Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 5 April 1938 — Page 9

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SAEED gar LE

. jevery day and 1 get fo see somebody mui

From Indiana— Ernie Pyle

Businessmen Who Want to Amount To Something in Prescott, Ariz,

Must Play and Dance With Snakes.

RESCOTT, Ariz., April 5.—This town is no place for me. I'm out of tune with things in Prescott. : For there is a custom here to which I can’t subscribe. To amount to anything,

you must sport a row of tattooed dots on the

outer edge of your left hand, just above the knuckle. . Now it isn’t the tattooing I object to. In fact I've always wanted a battleship or a mermaid on my chest. But no row of dots for me. For do you know what that signifies in Prescott? It means that the owner of that hand is a snake fan. He likes snakes. He dances with snakes about his neck. This thing has been going on for 18 years. The basis of it is simply an annual copy of the famous Hopi Indian snake dance. But instead of Indians, the dancers are businessmen of Prescott. And instead of rattlers, they use bull snakes. : The thing started as a burlesque,

Mr. Pyle in 1920. They intended to use rubber snakes.

But at one of their rehearsals some idiot brought in a live bull snake, and showed the other men it

wouldn’t hurt them. So they put on their first dance with real snakes, and they've been doing it every year since. This year’s dance will be on June 12. Thousands of people come to see it. And it isn’t burlesqued any more. Not by a long shot. The snake dancers have a semisecret organization, like a lodge, and it’s a .great honor to belong to it. The whole thing is very serious. | . + They have built a fine Indian museum at the edge of town, and a clubhouse in the form of a ‘pueblo. $100,000. They have $6000 worth of costumes alone. No member makes a cent out of it.

They call| themselves Smoki People—a sort of parody on Hopi. They have about 125 members, although only 50 actually handle the snakes in the annual dance. Smoki membership is by invitation only, and lucky is the young businessman who is invited to become a snake dancer. | After his first dance, the new member is entitled to two tattooed dots on his left hand. The next two years give him two more dots. That is all, no matter ‘how many years he dances.

If he becomes a member of the council he can have a quarter circle tattooed around one end of the row of dots. And if he becomes a chief, this is extended to a half circle. A local electrician does the tattooing.

Collect About 100 Snakes

~The snake catching starts the first of May, about six weeks Uefore Dance Day. The businessmén themselves drive out into the desert on Sundays anid gather snakes. Little boys bring them.in. (They would). But the bulk come from road workers, who open up snake nests with their grader shovels. They get about 100 snakes altogether. :

The biggest snake they've ever had gvas 8: feet long. The average runs about 5% feet. They say a bull snake is just as gentle as a cat, after you stroke him awhile. ! : On the big'day, the snakes are given a hose bath, then each one is put in a cloth sugar sack, and all the sacks are put on the floor of a dugout in the rodeo grounds. = ‘Now the fun starts. The Prescott businessmen strip almost to nakedness, paint their white bodies a shiny brown, put on wigs, and daub .their faces. Then they dance past the dugout, and a man inside throws out a snake for each one. When these cool and composed bull snakes hit the burning hot sand of the rodeo grounds, they just go nuts. Each man grabs a snake, and goes into his dance.

The snakes are now so wild they are hard to

hold, The actua! snake dance lasts about 35 minutes. Finally the dancers form a circle, and throw all the snakes down in a ghastly, squirming, slithering heap. And now the last act. With a wild yell, four “high priests” dive into this mess, gather up a whole armload each, dash .off in the four directions, and cast the snakes out into the desert.

My Diary

By Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt

First Lady Takes Young Visitor To. Benefit Pageant at Ft. Myer.

ASHINGTON, Monday.—Because I felt quite sure today would be a busy day, I went for a ride after lunch yesterday. On my return I found our son, John, had arrived with Mrs. Haven Clark and two of her daughters, Anne and Joan. Since

“Joan is about my granddaughter Sistie’s age, I de-

cided she would enjoy going to the Ft. Myer pageant

- last night, given for the benefit of the post recrea-

tion and relief fund. It was a wonderful performance with gorgeous costumes and lighting effects and a band that outdid itself. The horsemanship was, as usual, extraordinarily good and the horses were wonderfully

. well trained. They played a game of musical chairs

on horseback. This apparently dates back to Tamerlane, who was the chief figure in this pageant. All I can say is that the children of today have no idea

. how exciting their game can be when played by wild

horsemen! Today was full to overflowing, but the first thing brought home to me was that the time for students to trek to Washington is upon us.. I met a group from

° Briarcliff, New York. When I happened to wander

over to the executive office to see my son, James, 1 stumbled into another one. They were a choral group which has come to give a couple of concerts, besides

seeing what they can of the city in the interval.

