Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 23 August 1938 — Page 9

Vagabonc From Indiana = Ernie Pyle

Trooper Cashin Walked After They Said He Couldn't and Now Runs 2d Biggest Fingerprint Office in U. S.

ALBANY, N. Y., Aug. 23.—I've never ‘been through it myself, but they tell me that tourists in Washington get one of their biggest thrills out of J. Edgar Hoover's big crime-detecting ‘and fingerprint warehouse.

The Department of Justice has 9,000,000 prints on file, and it has uncanny machines that run through

file cards a mile a minute and pick out the very: man they're ldoking for. Well, New

York State has a similar one. only smaller.

bureau in America outside of

Washington that has these human-

ized machines. And the man who made the bureau what it is today is a quiet young fellow who used to ride a motorcycle as a state trooper. He’s a self-made/man if: I've ever seen one.

His name is William E. Cashin." His ‘uncle was & chaplain at Sing

Sing, and that’s what got youmg

Mr. Pyle: Cashin thinking about police work.

As soon as he was old enough he joined the state

troopers. "He was a trick horseback rider and expert pistol shot. But even the good ones have accidents. He had been in the troopers only a year when his horse fell at a show and crushed him like pulp against a tree. They said he'd never walk again. He couldn’t stand the idea of being retired in his 20s. He fished around in his mind for something within the trooper organization that wouldn’t take too much physical activity. - Pingerprinting and identification seemed to be the thing. He read and educated himself while in the ‘hospital.- Then miraculously ‘he became able to walk again. He was restored to duty, but stayed in the identification end of criminology. At that time the head of the state’s bureau of identification was a woman—Clara IL. Parsons. body you talk to in Albany will sing ‘her. praises. Cashin began going to her in his off-duty hours. They .studied and, worked together. . Clara Parsons died in 1936 after 20 years as head of the division. They fookéd around fpr a successor. Cashin was the man with the training. He got the job. In the last two years" the division has grown into one second only to that of the Department of Justice in Washington. Everything Miss Parsons planned and dreamed has come true.

Against Coripulsory Fingerprinting

Cashin tells you himself ‘that the success of the division has been largely a carrying out of Miss Parsons’ plans. He has had money.to work with, where she hadn’t. Today this New York bureau has 116 employees. They work day and night. They have fingerprints of 750,000 people. They have a machine to sort these prints at 420 a minute.

Every morning, fingerprints on some 400 unsolved police cases come into Cashin’s office for identification. The machine starts grinding. Usually the 400 are worked out’ by noon. “They identify an average of about 40 per tent. In Washington the average is * running 58 per cent, but they have a much bigger ‘file to work from.

In June this division identified 46 paroled men |

who had been’ rearrested. It also .identified 19 dead people—drownings, suicides, murders. People whose fate might never have been known had their fingerprints not been on file here.” « That's ‘the reason fingerprinting of. the honest layman is a good thing. “But putting through laws to make it compulsory. He says it would be like prohibition. You can’t legislate things like that. = Cashin feels that over the years people will become :educated to fingerprinting. Once the stigma of crim-inal-hunting is taken away, people will volunteer.

My Diary

By Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt

Newspapermen With the President Defeated in Annual Baseball Game.

YDE PARK, N. Y., Monday.—I wish someone would tell me why it is so much easier to do a great variety of things in winter than in summer. I can put through 20 engagements in a day in the White House and still have time to do some work and to write and read, but the summer days simply fly by and when it is time to go in for supper nothing of importance is done. I suppose the truth of the matter

is that one spends too much time dressing and un-

dressing for riding and swimming and too many long hours enjoying these sports.

Itdwas good to see Mr, Harry Hopkins yesterday and to have him spend the night with us. He is one of the few people in the world who gives me a feeling of being entirely absorbed in doing his job well. So many of us do things because they are thrust upon us or because it seems to be our duty to do them. He seems to work because he has an inner conviction that his job needs to be done and that he must do it. I think he would be that way about any job he undertook. He would not undertake it at all unless he felt that he could really accomplish something which needed to be done. That is the secret of good work, but how few of us make our decisions on that basis.

" The annual baseball game played at Mr. Lowell Thomas’ place by the newspapermen accompanying the President and their recruits, against whatever team Mr. Thomas can gather, was held yesterday afternoon. Johnny played with the Washington side and they lost the game, which was a sad blow.

Newlyweds Return to Boston

Johnny and Anne decided that they had to go back to Boston this morning to begin getting settled, so last night we went over all the little details which have to be attended to here or in New York City for

them. I am hoping to see some results when I go . through Boston at the end of September. -I am always so much interested in seeing the variety of tastes:

shown by young people in arranging their new homes. After they left this morning, T had a ride and worked on the mail for a while.

