Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 18 May 1938 — Page 9

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THE INDIANAPOLIS TIMES

WEDNESDAY, MAY 18, 1988

Sys NTE ae

L . . x ‘ i : 4

Vagabond

From Indiana =Ernie Pyle

After Two Strokes Ernie's Mother |

Nomads of the Dust Bowl

Migratory Workers, in California, Seek Jobs That Don’t Exist

Has Lost Most of Her Appetite, But None of Her Sense of Humeor.

ANA, Ind, May 18.—Stories about my mother have appeared in this column before. And I'm afraid I've made a publicity hound out of her. For she said last night. and it sounded Just like a Washington politician, I don't

want vou to write anything about me, but there are | a lot of people who would like to know how I am.” |

Of course I'm merely joking about my mother being a publicity hound. She doesn't even know what the words mean. But IT know what put the thought into her head. At Christmas and Easter she received “Get Well Soon” cards from readers of this column in far distant cities. And once last summer a voung couple from the East, touring in this part of the country, dropped in to see her. Those things touched her, and so she feels that some people who R don’t even know her are interested Mr. Pyle in her. And since she's probably : right, I'll tell you how she is. She is up every morning at 6. She has her littie breakfast. and at 6:15 she is sitting by the library table. listening to the radio. She sits there till 10:15, when the programs she likes are over. Her favorite is “Mrs. Wiggs’ Cabbage Patch.” What she does the rest of the day, I don’t know. 1 guess she just sits on the davenport, or in a chair. Her eves aren't good enough for never read much anvwayv. In the afternoon she takes a nap on the sofa. She is usually in bed by 8 p. m. She has had two strokes of apoplexy. For weeks she could not speak. For months she could not move herself in hed. Rut now she can talk again, slowly: and she can walk short distances if my father or Aunt Mary supports her. Her right arm is useless She takes a ride in the car whenever there is opportunity. She likes to ride the three miles to Dana and just sit in the parked car, because people stop and talk to her. She still likes Roosevelt, and although I didn't ask her. T doubt that she knows there's a war in Spain. Even if she did. she wouldn't care. Spain is very far awav. My mother comes to the table for meals She eats only a little, and doesn’t care much for that.

Aunt Mary Likes the Column

Every dav when the paper comes. mv father or Aunt Marv reads my column to her. I believe she isn't really verv much interested in it. But my Aunt Mary thinks it's wonderful, and clips out every column. The finest thing about my mother's partial recoverv ic her state of mind. She seems to have come to an almost complete placidity, and not a placidity of dullness, either, At first. she was bitter about heing stricken. But now interest and feeling have come to her again. She has her sense of humor back. She often gets enormously tickled at something. But with it has come a calmness she didn’t have before. She doesn't get excited or upset. She says she doesn’t worry, beceuse she can't keep her mind

on it long enough. ] She is extremely interested in the doings of the

neighborhood. She keeps up especially with the vounger people, whom she has always liked better than older people. The antics of the younger generation never shocked my mother: in fact she consid - erably approved. She has never grown old or harrow.

My Diary

By Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt

Bad Weather Forces Cabinet and Senate Ladies to Picnic Indoors.

NEY YORK. Tuesdayv.—The Cabinet ladies gave their lunch at the White House for the ladies of the Senate vesterday, but, unfortunately, hecause of the cold and wind, it was held in the large dining room instead of out of doors. We looked wistfully at the grass and trees outside, for picnicking there is really half ta2 fun of this particular group. After it was over I went up to say a few words at the meeting of the Temple Sisterhood, and at 5 1 went to Mrs. George Barnett’'s for tea. She gave the party in honor of Mrs. Frances Parkinson Keyes’ new and recently published novel, “Parts Unknown.” These parties are usually entertaining, for they draw a mix-

ture of literary and social friends and 1 always enjoy

seeing Mrs. Keyes. : In the evening I went to a parent-teacher meeting at the Central High School and then took the midnight train for New York City. A number of errands have filled mv day and I had the pleasure of seeing friends at lunch and tea. Shortly, I must be ready to attend the American Booksellers Association dinner. They have Kindly asked me to speak and, while IT am deeply apprecia-

