Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 17 September 1938 — Page 9
Vagabond
From Indiana = Ernie Pyle
A Better-Mousetrap Story From Massachusetts, Where a Grand Young Couple Now Is in Clover. HITMAN, Mass, Sept. 17.—If the old
saving true, that every woman aspires to run a tearoom, then I'm probably
is
being a public menace in writing today’s |
column, For after reading it the women of America will surely dash out and open 1,000,000 new tearooms. This column is about a young couple named Kenneth and Ruth Wakefield. They started a tearoom here called the Toll
| |
House, |
eight vears ago, in the middle of |
They started in an
the depression. one cook,
old house with
waitress, and $50. Today they have 87 employees, |
|
serve better than 265.000 peopie a year, and are worth—well, their rambling and much added-to establishment stands them around $100.000, they have a beautiful New England home, two automobiles and a cottage on Cape Cod. The Wakefields are two of the nicest people you've ever met. They are good-looking. They have poise, They have modern minds. They are completely natural. They tell vou everything, even their ages. (Ruth is 35 and Kenneth will soon be 40) They don't look even that.
Mr. Pyle
one
| |
Both are native New Englanders. Kenneth workad | for 13 vears with a big meat-packing company. Ruth | is a college graduate in dietetics and home economics. | Thev had been married four vears when they had |
the tearoom idea savings and bought this falling-down toll-road station built in 1709.
They quit their jobs, took their |
Their opening guests were a party of clubwomen.
At the end of the meal the hostess said to Ruth, “Just | send me the bill, and I'll mail you a ¢heck.” They had $20 left. They spent $8 for the next | dav’s supplies. Kenneth insisted on saving enough | to change a $10 bill. He told Ruth that if they had | to run out to a filling station to change a $10 bill, they were sunk. | On the second dav two people came. The third | day not a soul came. That was the first week in | September, 1930. What happened then is hard to | realize. By Christmas they had a dozen employees. | The next vear, two dozen. The third. four dozen. Now the wage list is nearly 100, and the Wakefields continue to prosper.
The Toll House Family — —
There are a dozen reasons why they do. But I suspect that one of the soundest is that they've never got above their business. Kenneth still spends the better part of the day in the kitchen, and Ruth still presides out front. To be sure, they are in fashionable sports clothes. But | Kenneth hasn't got afraid of a dirty dish, and Ruth stil] clears off the nearest table after customers leave. | The Toll House employees all live within a radius | of 15 miles. If one gets sick, he is registered at the | hospital as from the “Toll House Family.” Kenneth bets with the dishwashers. Ruth introduces the kev kitchen employees to guests. Old customers call waitresses by their first names. Many | of the waitresses have college degrees. i The original cook, Jack Dyer, is now head chef. | he original waitress, Esther Murphy, is still here. There is almost no turnover in the stafl. { Every vear, on the inns anniversary, the Wake- | fields invite customers of the first year for dinner as their guests. It probably costs them a thousand dol- | lars, but they relish it. Of this year's invitations there were only two people, I believe, who didn't come. | On Thanksgiving, a whole turkey is served to a | family. The guests do their own carving, take home any meat left over, and even carry the carcass away in a basket, | The secret of the Toll House is the better-mouse-trap legend all over again |
My Diary By Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt
Everyone at Mayo Clinic Takes Such Interest Everyone Else. |
OCHESTER, Minn, Friday—The have | slipped by very quickly of late, but I think it 1s well that I am going home tonight for everyone in Rochester will be tired of seeing me. down in front of the hospital at least once a day and all the children recognize me and we say good | morning as though we were old friends.
