Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 25 July 1938 — Page 9

agabon From Indiana — Ernie Pyle

hy Polishing a Big Telescope Lens Is % = i No Job for an Impatient Man; Ernie Sees One Started in 1934.

LEVELAND, July 25.—If Paul Buhyan were still alive, and the kind of a guy “who would wear spats and a stick, something I saw today would make a swell monocle for him. It is one of those big lenses that some day will Be in an observatory telescope on top of a mountain. : It is the third biggest oné in the world. This one is 82 inches in diameter. The second biggest is in Mt. Wilson observatory and is 100 inches. The biggest of all, 200 inches, is now being ground in San Diego. Even this 82-inch one will reflect a star 516 quadrillion miles away, which sounds like Sam Goldwyn. This lens is being ground at the Warner & Swasey factory here. They’ve been .working on it four years already, and it will take several months more. Warner & : Swasey have been making big telescope lenses for 50 years. - They Mr. Pyle Wouldn't bother with anything less Bed ‘than a foot across. They made the famous Lick and Yerkes lenses, but this is their biggest job so far. They are fundamentally makers of fine machine tools. This telescope business is just a hobby. They say®they make practieally no money out of it. The new lens is 6 feet 10 inches across, 13 inches thick, weighs three tons, and is round like a poker chip. By the time they finish grinding, it will be worth. $75,000. It .is destined for the newly built « McDonald Observatory on top of Mt. Locke, in southwest Texas. ; . In addition’ to grinding the lens, Warner & Swasey built the entire observatory. Everything down there is finished, and is just waiting on the lens. They will ship the lens on a freight car to Marfa, Tex., transfer it to a truck, and haul it about 40 miles over a new road to the top of a 5000-foot mountain.

This lens in question was poured at Corning, N. Y., where all the big lenses have been poured. It was shipped here in rough form after it cooled. And then they started grinding. Lens grinding is a complicated process. First the huge circular hunk of glass is mounted solidly on a | rotating platform, like a phonograph record. Then above it is built a circular frame, the same size as the lens. The bottom of this frame is made convex, so that as it grinds into the lens it will leave a concave depression. For their grinding compound, they start with carborundum about the consistency of gunpowder. Gradually this is cut finer and finer, until they're finally just putting emery in water, let it settle to the bottom, and then using the water on top.

They Use Rouge for Polishing

After it’s ground, they start polishing.- That's a big job. Less than six months for ginding; four years for polishing. The big grinding form is set aside, and a small polishing instrument is swung over the lens surface. It’s all mechanical. Nobody ever gets down and just rubs it with a rag, as I had imagined. The stuff they use for the final polishing is rouge. Yessir, rouge just like the dope women wear on their faces. I asked them twice to make sure. It takes brains to polish a telescope. There are about six men in this department. The head man is C. A. R. Lundin, who learned the business from his New England father.

And over them all, not as boss but scholarly adviser, is Dr. John S. Plaskett. He is 73 years old, and recently retired as head of the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory at Victoria, B. C. I had been told they could polish for only 15 minutes at a time, because of the heat created. “That isn’t quite true, but they don’t polish steadily at all, and usually only a few hours a day. When the five-year job is finished and they load up the precious thing for shipping, the whole staff will either go along and watch .it, or else sit here with /their eyes closed, shuddering. They haven't decided yet which would be the least agonizing.

“My Diary

By Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt

Believes Rainy Weather Is Trying To Both Farmers and Vacationists.

HE PARK, N. Y, Sunday.—Some years ago when I was complaining of the hé®%, one day, my mother-in-law reproved me gently. She told me ~ that when she was a child, one of her aunts, who must have been quite a character, would say, if anyone complained of heat or cold or rain, “My dear, the Lord gives you the weather and it is always good.” Another of her sayings was a little trying for children inclined to be late. If you attempted to excuse yourself by saying you had not had time to do something, she would look at you and firmly remark, “My dear, you have had all thé time there was.” v In view of this, I feel guilty in remarking that gray skies and rain seem to have been with us a very long time. Occasional rainy days afe pleasant, but no sun for nearly a week is trying to farmers as well as vacationists. It has been held up long enough so that the children could ride every morning, but then it begins again and we have intermittent showers all day and occasionally at night. The other night I awoke to the unpleasant realization that rain was driving in on my sleeping porch and I was getting soaked. Usually the rain comes from the other side of the house, so that no great harm ensues if I do not awaken immediately.