The Indianapolis Times

PAGE 11

Second Section

reading, and she |

(First of Two Articles) By Theodore Smith

Times Special Writer SAN FRANCISCO, May 18.—A weatherbeaten, hunger-weary army of agricultural workers today is scattered across the floor of California's great Central Valley of the San Joaquin. A large part of the estimated 250,000 men, women and children who constitute the shifting group of migratory workers face a lull of months before they can hope for their first agricultural employment. Depression, drought and dust uprooted the greater part of these people from their native Midwestern states. Scorching suns withered their crops. Searing gales blew the sandy soil from beneath ther feet. They turned to the Far West for a new grip on life. Across the borders of California these dust-bowl refugees have poured, seeking employment in the cotton, the orchards and the green-gold fields of lettuce, 104.976 of them during the past year. Ten thousand strong they continue to swarm into California each month in futile search of farm work. Eighty-five per cent of them come from Oklahoma, Texas, Arizona, Arkansas. Missour: and Kansas. Today California’s highways are alive with their slow-moving automobiles., Bulging from the tops and sides of the battered cars and trailers are their worldly possessions. Rusty bedsprings, dilapidated stoves and dented washtubs cling perilously to the swaying cars. Flapping in the breeze are torn quilts and blankets, the banners of their frustrated domesticity. ” » » ROLONGED rains and floods have delayed the planting of new crops. The last bolls of the cotton fields have been plucked. Acres of the spring pea crop are mildewed and yellowed. But the army of migratory workers rolls on, hungry, destitute, bearing the wounds of disease and malnutrition, seeking jobs that do not exist. Few join the ranks of the "fruit tramps.” who tote their families about in rattletrap cars, following the crops from the early spring peas and lettuce, then on to the deciduous fruit and hops areas and back in the warm months of the fall for grapes and cotton, Fewer still make the more arduous tour of the Western states, harvesting apples in Washington, potatoes in Idaho, sugar beets in Colorado, grapefruit in Arizona, then returning to California for the winter. Three-quarters of this restless horde stay within California's Central Valley. There they constantly shift about on the check-

WEDNESDAY, MAY 18, 1938

Entered as Second-Class Matter Indianapolis, Ind.

at Postoffice,

Times-Acme Photo,

Dust storms such as this, shown just hefore it enveloped a small Southwestern town, drove many farmers from their native Midwestern

and Southwestern states.

Many of them turned to the Far West for a new grip on life,

seekers in California's great Central Valley,

erboard valley floor, working frantically when the harvests are full, an average of 30 weeks’ work for most of them, striving vainly during the lean months to stretch

. their earnings over the remaining

22 weeks of the vear, Studies reveal that the migratory family travels an average of 516 miles between jobs.

» » » THOULD adverse AF sudden price-drops curtail a harvest, the migratory family which arfives to find the harvest stopped must almost invariably seek relief, so slender is its thread

of security. Eight food depots have heen set up in the San Joaquin Valley to give immediate relief to the hungry jobseekers. “For the first time the FSA has had to resort to direct relief,” Jonathan Garst, regional director of the Farm Security Administration, explained. Within two months the FSA has made 11,755 grants, averaging $23.85 per family for a month and amounting to $280,396, to needy migratory workers in California. Nearly 2000 repeat grants have been issued during that period. This great oversupply of labor probably will last through the vear in California's agricultural areas, according to Dr. Omer Mills, FSA official. The emergency cash grants were confined to stranded families not entitled to state or county aid because of short residence. Applications for grants are still pouring into FSA headquarters at the rate of 200 to 250 a day.

» » ”

AUL S. TAYLOR, University of California economist affiliated with the FSA, pointed out far-flung ramifications of the state's migratory labor problem. “California seeks to build bulwarks against poverty-stricken la-

weather. or

Today they constitute a vast army of weary job-

It is people like these—families which migrated to California from the dust-bowl area in the hope of finding jobs—who have created the West Coast's serious transient problem. At left a little girl, scarcely in her teens, is shown picking cotton te help obtain enough money to carry the family through the off-season when no crops are being harvested. Mostly the migratory workers are a plucky lot, as witness the group at right Keeping up courage with music in front of a tent shelter in the San Joaquin Valley,

borers by every device from foolish and illegal police blockades to denial of state relief and even access to Federal relief,” Dr. Taylor declared. “The home states are evidently willing that their distressed citizens leave, and increasingly place obstacles in the

way of their return. The migratory laborer loses one residence without acquiring another, and falls between the state and Federal agencies set up for relief.” The faith of these wanderers dies hard. Despite excessive rains, uncer-

tainties of agricultural work, the necessity of traveling long miles for meager wages, 25318 persons crossed the California border between Jan. 1 and March 15 in search of manual labor.