in
davs
I walk up and |
Last night in the auditorium at St. Mary's Hos- |
pital I spoke to the nurses, the sisters ana a gallery | filled with their friends. hey were a wonderfully | attentive audience and I enjoved seeing them all together. For they are an women. Evervone takes such a personal interest in everyone else here. The bellboys, the tax drivers, the casual
interesting group of
people who pass me in the street, all ask how James |
is feelin and a feeling that all is smoothty and well from now on. in a more friendly atmosphere I went visiting in the hospital this morning and
heart g0oI1ng
I am glad to be leaving with such a light | to progress | Jimmy could not be | | gas
called on two patients who are changing their rooms | to permit Jimmy to return to the room (how that he | is conscious of his surroundings) which he occupiad |
when he was here last. One of the patients, from Houston, Tex. is two vears younger than Jimmy. | He will have a serious operation tomorrow, |
Fears to Read War News
All my wife who will
to his blond, young those anxious
sympathy went out
have to sit through
hours with his mother, both of them wondering what |
in the operating room. I feel sure will come through all right, because, as his surgeon remarked, he has youth and strength in his favor. Apparently vou can almost take a young man apart and put him together again in these modern. scientific days. but you cannot take away the anxiety of the people who wait while this is being done. Father Shea was the last patient I visited. He is a dear old man who has been some months in the hospital. He has called on Jimmy occasionally, His humorous and friendly versonality made his visits welcome and Jimmy wanted me to be sure to bid him goodby. I open the newspaper every day with a feeling of dread and I turn on the radio to listen to the
is happening
that he
The Indianapolis Times
Second Section
SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 17, 1938
This story, which reveals the inadequacies of defense against aerial attack, is the second of a series of six by Maj Al Williams, former
Navy test pilot and speed ace.
His series is based on his observations
in Europe, where for two months he toured leading countries in his
own airplane.
FTER studying all the air raid defenses devised to date in Europe, I think the word “pathetic” fits them best. “Once an emergency has arisen, the actual warning of an impending air raid is likely to be short.” That terse, grim quotation is from a British air raid
precautions pamphlet prepared for civilians. It’s the short-short story of how
phrase of all Europe.
It’s a typical
little a government actually can offer its people in the event of an air raid, and it is official notice that the civilian
is the target.
The best thing a government can suggest for him to do is burrow into the ground. I read all the air raid antidotes I could obtain on my
air tour through Europe.
I talked to people affected. They
all follow the same helpless course of prophesying death
and destruction. the civilians must do. factors,” says one proclamation, “the government has reached the conclusion that the wisest policy is to aim at the dispersal of the population. Generally speaking, therefore, persons who at the time of an air raid are either in their own homes or other buildings should remain there.” The topic of bomb-proof shelters is dwelt upon at great length, without revealing how these can be built to accommodate masses of people. However, reports of technical observers in Spain show that the bomb-proof shelter for
the protection of masses is impracticable. One government proposes to provide some 35 million gas masks through local distributing centers in time of emergency. How this distribution will be made in the specified sections, which at times include areas 12 miles in diameter, is beyond comprehension. = ” 5 LOCAL air warden or a member of his staff is supposed to make a house-to-house canvass to instruct individuals in the fitting and wearing of the masks in an air raid. Schools also are instructing children on gas masks. The storage of the masks calls for specially prepared accommodations. The rubber parts must be kept in air-tight containers. The efficiency of a gas mask depends to a large extent upon its fitting the face. Thus, gas masks are manufactured in sizes like hats. To obtain the numbers and sizes of the respirators required, air raid wardens once every three months must visit each dwelling in their area. fit the permanent residents, and record the data. » » »
XPERTS of the chemical war department are asking pointed questions. In England, for instance, the standard Govarn-ment-issued gas mask costs about 50 cents. Chemical experts know that a gas mask which will protect the wearer against all known types of poiscn gases (there are about five) cannot be manufactured at such a low price. And if they are only effective against one type of poison gas, then the defense is reduced to hope that the enemy will be sporting enough to use that gas. Chemical var experts believe the only safe gas mask effective against all types of poisonous fumes is ihe self-cleansing one in
| which the wearer breathes the | same air repeatedly.
There's going to be an uproar on this point in England in the near future, because so far as I could ascertain, the millions of masks manufactured there are not effective against all types of poison gas. One of the paradoxical features of air raid precaution activities is the clamor for underground and bomb-proof shelters. Specifications say three feet of concrets, s0 many bags of sand, so many
| feet under the ground, constitute
a safe bomb-proof sheiter. But in England 2000-pound bombs are being manufactured which will blow a hole in the ground 100 feet deep and about 100 feet wide.
