Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 14 January 1938 — Page 23
. Sh rin PY AR ape Besa enon
Vagabond!
From Indiana=Ernie Pyle
Lethargic Horse and Steep Cliff Cause Wanderer to Miss His Plane, But Then That's Hawaii for You.
ISLAND OF MOLOKAI, Hawaii, Jan. 14.— Kikukawa, the mayor of Kaunakakai, was waiting at the top of the precipice when we rode up out of the Leper Settlement. He had been waiting an hour.
The original idea had been to leave the Settlement by horseback before 7 a. m. get to the top of the 2000-foot cliff by 8 o'clock, and then Kikukawa would drive me to the airport to meet the 8:30 plane. : Well, it was all done in the Hawaiian way. Which means that the Hawaiian who furnished the horse and donkey couldn't catch
them till nearly 8 o'clock. So it was time for us to be at the top before we even started. I rode the horse, with my typewriter slung from the saddle horn. The Hawaiian rode the donkey, with my traveling bag balanced on his saddle horn, and him holding Mr, Pyle onto it. Well, my horse was dead. I don’t know how long he had been dead, but it must have been a long time. It was only the pull of the moon on him, like a tide, and the fact that occasionally I got off and lifted one leg ahead of the other, that we made any headway at all. In the meantime, my Hawaiian friend was having trouble too. His donkey was too much alive. It would go lickety-split up the trail for about a hundred yards, then suddenly wheel and come charging back down, bucking and jumping. Each time my traveling bag would go flying off into the weeds, and the Hawaiian would act scared to death, and it would take us 10 minutes or so to get the donkey turned around and my bag balanced on the saddle horn again, We sure made some mighty fine progress. When it was about 8:45, and we were then only halfway up the pali, and had already heard the plane roaring across the island on its way south, the Hawaiian turned around and said “Are you trying to catch the plane?” He didn’t say “Were you?” He said “Are you?” Isn't that beautiful? But we finally arrived at the top of the cliff, and Kikukawa the Mayor, was there waiting. No doubt you've heard the song called “The Cockeyed Mayor of Kaunanakai.”
Mayor Isn’t Cockeyed
Well, Kikukawa is the real mayor of Kaunakakai, and not the mythical one of song. And he isn’t cockeyed. He was born in Japan, is a carpenter by trade, his wife runs a general store, he speaks English rather badly; and is quite a handsome man when he’s dressed up. He had driven from Kaunakakai, clear across the island, to get me, because there is no regular transportation from the top of the pali trail. In fact, there's no regular transportation anywhere on Molokai. The island has almost no facilities for travelers. It's a funny thing about this island. It is the nearest one to Honolulu, there are 6000 people living on it, it has millionaires’ homes and interesting native life and beautiful mountains—and yet practically no tourists come over here. There is a reason, of course. Tourists go where the literature tells them to go, and the literature says nothing about Molokai. Hawaii seems to hold Molokai behind its back while thrusting the other islands at you.
My Diary
By Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt
Young People Have Difficulty in Expressing Their |deas Concisely.
ASHINGTON, Thursday—This week is almost breathless from the point of view of the social whirl. We had luncheon for a large group of ladies yesterday. They came from the diplomatic group and our own official group. I was happy to have at this luncheon, Miss Helen Stansbury, who is doing influential work for one of the air lines. She is talking to women all over the country, explaining to them what travel by air means in time-saving and comfort. I think it is well to realize that as the years go on, we are being given a constantly increasing variety of ways in which we may do things, so we have a choice and may fit whatever we do to our personal needs and the circumstances of the moment. There are often times when I would rather travel by train. There are many times when nothing gives more pleasure than to step into a car and drive off. There are other times when I can think of no way in which to go where I want except by air. Yesterday afternoon, a very distinguished group of ladies gave their time to come to the White House and join with me at a meeting for the benefit of the Fight Infantile Paralysis Drive which is to be started Jan. 17. I hope the largest sum of money will come from people who, year after year, pay their dollar and feel they are contributing to the alleviation of suffering brought on by this scourge.
Speaks at Freshman Forum
After this group left me, the National Council .of the National Federation of Women’s Clubs spent from 5 to 6 p. m. at tea with me and we had an opportunity to talk on various subjects. I always feel a great satisfaction in welcoming these women who come from different parts of the country and who represent influential groups of thinking women in their own communities. We were alone for dinner and it was short, for I had to be at George Washington University at 8:15 to speak at a forum which the freshman class has inaugurated. I was particularly interested in the questions which followed my speech. They brought me to the conclusion that all of us should devote ourselves to formulating our ideas in the most concise form possible. The young people had many ideas but often had difficulty in expressing them concisely enough so that the chairman could repeat them for my benefit and the audience's.
