Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 21 February 1938 — Page 9
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From Indiana=Ernie Pyle
The Winchester House, With Its 160 Rooms and 47 Fireplaces, Sets Some Sort of Record for Goofiness.
@ + : . SANTA CLARA, Cal.;'Feb. 21.—Four miles
west of this town, out in the flat orchard country, is the nuttiest piece of construction I’ve ever seen. : : It is called the “Winchester Mystery House.” It has 160 rooms, and covers about six acres. You can get lost in the thing within three rooms after entering the front door. . ¥ If you try to go upstairs you walk up a stairway .- and there you are against’'a blank wall. The stairs don’t go anywhere. But I'll tell you all those things later. First let’s get the reason for this thing. It was all done by a Mrs. Sarah L. Winchester, of the Winchester rifle people, and she was serious. about it. It seems that back in the Eightles Mrs. Winchester lost her husband and her two children within a few months of each other. The shock was too much, she “sort of went to pieces, finally got into the hands of spiritualists, built up a lot of ideas about spirits being after her, and as a result was off on the goofiest building program ever concocted. : : : She came to believe that as long as she kept
Mr. Pyle
- building onto this house, kept it continuously under
construction and never finished a room, she would not die. - She built steadily for 36 years. She spent millions on it, although most of it is of cheap lumber. She started in 1886, and was still building in 1922
- when she died. Since then the place has been open
to tourists, for a fee. As I said, there are 160 rooms. There are also 47 fireplaces, 40 stairways, innumerable trapdoors, trick doorways, crooked halls, rooms with four fireplaces, and three elevators (one of which cost thousands of dollars and goes up a total of nine feet). A gnome-like little man named Mr. Sargent takes
~ you through the place. He wears khaki pants and
an old gray sweater, and peers at you and grins. Sometimes you’ll go up a stairway and simply come out on a landing and be looking back down into the You may look info a closet and find there’s no space back of the closet door; it’s built right against the wall.
Floor Changes Colors
' Mrs. Winchester had, among other things, a “13” complex. Every time she could arrange it, she'd put 13 steps in her stairways. The rooms with paneled ceilings have 13 -panels. : In the dining room is an enormous chandelier. It has 12 beautiful glass-enshrouded lights. But she had a little coal-oil lamp stuck in among the spangles, to make 13. { There is one room where the floor is laid in oak, each piece set on edge. As you look across it, it is in alternate light and dark strips. Mr. Sargent has you walk across a dark strip, and then look back; looking at it from that side, the strip has turned light. And the light ones on each side have turned dark. I believe Mrs. Winchester had something there, but I don’t know what. rh Not a single room in the house ‘is finished. You'll
- always find a two-foot strip of paneling missing, or
some of the floor not laid, or bare lath and plaster in one corner while all the rest of the wall is covered: with expensive satin compositions from Europe. We were an hour and a half going through the place. And didn’t see it all at that. But I saw enough, for it is dark and sepulchral. Also there was no-heat, and when we finally emerged into the glorious fog and rain of sunny California I was frozen to the marrow, and for the first time in my life completely out of sympathy with goofiness.
a lk Te EN SLL
Diary By Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt
Kirsten: Flagstad Seems to Be Able -. To Understand All Human Emotions.
: 5 ¥ YDE PARK, N. Y., Sunday—I went with a friend to hear “Lohengrin” yestemday afternoon.
# It was the 'first time I had heard Kirsten Flagstad in
an opera and I consider it a very great experience. She seems, perfectly unconsciously, to be a great artist. When she comes before the curtain and does her little curtsy, she is an entirely different person than the one you have just seen and heard as Elsa, on the stage. That marvelous voice and such great sim‘plicity, little of what might be termed acting, and yet the ability to seem young, to seem majestic, change
her into the role she is singing. This is the great,
artist, who seems to understand all human emotions
_ and to be able to portray them. There is a curious
sense of reverence in the contact with something really simple and really great. In order to make my train to Hyde Park, I had to leave before the end, and so, because I did not want to scramble over people’s feet between the two scenes, I stood during the first scene of the last act. I am not fond of standing, and yet, I completely forgot the
- people around me and my own discomfort and only * heard the music.
