Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 9 November 1938 — Page 17

agabond ~~ The Indianapolis Times secon secion

PAGE 17

Entered as Second-Class ‘Matter. at. Postoffice, Indiangpoll Ind.

* 3

From Indiana —Ernie Pyle

Veteran of Boer and World Wars,

Now a Ranch Owner in Ecuador.

(GUAYAQUIL, Ecuador, Nov. 9.—Just in case you're tired of reading about Ecuador and would like to read about an American, boy I’ve got one for you today. Col. Jack Isbell by name. He's slender

and wiry, wears a rangy tweed suit, talks with an'Alabama accent, rides a horse and carries a gun, and even though he’s small you'd better not start anything with him. Col. Isbell was born in Alabama 58 years ago. He is one-eighth Creek. Indian, and -mighty proud of it. He was brought up in the old Indian Territory, now part of Oklahoma. : For more than 40 years he has been living—off and on—a life that would make your hair stand on end. Yet through it all he has been a domestic man. He is married for the third time, has four children, and is a grandfather. ol Col. Isbell’'s own father is still : / Mr. Pyle alive, living in Nashville, Tenn. He 7 has two brothers who are officers in the U. S. Army. He is a distant cousin of Eleanor Roosevelt. Col. Isbell started his exciting career in the Peach Tree War in the Indian Territory (a war in which not a shot was fired). But there has been plenty of shooting in his life since. He graduated from the Territory to the Philippines in 98, and then went on to South Africa and took a hand in the Boer War. He was captured and tortured by British soldiers, and still bears the marks of rhinoceros-hide whips they used on him. He came to Ecuador with the famous GuayaquilEcuador Railroad. He held practically every job on the road, from engineer to president’s secretary. But the itching foot got him, and he went over the Andes into the Oriente—which is the term for that little-known, steamy jungle in the Amazon headwaters. For seven months he lived with the Indians. He was on his way out of the jungle when we entered the World War. He took the first boat to the States, received a commission, and went to France in command of the first bunch of Negro artillerymen. He was wounded many times, and the wounds still bother him. After the Armistice, he went to Russia to fight the Bolsheviks. : > : He has the distinction of having taken a shot at Trotsky. - But Trotsky was nearly a mile away, and the Colonel's bullet kicked up the snow a hundred -yards in front of him. - After Russia, it was Lithuania. again there. Col. Isbell has made a couple of stabs at life in the United States since the war, but he keeps coming back to Ecuador, and now he is here for good. He has a plantation of several hundreds acres, has a house in town, is married to a lovely Ecuadorean girl young enough to be his daughter, and says an acre here will produce twice as much profit as an acre at home.

Killed 11 Men, Is Claim

The Colonel rules his village of three dozen Cholo workmen like a czar. He says you have to be the head man, or youre in trouble. Oddly enough, the Cholos hold no resentment. In fact, they look up to him. One of his most faithful major domos—superintendents—on the plantation today is a Cholo he shot in the arm a few years ago. Col. Isbell, in war and out, has killed 11 men. He speaks of it philosophically: “I'm a peaceful man. I don’t like a quarrel. I guess I'm too peaceful, and let people go too far. Then things get to a point where you have to do something. They are unpleasant duties, and better forgotten.” The Colonel said he grew a full head of hair with a tropical potion after being completely bald. He was going to make a fortune on it, but the Cholo who knew the formula died. : Col. Isbell can still draw a gun quicker, no doubt, than any other man in Ecuador. He speaks Spanish fluently, but ungrammatically. He can also speak French, German, Russian, Tagalog and some Cantonese. Chinese. He cusses in any language. His young wife was educated in Europe, and speaks French, but hasn’t learned English yet. If next year’s crops are good, the Colonel wants to take his wife on a vacation trip to the southern end of the Continent, and then clear up to the States. But he’ll come back, for he intends now to live in Ecuador the rest of his life.

My Diary

yy” By Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt

He was wounded

Having Children Certainly Begins

Education for Parents, She Says.

