Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 7 July 1938 — Page 13

. Vagabond

From Indiana <= Ernie Pyle

Ernie's Tour of a Soap Factory in Cincinnati Reveals Why 'lt Floats; Whales Are Replaced by Coconuts.

(CINCINNATI, July 7.—When 1 asked some friends what were the outstanding things in the personality of Cincinnati, they said “Music, Tories and Soap.”

So, since I don’t understand classical

music, or tories either—that leaves nothing |

to write about but soap of soap Personally

So here we go on a cake

I never touch the stuff. I hold that cleaning up is an affectation, practiced only by dudes and dandies to make the girls think they're hot stuff. So these columns cn will have to be purely academic. Cincinnati is, you might say, the

soap capital of the world. Soap- |

making is the eity’s dominant industry,

There are several soap factories |

here, but my researches were carried on at the huge plants ef Procter & Gamble, who produce about 40 per cent of all the soap made in America. They employ zbout 4000

people here, and have other plants | I asked was | know T | had to ask three people before I found one who knew? |

thing Do

The first soap float?”

all over the world. “What makes Ivory vou Ivory zoap floats because its whipped and beaten much longer than other soaps. It gets creamy. and full of tiny air cells. Then when it hardens. the air is caught and sealed inside these cells, forming a sort of water-wing effect for the bar of soap That means, of course, that tvory soap isn't as dense as ordinary toilet soap. Other companies have soap that will float, too, in case vou didn’t know Another surprising thing. Since Ivory soap is almost odorless, I supposed they didn’t perfume it at all. But they do. If thev didn't, it would smell oily They put in just a little—a sort of neutralizing perfume. I spent a couple of hours in the Procter & Gamble factory—and didn't see an awful lot. They are fairly cagey, and jittery about spies, like governments. It seems there are lots of secret processes and secret machinery they dont want other companies to find out about. I don’t blame them for being wary, for I am just the man who would run and tattle to Colgate’s about everything I saw

There are other factors in this policy of caution. |

They say part of the plant is dangerous for visitors to be in. And finally, I gathered, some of it doesn’t smell very nice, and might not give visitors the correct psychological impression. So I didn’t get to see anv of the first processes of soap-making. We began our tour where the soap had finally reached the cooking stage

Pardon My Dreaming

There is a double-row battery of giant vats. made

of battleship steel—100 of them, each three-stories high. These vats have hot coils inside, and the soap cooks in them for two days. The vats are covered on top but you can look down through a little window and see the boiling going on. I tried to find out how many cakes of soap Procter & Gamble make each year. Thev wouldn't tell. But I did find out how many whales thev use a vear. Or rather, what they used until a few vears ago. It was —12,000 whales But the whale iz h of becoming extinct, so high taxes and stricter laws have veen put on the whaling business, and soap makers have had to cut down on whale oil

Way

Coconut oil is now the main staple in soap. And Procter & Gamble each vear use somewhere in the neighborhood of 750.000.000 coconuts Just think how many coconut trees that would be for the soft tropical winds to sigh through while vou lay under them on the South Sea beaches drinking in the silent silvery moonlight. Ah me! Ah me! Romance dreams faraway places oh pardon me, what were we speaking about? Oh ves, soap. Continued tomorrow

My Diary By Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt Glad to Find Author Agreeing That Fishing Is Dull, Silly’ Sport.

YDE PARK, Wednesday. —I am going to grow very weary of the recital of an

uneventful life, so I will encourage you by telling you |

that the days this summer will not be as entirely uneventful as they seem to be just now. I wonder how many of my readers like to play with archery?

If you obey the rules, you finally seem to get somewhere, for I actually ended this morning's game with ail my arrows on the target I stopped then and there, for I knew that wouldn't happen again in a long time and I wanted to spend a few hours with a contented feeling. The Connecticut Nutmeg is growing in size and it also has more advertisements. They are not very much use to me and, on Page 7, the list of events taking place in Connecticut is also somewhat logical in character. But how I enjoyed Mr. Quentin Revnolds on fishing! I didn’t know anyone felt as I did. that this wes a “dull and silly” pastime. I gave it up long ago, but I never dared say how I felt about it. for I always had to acknowledge that I never caught any fish and therefore the failure was on my part and not on the part of the sport. But, to have someone who caught fish still feel the same way, is great consolation Of course, perhaps the most amusing thing about the paper is the fact that the headlines so rarely fit what is written beneath them. That is as it should be, for frequentiy we never read the stories. which men and women have labored over for hours, just because we think the heading tells all about it.

