Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 16 February 1938 — Page 11

From Indiana=Ernie Pyle

The Ship's Doctor Is Kept Busy Patching Bruises and Cuts After The Catastrophe in the Ballroom.

SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 16.—Last night was the captain's dinner. The captain’s dinner is always fun. All the men who have dinner clothes wear them, and the women get the last of their Hawaiian corsages out

of the ship’s refrigerator and pin them on their evening gowns. - The dining room is full of noise, and people are gay, and ‘everybody except an occasional old codfish like me wears a crazy paper hat provided by the management. And the air is full of wild balloons you knock from one “table to another. . They even bring down the or_and they go arouna to all newlyweds on honeymoon pieces, and the victims smile and look rilly. t was the gayest captain’s dinI've seen in all my 40 “years the porthole, and we should

Mr, Pyle After dinner a good share of the : crowd made for the ballroom, where the last night of dancing was going on. People had invited shipboard friends for farewell parties, and little groups sat about the round tables when they weren't busy switching partners and trying to dance with everybody.

As dancing, it wasn’t much. But as fun, it was |

great. The sea was very rough in a steady, far-over, pendulum-like roll. It was like trying to dance on a teeter-totter. Whenever the ship hit top dead center on her wallow from one side to the other, you could work in ~ a couple of quick steps. But the rest of the time you were simply sliding. The floor would tilt to where you dare not step, then you and your partner would face downhill, get a good grip on each other, and slide the length of the floor as though you were on skates. Everybody had to do it. It was as good as skiing: But now we are approaching the catastrophe. Be tense. Iam sliding gracefully from one end of the fluor to the other, see? And it’s all a lot of fun, see, until suddenly we start a roll, and I can’t explain how you could tell, but I knew the second that roll began that we were in for it.

Chairs and Glasses Go Flying

About two dozen people were dancing at the time, and in less than two seconds of sliding, grabbing and shrieking the two dozen were piled in a grotesque heap amongst the tables and chairs at the far end of the hall. People. hit the deck hard. One fellow, with his head, uprooted a big round table screwed down with four big bolts. Chairs and glasses went flying. Miraculously no bones were broken, but people got bad bruises and nasty cuts. The doctor had a busy night. A lot of adhesive-taped faces crossed the gangplank this morning. As for me, I fell for 30 feet and landed backwards, smack on the back of my head. During the last two feet of the fall I said a quick and quiet goodby to the world. I expected to wake up, if at all, in a San Francisco hospital. Fate saved me. My head cracked like a shotgun when it hit the deck. But it didn’t seem to hurt, and I didn’t even see stars. Personally, I feel that it wasimy reward for always having lived a just and righteous life.

My Diary

By Mrs. | : Eleanor Roosevelt

Garment Workers’ Play Provides |

First Lady With a Gay Evening.

EW YORK, Tuesday.—I caught a plane yestérday afternoon for New York and went to see a friend who had been ill, only to find her recovery had been so rapid she had gone out. ‘However, this gave me time to go home and prepare more peacefully for a very gay evening. After dinner, Miss Esther Lape and I went to see “Pins and Needles,” which is a new theatrical venture undertaken by the Ladies Garment Workers . Union. On every hand, I have been hearing how | delightful this performance is. Sometimes you are | disappointed when you anticipate too much, but no one could be disappointed by this entertainment. The actors are having such a goed time, the audience must, of necessity reflect their good spirits. -The coaching, I think, must have been done by experts. These actors and actresses carried on their jobs day by day, until they began to play so regularly that it was necessary to give all their time to the theater.

Another Group Is Rehearsing

Their jobs are being held open for them and another group is now rehearsing to take their places. They set out their aim in their program: “. . . to be instrumental in developing a new kind of theater, alive and responsive to the important trends in current American life. Thus it (the labor stage) intends - to encourage the efforts’ of amateur, semiprofessional and professional groups in dramatizing vital and significant phases of modern life.” “Pins and Needles” talks a good deal about “social significance.” But none of it is very deep. It is a musical review with a number of sketches, some more amusing than others, some more subtle than others.