Next—The Children Suffer,

Maj. Williams Takes Issue With T

hose Who Scoff at Autogiro,

PAGE 9

Our Town

By Anton Scherrer

If She Maintains Her Present Pace Virginia VanGeyt Will Have World's Largest Playing Card Collection.

ERE I've been living right in the same town with Virginia VanGeyt all these years, and not until the other day did I know that she had 6392 different kinds of playing cards. It’s the second largest collection in the world. Gordon Mac Edward of Detroit has the largest—somewhere around 10,000 items There's no telling, however, how long Mr. Mae Edward will stay on top, because from the way things

look Miss VanGeyt is sneaking up on him. Fast, too. Come to think of it, she has everything in her favor. For one thing, it took Mr. Mac Edward 12 years to get what he's got, whereas Miss VanGeyt didn’t get started until about two and a half years ago. Besides that, Miss VanGeyt is only 14 years old— a Shortridge freshman, as a matter of fact, Goodness only knows how old Mr. Mac Edward is. As for the other collectors, there aren't enough to worry about, says Miss VanGeyt. She keeps track of all of them, and as far as she knows there are only 20 sizable collections in the whole country-—a “sizable” collection, according to Virginia's definition, being something around 3000 items. (Gosh, 1 hope Miss ‘“VanGeyt lets me call her Virginia.) The oldest playing card in Virginia's collection is the deuce of hearts printed by Thomas Crehore in 1848: the next oldest, a four spot printed by Thomas Hart in 1860. The hest way to tell the age of a deck, says Virginia, is to look at the ace of spades. For some reason, the old printers always put their names and the date of issue on that card. That's the way

Mr. Scherrer

| Virginia learned that the joker didn’t enter the deck

until somewhere around 1830. Virginia says the joker is an American institution. and from the way things look, it's going to stay here, too. Anyway, the Europeans have never taken to our joker and with things going the way they are all over the world, it's probably too late to do anything about it now,

Credit Is Due Shortridge

Most exciting item in Virginia's collection, however, is the deck that once belonged to James Greene, one of the first elders of the First Presbyterian Church. It surprised me, too. but Virginia cleared up everys= thing. Mr. Greene, it, appears, used the cards not for gambling, but to teach his kids the art of arithmetic. For example, one of the cards has the picture of a tall, lanky fellow with the caption: Long Luke Was very lean Seven times two Will Make——,

There are 32 cards like that, each measuring 13 by 2% inches, and I guess when the Greene Kids learned to play the game correctly, they knew every thing there was to know about the multiplication table. Mr. Greene's old set. of cards carries the imprint of R. H. Pease, 510 Broadway, Albany, N. Y. Well, that moved Virginia to tackle the Albany Chamber of Commerce and right away she had an answer saying that Mr. Pease worked at that address in 1846 and 1847. Shows what Shortridge has done for Virginia And except, for Virginia, I wouldn't be able to tell vou that the cards used for playing bridge are a quarter of an inch smaller in width than those used for playing poker.

Jane Jordan—

Tells 15-Year-Old Girl She Shows Good Judgment in Refusing to Wed.