Our only luncheon guests were Mr. and Mrs. Albert Tibbets. Mrs. Tibbets must be very proud of what she has accomplished in the choice of books made by tke Junior Literary Guild. . She tells me that protests are made about the books chosen for certain age groups ‘because the vocabulary is too varied. That interested me, for in my reviews, I try never to think of any child’s book from the point of view of vocabulary. I was brought up on the theory that reading is designed to increase one’s vocabulary by forcing one to ask about new words. Therefore, it never seems a disadvantage to me to have words in a book for voung people which may be somewhat beyond the average Nocabularies, .

Bob Burns Says—

OLLYWOOD. Aug. 23.—The other day I got ahold of a book that tells you how to be a success and the author said that the main rule is to concentrate on a definite goal. Personally I think it's better to go out in the world with an open mind or youre bound to miss somethin’ a little bit better than you figgered on findin’ in the first place. When my cousin Wafford was workin’ on the Press-Argus down home, the: editor sent him out in the country where they was.havin’ a big weddin’ and told him to hurry back from the weddin’ and write the story up.. When Wafford came back to the office and had sat around about an hour, without

.startin’ to write anything, the editor says “why don’t. “Well, |

you write up that story?” and Wafford says there was a big gun fight in church, the groom ran “off with the bridesmaid and the bride Jumped in the xiv) he i? ain't

It is the only fingerprint

‘Any=

Cashin is ndt for {

By Paul Harsison NEA Service Staff Writer

HoLLywoor, Aug. 23. "=—A police squad delivered a staggering consignment of disillusionment and heart-break at National Talent Pictures studio the other day. They rushed in with a warrant for the corporation’s president, I. C. Overdorft, a benign-look-, ing promoter with silver hair and ‘tongue. There were wails from the crowd of mothers and child actors assembled, at their own expense, from all over the United States. But there was a sigh of relief from the legitimate motion picture industry.

The industry is worried and embarrassed by the existence of various acting schools, companies

"that sell screen tests, agencies

for the discovery of new talent, film-producing groups ‘of questionable soundness and similar enterprises, preying on the vanity of aspirants or on the ambition of mothers, who think their children are second Shirley Temples or Freddie. Bartholomews.

Most: of these talent concerns are within the law, authorities agree, and nothing can‘ be ‘done about them. They are within the law because they deliver precisely what they promise in the way of a motion picture career. They promise nothing. A customer pays for instruction, or for his picture in a magazine, or for a

few minutes of making faces in

front of a whirring ‘camera. And

that’s what he He has no recourse if no studio executive will view the test, or

. if no casting director sees the

magazine or if no talent scout comes to be spellbound by his histrionics. Jom we EW of .these suckers ever make formal complaints,” said a representative of the Producers Association, “and in many cases, of course, their egos have ‘been nourished and - they've probably got their money's ‘worth. Yet, there are thousands of people all over the country who pay into these schemes, and when nothing comes of them they develop a resentment toward Hollywood. The legitimate industry doesn’t like to take the rap, especially when it’s doing everything it canto discourage amateurs front trying to buck the tremendous odds out here.” Occasionally, as .in the case of Overdorff and his corporation, an enterprise is so &nthusiastically promoted it makes claims a district attorney may consider actiondble. At this writing Overdorff is charged with false advertising and petty theft. The complaint is signed by & Wichita Falls, Tex. dance teacher, one of a reported 1200 operators of dance schools which have subscribed at a $100 minimum to the company’s franchise plan. This Hollywood reporter recently received several inquiries from Eastern and Midwestern cities about the company’s standing. Before Overdorff was arrested, I had examined copies of National Talent’s prospectus and its contract form .and.had talked with one of the mothers who decided to complain to the district attorney.

The handsomely printed prospectus identified I. C. Overdorff as “America’s foremost director, of juvenile talent.” He ‘once held a state license as a talent agent. This license was taken up, and its reissuance refused.

® » »

HE National Talent Piclures Corp.,” says the: prospectus, “has been organized by a group of men prominent inthe motion picture industry for the purpose of co-operating with educational institutions interested in the de-

velopment; of juvenile talent. It

is a production unit committed to a schedule of one or more pictures each year to be exhibited throughou the United States and Cana a: ”

‘Dreams of big. money. and screen = glory went glimmering when police raided the talent school. Here weeping children and bewildered : parents are shown leaving the studio.. x i

The. franchise guarantees the

schools that at ‘least one pupil

from each school year will be selected and used for a personal pearance in a motion picture ex

_ produced in Hollywood:

The “prominent men” are

success. But Mr. Laemmle is not claimed as a member of the.concern.. Incidentally, he is retired and is not associated with any

* studio.