YDE PARK, N. Y. (Tuesday). —My journeys are over, and I can hardly realize that I have covered so much territory and seen so many of my children and grandchildren. A newspaperwoman, on one of my stops, tried to catechize me on the proper relationship between parents and their children. It grew out of a remark I ‘made that I was horribly neat, and she wanted to know if one could be too neat. Because I had noth-

ing better to say, I answered, “Yes, if one nags one’s’

family too much on the subject, and makes life miserable for everyone.” Thereupon she asked if I had succeeded in making my children as neat as I was myself. : The answer, of course, is that having children is, perhaps, the beginning of an education for them, but it is certainly the beginning of an education for their parents. All their young lives their parents are learning self-control, patience, a sense of values, how to respect other people’s personalities and yet not neglect teaching some things which, if they are not learned young, must be learned in later life with far greater hardship. When these early years are over, this type of education comes to an end. The parents think they have done all they can do in the way of home discipline and education, and-a new phase of mutual education begins. Parents then find that having developed individuals, they must permit those individuals to live their own lives, to make their own decisions, sometimes to make their own mistakes.

Think of Nothing But Election

I don’t know how other parents are, but I know that for myself, I can stand back and look at my children and what they do and think, once they are ,grown up, with a certain amount of objectivity. On the other hand, I know quite well that there is a ~ bond between us, and that right or wrong, that bond 1. could never be broken. I am proud of them when " think they have acquitted themselves well, regardless of what the rest of the world may think. Even when 1 disagree and feel impelled to tell them so, _ I know that I understand them better than anyone t clse, perhaps. They are always my children, with "he right to call upon me in case of need. . | The greatest contribution the older generation % ,can give, I think, to the younger generation, is the feeling that there is someone to fall back upon, more especially when the hard times of, life come upon them. That is so even when we know that we have brought those hard times upon ourselves. Here we think of nothing but the election. What- . ever happens, I hope the outcome will be beneficial 7 to the people of the country.

Bob Burns Says—

OLLYWOOD, Nov. 9.—I believe. that while we're the most honorable race in the world, there ain’t a one of us that won’t put somethin’ over on the *. other fella if we can do it with resentin’ the thing. : z I remember ‘one time when a tourist bought a table that Grandma had had in her parlor. After - he had gone, Grandma sat there kinda chucklin’ to - ‘herself and when I asked her why, she says, “Well, ‘that fella thinks that table is an antique and I can ‘distinctly remember my Grandpa sayin’ that his himseilz}” ° oad Se

Here's Story of a Real Artericon,

out actually misrep-

(Second of a Series)

By Sutherland Denlinger”

Times Special Writer

ASHINGTON, Nov. 9.—Japan, to build up a wartime reserve, has minted coins of almost pure nickel. France stores manganese, enough for four years of majer

conflict.

Germany’s laboratories seek, and sometimes

find, substitutes for the strategic materials from which she may be cut off. England, dependent upon outside

sources for so many vital commodities that pile reserves” are out of the question, relies: upon sea

“stock

power to keep ocean lanes open. L ‘ Modern war, totalitarian war, mebilizes: manpower, mobilizes industry, mobilizes resources. In any scheme of

preparedness for such war, with all that it entails of necessary regimentation and sacrifice, there must be a plan for each. The list of strategic materials with which our War

Department is concerned is

smaller than that of most other great powers. There are lists, however, both strategic (vital) and critical (important, but not vital). And there are individual “plans” for assuring sufficient supplies of each item on the lists —a Copper Plan, a Tin Plan, a Hides Plan, and so forth.

These plans are prepared by 43 committees of the commodities division, planning branch, office of the Assistant Secretary of War. Nineteen of these committees are active, aided by assigned personnel, and are composed of members from the Army supply arms and services. The modern armorer is concerned with many things, including things as unlikely as optical glass, but not everything on the strategic list concerns him. Some entries on that list are of substances vital to army and -civilian alike, in war or peace, and one of these is not even vital, except as use and custom make it so.

On the strategic list, the essential list, is coffee. Explaining this, a discussion of strategic and critical materials issued by the commodities division states that while “materials falling in the luxury class may be eliminated, the lack of certain products which have become essentials would create serious hardship. — “Important among these is coffee, now on the strategic list. We have the largest per capita consumption of coffee in the world (13.84 pounds. yearly) and the people might resent a marked curtailment.” 2 2 ”

F wool, the final item on the strategic list, States produces about 435,000,000 pounds annually, or approximately two-thirds of its peace consumption. The list of materials which the military designate as critical is much longer than the strategic list. It should be remembered that these materials are “materials essential to the national defense, the procurement problems of which, in war, while difficult, are less serious than those of strategic materials, due to greater resources or to a lesser degree of essentiality.”

the United:

Times-Acme Photos.

