to bee lieve that a man of good taste is one with considerable courage, too. All right. If that’s the case, the police had better be prepared for the worst. I don’t imagine that a thief having the good taste to steal two of Mr. Eyden’s pictures, to say nothing of the courage of his convice tions, would hangl them over without a fight.

Jane Jordan—

Neither Condemned Nor Condoned Practice of Smoking, Jane Says.

EAR JANE JORDAN-—You stated in a recent article that women of refinement do smoke and drink. After all, you and those who, for some strange reason, condone these practices have the right of opinion; but don’t forget that “refinement” is a relative term; and I suspect that the great majority of people envision a refined woman as quite the antithesis of what we sometimes see today at the other end of a cigaret or at the receiving end of a cocktail. No doubt the unhappy young woman of Youngstown, O.,, who drank “not to excess, to be sure,” but still enough to derange her to the extent

of killing her own mother over the Christmas tree, is questioning now whether or not the smartness of “refinement” she was after in the few drinks she had is so much better than plain old-fashioned decency. R

If what you can see in almost any cafe or eating place now at meal times smoking her self silly is your idea of refinement, then we will take unrefined women. DOC AND THE BOYS. ” ” " Answer—After today I shall not publish any more letters for or against smoking for some time. I feel sure that people are tired of reading such constant repetition of opinion. In Wednesday's article I neither condoned nor condemned the practice of smoking. I made an objective statement when I said that some women of refinement smoked whether we liked it or not. Alice Roosevelt Longworth, I believe, was the first woman in the States to smoke cigarets in public. There are plenty of others like her who have no kinship whate ever with the poor specimens of femininity who repell Doc and the Boys. These girls and women would be repellant to people of taste whether they smoked or not. Their lack of refinement comes from something in themselves or their breeding, not from what they eat, drink or smoke. Do we say that a gentlewoman cannot eat without taking on the characteristics of a common woman? I am afraid that our correspond ents today have reached their conclusions through emotion instead of reason. I wish to acknowledge a letter from Mr. M. 8. which ends: “Interested persons request that you please publish this entire letter as written.” The

letter is so long that it would take up more than the entire column. I have found that people do not like to have their letters condensed. Therefore I cannot publish it at all. The letter expresses the opinion of a group of men who prefer women who do not smoke. Without doubt their view is representative of a very large class of men, though not of all men. As I said in the beginning, this will close the dise cussion on smoking for some time to come. We will discuss other problems. for a while. JANE JORDAN,

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

Walter O'Keefe—

OLLYWOOD, Cal, Jan. 8 ~The Democrats are officially opening the 1938 eating season with their Jackson Day dinner. The rebel Senators will dine in the kitchen. There's a rumor that James Aloysius Farley will attend. Mr, Farley used to be a very important Democrat. Of course, there's no reason to worry about the conditin of the country. Everything is normal. Bing Crosby has had another boy. The Administration will go down in history as the one during which the Democrats held the feede bag and the Republicans just held the bag. Never before has a party given us bigger breade

lines while they personally put on bigger waistlines, Last year Congress accomplished nothing because

they were so busy attending harmony banquets. | Maybe t sey sha 69 98.4, dich. a