Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 22 June 1938 — Page 9

Vagabond

From Indiana = Ernie Pyle

A Veritable Milquetoast Braves The Waikiki Beach Crowd to Get A Thrill Riding the Roaring Surf.

Editor's Note—Ernie Pyle, after three years of traveling, is taking a vacation. Hence we are taking this opportunity to reprint some of his readers’ favorite columns, as indicated in their letters to him and to the editor.

ONOLULU, June 22.—The mid-afternoon sun was hot on the beach at Waikiki. On the sands and under the umbrellas of the Outrigger Club there was a rich laziness. Men, deeply tanned, lay in the heat. Women in bright bathing suits dug toes into the sand. But suddenly people sat up and stared. Look! What fantasy is this? What be this odd human contraption come into our exclusive midst? Four dark Hawaiians carried a yellow outrigger canoe toward the water. Behind them strode a huge Hawailan—six feet and then some, great chest, muscled arms and legs, darkly brown. And behind this magnificent specimen minced an embarrassed, spindly ghost. His skin was as white as writing paper. His knees didn't come together, and his arms were muscleless. He wore a common white undershirt where other men wore big raw chests. And pound him dangled borrowed red trunks, far too ig The rich heach crowd sniggered. Funny little man. Funny little hothouse man—no chest, no tan, no muscle, probably couldn't even swim. What a sight! The big Hawaiian was Duke Kahanamoku, the great swimmer. And the awful contrast trailing behind him was, as you may have guessed—me, in person, The canoe was built for four. Duke called to a beautiful girl on the beach, and she came running with a little child. They piled in, for ballast and the ride. I never did know who they were. He put me in the front seat, right in the nose. He sat in the stern. We paddled out, against the surf and into the sun. It was good to set way out, away from the beach crowd. We must have been half a mile out when finally Duke turned the canoe around. “Now we'll wait for one,” he said. paddle, you paddle hard.” We sat there for many minutes in the sun, talking idly. A few canoeists and surfboard riders lay waiting also, but not very close. It was very quiet out there, Suddenly Duke dug in excitedly and yelled “Paddle!” We rowed and the canoe started to move. “Paddle! Paddle hard!” Duke yelled. We clawed at the water. “Paddle hard!” Duke yelled. We labored, the girl and I. There was a roar of rushing water behind us. “Paddle harder!” yelled Duke. Then suddenly I could feel the stern lifted. And then we were off, as though someone had pulled a trigger and shot us out of a gun. No need for oars now. “Lean over toward the outrigger,” velled Duke. We were already leaning. It was a thrill. The air whistled past.

His Self-Confidence Grows

Duke edgewise

“And when I say

sat hugely in the stern, his paddle dug

into the water alongside, making a sort of rudder. The ride lasted maybe a minute, maybe Gradually we slowed. Finally the wave died and passed beneath us and the canoe floated quietly again, a hundred yards from shore. Duke turned the canoe, and we paddled seaward again. This time there was gayness in our paddling. People on shore couldn't see the whiteness of my skin. Self-confidence grew. Boy, this is fun! Half a dozen times we made the round trip. Sometimes we'd have to wait 5 or 10 minutes for the surf to break. Each time I'd try to judge waiching seaward, would yell “paddle!” could tell. Always, when we started stroking, water behind us seemed smooth and motionless. But we'd paddle frantically for 5 or 10 seconds and then I'd see the wave break on the reef, yards back of us, and start piling up its white crest, and then in a few seconds it would be half under us, | shooting us along before it. The girls and I were almost foolish with delight over the thing. Duke seemed to enjoy our enthusiasm. “But the surf is poor today,” he said, “I wish we'd get some big enough to turn us over!”

My Diary

By Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt

less.

just when Duke, But I never the |

Swimming Party Given for Those Accompanying F. D. R. to Hyde Park.