Efficient antiaircraft defense depends on intricate expensive machinery, besides the gun itself. At upper left is a stereoscopic height finder; above, a Sprague Universal Detector; at right a telescope

for visual spotting of bursts,

Extensive as is this list, there appear on if, in all likelihood, few items which laymen will not recognize as needed by a nation in arms—some, such as:iron and steel, machine tools, picric acid, for primarily military uses; others,

such as alcohol and asbestos, for -

a combination of civil and military use; still others, such as wheat and sugar, for uses entirely civil (except that soldiers also eat, when they can). It is not always enough merely to be certain that sufficient quantities ‘of. a material can be produced, in time of war, within the United States. Sometimes other factors enter in, as with ammonia. Eg > » 2 ® HE officer in the. planning branch of the. . . Assistant Secretary's office in the Munitions Building reeled them off. “War labor plan, finance plan, fuel plan, price-control plan, power’—He paused. “The power plan,” he said, “has been a -continuing thing for 15 years. Revised every two years.” He paused again, pulled at his pipe, wiped his forehead. “A few months ago,” he resumed, “the plan happened to catch the President's eye. alarming potential. shortage of power in the industrial Northeast. It had been known, but we had no

It showed an:

authority at all to increase the amount of power available.

“But after looking at-the plan‘

the President ordered a joint inquiry by this office and the Federal Power Commission. On receiving a preliminary report the President acted again. You may remember that he appointed a committee with instructions to devise, within a period of 60 days, a plan to link the Northeastern cities in a flexible system. under which power could be diverted to the point at which it was most needed.” The planning branch is tremendously interested in the new educational orders program, the Assistant Secretary’s “baby,” but plans for wartime procurement; careful, thorough plans for the mobilization of America’s industrial resources, its ‘labor, public opinion, go back to the days just after the World War when it was determined that never again should the nation be caught off balance. ’ The spirit- behind the Army’s drive for industrial preparedness recently was expressed . by. the Secretary of War, Harry H. Woodring. He was speaking specifically of the need for a great aviation industry, but what he said applies broadly: o “Our sad experience (during the World War) in the attempt . to produce aircraft in quantity is not

a pleasant memory. Quantity purchases within the appropriation limit enable our manufacturers to gain experience in tooling in accord with mass produc-

tion principles, as contrasted with the manufacture of hand-pro-duced planes. ? 8 8 =»

“PgNHE plans for industrial mobilization contemplate no control’ or management of industry by Army personnel.” Nevertheless, he stresses, “the best general ‘is helpless without troops, the best troops are helpless without supplies and supplies cannot be provided without preparation and (civilian) control machinery. The strategy of personnel depends upon the strategy of

-material.”

The Army’s present plan for war contemplates creation and maintenance of a relatively small, highly mechanized force capable OL holding off the enemy for a e.

The advent of war almost im- .

mediately would send an avalanche of telegrams pouring out of the Munitions Building. Each supply arm of the service, ordnance, chemical warfare, etc., has

- a series of districts throughout the

country. Procurement officers assigned to those districts make surveys of the industries within them, with an eye especially for those industries capable to turning

Side Glances—By Clark

i

"It's just like all our parties. They'll settle the Eurcpean situation, .

‘then go out to the back p : <3 Cekart hss &]

0)

30 BY NE

nq

Everyday Movies—By Wortman

SERVIC] REG. U. 8. PAY. OFF,

hen they'll

"Who'd you vote for for Congress, Mrs. Martin?" “The man in the delicatessen window.”

"And for Senator?" "| don't remember."

"Did you vote for Dewey?" ig "Was his first name Thomas?

