Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 4 May 1938 — Page 11

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The Indianapolis Times

WEDNESDAY, MAY 4, 1938 at Postotce. Indianapolis, ind.

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Second Section

Jag: . Vagabond From Indiana = Ernie Pyle

An Ex-Six-Gun Man Breaks Down And Gives Three Reasons Why He

Favors Disarmament for Himself.

PAGE 11

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OSTILLA, N. M., May 4.—It has just occurred to me that we have been wan-

dering around New Mexico for more than

three weeks now. That is longer than I usually plan to stay

in any state. I've been lying awake the last couple of nights trying to think why we stayed so long. And the only conclusion I can reach is that

we must like it out here.

But we missed one village in New Mexico that I was busting to see. The name of the village is LaLuz. And the reason I want to go there: I have a friend in New Mexico whose first name is Liz, and I'll never draw another peaceful breath until I get to write a piece about “Liz, the Lalapalooza of LaLuz.” This state has a couple of odd laws affecting travelers. In New Mexico it is lawful to carry a six-shooter while traveling. But you must have it put safely away within half an hour after reaching your destination. : Why a half hour? I have no idea, unless it's to give you legal time to dispose of any citizens who might be personally obnoxious to you. : The other law has to do with liquor. This law says it is illegal for a traveler to carry more than one quart of liquor. The funny part is that this law was passed during national prohibition when it was illegal to carry liquor anywhere in the U. 8 Speaking of traveling with a six-shooter, I have traveled with a gun only once in my life. That was in 1926, when we drove “around the rim” of the United States in a Model-T. I traded a friend out of a bedraggled old six-shooter and we left thoroughly armed.

No Hits, No Runs, Six Errors

I didn’t get any cartridges for the gun until we got into Georgia. And I never tried to shoot it until we got far into Texas. : Then one day, way out on the prairies, far from anybody's sight or hearing, we experimented. It was in rocky country, and I picked out a rock about half as big as a house, stood just across the road from it, and fired all six shots without ever touching the rock. The gun barked only once more for me. It was in the desert of central Washington State. It was just before dusk one evening, when the jackrabbits were coming out thick. You could see a couple of dozen at a time, loping across the road. We were in a roadster, with the top down. I stopped, stood up in the car, and then, suddenly seized with a sort of Wild West mania, yelled like a lunatic while I put six bullets into the desert dust among the loping jackrabbits. I do not recall that a single rabbit increased his speed by so much as a fraci lope. a 2 TP aever expect to have any traffic with an=other six-shooter. The reasons are three: 1. I couldn't hit anything with it. 2. Some tough guy might take it away from me. 3. It would eventually go off in my face.

My Diary

By Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt

Mr. Pyle

First Lady Finds Sleep Difficult After She Has Seen War Pictures.

ASHINGTON, Tuesday.—Yesterday afternoon I greeted quite a large group of Girl Scouts and a group from the George School before attending the annual garden party given by our rector, Dr. Wilkinson, and his wife. They have a lovely garden and it is always a pleasure to have a glimpse of it at this season. I returned to a swim in the pool. supper in the rose garden and three short movies sent down especially for me to see. One movie was on the war in Spain, one on the war in China and one on conditions in our Cumberland Mountains, which might almost be termed a war on our own economic conditions. I could hardly bear to look at some of the pictures. 1 found myself closing my eves In utter disgust and horror that human beings can do such things to each other. Not having had a completely restful night on the sleeper, I was quite ready for bed, but I was haunted by the pictures and had to do some work before I could get into the mood for oblivion. nl A ride at 7 this morning, an hour when it is hard to believe that anywhere in the world there can be cruelty and ugliness.