New Books Today
Public Library Presents—
N FAMINE (Random House) Liam O'Flaherty, the author of “The Informer,” pictures a tragic moment in Irish history. ; In 1845 and again the next year the potato blight swept over Ireland. The poor tenant farmers, already barely subsisting upon their few acres, ground under the burden of rent, now were robbed of the food upon which they chiefly depended. Charity failed to meet the emergency. The second year of famine left the peasants to steal, if possible; to go to America if they could find the passage money; to die of the plague, or to scour the countryside for berries, roots and nettles, until their weakness became too great, and they starved. In the persons of Brian and Maggie Kilmartin; of their son Michael, who died of tuberculosis; of Martin and his wife Mary; of their neighbors in Black Valley; of the doctor, the priest, the weaver, and .he Protestant minister, is enacted a drama of despair in which the peasants waged a struggle against the ravages of nature and the indifference of man.
HE life of a newspaper reporter in the Middle | West is twice told by Orrick Johns in TIME OF |
OUR LIVES (Stackpole), the “story of my father and myself.” The father, a newspaper editor for 50 years in St. Louis, was the last of Joseph Pulitzer’s fighting editors and aids. Orrick Johns himself began as a dramatic critic, then became interested in the literary movement of 20 years ago, and Wrote some poetry and a play. He was director in New York of the writers’ projects under the WPA. He feels that his book® rounds a cycle from his slaveholding grandfather, through his father’s fight for a liberal Americanism, down to the exciting present. 4
. famous remark:
article. those of The Times.
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FRIDAY, JANUARY 14, 1938
‘Inside the C. l. 0. e « o o o o byBenjamin Stolberg
Story Behind Homer Martin Gun Episode in Detroit Hotel Room Is Told
Editor's Note—This is the fifth of Mr. Stolberg’s 12 articles on the C. I. O. Today he continues his inside story of the United Auto Workers and their difficulties with the Communist “party line,” a story which he began yesterday and will conclude in the next
Of course Mr. Stolberg’s interpretations are his own, not
HOMER MARTIN and his administration in the United Automobile Workers are known as the “Progressive” group. That name describes their program. They want a strong, powerful, progressive and contractually respon-
sible industrial union.
The opposition, known as the “Unity” faction, is bent only on one thing: To control or destroy Martin and to try to impose upon the union a Communist-guided leadership.
Not all opposition leaders are Communist Party mem-
bers, ‘but most of them follow the “party line.”
William
Weinstone is district organizer of the Communist Party in Detroit, and B. K. Gebert has been assigned by the Communist Party as a sort of political commissar to the U. A. W,
When, after the unauthorized sitdown strike last November at Pontiac, the Unity group lost out and decided once more to make “peace” with Martin, it was Weinstone and Gebert who called up Martin's office and stated that Wyndham Mortimer and Walter Reuther would from now on behave themselves. And sure enough, that very afternoon Walter Reuther, the “Socialist,” confirmed the “party
line.” ” s n
IX short, it is impossible to discuss the opposition in the U. A. W. without peferring to it as a Stalinist opposition. To refrain from doing so is like refraining from referring to the Confederacy in discussing the Civil War,
And to discuss the Communist “party line” as a disruptive force is, it goes without saying, not “red baiting.” It is the Communists who hung the smelly red herring on their “party line,” so that they may point to it whenever their disruptive tactics are criticized. My only reply to this is Lenin's “It is never too early to tell the workers the truth”; or for that matter, anybody else. The official head of the “Unity” group is Wyndham Mortimer, devotee of the “party line.” Mortimer originally was a miner. Then he became an auto worker. Close to Mortimer are Ed Hall and Bob Travis, both important organizers. They know nothing either about communism or any other ism, but haye developed into perfect oblique politicians in the anti-Martin faction. I have spoken of the Reuther brothers as being officially “socialists.” But Nor=man Thomas, head of the Socialist Party, whose good intentions are unenforceable, has no influence on them whatever.