I

(Third of a Series)

By Paul Kennedy

Times Special Writer OLLYWOOD, Feb. 16. —A strange and ghostly crew are the radio comedy writers whose work is known to millions but whose ‘names have meaning only to those in the radio profession. : When you hear Bing Crosby, for instance, give off the elbow with a line of station-house talk you either chuckle or .wonder what the dickens it’s all about. One way or another, the fine hand of a bespectacled young man, Carroll Carroll, is behind the whole thing. He writes virtually every word that’s spoken on the Crosby show with the exception of Bob Burns’

dialog. The hilarious muddles Jack Benny and his gang get into each Sunday evening come straight from the typewriters of two wryly humorous gentlemen, Bill Morrow and Eddie Belloin.' They, like their colleagues, carry no. identifying mark of their profession nor is their conversation studded with gems of wit. They sell their comedy not verbally, but in black and white. 2 » 2

ASUAL observers may feel

these writers who walk through life shrouded in a cloak of anonymity. There would seem to be injustice here where the radio star gets all the glory and the writer none. But there are compensations. When the comedy lines are flat and the comedian muddles through a sad, gray bit of script, the public’s blame falls squarely on the performer, not on the. writer. Another compensation is a weekly pay check fat enough to make newspaper writers and allied artisans wonder if maybe they, too, haven't got a humorous streak hidden away in their moody souls. These pay checks vary with the writers and the shows. The average novice radio writer gets around $100 a week. The seasoned writers, attached to successful shows, receive as high as $500

concerned “over the lot of «

3 |

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 16, 1088

The results of this ‘conference may be very funny. Gracie Allen sits in with the Burns and Allen cast and writers preparatory to throwing a bit of comedy together.

weekly and sometimes upward. Probably the all-time high was achieved by Jack Benny’s former writer, Harry Conn, who nicked the treasury for $1500 each seven days. By the way, this radio writing profession is practically a closed corporation. Amateur contributors are discouraged. Manuscripts are returned, unopened whenever possible, with the polite explanation:’ “Our sponsors forbid the use of unsolicited material.” ” EJ ®

HE real reason: is: fear: of

plagiarism suits. - The material which you submitted today

might be identical with something

the writers hgd been working on for weeks. A The procedure of writing . a show differs, but a fair example can be found in the Joe Penner program. Immediately after the final broadcast Sunday, Penner and his writers, Don Prindle, Sidney Cornell and Latham Ovens, gather around for a conference on next Sunday's show. "Prindle,.the chief writer, has a rough idea of

By William Philip Simms Times Foreign Editor ASHINGTON, Feb. 16.—Josef Stalin’s sudden return to the

idea of world revolution to make things safe for Soviet Russia has jolted the principal -capitals.

For a Eyrope already more than

jittery over the fulminations of other dictators, his surprising move can hardly fail to have grave consequences, especially on the armament situation.

Germany, Italy and Japan recent-

ly formed a sort of alliance against this very preachment. Not against Russia, they were careful to explain; they insisted they were opposed to the Comintern, the Third International, the proposition of stirring up domestic revolutions abroad in defense of Moscow.

The rest of Europe, indeed the rest -of the world, refused to take their contention altogether seriously.

For Stalin and his foreign commis-

sar, Maxim Litvinov, had insisted

over and over that Moscow: had long

since abandoned all notion of fomenting world revolution. On that basis—the basis of noninterference in the domestic affairs

> socialism,” he says,

{Grave Consequences Seen: In New Stalin Edict

OW, like a thunderclap on a clear day, comes the new Stalin edict. . “The final victory of will not be complete until the masses in other countries are organized to give aid to Russia “in case of military attack.”

This volte-face straight back to the teaching of Marx and Lenin, a doctrine which

.he had led the world to believe he

no longer espoused. The reaction of Poland, Russia's next-door neighbor, is that Soviet armaments have an offensive as weli as defensive character and that all- capitalist states are imperiled, regardless of their system of government or social -conceptions.

The effect on France, Poland’s

ally, and on Czechoslovakia, France's ally, may be far-reaching. French leaders friondly to the Soviet Union were able to. put. over: the Franco-Russian alliance only after assurances had been widely given and accepted that Russia had yielded her old conception of world TeV-

olution.

takes Stalin }

Riding Hollywood's Ss

Radio’s Gag Writers Get Little Publicity, but Good Weekly Checks

ir waves

These warriors of the gag sneak a wink or so after dishing up a few pages of comedy material. Theyre Bill Morrow: and Eddie Belloin, writers for Jack Benny’s program. They spend a week writing -

the 12 minutes of comedy allotted find this time entirely too short.

what the comedy situation will be. “You're in a hotel, see? . . . a

wacky sort of point where all the °

guests are touched in the head. You get. to be proprietor and you dofi’t know from Munger what it’s all about. ‘Then we ring in the gags about having rooms with adjoining towels and mistaking the elevator for a $12 room and the

