Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 14 December 1938 — Page 15

agabon

From Indiana=Ernie Pyle

Paraguay, for Second Time in Her Sad History, a 'Land of Women,’ Due to Awful Toll of Chaco War.

SUNCION, Paraguay, Dec. 14.—Poor, poor Asuncion.

You are so resigned, so slow and gentle

and worn. And so poor. You are the only place in South America I really love.

e Indianapolis

"Second Section

7 w.

!low wonderful it is to walk your empty a

_strezcs at noontime! The heat embraces you. Beautiful heat, at last. The sun beats down blindingly, and you must have dark glasses. Yards and patios are vivid riots of flowers.

And the great siesta stillness.’

You can almost hear the odor of the flowers, it is so quiet. Our hotel is out near the edge of town. You probably wouldn’t call it a hotel. You go through an arched gateway in the wall. And up a drive among trees. The “lobby” has no doors or windows or walls. Just a roof between it and the sky. Asuncion is like Mexico. I guess that’s the reason I've fallen so hard for it. I thought all South America would be like. Mexico. But hardly ? any of it is. Asuncion is the only bit of Mexico we have seen in South America. Women carry baskets and bundles on their heads. Women go barefoot. Burro teams stand on the downtown streets. A voluble street salesman harangues a crowd; a big, thick snake is wrapped around his neck and shoulders. Homes have beautiful grillwork fences “in front. The streets of Asuncion are cobble-stoned—big, uneven rocks, worn shiny and smooth on top. Autos go blocks out of their way to stay on the trolley tracks. There aren’t many autos. Paraguay imported none at all during the awful Chaco War, from ’32 to '35. And, since the war, they've been too poor to buy many new ones. : Everywhere you feel the effect of the war. Feel it, more than gctually see it. But there is one literal war-wound that is before you always. I. mean the policemen. . : On every corner there is a policeman. Clear out to the suburbs. And every policeman is a boy. A childalmost, solemn-faced, standing there in his faded uniform that is too big for him. There is hardly one old enough to shave. Their average age, they say, is 17.

Half of Population Wiped Out :

That is the war, Twice in its pitiful history Paraguay has become a “land of women.” The first destroying war was in the 1860s. Under the ambitious dictator, Lopez, Paraguay decided to become the king pin of South America. 1t took on Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina. _. Of course she bit off more than she could chew. Paraguay is a little country. And poor. But she put up a noble fight. It took the Triple Alliance seven years to throttle her. The couniry was absolutely ruined—possibly beyond any future repair. The war ended in 1870. It destroyed 80 per cent of the male population of Paraguay. Think or it. Four of every five men in Paraguay left:dead on the battlefield. They say men were so few that the jaguars, seeming to know, came boldly into towns and attacked people. : Before that war, there were a million people in Paraguay. When it ended, there was barely half a million. Paraguay has never. recovered—financially or in human power. Even today, 70 years later, the population has -not returned to the million mark. It stands now around 900,000. Or it did, before the Chaco War. The death tell in the Chaco was terrific. The Government, they say, has no actual statistics on the slaughter. But it was so great that Paraguay again, in a less sweeping way, could be known as “Land of Women.” Z That's why the policemen are all boys, hardly old enough to shave. You can’t take your eyes off them. They haunt you, In the dead of night, when all is dark and still, and you hear a policeman’s whistle, long and forlorn and eerie, and then far away another, and then another and another until they go all over town, you lie there and think—boys, little boys in uniform; out in the night in their uniforms, doing a man’s work, because so many of Paraguay’s men lie up there in the Chaco.

My Diary By Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt

Attends Concert in Washington, Then On to New York for Speech.

TASHINGTON, Tuesday.—Yesterday morning I attended the first of the series of concerts which

Mrs. Lawrence Townsend arranges for Washington

Mr. Pyle

audiences every winter. Mr. Richard Crooks is always

very popular and I enjoyed Mr. Robert Nicholson, the new baritone from Australia, very much also. In fact, their duet together at the close was perfectly delightful. The new young Hungarian violinist, Mr.

Robert Virovai, only 18 years old, played charmingly and gives great promise for the future. I was grateful that I could stay to the end and not have to take a train to New York City, as I feared when I first looked out on a gray sky. Flying makes many things possible, but trains do have one advantage of being able to operate under weather conditions that would keep one out of the air. I came on to New York City to make a speech at the Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Science on the “Citizen in the Community,” subject which I am very grateful to have an opportunity to talk about just now, because it seems to me to have assumed greater importance than ever before in view of present world conditions. Today I spoke at an early luncheon at the Men's City Club of New York and flew back in time for tea at the White House.