Someone brought me a most interesting church record the other day, which ties up our little church here with St. Luke’s Church in Lincolnton, N. C. It seems that one of our early rectors, the Rev. John M. McVickar, D. D.,, while chaplain of St. Cornelius’ chapel on Governors Island, immediately after the war between the states, sént to the church in the South _“a very beautiful and valuable communion service and other articles, consisting of a paten, chalice and alms basin, a full set of altar linen, surplice, stole and bands, an antique chest and a picture of the above-named edifice built by him, to be held inalienable as consecrated property; and also a number of prayer books and tracts.”

Likes Gesture of Good-Will

He did not make this donation while rector of St. James in Hyde Park. Still the fact that he was once our rector gives us a connection with the episode. . I like his gesture of good-will. The wardens and vestrymen of Lincolnton appreciated this, too, and mentioned it in their resolutions of thanks. Such little ties between the North and the South, at that’ time, must have meant a great deal more than we' realize today. But even today I am glad that we had as pastor of this congregation a man like the Rev. John M. McVickar., ? Recently I was given a little book by Mary Ellen * Chase, called “Dawn in Lyonesse.” I enjoyed her “Mary Peters” very much and this story shows the same quality of imaginative understanding. If you read it, I hope you will enjoy as pleasant an hour as I did. :

Bob' Burns Says—

OLLYWOOD, July 25.—There’s a lot'a difference .

between a hobo, a tramp and a bum. I have’'ta explain the difference in the picture I'm makin’ now and that’s the reason I've been tryin’ to get ahold of Jeff Davis, the king of hoboes, to straighten me out. I certainly wouldn't want to offefid anybody. Three years ago, when I .signed a moving picture contract, I got a telegram from one of my uncles that said “Congratulations on your rapid rise—your success. should be an inspiration to every bum in the country.” . : (copyright, 1008)

. Secon d Section |

Czechoslovakia—:

Premier’s Dream Is fo

CEs 2

~ Konrad Henlein

Presidént Eduard Benes

fod

Premier Milan Hodsa

(Third and Last of a Series)

Times Special »

VV ASHINGTON, July 25.—Czechoslovakia is not only

worried over its expanded Austro-German neighbor of seventy-two million people, which threatens to close

on her like a giant nutcracker; she is worried about a

young man named Konrad Henlein, leader of a powerful Nazi party within the Czech republic.

Herr Henlein is 35, a former gymnasium instructor, a Bohemian and a sort of fuehrer to the 3,232,000 Germans who live and work in the industrialized Sudeten German districts of the

. west, so named from the Sudetic Mountains.” For some years after the Czech republic was formed the Sudeten Germans paid little attention to politics. The world depression, however, which struck the Sudetenlands with ‘unusual severity, stirred them to action. In 1935 Herr Henlein’s Sudeten German Party, modeled on Nazi lines, suddenly won a spectacular success and captured 67 seats in Parliament, a gain of 36. It thus became. the second largest of a dozen Czech political parties. 2 ” 8

HE Government, = however, gave the Czech Nazis no representatives in the Cabinet, and its original promise to grant the Germans a proportionate share of state civil jobs did not work out. THat pledge has now been reit-erated-—-under the guns of Adolf Hitler. The Henleinists assert to the republic, but recent events

loyalty

have made them a distinct threat to internal peace. In. his speech to the Reichstag on Feb. 20 Hitler included the Sudeten minority

of Czechoslovakia among the 10,-

000,000 Germans over whom he proclaimed a protectorate. From Berlin he issued a constant

propaganda that the Czech republic is shot with communism, one scharge being that Soviet Russia has secretly constructed underground airports there. German’s assimilation of Austria has given new impetus to Henlein’s demands, and turned the German minority into a possible trump in Hitler's game in Central Europe. President Eduard Benes and his Premier Milan Hodza, however, are shrewd politicians as well as judicious statesinen. And both are seeking to-ease the economic distress .in the Sudetenlands, still acute. Just as Dr. Benes’sdream is an economic United States of Europe, Premier Hodza’s is the long-discussed Danubian pact, a proposal to reunite the lands of the old Austrian empire, now cut apart politically, into an economic unit. M. Hodza has proposed that the six Danubian nations — Czechoslovakia, Austria (now, of course, out of the picture), Hungary, Rumania, Yugoslavia and Bulgaria—join in a Federation of tariff preferentials and other

agreements so they can swap their’

Flags

Sr

‘ Entered as at Postoffice.

Future Belgium?

r Federation of Danubian States

waved, bands played 3 and 200,000 Czech recently to pledge support to their present demo-

citizens sardined themselves into Praha’s main street cratic government.