/ Escorted Across Broadway
It was raining lightly when I came out, but I decided to walk to the station. As I picked my way through the crowds and over the puddles, a policeman on Broadway recognized me and escorted me across. 1iis ‘greeting was so cordial and pleasant, I almost forgot it was raining and cheerfully stepped into a puddle, thinking how much more important a pleasant smile is than the state .of the weather or the
I was back in Hyde Park in time for dinner and found a very happy family there. Everyone wished hard that snow might fall and this morning we woke
‘to find a blanket of snow. Now we can all tease my
‘husband and tell him he must be careful about what
he wishes for, since this wish came true so rapidly.
" ‘It comes over me so often how all of us live from
"day to day wrapped up in our own little interests and
happenings. We really think very little about what the rest of the world goes through.
New Books Today
Public Library Presents—
HE western world Bas looked upon China and her T dictator with bewilderment and sometimes with for the course of Chiang Kai-shek hasbeen such a devious one that skeptics could well assert
"that he had no aim except his own aggrandisement.
Robert Berkov, who recently spoke before Town in STRONG MAN OF CHINA (Hough-
| background, and he shows how he has manos realistic compromise, to use the heterogeneous materials at hand to forge a unified China. The much debated question of the relations between the Kuomintang and “Red China” is discussed, and the “inside story” of the mystifying kidnaping of Chiang Kai-shek is related. The gies undoubtedly is Chiang’s or a hina. Spee in presenting. impartially the y of a man much hated, much feared, and
Machines Speed
By Leonard H. Engel
Sciefice Service Staff Writer
Morse Men-"
- (LICKING teletypewriters, pounding’ out millions of : words on paper tape each day, are rapidly adding to American history another chapter entitled “The Vanish-
ing American.”
"The march of the communications industry that today makes possible simultaneous transmission of dozens of messages over the same wire at.speeds unheard of a generation ago is also writing Finis to the tale of the “boomer,” the Morse telegraph operator of another era. :
Tens of thousands of
young women, . operating _
machines and equipment that resemble typewriters and telephone switchboards, have taken their place. New equipment now being developed in research laboratories and being tested on the line will make even more automatic the handling of the world’s wire
business.
Thirty years ago there were 65,000 “boomers,” as the Morse
' operators were known. Many of
them worked in newspaper editorial rooms. Ears attuned to the hopping magnetic bar and fingers sensitive to the sending key, they worked hard. They also built around them an aura of tales and legends that is tpday assuming heroic proportions. » 8 8
MA are the stories of young men who went from rags to riches, stopping en route to punch a telegraph key for a living. Thomas A. Edison is the classic example of this tale. Many an old barroom still faintly echoes to the gathering of the Morse clan after hours. " Today there are but 2000 Morse men left—hanging on in places where it is not economically profitable to install expensive telegraph printing equipment. In small towns, in way stations on the railroad, in ball parks and football stadia where part-time use rules out the printer for the present at least, the Morse telegrapher, generally an older chap, has way. Newest of the devices which will’ speed wired words is the automatic reperforator, now undergoing field trials on one of the nation’s large telegraph systems. The machine, when perfected, will. eliminate the necessity for _ manually repeating messages that come in on branch lines and must be put into trunk wires.
rN Richmond, Va. and Ft. Worth, Tex., the device is be‘ing tried. When the reperforator is not in use, a me: coming -from a small town is Srinted on the teletype in the Richmond office and then copied by ‘hand onto a printer connected with the trunk: line. ont
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 21, 1938
‘
BE AN SE SE
But no more; soon a young :
woman at a switchboard will note a message coming from Fredericksburg ‘for a point on a main line. The message is being recorded on a perforated tape. She switches the automatic tape transmitter to the correct trunk. In addition to the services offered by the regular telegraph. company, the Bell telephone system has added since 1931 a teletypewriter exchange - service, whereby one may to teletypewriter servicer much as one subscribes to a telephone. Any subscriber may be con= nected with any other subscriber. Regular switchboard systems have been devised tp handle this new traffic. Complex relaying and control devices guarantee that signals will be clear ‘and’ will operate receiving teletype machines properly. ; 4 8 #8 8 XACTLY 100 years ago today Samuel Morse first demonstrated his electromagnetic telegraph before the President of the United States and members of his Cabinet. It is not yet a century since Morse, not only a great inventor, but known as one. of America’s foremost painters as well, spent every penny of his own and $30,000 obtained from Congress to construct the first telegraph line, between Washington and Baltimore. In that.100 years telegraphy has passed through developments »so
. varied and complex Morse would
hardly recognize the product of his “own genius. His earliest receiving apparatus printed dots and -dashes on a tape that had to be pulled through the machine by hand. - - It was not until some years later that an acute observer—his-
Co-ordinated System of
Relief Is Suggested -
Times Special EW YORK, Feb. 21.—The-cur-rent recession, adding millions to the relief: rolls, finds the problem of caring for the unemployed
and needy still basically unsolved, declares Maxwell S. Stewart in a pamphlet, “This Question of Relief,” issued recently by the Public Affairs Committee of New York. “This Question of Relief,” prepared in co-operation with the staff of the Committee on Social Security of the Social Science Research Council, was first issued a year and a half
ago, and has been completely re-|
RH to include 1937 figures and ata. A total of at least 14,000,000 Americans, including men, women, and children, were on the relief rolls at the beginning of 1938, Mr. Stewart estimates. Of these, state and local agencies were caring for approximately 3,500,000 cases while the 2,000,00C men on the WPA, or about 7,000,000 persons if families are included, were receiving sole support from the Federal. Government. Pointing to the inadequacy of the Social Security Act, the WPA and local relief in face of this need, the pamphlet asserts that the primary task for coming years “will be that of integrating and harmonizing the various types of social assistance” so as to give adequate protection against all social hazar@s.