"guy with the goats and the

pigeons.” We. use this eXantple because it’s an old standby, every comedian having used the hotel situation at least once. At any rate, the idea gets : Penner’s approval and the writers, Ammediately fall to work. There ‘are three comedy spots on the program and each writer takes one spot. lisa = OWARD the middle of the week each writer is supposed to have finished his assignment. They compare notes, throw their stuff together and by readingrehearsal time are supposed to have the entire show in fair shape. Comedians like Bob Burns and Walter O'Keefe do no assigning of work. They write their own comedy material. George Burns has a group of writers, including ‘the well-known John P. Medbury, but Burns takes most of the writing responsibility. Fred Allen's case is something similar. /Edgar

Bergen has a writer assigned to -

him but he does most of his own Bergen-McCarthy dialog. Of all these, Bob Burns has the strangest method of preparing

Benny and cast. Sometimes they

program.” That was two hours before the show was to go on. When it actually got under way Burns: still :didn’t- have a- seript, He had a:sheet of paper with scribbled notes such as “Grandpa Snazzy-—church” - and = “Uncle Fudd—beer.” Duting his six-min-ute dialog he looked straight into the studio audience, talked steadily, and referred to his notes only once or twice, If and when television comes Burns will have. a terrific edge on other studio per- * formers who have to read enna from script. ® 8 8 NCIDENTALLY, Burns is one of the few radio performers not "required to submit script’ to the networks two days in advance of the broadcast. A - recording is made of each show and following the program his wife and former secretary takes down his monolog off -the record, in short hand. She then types it out and sends it to the network, one day after the show has. been - produced. ' The difficulties of A comedy writers are at once startling and amusing. Walter O’Keefe related this one to us recently. :. He ‘had ‘read about a scientific committee Jdnvestigating the effects of high altitudes on mental reactions. The committee - found that mental processes became feebler in direct” proportion to altitude. : So in a script O’Keefe had a committee of scientists," college professors and : Supreme Court

Entered Las » Posts

The serious-faced young man above is Carroll Carroll, writer of the Bing Crosby program. He, too, takes his comedy seriously.

“We observe on Page 14 of the script Mr. O’Keefe makes reference to a scientific committee ascending the Empire State Building. We suggest this story be deleted. It tends to discriminate against the Chrysler Building.”

% ” ” » NE of the most urusual writ-

ing jobs. in radio belongs to" Carroll Car-'

the aforementio roll. Each week /he is given an Arkansas taleteller, a crooner, a classical music artist and a motion picture. star and is told to weave conversation around them. As motley a collection of perform ers as one would dream up after a midnight snack of lobster and rarebit. Strangely enough. Mr. Carroll Ditto (a much-used gag on his name, by the way) finds the work highly enjoyable and fairly easy. He finds nothing strange in the

astounding dialog he puts .in the .

mouths of austere musicians. There’s no cause for alarm, he explains, when Rose Bampton

says, “Comm’n Bing, we'll send:

this one right down the groove.” The classicists themselves get the huge delight out of this roundhaircut banter, Mr. Carroll maintains.

»

2 zs #8

NLY once did a classical arte ist balk. ‘That was the time a famous symphony conductor and pianist demurred to swinging out on “Tiger Rag” accompanied by Burns and his bazooka.

He was fairly itching to do it’

but had a symphony contract coming up and was afraid the symphony fathers: would swoon dead away upon hearing their prospective conductor jamming

‘out a mess of hot piano licks.

A strange lot, as we said, are radio writers . . . the .comedy writers, that is. ‘They are rarely found in one another’s company. When you do. find a group of them together the atmosphere is about as jolly as one minute of silent prayer at a clam convention. A smart quip or pun is worth lots of money to them and to drop one of these in the presence of a competitor would be suicidal. It would be in the competi-

Matter oa Th, ind. .

ection

PAGE 11

i

Our Town

By Anton Scherrer

Other Tobacco News of the Week Is Comforting After Seeing New Streetcar Plea Against Smoking.