There are only a few hints as to what “After careful consideration of all
VISITED the famous Heinkle aircraft factory at Oranienburg outside of Berlin. This enormous factory employs about 8000 per-
sons. Each building and unit of the plant is equipped with its own bomb-proof, poison gas-proof underground shelter. Fach shelter is ventilated scientificaily, has its own Kitchen, dining room, sleeping accommodations, showers baths and toilet facilities. I was astounded by one astute, shrewd air strategist who claimed that if the air attack could drive enough inhabitants of any great city underground, and keep them running in and out of those shelters for 48 to 72 hours, by irregu=larly spaced bombing attacks, the city would be compelled to sure render. The French and British Pars liaments might be housed underground, provided with every facility for living and carrying on the functions of government in an air war, but the administration of great cities requires the constant attention of its trained operators. The temporary shelter of an underground railway is an invitation to the disease germ, and the spread of deadly epidemic, and the mass death effects of the giant explosive air bomb, 1 was forced to appreciate these weaknesses of underground bombproof shelters for the public when I inspected those at German aircraft factories. » » »
IR raid drills are scheduled periodically, without panic or turmoil. Upon warning signals every employee goes to his appointed place, passes through the decontamination room where gasinfected garments are removed, then goes to his locker and awaits instruction. Each bomb - proof shelter is provided with walls and ceilings which will withstand the disruptive effects of any known standard sized bomb up to 2000 pounds. The French and the British aircraft factories are provided with temporary shelters where employees can take refuge for the duration of a single raid. The bomb-proof shelters provided at aircraft factories are the only truly protective units I saw for the ground dweiler against the bomber. Such organization, of course, has to do only with a limited number of trained people. But the expenditures involved in such cases clearly stressed the impossibility of providing for millions of people on the same safety scale. And so, at best the protection
last news broadcast at night half afraid to hear that
the catastrophe of war has again fallen on Europe. It seems to me that the Prime Minister of England did a fine thing when he went to visit the German Chancellor in a last effort to prevent bloodshed. It seems insanity to me to try to settle the difficult problems of today by the unsatisfactory method of going to war. If you kill haif the youth of a continent,
the human race will be that much poorer.
Bob Burns Says—
OLLYWOOD, Sept. 17—I read an
the problems will be no nearer solution, but |
article the |
i other day tellin’ about what a hard life the |
city newspaper reporter has'ta lead. The article said
that the reason a city reporter is so unwelcome is |
because the reporter don’t call tn people unless
they've done somethin’ they don’t like to get in print.
I guess its pretty much the same all over.
One time a cyclone hit Aunt Sophie Ledbetter’s | house and set it up on end ard jest scrambled the |
furniture. When the reporter {rom the Press-Argus
showed up with a camera and said he'd like'ta take |
some pictures of the place, Aunt Sophie says. “It's Jest like you reporters—to want'a taks piciures of my house when it’s so untidy.” Copyright, 1938)
Side Glances—By Clark
for the civilian is makeshift and flimsy, and if bombing squadrons were to attack any big city in Europe today they practically would be unhampered. = » ”
T'S not necessary to blow a whole city apart to get a white flag raised over it. A city can be anesthetized by choking its arteries. Any high explosive air bomb will reach a water main or a sewer. A well-placed 1000-pound bomb will demolish any electric power house. And with these facilities out ¢f commission the section of the city they serve goes out also. Damage to the drinking and sanitary water systems on a large scale is the most dreadful ehoking imaginable for a city. Not only does the city die but the people in it also die from disease. Those are the answers I got unhesitatingly from air power advocates. The grisly conditions were described to me as inescapable in an air war. These men scoff at the use of poison gas bombs. Poison gases are a transitory menace. The wind blows it away. A few bombs in the street choke that street for weeks at a time. A few bombs in the street are more effective than direct hits on structures. When a big bomb exploded in the street, the collapse of the atmosphere to fill the vacuum left by the expanding pressure of the blast exerts a suction that draws out the exterior walls of buildings and dumps them into the thoroughfare. Sixteen days were required to clear a wide street in Barcelona after the three-day bombing raids in the middle of March this year.
» » »
“DUT couldn't we,” I asked, “clear such a street with our high-powered machinery, such as steam shovels and wrecking cranes? “Certainly not,” say the experts who have been analvzing the Barcelona raids. “Certainly not,
NEXT
Tricks of camouflage to baffle attacking airmen and to hide airports and machines are widely used in Europe. Maj. Williams tell about them and about the effectiveness of camouflaging bombers, too.
Movies—By
Air War >» . © © eo eo o oo o oo oo ByMaj Al Williams
Powers Offer ‘Pathetic’ Protection to Civilian Targets in Raids
unless you'd be willing to mangle the injured who are pinned in the ruins under the heavy blocks of stone and heavy girders. That debris must be cleared by passing stones and bricks from hand to hand, like a rural water bucket brigade passes each pail along.” Then there's the firebomb com=posed of thermite, a chemical that blazes fiercely when exposed to the air. Water has no effect on it.