S an escape from the injustices wrought by this approach, the
‘author suggests “an integrated sys-
tem of Federal grants-in-aid to the states, the money to be ntade available to families according to need, open ltens of the cause of their disress.” ’
The basic principles for such a co-ordinated program of social assistance are listed as follows: 1. It should be national in scope, with the exact relationship between national and local responsibility to Pe determined by careful negotiaon. : 2. Great care should be taken to protect the self-respect of the relief recipients. 3. Relief ‘must be adequate. “It is not enough that Americans should not starve. They should be assured at least the minimum requirements of health and decency—which means a balanced diet; a home that meets the minimum requirements of warmth, air, light, and sanitation; adequate clothing; medical care; educational advantages; and a sufficient amount for the incidentals which are an integral part of the, American standard. of living.” 4.. The whole: program should be administered with as little cost to society - as is consistent with the above standa.ds. : : 5. Administration of relief should, as far as possible, be taken out of politics and placed in the hands ef an expert staff of trained social workers. a
anishing Americans’
Messages Today on Centenary of T elegraph s Invention
This Currier and Ives print pictures an’ early There are only two errors in this print—early telegraph printers, which preceded translation of the dots and dashes by ear, recorded dots and dashes, not letters; and no telegraph print- . er ever printed on both sides of the tape. The “boomers,” a class of men surrounded by legends ga-
telegraph operator. .
lore, came at a later: date.
tory finds it difficult to know his name—noted that he could translate the signals more rapidly by
ear than could the operator who -
waited for the message to be printed on the tape-and then sat down to transcribe it. From the day this vital discovery was made until the development of the - practical teletype writer in the early 1900s was the day of the “boomer.” Working in many cases on a per diem basis, he drifted from town to town, staying long enough to build up his bankroll a little and then drifted to the next where, if he were skilled, he was assured of work “handling press.” Associated with him was the mystic aura one is supposed to find around the heads of working. newspapermen today. 8 8 8 LTHOUGH the basic principle is still the same, the complex wire network in use today, with its operating © equipment, scarcely resembles the equipment of half a century ago. Today an operator types out the message on
"a keyboard. The keys either send
the message directly or, more commonly, punch a tape with appropriate holes. The tape is fed sutomatically at
|: a speed of 360 charactérs per min-
ute into a transmitter which sends out an appropriate signal. The signal is relayed by appropriate means if the line is too long for direct transmission; at the other end it operates a printing machine. Morse’s earliest lines sent: signals by interrupting a direct current. Today, however, volume of business and economy dictate the use of carrier and multiplex teleg= raphy together—both means for jamming more messages through the same “pipe.” Alternating currents of “voicefrequency”—with about the same number of cycles per second as sounds audible to the human ear —are, sent continuously through the line. Interruptions of the current make the dots-and-dashes or the other signals . used to operate printing apparatus. 3 -» o 2
PEN to 12 frequencies can be used on -the same wire, thus multiplying the number of messages that can be handled. Filters tuned to each frequency channel separate the different messages. : Multiplex telegraph is an earlier method of jamming more mes-! sages through the wire. A given channel is used only one-fourth of the time for each message, synchronized ' rotating = dises at each end broken into four quadrants insulated from each other serving to separate the messages. Multiplexing on top of using 10 or 12 carrier channels gives each wire a capacity of some 40 messages. Multiplexing’ makes necessary
gt
teletypewriters.