- Overdorft has declined. to explain how he proposed’ to - distribute for exhibition any pictures he might make. Reputable independent studios, with established stars such as Republic with its Gene Autry, find themselves unable to sell their best: product to leading theaters having block booking commitments with major studios. Yet National Talent Pictures promises the reader of its prospectus its pictures. would - be shown “in one of the leading theaters of your city.”

IVE provisions are listed under ¢

which the company claims the right to cancel a dancing school’s franchise. One: of these is failure of a school to “obtain a reasonable amount of publicity in local publications.” Cancellation calls for forfeiture of dayments “as liquidated damages.” Official publication of Naticnal Talent Pictures is a magazine called “Screen. Juveniles,”. to which franchise holders are pledged to subscribe as well as to “diligently and continuously” solicit subscriptions. This nation-

“ally circulated magazine contains

articles about and apparenily by various players, with a departs ment called “Browsing Around the Studios.” : : The Producers Association, how= ever, declares that no representative .of this oblioation ever. has

Side Glances—By Cla rk

™N

denied. O On. one page is. 8 2e-0\

“Laemmle Sr. Blotter Overdorff

Police brought a rude halt to rehearsal of the - “Juvenile Follies of 1939” when they raided NaHere the miother of

tional Talent Pictures Corp.

held credentials permitting admission to any: major studio. National Talent promised a picture to be called “Kid Karni-

Mrs. LC. Ovardort seemed a bit displeased as a

policeman escorted

her away from National Talent Pictures studio after In her husband had been charged with false adverfising and petty theft. .

val” to start in October, 1937. Nothing happened. The picture announced. for this autumn is “Juvenile Follies of 1939,” and it

' one of the “hopefuls” explains that police have just ‘arrested Overdorf. Other youngsters continue the dance, unaware the show must not gé on.

was for this that scores of con- . test-winning children, together with . parents or guardians, paid. their way to Hollyweod:

Eliminating Tuberculous: Animals Saves Cattle Industry Millions

By Science Service URICH, Switzerland, Aug. 23.— Forty million dollars lost ev year to the American cattle ind in the prewar period has been turned into a saving through elmination of tuberculous animals, Dr. John R. Mohlér.of the U. S. Department of Agriculture. told the 13th International Veterinary Congress being held here. In 1917 the _incidence of tuberculosis was 4.9 per cent in ‘American cattle herds; in 1937 the figure had been forced down to 0.4 per cent. During the 20-year period about 3,500,000 diseased cattle -had been

detected. and removed from the

herds. - Crucial test comes at the slaughter house. If postmortem examination necessitates the condemnation of a butchered animal at the

‘threshold of the market, it is very

literally a loss. During the fiscal year ending June 30, 1938, such condemnations in - American packing plants numbered © only 6284, Dr. Mohler reported; as recently as: 1933 the year’s: condemnations . totaled 23.214. The test universally used to detect tuberculous cattle is the injection of tuberculin into the skin. Tuberculin is a vaccine-like prepara-

| Everyday Movies—By Wortman:

= \ 5 LT SCPE AT R

| SPREE cT = 5 a

Can you think of of nyhing or tod? Ware re tired,

tion made from bacteria grown in flasks on an artificial medium. If the animal is healthy, nothing happens after tuberculin injection.: ‘But if it is diseased, an acute local inflammation appears ‘around the point - of : injection. The animal must then be destroyed.

TT great ‘hajority of competent veterinary surgeons accept the tuberculin test as valid and accurate, Dr. Mohler declared. Despite vehement opposition by a: relatively small group, he stated, important court decisions have sustained the position of the profession and. of the U. S. Department of Agriculture. (Copyright, 1938)

TEST YOUR _ KNOWLEDGE

1— Where is the range of mountains known as the Hindu Kush? ~~ 2 Name the 13 ofiginal states. 3—In what round-did: the last. fight between Joe Louis and. Max Schmeling end? 4—What are the eight parts of - Shmec)t in the English lan-

5. Sage? city in the United States has the largest ares?

2 8 =

Answers

1—Centra: Asia. = r - 2=-New Hampshire, Massie. setts, Rhode Island, Cone ' necticut, New: "York, New: ® Jersey, Pennsylvania, Dela« ‘ware, Maryland, Virginia, ‘North Carolina, South Caro2 oa and Ceorgla. 3 .

tl: - pronouns, verbs, ad-

jectives, adverbs, prepositions, Sonjunetions and interjec5—Loss Angeles. £ 2 Lo ®

ASK THE TIMES Inclose a 3-cent siaip for

Class ‘Matter napols, Ind.