HY PARK, Tuesday—At about 5 o'clock vesterday afternoon, we had a swimming party at the cottage for all the people who have to follow the President and live in Poughkeepsie while he is here. The Nelson House always seems to me a rather warm spot on a summer day, ana so I hope that those who went in swimming and played with the archery set and paddled the canoe around our little pond had a pleasant time. I know that Eleanor and Curtis had the time of their lives watching ail the grownups. The roughhousing the children gave their Uncle Franklin left that usually exuberant gentleman somewhat tired out. No children should miss the joy of young uncles and aunts. I can remember so well what it meant to me when any of mine played hide-and-seek with me around the old house at Tivoli. In the summer, if they were at home, there was an hour after my supper when I could usually induce them to devote themselves to my entertainment. It was probably a little hard on them, but as 1 had no children of my own age to play with, it meant a great deal to me,

Kennedy Due for Some Teasing

Children do not forget, either, as fast as one would expect them to. Eleanor and Curtis have been away for a year and a half and yet, when we reached Boston the other day, and their Uncle Johnny talked to them on the telephone, Eleanor said to me with pride, “I talked to Uncle Johnny and I knew his voice right away.” Everybody forgot the time so successfully at our party yesterday afternoon, that Miss Le Hand finally telephoned to ask if anyone was coming for supper, as the President was hungry. So, at 7:30, the family bundled into the waiting cars and went home to the big house. The President is having, as usual, a good many visitors, One of them will be welcomed with great pleasure by all the family, but I think he may also receive a certain amount of teasing. It seems inevitable that an ambassador to any foreign country should be suspected of acquiring some customs and mannerisms as a result of his temporary residence abroad. I imagine that Mr. Joseph Kennedy will alwavs remain himself under all circumstances, but he will be teased nevertheless!

Bob Burns Says—

OLLYWOOD, June 22.—I have found that the bigger the artist, the more simple and down-to- | earth he is, but some people seem to think that an | artist or a poet has his head in the clouds all the | time : ; I know one artist who painted a famous picture of a strong man choking a huge boa-constrictor and he called it “Hercules Strangles the Serpent.” The picture made such a hit that a bunch of art lovers went to the artist and asked him what inspired him to paint such a masterpiece. The artist says “Well, my kid gave me the idea when he got tangled up with the hose on the vacuum cleaner!” 8 (Copyright. 1038) v

The Indianapolis

imes

Second Section

The Future Is Electric

(Third of a Series) By David Dietz

Times Science Editor EW types of electric lamps employing phosphorescent materials which glow in any desired shade of the rainbow when bombarded by an electric current are taking shape in the research laboratories of the General Electric Co. The phenomenon of phosphorescence has been known for centuries, but this represents an organized effort to understand its fundamental causes and put it to work. Other scientists in the laboratory are studying the insulating properties of synthetic resins. Out of this study may come information which will improve all electrical apparatus. Still others are making careful researches into the behavior of alloys at high temperatures. It is not always possible for the layman

to realize the potentialities of such an endeavor.

The sight of a scientist bending over a complicated piece of apparatus, seeking to measure to the millionth of an inch, the changes taking place in a piece of whitehot steel, may not seem to possess world-shaking importance.

T is well to remember, therefore, that behind the mammoth tur-bine-generators producing the electric power to light the homes and run the machines of America, behind the glistening giants on wheels, the electric locomotives hauling trains at 80 miles an hour, behind the glowing radio tubes which give words wings equal to the speed of light, there were such scientists of the research laboratory. The turbire-generators produce electricity by the 100,000 kilowatts because these men knew how to measure the billionth part of a kilowatt of electricity. The huge locomotive is possible, because these men can predict the behavior of alloys and steel and dozens of other materials. Radio has wings as wide as the world because these men have studied the behavior of electrons, particles so small that 5,000,000 might rest on the period at the end of this sentence.

More fundamental research is going on in the General Electric laboratories today than at any time in the history of the company, L. A. Hawkins, executive engineer, told me. That is why General Electric faces the future with confidence.