Ente
| right around the corner. + bonés. For that matter, I guess all men do,
Second-Class at Postofaee, Indianapolis.
& nd.
y
By Anton Scherrer
~ Mr. McDougal Was a Man to Envy: He Usually Yielded to That Urge To Go Traveling When Spring Came.
DON’T have to see the honeysuckle—its shameless and passionate budding in the middle of February—to tell that spring is I feel it in my
“| and maybe all women, too. - I can only speak
An operator shows how to use one of the modern If she is sending over a short circenit used only for the machine with which it is connected, the machine sends out signals directly. On lines carrying more than one message by the multiplex method the machine punches a tape. which is fed at a constant speed of 360 characters a minute ‘inte-the transmitter. .
for the men and confess that this is the time of year something gets into our blood and makes us want to
is of it) and start all over again— preferably somewhere in the South Sea Islands. Most of us don’t do anything about it and just go on suffering from one vernal equinox to the next. If we had the courage of our convictions, the way George ‘McDougal did, this would be a different world. Mr. McDougal; one of the quaintest characters this town ever had, was cursed with the same affliction, but it didn’t get him. down. He did
Mr. Scherrer
‘out of the ordinary for Mr. McDougal to stop eating in the middle of a meal, go upstairs, pack his grip, and sneak out without telling a soul about it. Sometimes he would be gone for months; sometimes for years. Indeed, on the occasion of his last exodus, the family gave him up for dead. | gl can’t remember just when it was that Mr. Mc= Dougal scared his family most, but I seem to recall that it was somewhere around the time the United States inherited the Stonewall, an iron-clad war vessel. The Stonewall, if I remember correctly, was built by the English for the Southern Confederacy and had the bad luck to arrive after Lee's surrender, To get rid of it, the restored Government sold it io
the way. : ‘ Well, to deliver the vessel, the Government put it in charge of an Indianapolis-bred boy, Admiral
started on his voyage around South America to Japan, Sure, ther€ wasn’t any canal at the time.
He Even Became King
It was on this trip that Capt. Brown reached a harbor on the wild and heathen coast of Patagonia, and thére from a distance, (and by way of his binoculars). he noticed a man in a group of giants, evidently natives, who seemed to understand the ship’s signals. Capt. Brown ordered the crew to lower one of the boats and bring the man on board. He turned out to be a white man, and when Capt. Brown saw him, he immediately recognized him as a kid he had played with in Indianapolis. I know it taxes your credulity, but it’s a fact that Capt. Brown had stumbled across the hiding place of George McDougal. What's more, it: turned out that the wild men had made Mr. McDougal “King”
“| of their tribe, notwithstanding the fact that they
A TWX-—f{eletypewriter exchange—switchboard in New York City
ictured here. Operators plug calls in and out in much the same er as at a telephone switchboard, with the exception that conversation is written out on the machines.
Special features have had to
be developed for this type of telegraphic service.
the use of the perforated tape fed at constant speed at the discs'and signals must be more accurately timed than an operator can do it. The tape has the further advantage that when traffic is extremely heavy messages can. be “stored” for automatic transmissom when the line is reiatively ack. iL
Developments such as these presage another 100 years in which telegraphic communication: will become even more a matter of machines instead of the men
. who during the past.gave it the
color with which the. telegrapher is associated in the American mind.
(Copyright, 1938, by Science Service)
Coal Commission's Publicity
Methods Are Scored
Times Special \ ASHINGTON, Feb. 21.—Coal : consumers resisting the pricefixing “procedure of: the National Bituminous ‘Coal Commisison are considering a protest: against the Sommision's _press-agentry : methods. i Some of them say they believe that to oppose the commission's
policies entails the risk of being
subjected to ridicule through the mimeographed “handouts” of the agency’s six publicity -men. : Persons long familiar with Gov
ernment publicity, after examining
some of the Commission's product, have expressed the opinion that a distinct : departure is being made from the unadorned factual information with which Federal bureaus have traditionally supplied -news-
papermen. : . One of numerous suits against
the commission: was on trial before
a District of Columbia judge. The lawyer for the complaining con-
sumer made a statement with which the judge did not fully agree, and the judge answered him. But, according to the Coal Commission press agent, the judge did not merely answer. He “shot back” the answer. E That, in newspaper terms, is called “color.” Color also figured prominently in the commission's press release concerning the ap-
pearance of Henry L. Brainerd,
Clgveland cify solicitor; before the commission. He said his remarks were not quoted as he had given them—and the official - transcript shows he presented his case more extensively than was reported by the commission release. - The commission’s press material is sent to all the press associations and most of the special correspondents in Washington. But most
‘newspaper writers interested in
coal are said’ to be making
their own investigations. - ;
Side Glances—By
Clark -
— -
"Now Judson, here, has the right spirft. ‘He's sold a’ lof 40 ovary
_ one of his: relatives, includin
A WOMAN'S VIEW
By Mrs. Walter Ferguson T= old-time woman who: was in the business of bringing up daughters had a snap compared to the modern mother who is. expected
to turn out A-1 stenographers as! §
well as fair wives for the men.