A Dream Comes True

I almost forgot to tell you an amusing little incident that happened to me in New York City last week. I came out of a hotel on 34th St. and found that my brother’s car, which was supposed to meet me, was not there. Because several people were with me, we attracted attention and before I knew it a small crowd began to gather. I decided that I had better not delay and. stopped a passing taxi and jumped in. At the next red light, the taxi driver --furned around and said: “This is an interesting day Jos me, Mrs. Roosevelt, one of my dreams has come rue.” I stippose I looked a little surprised, for: he proceeded to explain that a year ago he had dreamed that he had walked into a restaurant and sat down at a table and found me sitting there. He was impressed by the coincidence that he had picked me up on a street in just about the locality where he had dreamed he had found me eating! e was going home, he said, “—to tell the wife that®teams come rue.” ?

- Day-by-Day Science

By Science Service

HAT is the most precious material in the world? tewoisrs ae Platinum? Radium? Rare, precious But investigation shows that any such material is almost valueless in comparison with the minute ehromomes, within germ cells, from which each of us began life. . : If all the first cells of the two billion inhabitants of * the earth could be assembled and their chromosomes weighed, calculations by. Prof A. V. Hill, British - Nobelist, show that the total would be found to weigh less than a single drop of water or less than an ordi-

nary sized pin. Thus, observed Dr. Albert F. Blakes--

lee, Carnegie Institution of Washington geneticist, all the future developments of the human race are con- ~ tained in chromosomes that weigh about 80 milligrams, about a twelfth of a gram. How can money evaluation be placed on this material? ! ‘ What is all the human life in the world worth? A thousand, a hundred or just a dollar per petson? At one dollar, which is low enough, the human chromosomes from which we sprang are valued at the rate of

- 24 billion dollars per gram, 2 (Copyright, 1939 §

states.

problems being

By Peter Kihss

Tunes Special Writer

in Germany.

barter deals. Immediately, Germany forbade future purchases from Brazil. An order for 150,000 sacks of coffee, one-tenth the yearly quota from Brazil, went to

Colombia. : Brazilian cctton piled up in Pernambuco. Coffee piled up in Santos. One month Brazil held out. Then it had to resume trade with Germany—on the ASKI basis. Trade by threat—such has been the German drive for the Latin American market, in considerable part. And there are other elements in the German advantage in the “tale told by American traders. John Prior, auto parts exporter, of New Yofk, had a customer in Peru who always bought longleaf auto springs. “Last April,” Mr. Prior recalled, “he told us he had placed an order for 45 tons in Germany. The German price was 30 per cent below ours. Anything involving hand labor we just can’t compete on. The Germans have cheap labor.” But mostly the woe is the ASKI. Call it that, although the sompensation mark. goes by many names. Essentially it is an IL O. U. It is not international currency; nobody will take it but German exporters. > “It does have its merits to Latin Americans. For them it provides a 20 per cent discount, roughly, on things they buy from Germany. But it buys: only certain things— the things that compete with the United States and with others.

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ERMANY’s aim is twofold. One is to boom exports in hopes of starting the industrial machine off back home—pumppriming, call it. The other is to get raw material without spending any more gold or foreign exchange than necessary. * Some call it barter. But therein, according to the American exporters here, lies the racket. For barter means that one nation trades a commodity and it gets another commodity back. : But the Germans get their raw materials first, and fast. And then ASKIs pile up in German accounts, ‘while the Latin Americans figure out what they can buy. And the buying -is limited. “I was in Guatemala two years

Side Glances—By

. WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 14, 1938

Secretary Hull is shown here delivering a recent speech in Washington before leaving for Lima where he heads the American delegation to the eighth Pan-American Conference.

Headlines have told that the United States stands to lose much of its trade with its Latin American neighbors through the tactics employed by totalitarian Germany's methods have been described as “trading by threat.” how. it’s done <= fold in this, the second of a series of articles on Pan-American scussed at the eighth Pan-American Conference at Lima.