General Electric, celebrating its 60th birthday this year, is proud not only of its own laboratory, but of all research in the world of industry, for it had the first industrial research laboratory in America. » ” »

ANY of the triumphs of modern electricity including the gas-filled tungsten filament incandescent lamp, radio power tubes and the modern X-ray tubes in use today were forged in the General Electric laboratories. Two huge buildings, one six stories high, the other seven stories high, house the laboratories at the main plant in Schenectady today. These constitute the “house of magic,” as radio fans came to know them. They are supplemented by additional laboratories at General Electric plants in Lynn, Bridgeport, Philadelphia, Brie, Ft. Wayne, Pittsfield and Cleveland. It is not surprising that the General Electric Co. should have pioneered in research, for the company was born out of scientific investigation. It was the work of Thomas A. Edison. Elihu Thompson and Charles F. Brush upon the electric generator, the arc light and the incandescent lamp which led to the pioneer com-

panies which later were merged into the General Electric Co. In 1893. Dr. Charles P. Steinmetz, destined to earn the title of “the electrical wizard” before his death, joined the company. Few careers in the world have been more interesting than that of this hunchbacked German Jew who had arrived penniless in America. ” ” 8

NE of the greatest mathematical engineers the world has ever known, Dr. Steinmetz developed the application of fundamental laws to the phenomena which govern the use of alternating current.

It was Dr. Steinmetz, carrying on his own researches at first at Schenectady in a barn, who advised the officers of General Electric to appropriate a “considerable sum of money for the establishment of an electrochemical experimental laboratory in our works.”

He laid down the pattern for the laboratory when he added, “Absolutely essential for the success of this proposition appears to be that the experimental laboratory should be entirely separate from the factory and from regular production, so that no routine work interferes with experimental investigations.”

In 1909, Dr. Willis R. Whitney, then a young instructor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, was invited to come to Schenectady to organize such a research laboratory.

Dr. Whitney, today, is vice president in charge of research for the General Electric Co. Among the men Dr. Whitney brought into the laboratory were Dr. W. D. Coolidge and Dr. Irving Langmuir, Dr. Coolidge, now the director of the laboratory, devised the Xray tube now in general use, known everywhere as the Coolidge X-ray tube. Dr. Langmuir, who was awarded the Nobel prize for his fundamental studies in chemistry, made possible the present-day radio power tube. The two men together created the present incandescent lamp. The story of the incandescent

For 25 years he has been engaged in making nothing. He is William A. Ruggles, one of the engineers in the General Electric Laboratories. He has succeeded in creating the best vacuums ever made. The photo above shows him at work.

General Electric's great research trio. Left to right: Dr. Willis R. Whitney, vice president in charge of research, Dr. W. D. Coolidge, director of research; Dr. Irving Langmuir, Nobel prize winner.

lamp is a good example of how a great research laboratory advances industry and brings new comforts and advantages to the entire world. : o 8 ”

HE first tungsten lamps were manufactured with filaments so delicate that they could not stand jar or vibration. Tungsten was so brittle that no one could work with it, so the filaments were prepared from tungsten powder mixed with a binder. Perhaps you can remember those days when streetcars had to stick to the old carbon filament bulbs because the tungsten filaments could not stand the vibration.

So Dr. Coolidge began a fundamental study of the properties of tungsten. At the end of four years he had developed a method of drawing tungsten into a fine wire that would stand vibration so well that it was possible to install tung=-sten-filament lamps in the turrets of battleships.

Dr. Langmuir joined the laboratory in 1909 and first devoted himself to the study of vacuums. A vacuum is supposed to contain nothing. But as Dr. Whitney liked to say, Dr. Langmuir proved that there was something in it. Actually, of course, we never obtain a complete vacuum. A slight trace of one gas or another re=mains. Langmuir made important discoveries by studying the behavior of those residual gases. Out of his studies came the idea of filling the bulbs with an inert gas. Thus Coolidge and Langmuir completed the task which Edison had begun. “You never can tell what will

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 22, 1938

come out of experimental research,” Executive Engineer Haw=kins explains. “Naturally we are always on the alert to apply a new discovery to some practical need,