HERE are quite a number of T such younger pseudo-Social-ists who work both as organizers and in the offices of the union, and who follow the “party line” abjectly and excitedly. One of them is George Edwards, who was floor leader of the Unity group in the convention, and who only recently received his degree of M. B. A. (Master of Business Administration) at Harvard. Mr. Edwards is forever engaged in a campaign against. Martin, v _..0m he describes as “irresponsible.” . This campaign against Martin is well organized. Not long ago Heywood Broun, president of the American Newspaper Guild, a sister union in the C. I. O,, attacked
Martin in his syndicated column with much sarcastic innuendo. John L. Lewis wrote Mr. Broun, quite plainly, what he thought of such behavior, ” f J 2 HE Stalinist “line,” like all such tactics, attracts all sorts of adventurers. Thus, for instance, on June 8, 1937, one Kempton Williams, an organizer for the U. A. W. and a Unjty man, struck the Consumers Power Co. in the Saginaw Valley, which affected 180 communities and some 400,000 people. The U. A. W. was then organizing the Consumers Power Co. The union demanded 10 cents an hour increase while the company would grant only 5. The rest of the demands seemed arbitrable. John L. Lewis and Homer Martin were outraged by this power strike, which antagonized public opinion against the union in Michigan and embarrassed the administration of the union. This same Williams had once been in the Progressive Miners Union in Illinois, which has been in a long struggle with John L. Lewis’ United Mine Workers and has deteriorated during the years. One of the bones of contention between the Progressive leadership and the Unity opposition, which controls only certain locals, was the fact that the Unity group ran separate newspapers in some of these locals. They were constantly attacking Homer Martin and his group. ” » LJ HE West Side Local of Detroit, under Walter Reuther, is still publishing a bitter sheet against the national union, The West Side Conveyor.
A labor press service thus described a certainly widely publicized incident of Sept. 30, 1937: “The hysterical thrusting of a revolver by President Homer Martin of the U. A. W. into the stomach of Danny Gallagher, a rank-and-file member of the union is universally
on
dianapolis Times
Entered as Second-Class Matter at Postoffice, Indianapolis.
Qur Town
Pleased with their post-strike discussions of wage and recognition terms with General Motors executives, union officials were photographed as they left the Detroit con-
ference room and paused a moment for interviews.
Left to right they are: Wyndham
Mortimer, U. A. W. first vice president; Homer Martin, president; Walter Wells and Ed Hall, also vice presidents; Lawrence Davidow, legal counsel; and John Brophy, C. I. O.
director.
Sia onan
To ppt Po
C. I. 0. demonstration at a Ford plant,
regarded by Detroit newspapermen on the labor run as a sensational climax to repeated indications that the union chief is in need of a long rest.” Now here is what actually happened: The opposition knew that Martin was engaged in his hotel room in extremely important and delicate negotiations with representatives of one of the largest and most strategic automobile manufacturers. They decided to embarrass him right there and then, because after the recent convention, which had voted for retrenchment, he discharged and demoted a number of organizers and staff members, among whom were some Unity organizers. His haste in doing so was no doubt poor diplomacy. But the Stalinists wanted to show that he lacked
the confidence of the “rank and file” which only three weeks before had re-elected him by acclamation. So they rounded up some perfectly honest rank-and-file members from Flint, Pontiac and Detroit locals, who for good measure were joined by 10 or 15 “rank and filers” who had never seen the inside of an automobile factory and were just Detroit Communist Party members. Then they called up the press and invited it to witness how the workers were “picketing” the president, whom they allegedly could never get to see, although Martin had given them a later appointment. ” ” n HEN the press arrived, the whole stage-managed affair was executed. The “pickets” rushed through the halls and elevators, pounded at Martin's door, and de-
manded to see him. Someone who was in the room with Martin thrust a revolver in his hand for fear that he might be harmed. If Martin had had the experience of a Lewis or a Dubinsky or a Hillman, he, of course, never would have opened the door with a gun in his hand, which he pointed downward anyway. The whole idea of Martin, ex-pacifist preacher, toting a gun is peculiarly ludicrous. But the opposition immediately spread far and wide that Martin was “irresponsible,” that he was a stooge for the companies and what not. It is such tactics that weaken the administration of the union, and therefore the union itself, at a still formative period and at a time when the union needs real unity in order to renew its contracts and to organize Ford.
