Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 5 September 1938 — Page 7

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From Indiana==Emie Pyle

Connie Boswell Can't Walk, but She Gets Around, Plenty. Yanks Don't Lose When She's on Hand.

NEW YORK, Sept. 5.—Connie Boswell is “Von the radio once a week, and makes frequent phonograph records. Although it is the record “Martha” which skyrocketed her back into the entertainment limelight, she makes more from the radio than from records.

'She doesn’t like to say how much she makes. She. says if you tell the truth it sounds so small com-. pared with those who fib. Connie . doesn't make many public appear-:

- ances any more (such as theaters and night clubs). She likes public work, but most places are poorly arranged for her. For Coanie Boswell, as you may know, cannot walk. I believe it's

from a tricycle accident when she:

was little. We didn’t discuss it except casually. You'd never know it as long as she was sitting down.

She doesn’t mind writers mentioning “her infirmity, but hates for

‘Mr. Pyle them to dwell on it. She's anything but self-conscious about it. She probably goes around as much as anybody in New York. She's always going to cocktail parties, first nights, hockey games, night clubs, baseball games. She goes in a little folding wheel-chair that her husband designed. Her brother-in-law, Ben Leedy, lives in the apartment with them and always goes with her. Ben -isn’t much bigger than Connie, but he lifts her around, and even carries her in difficult places. Around town they use taxis, taking the folding chair with them. ** When .she broadcasts, she transfers to a higher wheel chair at the studio. This puts her closer to the mike. like a giraffe’s from reaching up.

Connie can ride a horse, and did ride quite -

bit in Hollywood. She wears slacks a great deal, because it’s handier. They say she chews gum incessantly, even when singing. I guess she had it hid under the sofa while I was there. She never listens to the radio, because she doesn’t want to be influenced by other singers. While we talked, Connie ordered up a cup of tea for me and drank two root beers herself. She loves root beer. At cocktail parties she drinks port wine. ~ They say she smokes, but she didn’t while I was there. Connie is a great baseball fan, and goes to see the Yanks play every time she can. There's a soit of freak thing about that, too. She’s been going for six years now, and the Yanks have never lost a game when she was there.

She and Bing Are Good Friénds Connie has a swell sense of humor and laughs a lot. We discovered we both hate the usual phrases that married people fall into in addressing each other. One of her pet hates is to hear a woman referred to as “the good wife” or “the little woman.” I gave her a couple of cheers on that, for 1 hate it too.

She is good friends with lots of the Hollywood people—Bing Crosby especially. Probably her best friend outside the farnily is a man named Bob Dimitry. They were kids in New Orleans together. He’s in New York now, -and is around the apart ment a lot. Bob is a mixture of Greek and Irish. He anid Connie have a harmony. of humor that often verges on the hysterical. Such. shings as this: Up at Connie's ‘Sigtér's farm near Peekskill, she and Bob will see a beautiful pastoral scene—clouds, rolling green fields, haystacks, cows, everything quiet and peaceful. Then suddenly a rooster will go streaking across the landscape. That throws Connie and Bob into spasms, and ‘nobody can understand what they're laughing about, even when they explain. I can though, for I'm crazy too.

"My Diary

By Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt *

t's Labor Day's Name That Makes It Especially Important Holiday.

YDE PARK, Sunday.—Here we are again pre- £ A paring to celebrate Labor Day, which I always feel is one of our most important holidays. By chance this year many of our holidays have fallen on Mondays, thus giving people long week-ends. Labor Day, of course, always comes on a Monday and for many people it closes a holiday period. Even when we are not actually on vacation in the summer, we are thinking: about the time when we will be; many of us manage to get more free time than in winter and we enjoy our Saturdays and Sundays more, perhaps, than we can during the colder months.

However, it is the name of Labor Day which I think makes it a particularly important holiday. I haven't any idea what its origin was; in fact, for the first time it has occurred to me that I might look it up! I don’t know how those long -veek-ends they have in England which are ‘known as “bank holidays” acquired that name, but they all serve the same purpose and I like the fact that we have a Labor Day week-end. It seems to recognize the dignity of labor and to emphasize that those who work are worthy of recognition, that they form an important part of the community. I was amused by a youngster not long ago who asked me if I thought that war adversely affected the working-people more than any other group in the community, and since, therefore, they should be more alive to the necessity of keeping the world at peace, would I agree that they should have more power in government. Of course, in a democracy this is a foolish question. With us there is no such thing as a working-class as a class. We recognize that everyone should work and be productive, and therefore that we have an equal interest in the preservation of peace.