Insects Are Troublesome

One luxury in being lazy is that I feel I have a right to read late at night if I want to drawback to that proceeding is that, in spite of all the screens all around my porch, strange little insects

do get in and they bite much harder than their size | Even that doesn't prevent my Jux- |

would indicate. uriating in reading in bed and last night I finished

a book called “Of Lena Geyer” by Marcia Davenport. | It was published in 1937, so I am rather behind | Many people reading it will find some of | it anvthing but expressive of their highest ideals. but | I closed the book with a feeling that I had met a |

the times.

big person. Not just a wonderful singer whose voice had thrilled the people of many countries, but a per-

soap |

afraid you are |

I am perhaps the world’s stupidest person | at sports of all kinds, but this game fascinates me. |

The only |

|

The Indianapolis

imes

Second Section

THURSDAY, JULY 7, 1938

Entered as Second-Class Matter Indianapolis,

at Postoffice.

War in China=One Year Old

Complete Victor,

By William Philip Simms Times Foreizn Editor WW ASHINGTON, July T. —One year ago today the Sino-Japanese War began with a midnight skirmish at Marco Polo bridge, near Peiping. The Japanese believed it would be over in three months. Now, Tokyo says it may last 10 years. And so it may, It may even last longer, If the Japanese keep on until they have conquered all China— as the Chinese say they must to win—and if the Chinese fight as their manpower indicates thev can, Japan has started something she can’t finish. She may take Hankow. She may take Canton. She may take Hainan, the Chinese island, bottling up the China coast from the south and commanding the French port of Haiphong through which munitions are now pouring. But her only chance of complete victory is for the

Chinese to quit. Japan has only one-sixth the manpower China has. The Chinese are experts at guerrilla warfare and the Japanese are not. The war is costing Japan $5.000,000 a day, even now, and will cost more as ils scope increases. There are no railways west of Hankow, and Japan will find the going harder as the terrain gets wilder. The Chinese will find it easier. = ” ”

ETWEEN Hankow, the present temporary capital, and Chungking—to which the government wili move if and when Hankow falls—there is a gorge like the Grand Canyon of the Colorado Through it races the Yangtze, sometimes at 20 miles an It is verv narrow and verv deep. A handful of determined troops there could hold back an army. And the Yangtze is virtually the only highway through the mountain barrier Hankow is China's Pittsburgh or Chicago. The Wuhan cities—as Hankow, Hanvang and Wuchang are called—are bunched astride the Yangtze, some 600 miles upriver from Shanghai. They are very important to China. There 13 ho disputing that Industrially they probably outrank any similar area in China. The huge Hanyang arsenal is situated there Also the big Hanvang iron and steel works. And Japan wants to get her hands on all this But she is already too late. At least it is reported that not only has the arsenal been secretly moved elsewhere, but the steel works as well, along with smaller enterprises. Machinery for turning out rifles, machine guns, trench mortars, hand grenades, mountain batteries anaa even heavier guns has been’ spirited away to undisclosed destinations —something that could hardly happen in any other country. Unlimited manpower is the answer. Just as the Pyramids, the Great wall and other wonders of the ancient world were erected by human hands without the aid of machinery, so China’s hundreds of millions today are performing near miracles. » ” ” OMPARATIVELY little of A China's industrial equipment has fallen into Japanese hands thus far, and little is likely to. The reason is that for the most part it is pretty well distributed end is largely family-owned When menaced bv war, f.ood or any other catastrophe, the owners simply cart it off and set up business at a new location. The people, carrving the tools they work with, fall back before any tite that threatens them. When the tide recedes, they return to their old haunts

hour.