NEXT—Wildcat strikes,
Scientists Predict End of Gasoline Motors in Airplanes
ETROIT, Jan. 14—“The public will some day be no more required to fly in gasoline-fueled airplanes than in hydrogen-filled airships,” Government aviation scientists had predicted today at the meeting here of the Society of Automotive Engineers. Ernest G. Whitney and Hampton
H. Foster of the Langley Field laboratories of the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics based
Side Glances—By
this forecast of aviation’s future on
their study of Diesel engines for airplanes as a ‘potential replacement for present gasoline-fueled motors. The almost negligible ability of Diesel fuels to burn except under the special high pressure and temperature conditions within a Diesel engine is the reason for their startling statement.
The use of super-gasoline of 100 octane, antiknock rating will bring
Clark
"That's the trouble. | write such swell love letters | can't mail them ~—she might dake me seriously."
an improvement in gasoline-fueled airplanes, state the N. A. C. A. experts, but the Diesel engines used in German airplanes today are accomplishing what enthusiastic engineers are only predicting for gasoline motors five years hence. ® = = ‘ ELL qualified authorities,” they state, “predict for the 100 octane gasoline engine in the next five years specific fuel consumptions no better than 0.38 pound
A WOMAN'S VIEW
By Mrs. Walter Ferguson HE last we heard of Joan Crawford she was hurrying to New | York to adopt a baby. Adopting babies seems to have become the | favorite indoor sport of the glamour girls, Columns of praise have been written about them for this humane gesture, and we hope they will gain felicity from a procedure which has brought so much pure joy to the homes and hearts of less famous people. . Being an old meanie myself I am inclined to regard the news as a bid for publicity and so will reserve my plaudits until we find out just how all these foster-parents of the screen conduct themselves under their new responsibilities. The plan seems dubious when we think about the welfare of the babies. Reliable agencies which put out children for adoption are scrupulously careful to place them in the proper environment, or so we hear. * On the whole, everybody agrees that such caution is commendable since the main idea behind the adoption business is to better the condition of the children as well as to bring happiness to adults. Now for that very reason only a naivé and credulous person can accept the idea that all these tots who are set up for keeps as props for lovely screen ladies are necessarily lucky mites. Simplicity is the sweetest attribute of childhood, and children, therefore, thrive better in simple surroundings. It must be a thrilling adventure to crash the gates of Hollywood, but one can imagine that it might be a dreadful bore to be brought up in its
atmaqsphe! ¥
of fuel per brake horsepower hour!
and specific engine weights in a 2000-horsepower unit no less than one pound per horsepower, whereas the Junkers Jumo engines are operating today at specific fuel consumptions as low as 036; and a 2000-horsepower engine development is in progress to weigh less than one pound per horsepower.” Forgetting about the technical terms used, the scientists are saying that five years from now gasoline
Jasper—By Frank Owen
Cops. 1938 by United Feature Syndicate, Ine.
fuel engine advocates predict a certain fuel consumption (0.38) with engines weighing 2000 pounds that can create 2000-horsepower. And they add that present-day Diesel engines are already operating with a lower fuel consumption (0.36) and that there is now being built a Diesel engine generating 2000 horsepower which will weigh less than 2000
pounds. (Copyright. 1938. by Sclence Service)
"So that's why you changed tc the Cupid costume! You want
Mamma and me to make up because you're tired carrying notes." v 3
Second Section
PAGE 23
Ind.
By Anton Scherrer Cellist's Children Find Coal Pile Is Excellent Place for Playing; Pecan Prices Baffle Mr. Vonnegut.