MONG the many signs that civilization is creaking is the one the streetcar people put up recently. “Smoking,” say the: Tite streetcar signs, “is a very enjoyable pastime to a great many people. However, there are others to whom the odor of tobacco is very unpleasant. Let's co-operate in making this trip enjoyable to everyone by not smoking. We thank you.” It strikes ‘me that the streetcar people have put over what the old

Romans used to call a non sequitur, and I, for one, am not going to take

| 4t lying down. I have no fault to

find with their premises. To be | sure, I don’t like the idea of calling the art of smoking “a very enjoyable pastime” when, as a matter of fact, it is an earnest pursuit, but I. won't quibble about mere words today. What gripes me is the streetcar people’ s conclusion that the trip : is going to be more enjoyable to everyone if the smokers (a triumphant.majority) capitulate and let the nonsmokers (a minority) have everything their own way ROW it strikes me that the streetcar people haven’t any business playing the part of a conciliator. In the very nature of things, a streetcar company is a dictator and ought to observe the methods of one. Anyway, the old sign, “No Smoking,” was very much ‘better and, certainly, a lot more to the point. - Just because everybody is groping.and trying to express the dreamy ideology of a wobbly world is no reason why the streetcar people should do the same. Other tobacco news of the week was more coms forting. Last Saturday night, for instance, Christo= pher Coleman smoked a dollar cigar—a Coronae Corona, if you please. Edward Harris gave it to him, Sid Easley, who runs the cigar stand in the State Life Building, came through with-a scoop, too. He says you have no idea the number of men around here who have taken up pipe-smoking lately. Mr. Easley says he caught the trend as soon as the ladies took to cigarets. He even goes so far as to suspect that some men consider cigaret smoking sissy. The week was good, too, for George Calvert’s sagacious observation that a 50-cent pipe is as good as a $5 one if you have the right tobacco to put into it. And on top of everything, a pretty Junior Leaguer who does a lot of slumming around here, told me about a woman under observation in the psychiatric ward of the City Hospital. The woman was trying to imitate a tobacco chanter. : ‘

Mr. Scherrer

_Eli Lilly on Pipes

Most comforting tobacco news of the week, how= ever, came with the arrival of Eli Lilly’s monumental book, “Prehistoric Antiquities of Indiana.” The chapter on “Pipes” is the most reassuring thing I've read in a long while. Listen: “Tobacco was hailed as a marvelous cure-all and | was considered efficacious for headache, lockjaw, toothache, coughs, asthma, stomathache, obstruction, kidney trouble, diseases of the heart, rheumatism, ar- | row poisoning, carbuncles and consumption.” “Mr. Lilly has a lot more to say about the benefits of tobacco, but I guess it’s enough to put the streetcar people in their proper place. Anyhow, the streetcar people’s allusion to the use of as “a very | enjoyable: pastime” is nothing short of &illy when cone Sifere in the light of Mr. Lilly’s tigations.

Jane Tordan—

Budget Advised for Wife Accused ~ Of Spending Too Much on Clothes.

EAR JANE JORDAN—I am 19 years old and have been married twice. The first time I was married I was 16 and it lasted only five months. I've been married a little over a year this time. My home is very nice. My husband doesn’t drink, but he talks to everyone he meets about me. He says I spend everything he makes on clothes, but he only makes $18 a week. With rent, groceries, coal, lights, gas, insur< ance, gasoline, his spending money and other things, how could I? He thinks I should stay in the house till he gets home and not go even to my mother’s, He went so far as to be jealous of his own father just because I went towh with his dad to help him pick out a hat. We were living with_his dad at the time, We were separated a week and the things he said

"were awful. He tells everyone who comes to our house . about our private affairs.

The neighbors don’t even speak to me because of him. Do you think anything could be done with him or oa you just get out while the getting is good? WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

Answer—If I knew what your husband's complaints against you were I could do a better job of answering, your letter. The only one you mention is that he says you spend everything he makes on clothes. That could be settled by living on a budget. The budget would not only help you make the wisest use of your husband’s income, but would show exactly what per

justices go to the top of the Empire State Building to study menfal conditions. When the mental giants came down they were rolling hoops and squabbling over marbles. The sponsor studied the script

Stalin’s motives rerfiain obscure. He weakened his position abroad by his right-about-face. Aroused fears among his allies and neighbors, and did his bitterest foe, Ado)f Hitler, an excellent turn. For he went a very long way toward justifying the stand

of others—Russia won recognition of foreign countries everywhere, including the United States. Her alliances with France and ‘'Czechoslovakia are likewise based on that understanding, Also her numerous treaties of nonaggression with her

tor’s script 10 minutes later. When you do find a group the general rule is, “Check your pencils at the door.”

NEXT~—The quest question of Hollywood vs. New York in radio

material. One Thursday afternoon we were talking to him at about 5 o'clock. The Crosby show had already been rehearsed and after a few minutes conversation Burhs excused himself with, “Ill have to get. along now and prepare

centage of it you spend on clothes. His jealousy is not so easy to handle. Don’t be so surprised that a boy should be jealous of his own father. It is a very common occurrence. At some time or other most boys are jealous-of the father’s position as head of the family. Since you are only 19, you probably still look to a father for guidance

~ The general impression is an entertaining evening which provides something of value, both to ‘the audience and the actors.