It seemed queer to hold a press conference again

this morning and see familiar faces instead of greeting total strangers, as 1 have been doing for the last month at press conferences.

Aviatrix Receives Trophy

At 12:30 I presented a trophy to Miss Jacqueline Cochran (Mrs. Floyd Odlum) for the most distinguished achievement of the year by an aviatrix.

"I was particularly happy to be able to do this, for I

think there is a great future in aviation for women. _.Two different groups met here during the afternoon. First a group of colored women under Mrs. Bethune had an opportunity to discuss their problems with the executives in the: various departments in Washington who deal with the care of women and children, and particularly with -colored groups. After them, the state administrators of social security met. I gathered a great deal of information from both meetings. I find that listening to discus-

sions of this kind clarifies much that one sees and

hears when one is traveling about the country.

Bob Burns. Says—

exec, April 5—T11 betcha if you look at the pictures of the people in. this paper yowll

‘ see that most of them are smilin’. That's because

they've been told that if they want to get on in the world they’ll hav’ta smile. : - My Uncle Glum was a natural born grouch. He never could hold a job very long because he'd either get fired because they couldn't stand his grouchy disposition, or he’d quit because he didn’t like the

job. We didn’t think he'd find a job to fit his nature,

but not long ago I met him and was surprised to see a happy glint in his eyes. . I says, “Uncle Glum, what has made this wonder--ful change in you?” And he says, “I finally found a job that I enjoy. I'm a station master in a big railroad depot where there’s trains run out of there ; ‘pret’ near

agabond!

Their whole property is worth close to !

The resentment of many individual farmers against this state of affairs, which was in no way their own fault, culminated in some states in mob action to prevent foreclosures, with actual violence and intimida-

tion of courts and sheriffs. On April 3, my message was sent to Congress setting forth our program for relieving farmers of a part of the unbearable burden of their mortgages. The essence of the program was-that the Federal Government should provide funds for refinancing the mortgages, so as to reduce the interest rate and the principal payments and give additional and sufficient time to the farmers to meet these mortgage debts. At the same time other steps were being taken to raise farm prices and increase the purchasing power of the farmers. As a result of this message the Emergency Farm Mortgage Act, approved May 12, 1933, passed. |

Efforts were made in Tall directions to inform farmers of this legislation which had been passed to help them, so that those who needed assistance could apply for it at once. Letters and telegrams asking relief from threatened foreclosures flooded the Washington office. - At the peak of the activities more than 2200 letters and telegrams were received in one week.

Farm Credit System

~The instrumentalities for refinancing farm debts were chiefly the Federal Land Banks and the Land Bank Commissioner. Federal Land Bank loans were supplemented by so-called Land Bank Commissioner loans. The Reconstruction = Finance Corp. was directed to make $200,000,000 available for these Commissioner loans. These funds were later supplemented by the funds obtained from the sale of bonds of the Federal Mortgage Corp. organized to help because of unfavorable money market conditions. In general the procedure was for the Federal Land Bank to make a first mortgage loan on the usual basis, and for the Commissioner to make second mortgage loans in such amounts that the first and second mortgages did not exceed 75 per cent of the appraised normal value of the farm, with a maximum of $5000, later increased to ($7500 to any one farmer. Interest on these loans was charged at 5 per cent. Since July 1, 1935, borrowers have been pay-

. ing only 3% per cent interest re-

gardless of the contract rate, by reason of interest reductions authorized by the Congress. The majority of the mortgage loans refinanced ‘by the Federal Land Banks averaged about 30 years, while the second mortgage Commissioner loans were for 13 -years. . The amount of relief extended becomes obvious when we remember that the common practice in the United States has been to make mortgage loans on farm property for a period of from three to five years. While these short-term private loans were ordinarily renewed, during the agricultural depression they were being called at times when it was impossible for farmers to meet them.

ments to “The Public Papers and A Ardicle No. 12 © =

was

~- TUESDAY, APRIL 5, 1938 «

On Saving Homes and Farms QY 1933 the prices of farm commodities had fallen and the purchasing power of the agricultural community had diminished enormously. Cie As a result of this dwindling income it became increasingly difficult for the farmers to meet the interest and principal of their mortgages. - Foreclosures had increased so that the rate had become almost 39 for each 1000 farms, as compared with the normal rate from 1926 to 1930 of 17 for each 1000 farms. Agricultural credit had almost completely shut down, so that credit at any cost was practically unavailable in a great many areas. £