Barkley Creates 50 U. S. Jobs

Times Special ASHINGTON, June 22-—At least 50 employees will be added to the corps of tobacco inspectors under a $100,000 increase which Senator Barkley (D. Ky.) maneuvered into the new agriculture Department appropriation bill, it was learned today. The increase was earmarked for additional inspectors of burley tobacco, of which Senator DBarkley's home state is the chief producer. Mr. Barkley is in the midst of a hot fight for renomination, with Governor A. B, Chandler seeking to unseat him. Although the actual does not begin until the tobacco markets open about Dec. 1, Agriculture officials said it would be necessary to employ the new personnel several months earlier for proper training. The employment period for inspectors is usually about six months, and their average pay is about $1500.

inspection

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Credit for Advancements Due Scientists of Research Laboratories

but we find it best to permit our research men to pursue their studies in their own ways.” rn ” ” MONG recent inventions now under test in the General Electric laboratory is a switch which employs a drop of mercury between two metal plates to make and break the electric circuit. When the switch comes into general use, as the engineers believe it will, novelists will have to stop writing about the “click” of the wall switch. For this switch is noiseless. The mercury is in a little receptacle about the size of a marble. This is set in the wall plate so as to revolve. Operation is silent because there are no springs in the switch. Another development is an electric blanket. This is a very thin blanket containing heating wires. A transformer reduces the house current to a low voltage, thus eliminating the danger of shock, while thermostats in the edges of the blanket prevent overheating. Engineers point out that the blanket does not have to be heated more than a degree or two above the temperature of the human body. Its function is not so much to provide heat as to guard against the loss of body heat.

NEXT—The Romance of Measuring Instruments.

Jasper—By Frank Owen

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TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE

1—Where is the French colony of Guadeloupe? 2—Has the U. S. ever been a member of the League of Nations? 3—Which state has the nickname “Evergreen State?” 4—How did the titles of the executives in the President's cabinet originate? 5—Name the strait that connects the Adriatic with the Ionian Sea. : 6—What famous prison was located at Richmond, Va., during the Civil War? n n »

Answers

1—West Indies. 2—No. 3—Washington. 4—They are named by the acts of Congress creating the offices. 5—Strait of Otranto, 6—Libby Prison. » n 5

ASK THE TIMES

Inclose a 3-cent stamp for reply when addressing any question of fact or information to The Indianapolis Times Washington Service Bureau, 1013 13th St., N. W., Washington, D. C. Legal and medical advice cannot be given nor can platended research - be: under- © taken,

Ind.

PAGE 9

Our Town

By Anton Scherrer

A Radio Program That Washed Out Is the Inspiration for a Column On a Parrot Famous Around Here.

ODAY I want to write a little piece about some of the smart birds we had around here when I was a boy. It’s been on my mind ever since I listened to the Nation-wide Talking Parrot Contest the radio people

pulled off a couple of Sundays ago.

You didn’t miss much if you didn't hear it. If you did hear it, you'll remember that the nation’s micro= phones were hitched up in a mad attempt to find the nation’s smartest parrot. As near as I recall, the contest started in Boston with a bird called Lulu belonging to a Mrs. Brown. The announcer said Lulu was going to sing “The Sidewalks of New York.” Lulu didn’t do anything of the kind. She didn’t even utter a squawk. After Lulu's flop, the radio people jumped to Chicago and picked up the parrots there. Same fiasco— not a peep out of any of them. Same results, too, in Seattle, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Washington and New York City. Believe it or not, even the parrots in Hollywood were tongue-tied. I never saw an announcer in a worse predicament. The nation’s parrots behaved like a bunch of imbeciles, and it set me to thinking how times had changed since we had Harry Newgarden's parrot living in our midst, Mr. Newgarden ran a millinery establishment in the old Occidental Building next to where the Strauss people now do business. That was back in the days when the old transfer car stood right in front of his store. The other way of identifying Mr. Newgarden’s store was the parrot on the sidewalk in front of his door. Mr. Newgarden had it all fixed that you couldn’ possibly miss his place. Well, with such a setup, Mr. Newgarden’s parrot, of course, heard everything that went on in the old transfer car. Not only that, but as soon as he heard it he spread the news all over Washington St. It wouldn't be ethical for me to repeat the scandal Mr. Newgarden’s parrot spilled back in those days, but I believe I can give you some idea of what it was like,