Urges Fight on Heart Disease

There is a certain incongruity between all the work we do for Child Health Week and our unconcern about many of the conditions which lead up to poor health in children. : The American Heart Foundation sponsored an international broadcast on Monday to bring to the attention of people the story of those little cripples who do not show their physical deformity, but who, nevertheless, are physically handicapped by heart disease. Very often poor food, poor environment and bad heredity are factors in this illness. I saw many of the little sufferers in a Boston hospital last Friday morning. Perhaps some of you will remember the story written by Paul de Kruil several vears ago, in which he told very dramatically the story of one poor little victim. This is a disease which takes a tremendous toll among children and should have more attention from the public than it has so far received. All morning I looked forward to 11 o'clock as the hour at which I had decided to telephone my daughter. for May 3 is her birthday. I had not heard her voice for some time and, though I often complain that the telephone can be a nuisance, I certainly was grateful this morning to be able to express my good wishes and to hear her voice, even though we are so

far apart.

New Books Today Public Library Presents—

N 1032 Sister Mary Monica went to Spain to study a difficult phase of Spanish-American history. She had been warned to stay away from that country because of the unrest and trouble brewing there; but that was only a challenge to her, and she ventured into Spanish territory in spite of the protests of ‘her friends. AND THEN THE STORM (Longmans) is a description of her experiences while visiting the cities of Spain and working in their famous libraries. She met all kinds of interesting people and saw much of the life of the people and the beginning of the civil war now being carried on. » ” »

ERE is a book to own, to ponder, to come back to. It is a sensitive, a brave, a courageous book. In OUT OF AFRICA (Random House) the Danish Baroness Karen Blixen-Finecke, writing under the name of Isak Dinesen reveals little of her own life, but much of her deep feeling for the alien earth of Africa. Her 6000-acre coffee plantation lies in the Ngong hills 100 miles south of the equator. To the south stretch the vast plains of the great game country, home of the giraffe and the rhino. To the east and north are foothills and forests and Mount Kenya 100 miles away. To the west the great Rift Valley. During the 18 years on her African farm the author acquires an affection for the natives and a consuming love for the hills, the plains, the forest, the rivers, the wind. With the strength of the elements she attacks the work at hand. She casts enchantment with her phrases. She “expresses the inexpressible.” As she works in the maize fields and speaks in native rhymes to the young Swaheli laborers they beg, “Speak again. Speak like n’ =n nostalgic sadness at the end is met with restraint and courage. The reader closes the book with the entreaty of the Swaheli youth: “Speak again.”

By David Dietz

Times Science Editor

bodies are composed.

search in New York City.

forever.

Twenty-six years ago--on

tion.

In its warm bath of salt water, the sliver went on beating just as it had done when a part of the chicken embryo inside the egg. Nutrient liquids were added to the solution and the pulsing tissue absorbed nourishment and began to grow. For the first 104 days, it pulsated as it grew. But gradually the cells composing the connective tissues outran the muscular cells in growth so that it became practically a mass of connective tissue. (The sheaths covering individual muscles, the tendons which unite muscles to the skeleton, etc., are all composed of connective tissue.)

Next, Dr. Carrel, wearing rubber gloves and with all the precautions that would be taken to maintain sterile conditions during an operation upon a human being, removed the mass of tissue from the glass vessel and cut it in half. One-half was thrown away, the other returned to the vessel in the incubator. The piece returned was about the size of a childs thumb. In 48 hours, it had doubled in size. It was again removed and cut in half. One half was thrown away, the other was washed in a cleansing solution and returned to the vessel in the incubator. That same process has been going on now for 26 years. There is no observable reason why it should not go on forever. As Dr. Carrel said two years ago in an address before the New York Acad-

(Second of a Series)

TINY bit of pink muscle, cut from the heart of an unborn chicken, is proof of the fact that the possibility of immortality resides in the tissues of which our

For that fragment of muscle has gone on living and growing for more than a quarter of a century in the laboratories of the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Re-

No one has been able to suggest anv reason why it cannot go on living and growing for another 2500 years. sues organized into the complex structure of an animal or a man do not go on living Therein is contained the mysteries of life and death and the answer to why man only rarely exceeds the Biblical

span of “three score and ten.” Jan. Alexis Carrel, brilliant and skillful surgeon. placed a sliver of heart muscle taken from an embryonic chick, into a glass vessel containing a saline soluThe vessel was placed in an incubator kept at the exact temperature of 103 degrees, Fahrenheit.