Yes... Lk

This is a control tower for antiaircraft guns, used during the fast aerial defense maneuvers held last month over 37 North Carolina counties, America has modern antiaircraft equipment — what there is of it.

out military items with a minimum of change or conversion. They then request “when, as and if” allocations and, where the

firm is willing, the War Depart- _ ment negotiates an accepted scale. This is not a contract, but, as an ,

officer in the planning branch put it, “it makes a contract in time of war only a matter of dickering.” In the planning branch are “critical industries files,” containing data on some 10,000 factories. The card index is frequently revised, and the data are very com-

plete. 8 » ®

“YT\OR the first time in the history of the country,” ac-

cording to Assistant Secretary of War Louis Johnson, “it has been possible to obtain a clear picture

of the production potentialities of the nation under the spur of war emergency, It is possible for the first time to say that strategic plans and national capacity for munitions production are in gear.”

Priority, he says, must be assured to military production, and the production of nonessentials must, be minimized. A plan for selective service has been prepared, along with those other plans for the mobilization of fuel, power and transportation, which should guard against the drafting of skilled labor to the armed forces. There is a machine-tcol plan, tools which will be needed in the conversion of plants to war purposes. “The question we ask the manufacturers,” explained an cfficer at the planning branch, “is ‘Can you do it?’ They offer changes and suggestions and finally a war plan is developed which will be handed to all machine-tool manufacturers. Anyone with a machine can make something.

Next: Education

TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE

1—On which river is the town of Athlone, Ireland? 2—_What is the highest hand in poker played with the joker and deuces wild? 3—What does B.T.U.stand for? 4—Name the former German’ Chancellor and Herr Hitler's special minister to Austria before the “anschluss,” who recently retired from the diplomatic service. : 5—0Of which State is Boise the capital? 6—How many feet are in a rod? T—With what sport is the name Ed Oliver associated? 8—Name the highest natural elevation in the world, com«puted from sea level.

Answers

1—The Shannon. 2—Five aces. 3—British thermal unit. 4—Franz Von Papen. 5—Idaho. 6—161%. T—Golf. 8—Mt. Everest.

ASK THE TIMES

Inclose a 3-cent stamp for reply when addressing any question of fact or ihformation to The Indianapolis Times Washington Service Bureau, 1013 13th St, N. W., Washington, D. C. Legal and medical advice cannot be given nor cap extended | . under

Our Town

By Anton Scherrer

Some Carry Canes When Out of Town to Salve Egos But Mr. Frenzel Went in for Pineapples in a Big Way.

N these random notes on the behavior of human beings, I've already had occasion to hint that you can’t size up Indianapolis men until you've seen them away from home. Lee Burns, for instance, always carries a

cane when in New York, and so does Arthur Bohn. Seems that when left to themselves away from home, they let loose and go the limit to satisfy desires which, for some reason, they've - allowed

to starve at home. It was that way, too, with the late John P. Frenzel when he left Indianapolis to do business in the East. With this difference, however, that Mr. Frenzel didn’t take to carrying a cane when away from home. He ate loads of pineapples instead. I happen to know about Mr. Frenzel’s suppressed desire because I was lucky enough to be with him on one of his trips. We arrived in . Philadelphia and put up at the Bellevue-Stratford, I remember. Next morning at breakfast Mr. Frenzel called for a pineapple. The waiter, not believing his

Mr. Scherrer

| ears, brought an order of sliced pineapple whereupon

Mr. Frenzel withered him with a look and sent him back to the kitchen to get what he had ordered in the first place, namely a whole pineapple just as it comes off the plant. Mr. Frenzel dug his fork into it, dise lodged a cone at a time, and ate every bit of the pine apple, using no other tools but his fingers. He said he didn’t care what anybody thought. Indeed, he went even further and used the pineapple that morning to illustrate his philosophy of life, saying that a trip wasn’t worth taking unless you could do the things you couldn’t do at home. After a three-day stay in Philadelphia, in the course of which Mr. Frenzel consumed three whole pineapples, we moved on to Boston, to the Hotel Touraine, as a matter of fact. ‘At the Touraine, Mr, Frenzel ate two more pineapples. Then we went to New York and stopped at the Waldorf-Astoria, the one they tore down to make room for the Empire State Building. As near as I recall, we stayed long "enough at the Waldorf to let Mr. Frenzel eat four more pineapples. :