Streetcar Patrons Were Victims

For example, if you remember the old transfer car, you'll recall that like the radio, it, too, had an announcer, It was his business to call out the names of the cars and their destinations as they went by. Mr. Newgarden’'s parrot knew the calls as well as the announcer did, but he wasn't as discriminating. Either that, or the parrot deliberately wanted to fool the streetcar patrons. Anyway, that was the reason 50 many people back in those days got mad at the streetcar company. They transferred on to the wrong cars, all because they listened to Mr. New= garden’s parrot instead of paying attemtion to the official announcer. Time and time again, the street= car people wanted to wring the parrot’s neck, but they never had the nerve to. Shucks, I thought I'd get around to the other parrots, too. Believe me, Indianapolis had so many smart parrots when I was a boy that a Mrs. Pouder ran a parrot hospital at the corner of Ohio and East Sts., just to take care of those who were down with nervous prostration—the penalty people and parrots have to pay for being too smart.

Mr. Scherrer

Jane Jordan—

Marriage Shouldn't Be Dissolved While There's Anything to Salvage.

EAR JANE JORDAN-—I am 26 years old, married to a man two years younger than myself, I have a boy of 12 by another marriage whom I board away from me as I work. Five years ago I know that my husband loved me very much, but he got to running around, drinking and staying out at night. Finally a girl who used to be my friend confessed that he had gone with her for several months. I left and sued for divorce, but he begged me to come back. I ree turned and now I think he is doing the same thing, but I cannot find out as he works all night in a filling station. He swears he is not doing wrong, but he acts just as he did before. He never takes me out nor do we associate with any other couples. My son is with me week-ends and that helps some. I believe I could have done so much better if I had stayed single. Is i there any way I-.can tell if I am right or wrong about him? What should I do? M. H.

o » n Answer—I do not know whether you are right op wrong about your husband’s interest in other women. My impression is that you are convinced that he has passing affairs, but would like to be proved in the

wrong. You would like to believe him in spite of all evidence to the contrary, but your common senses accepts the evidence. When contronted with a diffi= cult problem, all of us would like to have another person tell us what to do, thereby relieving us of the responsibility of making a difficult decision, but usually no one else will take the responsibility. Hard as it is, you must decide for yourself what to do. All I can do is suggest that you take a practical view of the situation. In any partnership each meme ber must make a contribution. If one becomes a noncontributor and refuses to co-operate in the joint ene terprise, the partnership is dissolved. Can you answer this question: Is your husband wholly valueless to you? Aside from his philandering, is there anything that he contributes to your marriage which makes it worth while for you to live with him? What would you miss if you left? If you would lose nothing whatever it does seem like folly to go on living with him, but if there is anything at all worth keeping it would be too bad to renounce it. You, too, must make a contribution. You have an obligation to make your marriage satisfactory to your husband if it is within your power. Has he any com= plaints against you which you could correct, thereby decreasing his desire for outside interests? If both of you have the urge to work together to make your marriage satisfactory, it can be done. If one, however, refuses to do his share, the other cannot carry the whole load alone. JANE JORDAN.

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

New Books - Today

Public Library Presents—

HROUGH the singing medium of his prose, Done ald Culross Peattie, in A PRAIRIE GROVE (Lite erary Guild of America) tells the story of a bit of the wide plains, which he and his forbears to the sixth generation have loved. A wooded island he calls it dominating from a slight ridge an undulating sea of land—a site which, from its strategic point between two rivers in the great Illinois country, lay truly in the path of history. These rich acres seem to remember through the sensitive mind of the poet-naturalist the long, slow ages of their metamorphosis-cataclysmic glacial changes, the Indian seeking protective shade, the coming of the white man. Then they saw the “miracle of the wheel,” heard the rumble of the conestogas over the “astonished grass,” and finally welcomed women and children, and an ordered way of living. And civilization as we know it today was born. To the rhythmic theme of life in his island grove, only one of myriads in the new land to feel the fateful imprint of life forces, the author brings a distinguished coalescence of word and thought to express that love of our tage of home which we, the more inarticu-

| late, capfonly feel.

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