But tis-

17, 1912—Dr.

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emy of Medicine, “Removal of waste products and proner food prevents, in a colony of tissue cells, the occurrence of death. The cells are potentially immortal.”

» » »

LSO, as Dr. Carrel observed, “The cells that build up the body are capable of unlimited multiplication.” If the tissue had not been cut in half every 48 hours, and if means could have been found to take adequate care of the constantly growing mass, it would today be larger than the entire earth.

Now let us observe what Dr. Carrel did for that growing bit of heart muscle. He provided it with the right environment for growth, in this case a salt water medium of the right temperature. He provided it with food by adding nutrients to the solution. Waste products were removed by washing the tissue. Cutting it in half every 48 hours prevented it from growing to a size where it exhausted the suppQrting powers of its environment.

These experiments of Dr. Carrel’'s became world famous. But vet the fact must not be lost sight of that he had demonstrated with a large number of cells organized into a piece of tissue something which nature had heen demonstrating for millions of years with single cells. Living in ponds and brooks is a microscopic animal whose body

Three Score and Ten

Proof of Cells’ Potential Immortality Seen in Muscle Fragment

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consists of a single cell. It is known as the amoeba. The most common form, known as “amoeba proteus,” is about a hundredth of an inch in diameter. Under the microscope it looks like a little drop of jelly in which are imbedded granules of various sizes

,and shapes.

The shape of the amoeba changes continuously, finger-like extensions called “pseudopodia,” being pushed out in various directions. The amoeba eats bacteria, small one-celled plants known as algae, other one-celled animals smaller than itself, and bits of dead organic matter. It approaches a particle of food, surrounds it with pseudopodia and engulfs it within its own body. If you watch an amoeba patiently enough under microscope, you will eventually see it begin to constrict in the middle as though some force were pinching it in two. The constriction grows more and more pronounced, and finally the amoeba does separate into two parts. Of course, many amoebas die. If you are watching one in a drop of water under the microscope, it will die when the water drop evaporates. Amoebas also die because they are eaten by other creatures only slightly larger than themselves. » ” » B= it is obvious that an amoeba now alive traces its his-

tory, through countless divisions,

At the left, under the magnifying glass, six stages in the process by which the one-cell amoeba splits into two amoebas are shown.

At the right is a scene in the lahoratory of the University Hospitals, Cleveland, where tissue cultures are studied under the microscope.

Below is Dr. Alexis Carrel, who conferred potential immortality like that possessed by the amoeba upon a fragment of muscle at the Rockefeller Institute for Medical Research.

back to the first amoeba that ever existed. We come then to the problem of why man cannot emulate the bit of heart muscle in the incubator or the amoeba in the roadside pond. Dr. Carrel summed it up on one occasion by exclaiming “Death is the price man pays for his brains.”

But death comes to creatures with far less brains than man and so we might state the case by saying, death is the price of organization. But organization is required for the kind of life a man leads. The life of a man is so superior to the life of an amoeba because of the complex organization of a man. The amoeba consists of a single cell. Man consists of billions of cells which in their turn make up many different kinds of tissues. Each cell leads a life of its own but this separate life is woven together to form the life—or shall we merely say activity—or tissues. In their turn, the tissues combine their activities to provide the functioning of the organs. And finally we come to the life of the whole man which is the integrated functioning of all his organs. Somewhere in this process, consciousness arises, a mystery in itself as great as that of life and death and concerning which we can say little but that we find it associated only with the tissues that make up the nervous system. Constant, ceaseless activity is the mark of life, and yet, as the late Prof. J. Arthur Thomson, the distinguished British biologist, pointed out, it is the characteristic of living creatures to remain the same in spite of all change.