Proper Dog Training Important

Our interest must be bent on keeping every citizen alive to his responsibilities toward the Government. However, in a country where class .distinctions exist in government, it is probably not strange that a group considering itself a working group should desire to hold a balance of power when war is being considered. I have received a letter telling me that we are to have a National Dog Week Sept. 18-24, and the n is to be: “Every dog needs a good home.” I think this a grand idea, and I only hope it means more education for all of us in the proper treatment of all animals. There is an obligation on the part of dog lovers not to allow their pets to become a nuisance in any community, and this means a real effort to train dogs properly. The domestic animals "are certainly the friends of man and we owe them real consideration.

Bob Burns Says—

OLLYWOOD, Sept. 5.—Homer Croy says that the bigger a man is on the outfide, the more he'll iét lem boss him around the house, but a little man on the outside wants to be a tyrant at home. My Uncle Chigger was one of them men that didn’t have dealin’ with- other men. Er a ran into’ him and he had his ‘arm in a sling and Both of his eyes ‘were “black.

- When 1 asked aim. what. the trouble was, he says, my wife,

‘the steps and

She says if she doesn’t her neck gets

Because Elis F. Stenman of Pigeon Cove, Mass., disliked throwing away old newspapers, he made up his

mind to find a useful purpose for those he had accumulated.

After experimenting for several years Mr. Stenman finally overcame the problem of making permanent the objects he built from these papers. By rolling the papers into solid rolls and coating them with the preserving varnish the paper so treated became as serviceable as wood. - 1. Beginning in 1933, Mr. Stenman has followed his hobby unceasingly, constructing all sorts of furniture to

complete his house. This is a general view of the outside of his paper house.

2. Mr. Stenman sits comfortably in a rocking chair he

designed and created out of paper.

3. Mrs. Stenman ‘plays the piano built by her husband of rolled newspapers featuring the exploratory trips: of Commander Richard E: Byrd. : Except for the necessary wires and keys, rolled papers have. been used for both: She piano and bench.

4. This set of “shingles,” made of pres: newspaper,

215 sheets thick, forms the outer wall of Mr. Stenman’s

house. Preserved with a special yanigh, the ‘Shingles’ are as strong as wood.

‘4. believe

Times-Aeme Photo:

-8. The “desk shown here is’ made up exclusively - of _ papers featuring the stories on Col. Charles A. Lindbergh's

flight to Paris, and. the subsequent celebrations Honoring the: flier.

6. This: grandfather's clock, which stands about 6 feet tall, was. built. of newspapers from all the capital cities of

the United States. Fittingly, a bookcase in Mr. Sten-

man’s unusual: house ° is made up of newspapers from 67

foreign countries, to hold books by authors of all nations,

whose ideas naturally reflect Substantially different view-

o points.

" been further accelerated and protected.

Side SlonceseBy Clark

Eve ryday Movi Bs : Wortman

KNOWLEDGE

1—In which. country is the state of Guerrero? 2—Who ‘is Governor of Towa? 3—Where is the. United States © © Military Academy? : ; - 4—Who won. the recent Cleve- + land - Open golf champion- . ship? | 5—What are cattalos? ; be 6—Did George Washington sign ~ + + the Declaration of Independ~ ~~ ence? . T—For. what news and feature syndicate 8 the initials N. : “B. AS stand?

aloes and domestic cattle,

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ASK THE TIMES

TEST YOUR -

SE puiptan in ne opie

By Raymond Clapper

The Fight of Labor From Here Ouf Will Be Not So Much to Control

Employers as to Control Itself,

VV ASHINGTON, Sept. 5—You don’t have to look very hard to find black spots on ‘the labor map. Many years will pass before they are rubbed out, if ever, because there are certain catch-all basins where the

dregs settle. Share-croppers, fruit pickers, cannery workers, and others drifting about in sea=

‘sonal unskilled occupations, will never live the life | of Riley.