A Matter of Principle

After the last pineapple at the Waldorf, Mr. Fren= zel called for his bill. Apparently something was wrong with the bill because immediately after Mr, Frenzel got done scrutinizing it, he called for Oscar, The famous maitre d’hotel showed up and asked what the trouble might be. “Plenty,” said Mr. Frenzel, “you've charged me $3 for every pineapple I've eaten in your place. The Bellevue-Stratford and the Toue raine, hotels as goed as the one you run, charged me only $1.50 for the same article, and that’s all I'm going to pay.” “Well, let’s see,” said Oscar, “the way we slice a pineapple, it’s good for six portions and at 50 cents an order, our fixed price, that makes $3 for a pinee apple, doesn’t it?” “Not by a long shot,” said Mr. Frenzel, dealing in wholesale terms, not retail.” Well, believe it or not, Mr. Frenzel talked the Waldorf-Astoria into letting him have a pineapple for

“we're

| $1.50. He saved $6 on his bill. When it was all over, 3 “The saving of --

Mr. Frenzel turned to me and said: money didn’t enter into it at all; it was the principle of the thing.” - .

Jane Jordan—

Temporary Separation Not Always Satisfactory Solution, Mother Told.

EAR JANE JORDAN-—I have been married six - years and have two children, 3 and 5. My nuse band plays in taverns.three nights a week. I am broad-minded enough to know that he has to be friendly to all kinds of people but he has got so he stays out all night long and tries to make me believe he stayed at the home of some of our friends, I have checked up on him.and found that he is keeping come pany with other women much older than he is. I stay at home and care for my children. This has been go= ing on now for about two and one-half years. I overs looked it at first and never said anything to him as T thought he would get over it soon, but now he stays out all night and when he comes home he abuses me and the children and won’t let them make any noise, I would like to know what you think would be the best thing for me to do, stick it out for the children’s sake, or try to find a job and leave him for a while, I love my husband very much and would not think of a divorce, but maybe if we were apart for a while he would be different. WORRIED.

Answer—Sometimes a separation makes a man miss his family and sometimes it only weans him away from it permanently. It takes a wiser woman than I am to know which result you would get. The mother of two small children who has no other means of support than her husband's income, is safer in sticking to her home. Of course it is hard to live with an unco-operative partner, but it is just as hard to work all day and then come home to the care of children at night. Ask any woman who has tried it, I wish I knew how you could change your husband into a sober-minded citizen who took his family responsibilities seriously, but I do not. You do not have to show approval of his conduct, but it is useless to nag at him about it. About all you can do is to avoid antagonizing him and keep the surface as smooth as

‘possible. I do not mean that peace at any price should

be your theme, but only that where quarrels are une productive it is easier simply to avoid them. Perhaps here is nothing you can do for the prese ent. Most of us have faced situations wherein no ime mediate rearrangement for the better was possible, To mark time when one yearns for action is a tree mendous test of courage. However, a deadlock in the present does not necessarily indicate a dark future. When your children are old enough to go to school

| you'll have more free time on your hands. In the

meantime you can equip yourself to hold down a job, I have known women who went to business college while their children were babies and prepared theme selves for independence by the time the young =neg were of school age. A resourceful woman makes a plan and works at it constantly even though her goad may be several years ahead. The very fact that she . goes quietly about filling her life with other things sometimes impresses her husband that she is a worthe while person who cannot be imposed upon indefinitely, JANE JORDAN. Put your. problems in a letter to Jane Jordan who will answer your questions in this column daily. 3

New Books Today

Public Library Presents— :

Al unusual novel of English family life is THE "\. LENIENT GOD (Macmillan) by Naomi Jacobs The Warrens are typical middle-class Londoners, dwelling in a grimy Cockney neighborhood. : Warren is a bus driver, his sister Elsie is a milliner, and his handsome young brother Arthur is a clerk, Their widowed mother and sharp-tongued old grande mother greet their irregular comings and goings; “Gran’s” disconcerting and often ribald observations are sometimes a sore trial to Arthur and Elsie. “Time is a lenient God” and after Bill had hel straighten out the emotional entanglements of and Arthur, his own love affair promised a ha

conclusion with the reappearance of Elspeth.