Blinded and otherwise disabled, these Japanese soldiers, brought to a hospital in Tokyo from the battlefields of China, receive lessons in

China gets most of her war materials from abroad. She receives some of them via Canton, over the railway running north to Hankow and Peiping. When and if this is lost, she will get them via Haiphong and the French rail way through French Indo-China up to Yunnan-Fu, in China’s Far West. If that fails her, she will get them via the Indian Ocean, Mandalay, and the new Chinese highway from Burma to Yunnan. Meanwhile, Russia is sending in munitions, including planes, via the old caravan routes out of Russian Turkestan, Samarkand. Siberia and Outer Mongolia. And she will likely continue to do so To date, the war has cost Japan 150,000 in killed and wounded. according to conservative estimates. and approximately $2,000.000.000— a terrific drain on a country as small and poor as she Nor is her future encouraging With no end to the war in sight. she faces gradual bankruptev and the destruction of the military forces of which she is so proud And at the end of the road waits Soviet Russian—Russia with the biggest standing armv in the world, fresh as a daisy and looking for a chance to have it out with Japan

Year's Conflict Builds Incident’ Into Major War By Willis Thornton

NEA Service Staff Correspondent ASHINGTON, July 7. — A full year of bloody fighting across the best farmlands and through the mightiest cities of China has produced results whose longtime meaning no man can read. But there are other results which can be read too clearly. Here are some of them: At least 200,000 men lie dead. The ashes of 75,000 Japanese soldiers have been shipped home in neat urns. More than 125.000 Chinese have rotted where they fell. Unnumbered thousands of men, women and children are dead or maimed, bombed in their homes and streets, The proudest cities of China— Peiping, Tientsin, Shanghai, and Nanking—have fallen before the invader. Nanking, in addition to the expected horrors of war, suffered the unbridled bestialities of a soldiery whose discipline completely broke down, Yet not a single large Chinese army has been captured or put out of action.

» ” ~ LL this is not yet officially a war. The “border incident” on the night of July ¥ near the Marco Polo bridge at Peiping

Side Glances—By Clark

son with the courage to be herself, with complete de- |

votian to her work when she recognized that it was

ramount. Dal judge her by their ordinary standards.

feeling, great in her devotion to art, and how I wish I might have known her!

Bob Burns Says—

OLLYWOOD, July 7.—The reason why the Gove

ernment isn’t run as well and economically as | a well-organized business is because a lot of Gov- | ernment jobs are given to people who did the politician | While in business, the man has'ta be a good | worker to hold his job and the boss is a little move |

a favor.

cold blooded about it.

One day the boss of a lumber camp fell in the | ‘wer among the logs and woulda drowned if a work- | When | the boss came to, he looked at the workman and says, |

a, an hadn't jumped in and pulled him out.

“You're fired!” The workman says, “Gee, boss—if I hadn't seen you fall in, you'd drowned!” The boss says “Yes—and if you'd been attendin’ to your work, you wouldnt have

geen me fall in!” i

(Copyright, 1938)

bod

The ordinary people of the world could | She was | narrow perhaps in her interests and she had a limited | circle of intimate friends, but she was great in her |

y for Japanese Seen On

WR CSO Fr TNE ey

Sal WE - @ ra

ly if Foes Quit

Cm. a i a ao GL

es-Acme Photo

Tim Shakuhachi (Japanese wooden flute) so that they will have a craft that may permit them to earn a livelihood.

s'® S © Rang. \BERIAN Ry RL Ne EN ,~* TANNU form

J t @) 3 3 = aN MONGOLIA TURKESTAN / \ : wr “\ | ?

=

.

or or SINKIANG \ CHINESE TURKESTAN

“N Na SPN . . NS i ) \ b TIBET fa \, Na. ANN ‘\ Yo? JBURMA ) REY pr ORIGINAL JAPAN

GAINED IN GAINED IN 1875 = 1910 1937-'38

GAINED IN AREA OF FUTURE 1931-32 OPERATION The vast scope of the Japanese plan to dominate eastern Asia is shown by the above map. Note that even the tremendous gulp bitten off from northern and eastern China thus far is overshadowed by the great field in which responsible Japanese officials have indicated their armies may operate in the near future. It would include the entire coastal plain and

might have been no more than

that.