EAR JANE JORDAN--I am 15 years old and in love with a boy of 22, and he loves me. My parents think a lot of this boy, but my father won't allow me to go with him or anyone else. My father doesn't know we feel like this toward each other and if he did he wouldn't let me see him al ail, I wouldn't go out with this boy without my parent's consent, but it doesn’t look as if they ever will give it. He has asked me to marry him, but I won't because of my age. My father wouldn't allow this marriage and he would try to stop us if he knew he could. Should we marry or should we wait to see if father won't change his mind about my going with the man? PATIENCE.

un =n n

Answer—May I compliment you on your good judgment in refusing to marry at 15? At 15 a girl is in rebellion at her parent's authority over her. She feels that she is an adult, or nearly so, and should be

And Urges Further Experiments With This Type Plane

tive of the courtesy, I hope they wili not discover : wr y \ i se | . oe how nervous I am about my talk! I am to discourse ‘By Maj. Al Williams about books to a group of people who know much | : | Times Special Writer

more than I could ever know on the subject and who | ASHINGTON, May 18.—-Men- | tention that its principles of flight

could probably make a much more interesting speech. | 1 frequently wonder why we allow our sense of | tion an autogiro to an air- | merit, And is there any aeronau-

pleasure in being asked to do a thing take us into | hjane pilot and vou get a fast answer! ti WA : . a situation which, at the last moment, fills us with | yous tical engineer who dares to tell the

trepidation.

permitted to act as one. Any show of authority on the parent's part makes her want to defy them. But while you show the well-known signs of wanting to defy your parents, you keep a check on yourself so far as action is concerned, and it is for this that I come pliment you. As a matter of fact this young man is too old for you. He ought to be courting a girl his own age. Ton choose one so much younger indicates that he lacks the courage to try for one as old as he is. In my opinion your parents should provide you with. ample opportunity to meet boys your own age. Doubtless younger boys seem awkward and silly after a young man of the advanced age of 22. Nevertheless, they are the boys with whom you should go. When you have learned how to get along with the other sex among your own contemporaries you will be a better judge of boys and better prepared to make a wise selection among them The very fact that you are pitting your will against your father’s makes you prefer an older man, one more able to take responsibility than an adolescent boy. Reward this simply as a transition phase which you are going through and do not mistake it for a permanent attachment. If you take my advice, perhaps you will be the one who will have a change of heart and mind instead of your father. You may end up by agreeing with your parents about this young man after all, JANE JORDAN,

hand, the autogiro has not been He disagrees with the idea of fly-; commission. The orthodox airplane | particular, has been very active in given the amount of scientific at- |iNg a type of craft wherein land- | is also under control when its en- | conducting research in the matter | | ing is a matter of dashing down a | gine quits, but its high speed | f rotati ot h . | field at 50 to 60 miles an hour. : quits, 1 gh spee on Io rotating wings and has actually | » | A r * i y . ’ BPAY | The wings of an orthodox Aair- [Te ing contact with the ground is | built and flown to a world’s record i what causes casualties. | performance the world's most out-

air at relatively 'h speeds to dei i ‘ | tolerant, Sure the autogiros can plane is the last word in human Ii Be i te { man who created the autogiro, was Youth Builders’ Program Outlined of rotating wings and can rise or descend in a vertical line,

[take off and land in short areas, ! flight? The man-in-the-street does | off the ground and keep it aloft. | killed in an orthodox airplane takThere has come to me today a most interesting | | | pir y a ith | i giro develop lift by rotation. wi h | There's the whole story. While | Until the world can prove that

but when they get off the ground | not think so or it wouldn't take Ine Whirling vanes of the auto-|ing off at about 70 miles an hour. little folder entitled, “Youth Builders, Incorporated.” | they vant go any place—that is, in | him so much time to get aloft in his | heir > itt] ; | The program Segfns Intestine n . InFluding Gs | hurry. They can’ carry sizable| owt aircraft. : : [Inet Jacking mekmg like or no our Government has done little or | our fixed-wing airplane, with all its rect contact work with youth groups and member- | navisads. And the airplane pilot | He sees the autogiro taking the | Epe high take-off and landing speed ship services to adults responsible for the training of | turns away with evident satisfac- |air after a ground run of 50 or 60 | “2 5 nothing lowerd IMProving the 8-1 ovis, is the last word in yvouth—its program is preventive in that it strives 0 | tjon that he has settled the matter | feet and landing in an even smaller | HE autogiro can land in a |togiro, it has spent millions push- | hachines for human flight, we small area at 5 or 10 miles an |ing the progress of the orthodox, | should’ investigate every possible substitute.