From May 1, 1933, to Sept. 30, 1937, Federal Land Banks and Commissioner loans were made on about 450,000 farms for a total of approximately $2,207,000,000. This was the equivalent of a loan on one farm out of every thirteen in the United States. As of Sept. 30, 1937, Federal Land Banks and the Land Bank Commissioner held over “37 per cent of the estimated farm mortgage debt of the entire country. : The farm debt refinancing program provided assistance in the whole recovery program in two ways: First, farmers rearranged their debts on a long-term low-interest-rate basis so that they were enabled to meet their obligations as their farm income improved; and secondly, by paying off existing creditors this vast amount of money was released into circulation as increased purchasing power.

Quake News Awakens F. D. R. at Midnight

A Comment of President Roosevelt From His Forthcoming Books (Editor's Note—A number of great natural disasters have struck the United States during the Roosevelt Administration. = Floods of vast size in the spring of 1936 and 1937, two widespread droughts in the summers of 1934 and 1936, a hurricane, an earthquake, created special problems for the recovery program. President . Roosevelt personally visited -the areas stricken by flood and drought, and made relief for victims a major concern of the Federal Government. The Los Angeles-Long Beach earthquake occurred during his first week in office. On March 11, 1933, he issued a statement on Federal assistance the disasfer which appears in his volumes of “Public Papers” with the following comment.)

This statement is typical of the policy of my Administration with respect tonational disasters such as flood, fire, drought, earthquake, hurricane, etc. Instead of relying upon private agencies and local efforts at such times, I called *into action all of the resources of the regular Federal departments as well as the emergency agencies of the Government. In this as well as in the other natural disasters which came during the Administration, there was no hesitation in rushing to the help of the stricken areas the personnel, the finances: and the administrative: machinery of the Federal Gpvernment. In the case of the California earthquake: I ‘was awakened during the: night with the news of: it; and within 15 minutes by quick use of the telephone had set to work all available resources of the Navy, Army and Red Cross.

ddresses

One of every 11 owned homes such as these has been refinanced by HOLC during President Roosevelt’s Administration. Mr. Roosevelt explains that

When President Roosevelt took office in 1933, through mortgage foreclosures. Above is a typical scene as a sheriff sold an Iowa farm, with Na-

agricultural credit was almost nonexistent and tional Guard troops on hand to preserve order.

thousands of farmers were losing their farms

1000 Homes Lost Daily

One of the major disasters of the continued depression was the loss of hundreds of thousands of homes each year by foreclosure.

The annual average loss of urban

homes by foreclosure in - the

United States in normal times was 78,000. By the middle of 1933, foreclosures advanced to a total of more than 1000 per day. Not only did this cause the obvious hardship of loss of homes, but it froze and endangered the assets of the various mortgagees —insurance companies, - savings’ banks, and other financial institutions, which held the savings of over 30,000,000 of our people. In addition, these wholesale foreolosures were further demoralizing an already desperate real estate . market. Home owners whose mortgages were coming due

.were unable to renew them. Con-

struction of new homes had shrunk to 10 per cent of the 1929 volume. . : By the middle of 1933, life insurance companies had practically stopped making home-financing loans. Building and loan and similar institutions were not only unable to meet any substantial demand for home mortgages, but, because of withdrawal applications, were actually liquidating as fast as borrowers could pay off their loans. va With this .condition constantly

F. D. R's Own Story of the New (Contained in an authorized advance publication of his notes and ecom- : of Franklin D. Roosevelt”)

becoming worse, I sent a message

to the Congress which resulted in.

the enactment, on June 13, 1933, of the Home Owners Loan Corporation Act. = =~ . What the Corporation : did to accomplish its emergency task was to buy the mortgages of distressed ‘home owners from those institutions and individuals who held them and were unwilling or unable to grant further extensions and concessions to the mortgagor.