: : GE

Here are scenes in the youth camps established = in Czechoslovakia by Herr Henlein for Sudeten German youth. A former gymnasium instructor,

agricultural surpluses and their manufactured goods. 8 = » i HOULD such an agreement be accomplished, 'M. Hodza be-

lieves the Danubian nations could °

evolve a workable economy that would win the dissident elements

Sin CRE

to peace and contentment through ‘economic wellbeing. The Czech press and patriots have been

_ pressing for immediate steps to

consummate the pact. In .this race between economic realism and politico-racial hates and ambitions, either may win. Victory for the former would

Henlein is a sort of fuchrer to the 3,232,000 Germans who live in the industrialized Sudeten German districts of the west.

mean much for the peace and prosperity of Czechoslovakia and probably of the whole of Europe. If the game goes to the impetuous rapacity of Hitler, the little republic of Czechoslovakia may in-

deed become the Belgium of “the next war.”

By NEA Service

GE ee BERNARD SHAW, the great American baiter, is just turning 82 years old, and all the “dear old boobs” over here in the United States are sorry that he is not feeling well. : ; The dear old boobs read with dismay and regret the news that. doctors had ordered the - serpenttongued ‘old Irishman to his bed just before his birthday tomorrow and had told him to stop talking, because ‘the more G. B. S. razzes the Sear old: boobs the more they ove it. ;

bering those many insults he had leveled at them these :many years. The thought that they might never again cringe under the lash of the Chavian investive was strangely not a comforting one. . : They remembered that radio message back in 1931 when -the Great

Man greeted. his American adorers

Americans have had.fun remems- |

with this: “How are all you dear old boobs?” And later on in the same talk he said: “I am not an American, but I am'the next worst

thing, an an.”

iy aC. R a long time Shaw’s favorite remarks were, “Americans are savages,” and “Americans gre idiots.” ! : This did not jibe so well with his oft-repeated declaration that Amerjcans worshiped him and smothered him with adoration, but he was never the one to be stopped by such a small defail. ‘Shaw used to profess a great fear of America. He said he would never visit that “wilderness.” He was scared of two things: Al Capone and the possibility. that he . would be elected President. : But in 1933 he did pay the dear old boobs a visit. He went east from London, arriving in the U. S.

‘by way of California. There he had

Gc B. Shaw, No. 1 Heckler of Americans, Celebrates 82d Birthday Tomorrow

a lot of fun insulting movie stars and making everyone else feel uncomfortable at the big affairs thrown for him. He insulted prac-

J tically everybody and got the best

of them all—until he encountered. a bunch of photographers in New York. : " ” »

HOSE gentlemen paid no atten+A tion at all to his instructions as to how his picture should be taken—and very little attention to Mr. Shaw. . i He departed the country, saying, *I don’t understand this wild enthusiasm of the American people for me. Why do they smother me with admiration? Why do they press upcn me like this?” He has never -tired of ridiculing America and Americans. Perhaps the kindest thing he ever said was “Of course, you are not as bad as

your women are painted.”

Side Glances—By Clark

Y..M. REC. U. 6. PAY. OFF.

"I told you to keep .that.door shut. - Now: look. what. you've. let inf

oe! |

“Oh Vm not worried: about ‘gettin yrhers, but can-we .

TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE

1—In medicine, emetic? : 2—Have any other major league ball players duplicated Johnny Vander Meer’s feat of pitching two successive no-hit-no-run games? 3—How is suite, meaning a set of furniture, pronounced? 4—What is a fluting machine? 5—Under which Government department is the Bureau of Mines? ‘ 6=—In which territory of the U. 8. is the city of : Ketchikan?

2

what 1s an

Answers

1—Any agent used to induce . vomiting. 2—No. -

3—8weet. ” 4—A machine for corrugating or impinge sheet metals or the e. 5—Department of the Interior. 6—Alaska.

2 8 = ASK THE TIMES

_Inclose a 3-cent stamp for reply when addressing any question of fact or information to The Indianapolis T : * Washington Servi 1013 13th St, N. W., Washing- _ ton, D. C. Legal and medical advice cannot be given mor can extended research be: under.

Second -Class Matter Indianapolis. Ind.

. the Chow

| in lawyers, ~bothy

PAGE 9

ur Town

By Anton Scherrer

Newfoundland Dog Brings to Your Columnist's Mind His Childhood; Other Breeds Recall Other Eras.