work out the normal problems of youth in order to | for good. distance. He sees the autogiro | keep them from becoming abnormal. Development of In part he is right. On the other | practically standing still in the air. | hour even when its engine is out of | fixed-wing airplane. Germany, in

the following three attitudes is, therefore, emphasized as a basis for the ideal community living: 1—What is the name for the daily rise and fall of waters

“1. Tolerance: Respect for the opinion of others, Si willingness to listen to that opinion, and the hope | ide Glances—By Clark of the oceans? 2—For what Government agency Put your problems in a letter to Jane Jordan, who will

to learn from it. “2. Honest Thinking: Desire to investigate environ- Sed do the initials FCC stand? answer vour questions in this eolumn daily, 3—Name the large university lo- etme

ment and to evaluate one’s own realization to it. cated at New Haven, Conn, B b B

“3. Self-Reliance: The ability to act upon conclusions reached through honest thinking modified by 4 Can professional athletes compete in the Olympic OLLYWOOD, May 18.—I know a lot of politicians are Just groping around in the dark tryin’ to

contact with the opinions of others.” If they can accomplish something really tangible games? 5—How many | balance the budget and all they can think of is higher taxes, but they would find another solution

Jasper—By Frank Owen

time zones are United States

(Copyright, 1038) i

Walter O'Keefe—

along these lines, they will have gone a long way toward making democracy efficient and solving the problems of tomorrow. . » 4 Y Public Library Presents— ISING from an eminence on the Irish coast, | there in the looking toward the sea, iz Helen's Tower, a re- proper? minder of an age that has passed. In honor of an ’ adored mother, pA was built in 1861 by the Marquis 8 In hv Ya, 55 he faite Jor mighty quick if the high taxes hurt them as much of Dufferin and Ava > : pal Bikey go Ion | as they do some of the taxpayers. Harold Nicolson, distinguished author, and NG TB ; presented 2g a ony It's like my Aunt Boo. She only had one lamp nephew of Lady Dufferin concerns himself in an 3 a \ AN nw 7 hy n ) ne : and she use’ta pour the coffee in the dark kitchen unusual biography with the complex personality of Be : 2 § 2 ‘ while the lamp was in the dining room. When 1 his uncle, seen obliquely through the eyes of the Answers asked her how she could pour the coffee in the author, as a boy, and in throwbacks representing fact 1—Tides. dark without spillin’ it, she said, “Well, when the or family anecdote. 2—Federal Communications coffee gets up to the first joint of my thumb, HELEN'S TOWER (Harcourt) delineates sharply Commission. I stop.” the charm of this diplomat who was Victoria's Lord- 3—Yale. in-Waiting, Ambassador to Italy, Turkey, Russia, 4—No. Governor-General of Canada, and Viceroy to India, 5—Four. as well as an emissary with more than a touch of 6—Indictment. genius on missions to Austria, to Syria and Egypt. ”y? nn» But the man himself, as son, husband, and father, as landlord upon his ancestral estate at Clandeboye, ASK THE TIMES DLL WO aay bor sGenia] Jim Paisley: Wie as genial host in distant posts of Empire, interests Tnclose a 3-cent stamp’ for | ; ur 5 n postage stamps, advise ue most. A great grandson of the dramatist Richard RE eh vil wi id he Pennsylvania Democrats to divvy up the political rinslev Sheridan, an he lovely 7 : y, By al I vey Bi ivabe ang: Westion oF Tas of information Jim figures that Washington wouldn't be the only it) d . to J n a s mes lace where the Democrats should have a wide-open recklessness . . led as ew he : place p Te wir IS ry fre Pe Tee whereas: | Dif n the arte. de tev wav In Bfoniiyn, Jim , ni uve: W 4 B. i 4 ‘ St, N. W., Washing- poured Earle on the troubled waters, a tom. D. ©. Legal and medical | "The whole pan was designed to protect the presfigures to be presented autobiographical ™ Mr advice cannot be given nor can | tige of the New Deal. Jim doesn’t want Washington Nico, i grap y by Mr. | extended research be under- | tobe known as first in war, first in peace and second taken, in Pennsylvania. A

"Can't you make less clatter, Azalea? We don't want the quests to know the kitchen is right in here."