'ashington “By Raymond Clapper

Businessmen Trembled When Probes ' Of Monopolies Began, but So Far Everything Rolls Along Quietly. (Anton Schierret I Is on Vacation)

VW ASHINGTON, Aug. 28. — Thus far everything has been rolling along sweet and lovely for the antimonopoly investigation. - Businessmen trembled when the thing was started.

But the O’Mahoney Committee, including the New Dealers from the executive branch, have

3 ¥

| ‘cooed and reassured and buttered the businessmen.

They have kept: repeating that “this isn’t going te hurt.” The effect has been soothing. So that up to now the committee hasn’t had to issue a single subpena to get the facts it wants from businessmen’s files. The real digging hasn't started yet, so that may pa. Fn a fair test. But considering the normal tendency of New Deal investigators to scare the daylights out of business, they have done a good job of taking it easy in this case. Senator. O'Mahoney, chairman of the temporary National Economic Committee, the combined Congres-

sional and executive antimonopoly Mr Clapper

‘investigating body, has issued a progress report citing

numerous instances of co-operation by businessmen and business groups. The thing Senator O'Mahoney is frying to make clear is that the object is to study the abuses and undesirable practices and to outlaw them, not to crucify the persons who may have been indulging in the practices. He figures that inh almost every ine stance of such abuse there will bé powerful elements in the business ‘world itself eager to co-operate. The Department of Justice discovered that in its recent move against steel price fixing. Ernest Weir and some other leaders in the industry were opposed to any price reduction. But when the Department of Justice began digging around, it discovered that the head of U. S. Steel, Edward R. Stettinius, agreed with the Government that steel prices ought to come down, He thought Mr. Weir and the others were wrong but he was in a minority. When the Department of Justice moved in, the views of Mr. Stettinius prevailed and for the first time in history steel prices came down without a wage cut.

‘Licensing’ Plan Frightens Some

Practically every antitrust complaint that reaches the Department of Justice comes from some section of business itself. It is upon these desires of various business interests which feel injured by some prevail ing practice that the antimonopoly committee will de= pend for help. Another thing. Some businessmen are somewhat frightened by the Federal “licensing” plan of Senator O'Mahoney. In part this arises from the unfortunate use of the term “licensing,” which implies arbitrary

.discretion by some Government official. That is not

Senator O’Mahoney’s idea. His bill would fix definite standards in the law, leaving no discretion to administrative officials to grant or withhold Federal incorporation papers. It is a Federal incorporation measure rather than a Federal licensing measure, if Senator G’Mahoney correctly understands his own

Ge Business “which. is national in scope still operates :

under charters granted by some individual state in which the absentee concern perhaps does no business at all. It is regarded as almost inevitable that the time is coming when concerns operating throughout the nation will be required to have Federal incorporation, and be subjected to Federal standards instead of the standards of some little half-pint state to which they merely pay a fee for the incorporation papers,

Jane Jordan—-

Our Columnist Defends Books as

A Proper Source of Information.

EAR JANE JORDAN—Your reply to H. H. is the worst that has yet come to my attention. Here are two people who request knowledge and yet you do not have-the desire to tell them where they can get information. You know, as I do, that library books do not teach because they generally are in language which the layman cannot understand, Instead of suggesting that these people go to:their doctors, or to clinics conducted for that purpose you tell them to read. What? I heartily disagree with you in stating that more harm can come from learming about sex in the schools. That is exactly where it should be taught. A READER. .

Answer—Well for mercy’s sake. What an oute burst over a mild reply! I do not believe you have a very extensive aintance with library books. I got the greater part of my education from library books. Hundreds of books are couched in the sime plest language. Some are kept on the closed shelf bub are issued to any mature person who asks for them. It is not that I think the students would react unfavorably so- much as their parent if there were sex education in ‘the schools. Some would approve but the prejudiced would cause so much trouble that the whole subject would become distorted in the minds of children. A more reasonable letter bears the same date as. yours and was Written in regard to the same answer. ; * = = : EAR JANE JORDAN-—I have great respect for your views and decisions. However, I do not wholly agree with your answer fo H. H.'s letter with reference fo the teaching of sex in public schools. I see no reason why a.limited amount of light should

_not be thrown upon this subject in the.classroom. In

the studies of hygiene and physiology problems more or less related to the subject are taught. - Both misunderstanding and ignorance may forever be looked upon as the sources of too many disheartening exe periences which proper teaching could ddihave prevenied, . oC

Answer—I can conseRensly agree with everye thing you have py While ignorance .is deplorable)

to children. What the schools would teach many parents would undo by. their horrified disa ' JANE ‘JORDAN.

uO FE 1 Tt Sree wine

New Books Today

Public Library Presents—

1830, Everio, lll, sonsisied of. one housed James Allin and his gen store. I A is Bone astir -with- pusindés, poltides and a

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