A thousand of these small bombs can be carried hy a single highspeed airplane. And a thousand fires in any city, whose streets are choked with debris, is enough to drive that city to madness. As the World War ended there were plans to strew thousands of little balls of wax-encased fire chemicals over the wheat fields of Germany. They were to be dropped at night. The heat of the morning sun was expected to melt the thin wax covering, expose these fire chemicals, and destroy the grain, Untried ideas 20 years ago—these and similar
Entered as Second-Class Matter Indianapolis,
at Postoffice,
schemes have been perfected and now are ready for use. n ” ”
LL this leads to the question— “Must we live underground or abandon our cities?” Must we consider ourselves at all times in a state of war that can burst upon us at any moment of the day or night, as long as the bombing plane is in the hands of a potential enemy? Decentralization is the first order for locating the aircraft factories of any country. This active and vital threat of destruction from the air may result in the decentralization of population. Some European nations already are ruthlessly widening their streets and avenues to unprecedented widths. These are planning an air war, and realistically expect to be bombed. Civilization has drawn men into living closer and closer to one another and then in layers. Does the air war threat change this picture? The answer is positively affirmative, unless some undreamed-of defense method can be developed against the bomber’s attack. Such a defense is not in the present air war plans of Europe and apparently not even within the immediate inventive capacity of mankind. (Copyright, 1938. by The Pittsburgh Press)
New Bomb Patent Given
By fRecience Service WASHINGTON, Sept. 17.—Military experts who have been wondering about the construction of the alleged new aerial bomb of Germany, which is supposed to contain oxygen as part of its explosive charge, may have a hint to the answer right under their noses at the U. S. Patent Office here. Among the new patents issued this week is one to Helge Rost of Mexico City (No. 2,129,875) for a new type of ammunition whose explosive charge consists of gasoline and oxygen suitably combined and fired in a gun. : Greater explosive power than ordinary gunpowder and cheaper manufacture are among the claims. Complete combustion of the gases | of explosion occurs within the gun | barrel, states the inventor, so that | there is no characteristic flash of flame from the muzzle as in ordinary guns. This is a marked advantage for secrecy in night firing, states the patent.
TEST YOUR
HS Pp,
\2 . SF COPR.
Wortman
KNOWLEDGE
1—Name the capital of British Guiana. 2—Where is Dartmouth College? 3—What is the name for the unusually violent wind-storms in the West Indies? 4—-Whom did Sam Snead defeat in the playoff for the Canadian Open golf championship? 5—Name the European “free city” on the Baltic Sea. 6—What is another name for zine? 7T—Name the national flower of Egypt. 8—What is the hardest substance? ” ”n on Answers
1—Georgetown.
2—Hanover, N, H. 3—Hurricanes. 4—Harry Cooper. 5—Free City of Danzig. 6—Spelter. T—Lotus. 8—The diamond (carbon). 2
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., Washing-
ton, D. C. Legal and medical
"Oh, hello, Morg—this is my team."
“Naw, | didn't have a good time in the country—the eats were terrible."
Te
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PAGE 9
Ind.
Washington
By Raymond Clapper
Ludlow War Referendum Plan Gaining Support and It Looks as If a Bitter Fight Is Coming.
ASHINGTON, Sept. 17.—Apparently Congress will go through another fight next winter over the Ludlow War-Refer-endum plan which was defeated last season, 209 to 188, a close margin considering that
the Administration threw every ounce of pressure against the plan. The Indianapolis Congressman has just announced that he will revive his proposed constitutional
amendment. Senator Capper of Kansas is urging its adoption in radio broadcasts to his state. Numerous Senatorial and Congressional candidates are asking election in November because of their support of the Ludlow amendment, All of this, together with the war situation in Europe, would seem to foreshadow a bitter fight. Whether the European situation by that time will tend to increase the strength behind the Ludlow plan or to operate against it, no man can foresee. No matter which, emotions for and against will likely become greatly intensified and the fight will be far more bitter than it was last year when the question was somewhat more academic. The Ludlow proposal would submit to the states a constitutional amendment which would require a direct popular referendum before Congress could de= clare war. Exceptions would be made for actual in= vasion of this country or of other countries in the Western Hemisphere. The measure is aimed at ex= peditions abroad to make the world safe for de= mocracy or safe from Hitler or something else. If submitted by two-thirds of both houses, three-fourths of the states would have to ratify to make the amendment effective. :
How Times Do Change!