A few Japanese troops at maneuvers were fired upon. The shooting spread. And within a month Japan controlled the entire Peiping-Tientsin area. It appears

hai,

/ ]CHUNA

A Japanese adherent was killed at the Hungjao airport at Shangcreating another “incident.” On Aug. 11 a waiting naval force was landed at Shanghai. Within two days a desperate battle developed

Journ PHILIPPINE

inn CHINA ISLANDS

| believe, and asked whether he had seen the spider in

second look, they found the

= ®

all the essential harbors on the Pacific. Note how

* Japanese drives on Hankow and Sian are aimed at

cutting off foreign sources of munitions and supplies, main entrance routes of which are indicated by arrows. The fate of Asia is bound up in the success or failure of the Japanese plan, the status of which after a year of warfare is graphically shown above.

weather the armies remained locked in continual conflict. On Dec. 12 the U. S. gunboat Panay was bombed and sunk in the Yargtze by Japanese planes. The Japanese spring campaign was aimed at uniting the northern and southern armies, and from

with Chinese

¥

that Japan might have been satisfied with this, but by that time so many Chinese troops were moving in from all parts of China that the only way for Japan to keep what she had was to take more. Gradually the war became general. Westward and southward pressed the eager Japanese troops. On Aug. 28 the Nankow Pass was forced, gateway to the west. Southward toward Taiyuan rolled the invaders. But in the meantime it became clear that to hold the north, aid from the south would have to be cut off. Opportunity soon came.

troops rushed in to repel the invaders. Air bombing killed thousands of civilians, endangered or destroyed foreign property. It took two months to drive the Chinese troops out of Shanghai and into a westward retreat.

N Dec. 13 Nanking also was taken, and the conquering troops ran riot in a frenzy of looting and terrorism. By this time the northern provinces had been conquered, and the Japanese vanguard was approaching the Yellow River on its wav southward. Through the bitter winter

Tsingtao Japanese troops gradually absorbed the line of the Lunghai Railroad, principal Chinese east-west artery. Resistance was bitter, and in April China scored its most notable military success by routing and almost wiping out a Japanese force at Taierhchwang. : Japan poured in strong reinforcements to storm Suchow and Chengchow, closing the gap between tie Japanese armies. Present, Japanese operations are along the Yangtze River aimed at Hankow, provisional capital of the Chiang Kai-shek regime.

| experiences, | the old situation, the chances are that we would find

N

Copr. 1338 by United Feature Ryndieate, Tn

asper—By Frank Owen

LY Io 1'/ he ~~

"For next week-end I've invited the Baxters, McGaws, Webers and the Lambs—can you think of anyone else?"

|

v Shep it, Jasper| If he gets: any closer I'm going to. i

*

>”

bo

TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE

. Name the colors in a rainbow. . Where did the Allied and German delegates sign the Treaty of Peace after the World War? Of which state is Harry W. Nice the Governor? . How many centimeters are in 1 meter? . What is the nickname for Montana? . Is the moon enveloped in atmosphere? . What is the species classification of lobsters? ”n n ” . Red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet, arranged in the order of the spectrum. . At the palace of Versailles, France.

s . ” ASK THE TIMES Inclose a 3-cent stamp for reply when addressing any question of fact or information " he Bureau, rats ar N. W., Washington, D. C. Legal and medical advice cannot be given nor can research be

PAGE 13

Ind.

Our Town

By Anton Scherrer

Of Course Cur Columnist Recalls The Spider Which Could Spell and Even Correct Typographical Errors,

Y not so very recent remarks concerning the smart animals Indianapolis used to have seem to have awakened a sympathetic spark in an anonymous correspondent (the writing looks like a lady's) who rises to ask whether I remember anything about the educated spider we had around here a generation or so ago. Do I? That was back in 1908. the date because that was the year William J. Bryan ran against William H, Taft for President. It was also the year the Hoosier Construction Co. had a contract for some work around Northwestern Ave. and 27th St, As near as 1 recall, it was just about a month before election when a colored man, who was watching the Hoosier Construction Co fulfill its contract, turned to Stanley Bowen, the checker on the job, 1

I'll never forget

Mr. Scherrer

educated the vacant lot across the street. The excited colored man said the spider was weaving its web and spinning the name of William J. Bryan into it. Mr. Bowen told the colored man to mind his own business, whereupon the colored man got sore and said he'd bet Mr. Bowen the cigars that he was telling the truth. By this time, Frank Matthews, the foreman on the job, 80t mixed up in the cone troversy, too. When Bowen, Matthews and the colored man went to investigate, and found the spider, a big yellow affair, working en the letter “r” in the word Bryan, All the letters up to that place were plain as day= light, and so they stuck around to see how the thing would end. In a little while the spider was done, There it was plain as the nose on your face— “Wei-l-l-i-a-m J. B-r-a-n.” Something went wrong of course. With such a big audience watching him, the spider, apparently, got excited and omitted the letter *“y”. Mr. Bowen took advantage of the technicality and claimed the cigars. Mr. Matthews, a stanch Taft Republican, backed up Mr. Bowen in his contention, and that's the way matters stood until later that day when the water-boy on the job approached Mr. Matthews and told him he ought to see what the spider was up to now. The water-boy said it might pay Mr. Bowen to have a look, too.