Getting the boys started in life
is a simple task.. If the parent has a job, a modicum of grit and a lit-
tle sales resistance, she can fur-j §
nish the world a pretty good speci
y
The poor girls thi even worse pickle, It's
es are in|
Jasper—By Frank Owen
7 ER | ¢ di
were at least a héad taller than he was. Which Jose mean that Mr. McDougal was a small man, -the contrary: He was a very presentable Hoosier when he left Indianapolis. - Capt. Brown tried awful hard to get King McDougal to return home, but it/wasn’t any use. As a matter of fact, I can’t remember just when Mr. McDougal did make up his mind to come back to Indianapolis. I know he did, though, because he lies: buried in Crown Hill. ; : Sho % ; >
Jane Jordan—
Woman Partly in Love With Two Men Usually Hopes One Will Oust Other.
L EAR JANE JORDAN—I have a woman friend of 23, married, with no family and who works to help out. Her husband is just her age and they went together for about five yeas before they married— two years ago. Some time ago Sag wrote me that her husband’s cousin was staying w§kn them or was with
with him. I am the only one she can: talk to and I'm really worried. The girl has told her husband everything and he says he will free her if she wants to be free. But after all she .cares for him. - They practically grew up together and he is very dependént on her. The cousin is nice looking and has a charming personality. He hasn’t asked her to get a divorce although he has said he wished they could be married. I quote from her letter: happy or being happy yourself?e.I'm so much in love. done anything to deserve this. He loves me, too, and depends on me. I can’t turn him down, yet I want to be free. The cousin never has asked me to divorce him. He just says, ‘Don’t let me go’ My husband always loved me more than I did him. He loves me I know, but as for companionship, I'll never have it.” What can I tell this girl? : 3 DISTRESSED FRIEND. 8 » »
Answer—You can't advise your friend and neither can I. We don’t: know enough. On the surface it looks as if ‘the girl married her childhood sweetheart because he had become a habit which she lacked the energy to break. Like many girls she thought she had to marry somebody and it might as well be he. Such an attitude left her particularly vulnerable to an attack of romance. However, the surface seldom tells the truth about ‘a triangle. I always feel that where a woman is
to be polite to each other, that she is trying to
“the girl may be tired of her husband’s obvious dependence, and by presenting him with a rival she hopes to stir up his reactions. - i = Somehow I suspect your friend of this very wish, although I can’t prove it of course. If I am right,
bait. Instedd he offers her freedom while retaining
common to women than to men. The lover, too, is\lacking. He only wishes they could be married but doesn’t press the point. No
‘were really sincere he would clear out. The best way tq hurt his cousin is to do exactly as he is .doing; namely, to engage the attention of his wife . without settling anything. It is up to one of these men to grab the girl. - That's what she wants, I believe. If the husband the one who comes to, she will have more respect or him the rest of her life. If the cousin takes her, in time the romance will die down to a comfortable relation similar to the one. she has now. If neither can settle the problem, no doubt shell fall in love i ~~ JANE JORDAN, Put your problems in & letter to Jane Jordan, who will answer your questions in this column daily. Ca ‘
ur Town
pull up’stakes, leave home, chuck business (what there
something about it. For example, it wasn’t anything
Japan. It was the start of the Japanese Navy, by
George Brown (then a captain), and at long last he .
Well, he has fallen in love with my friend, and she;
them frequently. He is 10 or 12 gears older than EAN :
“Which is more important—making someone else _-
He loves me and needs me, but my husband hasn't -
partly in love with two men who bend over backward drive one of them to oust the other. For all I know.
it is too bad that her husband hasn't risen to the his tug on her sympathies. This attitude is more °