“It remains, as long as it can, itself and no other,” Prof. Thom=son once wrote. In other words, the organization is now superior to the individual cell. It is no longer possible for cells to go on multiplying indefinitely as they do in the fragment of heart muscle in the incubator. Each cell is now a player in a symphony of cells with its own part marked out for it. It is the business of certain cells to manufacture the supportting skeleton that carries the others around. Still other cells manufacture the tendons which hold the muscles to the skeleton. There are cells which act as chemical factories. manufacturing powerful drugs to control the body. These are the cells of the ductless glands. ” on o

OST important neurons or nerve cells.

this reason that Dr. Carrel ex-

claimed “Death is the price we For the neurons are the most sensitive and

pay for our brains.”

the most difficult to keep alive.

Within recent years there have been many experiments to revive have stopped beating, as for examle,

individuals whose hearts

after a severe electric shock.

But these experiments have also illustrated the need for extreme speed in any such process. The beating of the heart must be started within a period of some five If a longer time elapses, it does no good to restart the heart, for the cells of the

or six minutes.

brain have died. The brain cells are dependent for life upon the constant flow of blood through the blood vessels

of the brain. When the heart stops, this circulation of the blood And if more than a few minutes elapses before it starts

stops.

again, the brain cells are beyond saving. y Before we can understand all the problems involved in an attenipt to extend the span of life, we must know more about the organization of the human body.

NEXT-—The meaning of growth.

of all, and most delicate of all, are the It is for

Jasper—By Frank Owen

A EY

Side Glances—By Clark

Copr. 1938 by United Peature Syndicate, Ine.

74

"You switched from French fried to Lyonnaise, Lyonnaise to baked, now you want ‘em mashed! Herel"

TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE

1—In which ocean are the Falkland Islands? 2—Where is the British Military Academy? 3—What is a clearing-house association? 4 —How long is a fathom? 5—Name the largest river in Russia.

6—Who is Edouard Daladier? ” ” ”n

Answers

1—South Atlantic. 2—Sandhurst, Berkshire, land. 3—A union of banks in a city, for the purpose of securing speedy settlement of their claims against each other. 4—Six feet. 5—The Volga. 6—French Premier,

Eng-

By A. D. Editor of The Times: A few days ago there appeared in The Times’ “Test Your Knowledge” column the question, “What is a novena?” The answer given was “A nine-days’ devotion to any religious object.” Allow me to correct this statement as it is grossly untrue, A

novena is a nine-days’ devotion to -

God either directly or through one of the saints. » » » EdMor’s Note — The definition to which A. D. objects is the one

Bow in Webster's New Inter-

national Dictionary Unabridged.

| & normal Russian life,

Our Town

By Anton Scherrer |

A Grim Maytime Story Involving An Elderly Man and a Willow Tree

Is Told in the State House Yard,

AST year, just about this time, Wade . Millman displayed his home-made coffin in Baker Brothers show window. 1 believe I mentioned it. Indeed, I believe I even went so far as to remark that something was

happening to the month of May—that instead of being the blithe and merry month it was supposed to be, it was turning into something grim and realistic to remind us not of buds and birth, but of death and the vicissitude of time. Well, it turns out I was right. The grimmest story of the year turned up last Monday, and I, of all people, participated on it. The story starts with my béing in the State House yard in the neighborhood of the Hendricks’ statue when I ran across an elderly man acting kind of queer. I hung around, and sure enough, it wasn't long until the man told me his troubles. I hardly know where to begin. Among other things, he said he had left Indianapolis 25 years ago, and this was his first trip back in all that time. Now that he was back. he didn't know whether it was worth while. Said it was awful hard to pick up things where he had left them. As an example, he cited his presence in the State House yard and his great disappointment at not finding the old willow tree that used to be there. He wanted to know what had happened to it, and for the life of me I couldn't tell him.