T was Alexander Woollcott who once observed that “nothing can so poignantly evoke the flavor of the receding past as some

remembered tune, some melody that has

caught up and woven into its own uncon-

scious fabric the very color and fragrance of a day gone by.” Well, that is true, of course. At

any rate, with some people. With others, the sight

of an old-fashioned dog works a lot better, The other day, for instance, I y

saw a Newfoundland, the first I had seen in years, and you have no idea how it took me back to my childhood—back—back to the days when no porch in Indianapolis was complete without a Newfoundland lying on its floor. Today you do well to see a porch decorated with a Pekingese. Tempora muntantur, ot oe Inge in illis. Which rings me to the point of today’s piece, namely that my life Mr. Scherrer (or anybody else’s) is not so much a matter of historical periods, identified by Presidents and the like, as it is a matter of dog periods. For example, it would be a lot more to the point to call the period of my childhood “The Era of Newfoundland,” instead of gumming up the issue with names like the “Naughty Nineties,” the “Yellow Nineties,” or perhaps, worst of all, the ‘“Moulting Nineties.” Properly considered, my childhood was none of these. Quite the contrary, it was a period replete with the markings of the noble Newfound--Jand— gentleness, modesty, and an unbelievable re-

serve power, kept under control and brought into

play only when the occasion called for it. Bulldog Came in With T. R.

I can’t remember exactly when it was, but sometime around the turn of the century a new order of things elbowed the Newfoundland out of its place. The bulldog was shoved into the picture, along with Theodore Roosevelt, the doctrine of imperialism, and a creation called the “shirtwaist.” After that came (circa 1510), the Airedale (1920), the Borzoi (1925), and so on, the point being that I can’t look at any breed of dog. without recalling “the fragrance of a day gone by.” Ii is especially so when I look at a pointer Immediately I am reminded of Spot, an unregistered dog of that breed, who had the unusual distinction of having two owners. At one time, I mean. The Rev, Myron Reed owned one-half off Spot, and William Pinckney Fishback owned the part that was left. I don’t recall how the two men aequired the dog, but legend has it, I believe, that the two men were walking together one day when they picked him up, a hungry, pathetic little creature lying in the street. They christened him Spot because of his markings and proceeded to bring him up in the classical atmospheres of the two homes. : It beat everything the way Spot lapped up the classics. One day the dog was naughty, and to teach him a lesson the Rev. Mr Reed said: “Out—damned

—spot!” Immediately, the dog went to the preacher's

study and returned with a volume of Shakespeare, Sure, it was the one containing “Macbeth.” .

-

Jane Jordan— Don't Let Habit of Going With Boy

Lead You Into Marriage, Girl Told.

Dhan JANE JORDAN--I have been going with the same fellow for five years and feel that I am no longer in love with him. However, I hesitate to break off with him because I know that I would miss him tremendously. He is not my idea of an ideal person. He is working for a menial wage now and from the looks of things he will continue to do so for some time. I have a fairly good job and I would like to go much farther in the field I have chosen. Such a thing does not occur to him. All he wants is a meager existence and a- place to eat and sleep. There are many other fellows whom I could have dates with although I don’t particularly care to. Do you believe that I should continue to go with a person who has no future and no intentions of making one for himself? He also is very incone siderate and selfish. Since we started going together when I was quite young I did not realize these faults ‘until going with him had become a habit. Please tell me if you honestly believe I should break this affair even though I will miss him. DAWN. » s o ’

- Answer—It often happens that young people who have gone together for a long time drift into a marriage, not because their love has outlasted a long engagement but simply because their association has become a habit which neither has the energy to break. Most of us are so enslaved by habit that we resist any change which involves a risk. Thus we see people going to pieces over a long desired promotion in business and doing inferior. work on the new job as if they were convinced that the advance was undeserved. Sons and daughters stay at home with their parents rather than make a break with a comfortable if not exciting position. Many prisoners are afraid’ to face the world after years spent behind the bars. a. ~ To chalk all these things up to the hold of habit is too facile an explanation to be sure. I only cite them to set you to thinking about your own reluctance to break with a man whom you already have written off as a poor emotional investment. You don't pare ticularly care.to have dates with other men. Why?

Are you afraid to try for a first-rate man whose

ambitions would equal your own? Do you think that you've done the best you can do and that you can’t attract your. equals or superiors? You aren’t content ‘to be held back by an unaggressive suitor, yet you are afraid you'll miss him. : _ If would not be wise for me to give you definite advice. You decide. JANE JORDAN.

Put your problems in a letter t v answer To auestions in gh eg Be he wi

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&4% Wey et p a :