Short-Term Mortgages

A large proportion of these

mortgages were written on a

short-term basis for one, two or .

five years; and when the Corpora-

‘tion assumed them, many were

subject to steadily accumulating delinquencies. Indeed, a very considerable number had run beyond the term of years for which they were written and were overdue as to principal as well as interest. : ? Interest rates on both: short-" term and long-term loans were

* high, and great numbers of them

were ‘ weighted with premiums, commissions, service charges and

_ extra fees of various kinds which

added to the loan borne by the borrower. The Corporation rewrote all of the loans at a 5 per cent interest rate and allowed 15 years for repayment. - All of the initial charges such as appraisal, title fees, etc., and all delinquent taxes

Side Glances—By Clark

vis

iting next door} bang pi gyPY A a

nto

Jasper—By Frank Owen

jell i me. CO. 1 v a > : 9 5 z

pghi oy rs - ir

a AS ; 7 74 ¥ "You sneaked in and got a tree diaper, but ‘you'd better: hop off

| cost to the taxpayer,

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Times Photo.

more than a million homes which would have been lost without the intervention of HOLC were saved for their owners : i

and assessments were paid by HOLC, and consolidated with the principal of the loan.

The total amount loaned by the |

Corporation on each home was to

* be repaid on the basis of $7.91 per

month, including principal and interest, for every $1000 of the

principal. Since the average loan. amounted to $3028, the average . payment per month is only about.

$24. Through such easy payments, in many cases lower than rents which would have to be paid on the properties, the home owners will own -their houses free of all debt at the end of the 15-year period. Eighty per cent of the appraised

‘value was established as the maximum which could be loaned on

any one home, and “homes” were defined as dwellings occupied by one to four families. Since HOLC was not intended to assist wealthy owners of elaborate homes, the total amount which it could lend

on any property was limited to

$14,000. : One in || Financed

Applications for HOLC loans

reached their peak during the spring of 1934 when they were being received at the rate of 35,000 a week. In spite of this tremendous burden, and the limited time in which to complete its lending, HOLC made its loans on a much sounder business basis than had previously been the custom with many private lending institutions.

Its investigations were detailed

and thorough, with the result that the great majority of HOLC borrowers may be relied upon for full repayment of .their loans.

| As recovery has advanced along . the.entire economic front, private

lending institutions . have come back into the field and, largely under. the influence of HOLC, have revised and improved their lending practices. 2 HOLC assumed one-sixth of the estimated present urban home mortgage debt in the United

States. This means that one of every 11 owned homes in the

average American city has been refinanced by HOLC. Over a million homes which would have been lost without the intervention of ‘HOLC were saved for . their owners. During the course of its lending, which under the Jaw expired June 12, 1936, HOLC made a total

‘of 1,021,587 loans to the total

amount of $3,093,288,213. Through Sept. 30, 1937, loans amounting, to

- $52,849,610 had been repaid in full.

Of the total interest and prin-

cipal installments due, 85.5 per

‘cent had heen paid. The corpora-

tion had acquired 58,189 proper-

ties, of which 3818 had been sold and 40,295 were rented. © = Never before in our history were loans made upon such liberal terms, which yet guaranteed a return to the corporation, and may

make it possible for the corpora-

tion to complete its work of liquidation without any net loss or any

§ Yea La

Entered as Second-Class Matter at Postoffice, Indianapolis, Ind.

= pe

country. n 8 : | This plan strikes at the roots of American liberty. We taxpayers are entitled to a little fun and certainly when business, is rotten we should still enjoy the

PAGE 9

By Anton Scherrer

Jack Karstedt Recalls the Day a Crew of Four Laid 16,000 Bricks, But That's Nothing to Brag About.

THE most thrilling day in the life of John G. Karstedt was back in 1903. On that day a crew consisting of John Brooks (foreman), Mat Brady, Bob McIntire and Mr, Karstedt laid 16,000 bricks in eight hours. It was on the 210-foot high octagonal stack of the Mill St. Power Station. They each got 50 cents an hour for doing it. Mr. Karstedt says he was so tired that night he couldn’t ride his bicycle home.

The best a modern brickmason can do is somewhere around 750 bricks a day. It isn’t the bricklayer’s fault, say Mr. Karstedt. It’s because they have different ideas about building now. Back in the good old days, a basement wall had to be at least two feet thick. The bearing walls were 21 and 17 inches thick, tapering off with a 12-inch wall to hold up the roof. It ate up a pile of brick. Nowadays they use nothing but 12 and 8-inch walls, and you have no idea how it crimps a bricklaye er’s speed and style, says Mr. Karstedt. : From this point on, I guess I'll call Mr. Karstedt Jack, because everybody else doss. To look at ard listen to Jack you'd never believe he was born in Canada. That's where he learned his trade, too. He came to America by way of the Niagara Falls Bridge when he was 16 years old, and got a job almost immediately in Buffalo. After that, he fooled away some time, in New York City, and then one day he remembered that a chap in Ontario had talked up Indipfiapolis. Jack thought hed find out for him-

Mr. Scherrer

self. He blew into Indianapolis 40 years ago last

Saturday. . ; A ) The first thing Jack did when he got to Indiane apolis was to look up Charliel Wehking, a big brick contractor at the time. Mr. Wehking had a soft spot in his heart for bricklayers from England, but he had never seen one from Canada. To try Jack out (or maybe, to get rid of him) he put him on the Deere Building and to make a test case of it, he put him on'a crew with Carter Rubush and John Davis. Thosé two men laid better than 2000 hricks a day, but Jack kept up with them all right, he says.