HE other day Kurt Vonnegut went into a nut store—right here in Indianapolis,
too—and asked the price of pecans. “Fifty
cents a pound,” said the nut lady. “Fair enough,” said Mr. V., and ordered
half a pound. That’s what he got, too. Well, when the nut lady produced the half-pound package of pecans, Mr. V. handed her a dollar bill, He got 50 cents back in change. “That's right,” said
the nut lady when Mr. V. questioned her arithmetic, “We have a sale on pecans today—59 cents a pound—and we can’t bother to make change for less than a pound.” There's the story, too, about Paulo Gruppe, first cellist of the Indianapolis Symphony. Seems that when Mr. G. got the call to come here, he brought his wife and two kids along. His cello, too, of course. The kids, it appears, had never pr. lived in anything but New York apartment houses. Well, when Mr. G. installed his family in the kind of house we have around here, first thing the kids spied was the cellar. And ever since their discovery they've spent all their time down there playing in the coal pile. And J. D. Thompson of 735 Fletcher Ave. took the trouble to write me a note saying that his father, John W. Thompson, was the man who wrecked and hauled off our first State House. “I won't say for sure,” says Mr. T,, “but I think my father got $600 for the job.” There's a letter, too, from William A. Hoefgen, who enlightens me no end about what happened to the old Landis distillery on Pleasant Run. In my little piece some time ago, I said it passed into the hands of a farmer who lived in the neighborhood. I know better now. It was Mr. Hoefgen’s grandfather,
Closed His Distillery
“At the time of the Civil War or immediately after,” says Grandson Hoefgen, “the United States Governe ment put a tax on liquor. At the same time they wanted Abram Hoefgen to make liquor for the Government, and to give them the exclusive right to his entire output: The neighbors had been in the habit oi getting whisky at the distillery, and if he entered into an agreement with the Government to give them all of his liquor, he would not have been able to sell any to his neighbors. Therefore, due to the fact that he did not believe in a tax on liquor, and because he didn’t want to deprive his friends of their usual nip, he closed his distillery and went out of business.” Mr. Hoefgen'’s letter sheds even more light on his picturesque grandfather. . . . He had 15 or 16—maybe 17—children when he took over the distillery. . His grave is in the old Concordia Cemetery on the South Side. . . His last request was that he be buried facing north so that he could watch Indianapolis grow. . . . And lest we forget, Hoefgen St. was named in his memory.
Scherrer
Jane Jordan—
Conditions Today Tend to Prolong Period of Childhood, Jane Says.
PDR JANE JORDAN—My half-sister is only 16 years old and my stepmother wants her to marry a boy who is my age—19. She says you should get married young. I've been married two years to a man 36 years old and I know what a disappointment it was to me. I don’t know what to tell my half-sister. I've told her to wait a while and she’ll find someone she likes better. Her mother made her quit high school. She said she should be surrounded by her own children. My stepmother is doing her just as she did in my case. Don't you think they are too young to marry? Please tell me how I can explain this to her, B.
Answer—Of course you're right. In our culture young people are not ready for marriage at 16 and 19. Your stepmother hasn't progressed any since pioneer times when girls and boys married at an early age and had large families to grow up and help on the farm. Civilization has grown more complicated since then. Boys and girls are more protected and the conditions of their lives tend to prolong the period of childhood. Educational requirements have been vastly increased with time. Competition has grown keener and more difficult to meet. At 19 the average boy simply is not equipped to support a wife and a large family. However, there is nothing you can do about it. Your stepmother has another view to which she will cling because it is what she learned in her youth, Most people are adverse to change and after a certain age they become more rigid in their views and less adaptable to new circumstances. After all it is your half-sister and not you who is going to marry this boy. How does she feel about it? If she does not want to marry, you can strengthen her decision by telling her these things and citing your own experience, but if she does want to marry she will discard all you say and accuse you of having other motives for your objections. She could say, for exe ample, that you were jealous because she is marrying a younger man than your husband. She could accuse you of wanting to defeat your stepmother by intere fering with a marriage upon which her heart is set, Nothing is less appreciated than free advice, particu larly unsolicited advice. ” ” » DEAR JANE JORDAN—I wonder if you could help me get two welfare children. My husband had a stroke and the only thing that I can think of to help out and be at home is to take children to board. ~~ MRS. R. B.
Answer—The placing of children does not belong to my department. See the Family Welfare Society. JANE JORDAN.
Put your problems in a letter to Jane Jordan, who will answer vour questions in this column daily.
Walter O'Keefe
OLLYWOOD, Jan. 14.—Mussolini wants peace s¢ much that he’ll raise millions of youngsters to die for it. Again the other day he called on his nation to increase the birth rate. About the time an Italiah mother manages to get the children asleep II Doochay makes a speech and wakes them up. Italians are in military training even from infancy. When a l-year-old gets a promotion he’s entitled to wear service stripes on his rompers.
Mellon's Gift Praised
By Science Service ASHINGTON, Jan, 14.—The establishment of the new National Gallery of Art as a bureau of the Smithsonian Institution, made possible by the Andrew W. Mellon gift of his art collection and $10,000,000 for the gallery, was hailed today as the most notable Smithsonian Institution event of the year by Secretary Charles G. Abbot in his report to the Smithsonian regents. : : The institution sent more than 200 collecting exe peditions to various parts of the world and at the same time carried on its fundamental researches on the fluctuating radiation of the sun, the relation
ships between life and light and other problems, Dr,
Abbot declared. eel The problem of long-range weather for has brought hundreds of letters to the
by vi ting hte | ¢
a ee,