New Books Today Public Library Presents—

S the painter of the murals for the walls of the .capitol at Jefferson City, Mo., and of the Indiana murals exhibited at the Century of Progress, Thomas Hart Benson is widely known as a subject of ‘controversy. His autobiography, AN ARTIST IN AMERICA. (McBride) serves at once to show why he painted murals which caused so much debate; to present a man who has from his youth been something of a

rebel against convention, artistic and otherwise; and |

to depict an America, past and present, as seen through the eyes of a lover of art and of life. Born in Missouri, growing up in a country quite innocent of sophistication, studying art against the - wishes of his father, trying to find himself among the post-war artistic ideas imported from Europe, he finally came to the conviction that for him, at least, life was more important than ideas and that he must turn for his subjects to the life with which he was familiar. That he has done so is fully evinced by his pictures of the Mississippi steamboat, the tobaccochewing loafers, the straggling village streets, which lend life and zest to his book. : » TARTING with oe radio scripts which he used during the 1936-37 broadcasts of the New York Philharmonic hestra and supplementing these with “observations” .previously published elsewhere, Deems Taylor presents the collection to his reading public under the title OF MEN AND MUSIC (Simon 1 Schuster). His field is broad. He touch ‘in a kindly way upon the personal; enjoys a crack at the conscientious practitioners of the “new” music; comments upon music and, the plain man; makes recommendations for increasing the popularity of opera in America: deprecates art as propaganda. Broad as is his range, however, and desultory as his essays, of necessily, sometimes: are, the writer emerges with a consistent and humane poinf of view, which he himself expresses in his uction. He believes “that behind every musician lurks'a man, who is fully as interesting as the trade he follows; that

neighbors.

of Germany, Italy and Japan. -

something to say on tonight's

and returned it with the notation:

supremacy.

Side Glances—By

Clark

Vegir- 5 ine

A WOMAN'S VIEW By Mrs. Walter Ferguson

ARENTS should sit down at] home and discuss religion with | ‘| their children, advises a prominent | Southern clergyman. This may sound like a large order |

to those who do not feel qualified to talk intelligently upon religious subjects, but certainly it is good advice since very few men and women ever git down to discuss anything ‘with their children. : Nothing quickens the family life-

J sper =Ey F rank

Owen

stream so much as a good argument |'§

about any subject that happens to be handy. The. trouble with most

parents is that they are incapable of |

family discussion: they merely hand down opinions in "the manner of Sus preme Court judges. A good many children, ‘I find,

important ‘enough to

or wo tion. ‘They are Hight, and it is at| | this precise point that the parent |}

loses the confidence of his child—

‘he loses. it ‘because. ‘he’ deserves to |.

lose it.

| Many members of the older gen: | | J | eration are so cocksure in their in- | terpretation of right.and wrong and

: 2 or

RAR: hr

li grow up. and leave: hors some. dy, ell her you've shrunk an. inch}

and have leaned on your father-in-law as you would your own parent. This evidently is upsetting to your husband who plainly shows that he wants to be head man of his own family and first in your life. Instead of resenting this as unreasonable, try to see that your husband wants to break away from family dominance. That's one reason he married. He doesn’t want his father to. have any influence with his wife. Nor does he want her running home to her mdther with her trouhles. The farther away from your parents you live, the better. It is in bad taste for your husband to speak of your private affairs to others. If you gain enough influence over him by aiding and abetting in his wish’ to live without parental interference, perhaps you can cure him. Very likely his need to feel manly is the ropt of his whole trouble, In this you can help him a great deal. ® » » . S De JANE JORDAN—There is a man whom I have known for some time who lives very close to me. His mother told a friend of mine that her son liked me but did not know how to take me as one time when he sees me I am very cool and the next IT am glad to see him. Someone told me to go and call on his mother, but he might think I was after him, How can I let him see that I care about him? : C.L.W,

. Answer—Why are you ou cool when you want to be

cordial? Perhaps a more even attitude of friendliness ‘would encourage him. The. call on the mother is a

little transparent, I think. : JANE JORDAN. - — 8

Put your blems in a letter to J. answer Tyour” questions in. an Jane Jordan, Who. win.

Walter O 'Keefe—

OLLYWOOD, Feb. 16.—It’s too bad that the world misunderstood the motives of the Japanese

people. For instance, you take those 43,000-ton dreads naughts they're building right now. It's ridiculous to think are—they're