The “Y"” Was Inserted

Well, when Mr. Matthews and Mr. Bowen had a spider constructing a caret between the letters “r” and “a” of the word Bran. You'll die when you hear what happened next, When the spider finished weaving the caret, he spun the letter “y” over it. Honest. By that time, Mr. Bowen was more than ready to set himself straight with the colored man who saw the spider in the first place. He wasn't anywhers around, though. The last anybody saw of him was when he left the scene that morning, muttering to himself that a couple of white men-—-the meanest he ever knew—had taken advantage of a technicality and beaten him out of a bet,

Jane Jordan—

Old Situations Often Are Not So Glamorous as They Seem, Jane Says.

EAR JANE JORDAN-—Suppose sometime in your life you had met someone whom you considered very dear to you and that you had drifted apart. Then finally you both met again and you noticed a change in the appearance of your friend. I have met a woman whom I used to know and find her changed, her complexion sallow, checks sunken, shoulders drooped, the glamour gone. Could you or would you drop her and forget her, or hold on to her. Years ago this pare ticular woman meant a lot to me. Now I find her a changed woman. Why is it that I can't forget her, Her manner toward me now is very cool. Is it bee cause I've been away too long or could someone else have taken my place? Her parents have spoiled her as she is their only child and heir, but they treat me as one of the family, Just what would you do? LONESOME BACHELOR.

Answer—If I were in your place I would not make a hasty judgment one way or the other. I would try to get acquainted with the woman again in order to determine whether or not the change in her was external or internal. An only child too closely held by doting parents sometimes develops a defeated attitude toward life which is suggested by the drooping shoulders and general lack of vitality which you note in your friend. Sometimes it is not so much experience as the lack of it which produces this discouraged appearance, Doubtless vou, too, are changed. Perhaps the qualities you admired in a woman years ago would not be satisfactory to you now. For example, many of us look back on a certain period of life as the happiest in our careers and seek to repeat it in our future Yet if we could turn the clock back to

it stripped of its glamour just as you find that your

| ideal of this woman does not wholly correspond with

the reality, 4 " o EAR JANE JORDAN-—-I am a girl of 16 popular with the boys. 1 went with R for about a year when all at once he stopped coming over or asking for dates. I really cared a lot for this boy. One evening as I was going to a dance I saw him with one of my best girl friends, Could you tell me how I could win him back? Do you think a girl of 16 is too old to run around with a girl of 13? SWEETHEART COME BACK TO ME.

Answer—Interest yourself in some other boy. You did not pine so much for the one you lost until you saw him with your best girl friend. Perhaps he would respond in the same manner if he saw you with ane other boy. If your 13-year-old girl friend is congenial I see no reason why you shouldn’t be friends, but you also should go with an older group. JANE JORDAN.

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

New Books Today Public Library Presents—

D~ JOHN B. MURPHY had much of the crue sader’s zeal. He wanted to do good deeds, bug he wanted to do them “spectacularly and dramatice ally.” Surgery offered an inspiring outlet for his energy and idealism. A Wisconsin farm boy, the son of Irish immigrant parents, he was to pecome America's greatest surgeon and die a millionaire, Outwardly his life patterned after a Horatio Alger novel—‘“proud steps upward” to fame, fortune and brilliant marriage. A tireless worker, his clinical discoveries were numerous and highly important. Dr. Loyal Davis, professor of surgery at Northwest« ern’ University, a position once held by Dr. Murphy, credits his great predecessor “with making the public conscious of what surgery could do for them.” Though he was disliked, ridiculed, and frequently humiliated by members of his own profession, J. B. MURPHY, STORMY PETREL OF SURGERY (Putnam), was Chi 's busiest and richest surgeon as well as a brihians instructor i We medical schools. He was successful, because ramatizing his person- \ ts, he “displayed the wares atiy Wrappinga.” i