Also Seeking Maple Tree

Well, that moved the old man to tell me everye thing he remembered about the old tree. It was a weeping willow, he said, with a pedigree that ran way back to Alexander Pope (1688-1744). Seems that the author of “The Dunciad” was the first to introduce weeping willows into England from Asia. He planted them on his estate Twickenham on the Thames, and had such luck with them that everybody came to see them. Anyway, that's where Mr. Curtis, Martha Washington's first husband, saw them. Mr. Curtis got Mr. Pope to give him some cuttings which he brought back and planted on his Virginia estate at Arlington, To hear the old man tell it, that was the way the weeping willow was brought to the Colonies. More than a century passed, and then sometime around 1888 or so, Joel Hiatt of Crawfordsville went to Arlington, then the home of Gen. Robert E. Lee's son, and asked the gardener for some cuttings, Mr. Hiatt sent the cuttings to his father, and in no time at all they grew into trees as good to look at as those at Twickenham. When they got big enough he gave one to Gen. Lew Wallace, one to Wabash College, and one to the Governor to be planted in the State House yard. That was the tree the old man was looking for. I wanted to hear more, but I had to be on my way to pay my taxes. I left the old man looking for the maple tree Governor Hanly planted in 1905. Gosh. I hope he found it.

Jane Jordan—

Your Interests Will Determine the Age of Your Friends, Girl Told.

EAR JANE JORDAN--1 am in my late teens and have been going with a man of 21. We both love each other and we know it is not an infatuation. We are planning to get married as soon as he gets a

better job. He is working now but only makes $15 a week. We have little misunderstandings once in a while, but manage to patch everything up in a few moments. He has real nice parents and they think a lot of me. My mother likes this boy and he is the same way about her. But he and my father aren't like that. One night recently my boy friend stayed a little over the time my father had set for him to leave and daddy stopped him from coming more than once a week. Please tell me what is the best thing to do. IN NEED OF ADVICE.

Mr. Scherrer

Answer—When a parent makes an unreasonable rule in a fit of provocation, it is smart not to show any resistance until his emotion has ebbec away. Then the chances are that he will feel slightly guilty about his act and this is the time to get him to alter his decision. Doubtless your father is loathe to believe that you are practically grown up and in love, and he asserts his authority in this manner to prove to himself and to you that you are still under his guidance. But he is fighting a losing battle. Each year will find you a little freer from his authority, Have patience, for time is on your side.

” » ”

EAR JANE JORDAN—I am a girl of 16, but IT am very small for my age and do not look more than 14. Because of this I have very few dates. I go with girls slightly younger than I who are not interested in boys. My family tries to encourage me to dress and act older. I would like to be popular.

I. M. DATELESS. Answer—Of course you

can make yourself look older by your manner of dressing, but after all it is your interests in life which determine the age of the friends who will like you. If you have only the inter= ests of a 14-year-old girl, you will attract a group of this age. Try making friends with older girls first. Through them you will meet older boys. Find out what these young people are interested in and show enthusiasm for their pursuits. Doubtless your size has proved to be a handicap which has retarded the process of growing up somewhat. If you look like a little girl it is easier to act like a little girl. But your family is right. JANE JORDAN.

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

who will

Bob Burns Says—

HS xvoon, May 4.—A lot of politicians as well as actors owe their success to the brilliant mind of some publicity agent. Those fellas can think up more ways to make a sparkling hero out of a drab client. One of 'em walked into a political candidate's office the other day and asked the politician to give him a job as publicity director in his campaign. The politician drew himself up indignantly and said, “I am conducting a straightforward, honest, bunkless campaign.” The publicity man says, “Then I'm just the guy you want—I've got just the baloney to put that huey over.”

(Copyright, 1038)

Walter O'Keefe—

OLLYWOOD, May 4.—Josef Stalin needn't feel snubbed by the fact that those other two dic= tators, Hitler and Mussolini, are meeting in Rome without him this week. They're probably planning a visit to Joe in the near future and it won't be social. While the aggressor nations are busy grabbing off territory for raw materials, the Soviet's only need is to annex a few cemeteries. If the purge continues in the Red paradise most of Russia's standing Army will be lying down. They say Stalin has 40,000 bodyguards. It's like spending life in front of the bleachers at the Yankee Stadium. Recent happenings over there have convinced statisticians that the five-year plan is the span of

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