Presumably, in view of the intense opposition which the Administration exerted last winter against the proposal, Roosevelt would again make every effort to defeat it. The chief argument against is that it would hope= lessly tie the hands of the Government in dealing with any rapidly moving war situation, and would because of those restraints expose the United States to having its rights infringed more freely by other nations. Roosevelt's recent press statement at Hyde Park to the effect that newspapers had misrepresented him as maneuvering to join a “Stop Hitler” bloc with Britain and France is supposed to have been prompted by the strong ‘stay out of war” protests which cam=2 in the Presidential mail from all over the country. Senatorial and Congressional candidates report that “stay out of war” speeches are proving extremely effective in campaigning and arouse enthusiastic responses. That seems to be the drift of sentiment now, But most adults will remember that we once had a popular song, that swept the country, entitled “I Didn't Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier”—and that hefore the song was dead on the music-store shelves Gen. Pershing was in France with his A. E. F. So you never know very far ahead.
Jane Jordan—
Warns Girl of 16 Not to Give up Education to Marry College Boy.
EAR JANE JORDAN—I am a girl/of 16. About two years ago I met a fine young man now 21, He is a junior in college and a smart student. This summer he asked me to marry him and I accepted although both his parents and mine refuse to allow us to marry. I am only a junior in high school but I am willing to give up my education to marry the man I love. Do you think we should be married secretly and both finish our remaining years in school? I have been offered a fairly good job in the small college town where my fiance goes to school, and he has been left a sum of money by his uncle. Should we take an apartment where I have been offered the job and live on the money left to my fiance while he goes to school? I know you will probably say wait until we have both finished our education, but I feel that I can't wait any longer. D. J.
2 n EJ
Answer—Why do you feel unable to wait when so many other fine young people have? Really it is the cream of the crop who have the wisdom to wait. They know better than to try to sclve the problems in the back of the arithmetic before they have learned the ones on the front pages. In these days the economic problem looms large and forbidding on the horizon. The college boys are singing “W. P. A, here we come!” Each young man needs all the equipment he can get to fight the economic problem when he gets out of college. He must be so good that business just can’t get along without him. His job is to establish himself economically and fit himself for responsibility before he marries. Why do you and your fiance feel that you are exceptions to the rule and that you heve a right to marry before you're ready for it? As I have pointed out time and time again in this column, the mark of maturity is the ability to poste pone the desires of the present in favor of a future and more satisfactory goal. The very fact that you feel you can't wait augurs ill for your marriage. It suggests that you will not have the strength of character to meet the various strains of living and when things get hard you'll be the first to give up. I can’t consciously advise you to give up your education to marry, nor do I believe that you will be able to carry it on during marriage. A honeymoon spent on the campus is bound to interfere with the progress of your husband. Neither is a secret marriage any answer. If you were sure of your fiance you wouldn't feel the need to tie him down with marriage. You're afraid he'll get away, that he will find a more attractive girl, or that his desire to marry you will die. Yet marriage will not protect you against any of these emergencies. After all there is nothing final about the ceremony and many have rushed into marriage hastily only to have it dissolved later. No, the only wise and sensible thing you can do is to wait and see what happens to your love while waiting. If it isn't lasting as you hoped, it is better that you find it out before marriage and thus avoid the miseries of divorce. JANE JORDAN.
Mr. Clapper
Put your problems in a letter to Jan
> 1 e Jordan, who will answer your questions in this column daily.
4
New Books Today
Public Library Presents—
N English journalist, Douglas Reed, was in Ger= many during the last years of the Republic and the first years of the Third Reich, and in Vienna when Schushnigg yielded to threats of force and delivered the country to the Nazi. He has followed his profes sion to Russia and through the Balkans and has been present at the “Geneva shadow show.” His observations have given the title INSANITY FAIR (Covici) to this volume and have led him to two major conclusions; that the peace treaty between Germany and the Allies was mistaken in nearly every provision; and that British foreign policy, (and there= fore that of the League of Nations) in the Italian= Abyssinian affair, in the Japanese invasion of China, in the Spanish civil war, and in the German-Czech situation has been weak, stupid, and dishonest. The first mistake resulted in Hitler. The consequence of the later mistakes, he says (writing in the early spring of this year), must be a swollen Germany, possessed through threats and alliances of the necessities of war, and ready at last to defy reluctant France or spineless England to stop her.