The best that can be hoped for is that these handicapped persons will be protected from too cruel exploita= tion. The man: who is able to Took out for himself is pretty well over the hump in his rise from industrial serfdom. He is now in a position to obtain decent hours and a fair wage. He suffers chiefly from the poor functioning of our system, from the layoffs, the shutdowns, the technological changes. In this he is a joint victim with investors and management. He is in a position to do very well if the employer can keep the business going. They have a joint stake in making our industrial wheels turn at! a more even pace. Labor's role as a helpless industrial serf is about over. Even ,in the last year labor’s emergence has The Wag= ner act, whatever modifications may be made, has been vindicated by the courts ‘and is here to stay in its essential, which is Federal protection of the right to organize. Wages-and-hours’ throws the protection of the Federal Government around the unorganized employee. The Harlan County, Kentucky, mine union agree- _ ment is not only ‘a real advance ‘for labor in a “hitherto bloodsoaked -sector,-but it is symbolic of the surrender of the last outposts of union haters. Few employers ‘now .doubt the inevitability of union ore ganization. Some are still fighting it, but they know it is a losing battle. Most employers have become reconciled to collective bargaining as inevitable and are merely trying to- make the best possible terms.

History Reveals Progress

‘To appreciate how far we have come, you have only to thumb: back a few pages in history. Less than a hundred years ago children in English mines and fac-

Mr. Clapper

tories worked from 5 a. m. to 8 p. m.. Older children

worked from 3 a. m. to 6 p.- m. In the mines, women crawled on all fours hauling tubs of coal. Those were the days when the advocates of laissez faire denounced as enemies of the country anyone who wanted to change such conditions. In America we followed the same pattern, with a little less cruelty, or perhaps a different kind of cruelty. We never worked women and children as brutally as the English in mines and factories. But men who tried to organize unions and to improve their conditions of work were treated without mercy.

Recent tactics exposed by the La Follette Civil Lib= -

erties Committee were nothing to the savagery with which employers sent their hired gunmen against strikers a half century ago. The workman had no rights except those the.employer deigned to grant, and even those:were revocable at will. If you don't ve: have advanced, read the history of labor ick in Cleveland's time, as told in Harry Barnard’s recent life of Ji Altgeld. No, labor’s fight from h .be. less to control employers than to tet phir y ‘to make itself responsible, and above all for labor leaders to keep their heads, to check their pérsonal vendettas which sre vamaging not only the public interest, but labor . &

Jane Jordan— Today's Youth Compares Favorably

With That of Past Eras, She Holds.

EAR JANE JORDAN—Like your other critics I

think your advice, while. sometimes very good, is often promiscuous. To insinuate that a man is “old-fashioned” because he prefers a girl who does not smoke and drink seems unworthy of a woman columnist. Doctors tell us that alcohol dulls one’s inhibitions and slows up one’s senses. If you had a daughter of teen age would you not want her to be at her best when she entered the social whirl? I have tried to believe that the young folks of today are as moral and as decent as in former generations, but a column like yours makes it hard 5 believe.

warfare

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Answer—1 suppose that one’s reactions to social customs depends upon the group in which one has been reared. The doctors’ are right about alcohol. No one likes to see a girl in her teens drink so much as a drop. Nevertheless, some sober and respectable citizens with high moral standards still serve cocktails at their dinner parties. Some perfectly decent and cultivated ‘women still smoke. These things occur in the best social circles. To tell the young that it is’ not so is simply to destroy, their confidence in our veracity. Sogner or later they will find out the facts for them= selves I believe that the young of today are about as moral and decent as the young of any other day. Social customs have changed somewhat although there is nothing new about drinking, which has been socially acceptable for generations. I believe: that excessive and disgusting drinking results from some maladjustment within the individ

ual’s own personality and that it is an effect rather ~

than the cause of antisocial attitudes. I do not like intoxicated people and do not defend them. = . The only point upon which you Ed I differ is that I am not opposed to moderate social drinking and you're afraid of what it might lead to. I still think that the young man’s fiancee may be a worthy girl perfectly suitable to be any young man’s wife, but if he doesn’t think so the thing for him to do is to find someone whose standards coincide with his own. JANE JORDAN.

44 to J .,. who will Put your problems in 8 Jot to Jane | ordan w

answer your ques

New Books Today Public Library Presents— fh PRACTICAL program against regimentation and totalitarian government will be welcomed bw those who fear such trends in American affairs. Ordway Tead’s THE CASE FOR DEMOCRACY AND ITS MEANING FOR MODERN LIFE (Association drs attempts to redefine democracy in terms of - civilization, and to show the futility of restricted interest in modern society. Believing that d from lack of experience with. it, constructiv

democracy arises . presents in his little book practical,

for the business and professional person to maje ¢ mite contributions to the country’s problems t his own attitudes in life. In a chapter entitled “The Businessman’s

tive” he suggests the moral obligation of the

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