Plenty of Good Bricklayers in City

It wasn't anything to brag about, says Jack, because Indianapolis was full of bricklayers who could do the same thing—men like Jim Thomas, for ine stance, and Lon Miller, Nick Dzclue, Fred and Arthur

Richards, John Conner and his son, Johnny, the

Emmerman boys, Ben Yuncker (a southpaw), Chris

- Moulton, Chris Hattendorf, Ed” Brooks and Chiron

Pierson. . oy : Jack had plenty of nice things to say about the Wysong boys, too. There were four of them, George, Charlie, Ollie and Tom, and they were all bang-up bricklayers, except when' a circus came to town. You couldn’t do a thing with those boys when a circus showed up, says Jack. George ended up as a big brick contractor. Fact is, it was George Wysong who watched Jack Karstedt lay 4000 bricks in one day. He had the contract for the Mill St. Power Station—see?

Jane Jordan Some Jealousy Is Inevitable in

Scrambled Families, Wife Advised.

EAR JANE JORDAN—I am married to a man who has been married before. He has four children by his first wife. I have been married before and have two children. I did not meet my husband until he had been divorced for several months. I learned to love his children very much. We brought them to our home on several visits and I made the girls dresses and. treated them as my own. His exwife, who is remarried, became jealous and. refused to let their father see the children any more until he is away from me. A few days ago I received a letter from the children telling me that I took their father away from them and they only could hate me for taking their mother’s place. My-husband knows nothing of this letter yet as he is opt of town. Should I forget the letter and continue with husband whom I adore, or should I give him a chance to go back to see his children. My husband loves me very much and treats my children as if they were his own. Now since I have found the only happiness I ever knew, is it to be discontinued? JUST WORRIED.

Answer—Do not lef this letter disturb you. The chances are that these children have adopted their mother’s attitude toward you and that it may not be representative of their own feelings. Some jealousy is inevitable even in normal families. It is particularly marked in scrambled families. Whether the hostility of the children grows or dies down depends upon the way you handle the situation. As I understand it you did not meet your husband until some months after his divorce. Therefore there is no reason why this letter should stir up any guilty feelings in you. You did not take the man from his first wife nor is she pining away for love of him. on the contrary her attitude is strongly tinged with ate. : ow the children for their emotional situation ard. 4 You would do well to answer the letter kindly and generously. Assure them that they are free to ses their father. at any time apart from you. You see you have no need to feel jealous for you are not the one who has lost. A broad, sympathetic, serene attitude on your part will clear the atmosephere in time whereas blame and protest will only increase sthe ten< sion. Why in the world should you feel that this may mean the end of your happiness? 2 ” 2 ” DEAR JANE JORDAN—Is it possible for a girl of 16 and a boy of 18 to be in love enough to contract a lasting marriage? Should a girl of this age go steady? How many dates should this couple have a week since they both go to school? Should a girl go against her parents’ wishes concerning date nights? Is it wrong to kiss boys? Should young couples have parties and motor trips without a chaperon?

Answer—It is possible, but not probable that chile

dren in their teens are emotionally stable enough. to contract a lasting marriage. It is wiser for a young girl to know many boys instead of settling down to one before her judgment has matured. Dates over the week-end are the rule for school children. No

girl should go against the wishes of reasonable par-

ents. It is not wrong to kiss boys, but sometimes it is very indiscreet. The young aren’t chaperoned as closely as they used to be. It depends upon the party or the trip whether a chaperon is necessary or not, Feds ine JANE JORDAN.

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

‘Walter O'Koole—

ouLx woop, April 5—There are people whe |.

refuse to agree that we have a new depression,

ur Town

but certainly the millenium has arrived when you con=. §

sider that Mayor La Guardia of New York has just suggested that we all put aside politics for the next two years and concentrate on the salvation of the

of laughing at our politicians.

ever do a

for ¢

politician who wont talk

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