Just

ASHINGTON, Dec. 14.—They sat down in the Banco "de Brazil six months ago—bankers and officials and they decided to catch their breath. themselves with 20,000,000 ASKI marks on their hands, good for nothing but German goods, good nowhere but

Brazilians found

— ~

So Brazil suspended ASKI trading—the so-called

ago,” a ship line official said. “I found terrific price-cutting going on in all sorts of iron and steel goods—barbed wire, hardware, everything like that. “They’d sold their coffee to Germany the year before and they

had to take compensation marks,

So the market was overcrowded with German hardware and ironware. To unload they had to cut prices. So the country was off at a loss.” Ecuador had a buying rush in German goods just two months ago. he story here is that the Ecuador government bank then

. held some 2,000,000 sucres in ASKI

marks. The war scare broke in Europe. Ecuador rushed to buy ‘German—anything, just to get something out of its ASKIS. 3" » YEAR ago Chile was overloaded with ASKIS. . The story in foreign trade circles here is that Gustavo Ross, the Minister of Finance, decided to wipe the ASKIS off his books, no matter what the cost. Chile was expanding its air force. A Chilean military mission had gone to the United States and Europe, studying bids. The story is that the mission was ordered to recommend German and Italian planes, even if it preferred American. . Chile did buy 65 German and Italian airplanes. The price is reported here to have been above the American price. But part could be paid in ASKIS,, That yarn caused a Congressional investigation in Chile, “There isn’t a single government that dares confess its ASKI holdings,” one foreign trade expert charged here. “They all thought it was a good way of getting rid of surplus products, Now they're afraid to let go. “The Germans initiated it first in Brazil as a means of liquidating their frozen funds. It worked out nicely. They got coffee and cotton and liquidated their balances in a few months. . “The Americans had $15,000,000 in frozen funds down there. we had to enter a six-year unfreezing agreement, with fixed monthly payments, to get our money back. And our funds got frozen again, just after. “Then the Germans said: like this. *We’ll continuz on this basis.’ . “Brazil said: ‘Oh, no, well go back to normal.’ “The Germans said: ‘All right,

Clark

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4 Entered as Second-Class Matter at Postoffice, Indfanapolis, Ind.

Interior of the Palace of Governments at Lima where official receptions are held in honor of the con-

] ference delegates. >

One of

goods. We won't let them enter Germany.’ “The Brazilians had to keep it up; privately their officials admit it” ° ” ” ” LEADING banker in the Lat-in-American field and a Federal official here agreed that virtually all German purchéises from Latin America now could be considered ore the ASKI basis. That would mean more than $300,000,000 a year, paralleling Germen sales of * $200,000,000 to Latin America,

Harry A. Clark, president of the Export Managers Club, said he found west coast traders in South * America, on a recent trip there, getting tired of the German deals. “Everybody's: complaining,” he said. “ ‘We've got marks,” they told me, ‘but we can’t get this, we can’t get that. The stuff we have is still on the shelves.’ ” »

Other American export leaders assert that the Latin Americans find their own coffee and cotton dumped on world markets ‘against them to provide Germany with gold and foreign exchange. And they hope the Pan-American Conference will take a new stand against such deals for freer trade. ; . Meanwhile, the Germans now provide 24 per cent of Brazil's purchases, where they supplied only 14 per cent four years ago. In Chile purchases from Germans have risen from 10 per cent to 26, in Ecuador, from 11 to 24; in Guatemala, from 12 to 32; in Peru, from 8 to 24. w Most of that export loss on a national basis‘ has been British.

Times-Acme Photos.

the modern reside ntial quarters in Lima.

The total German share is now 15 per’cent, the British down to 12 per cent. Americans still ® sell something like 34 per cent of the things Latin America buys—=$580,000,000 a year. But it hurts the individual lines—iron ‘and steel products, medicines, leather, chinery. textiles.

” a 2

TALIAN and Japanese competition has been relatively minor. The Italian share of the LatinAmerican market is only 2 per cent, albeit rising. The. Japanese is 2 per ent, fading. Italian competition has been mostly in aircraft, Bruno Mussolini’s bomber, in which he’ flew the South Atlantic to Rio, was given to Brazil as a free sample. Bankin{ circles here now report plans afoot for an Italian aircraft factory in Brazil. A Caproni plant already has been built in Peru. Increasing Italian competition ‘was forecast by Leo A. de Barros, treasurer of the Rocke International Export Corp. In Argentina his firm recently quoted 5 per cent below the Italians for electrical equipment. It lost the order — under Argentina’s “buy from those who buy from- us” policy, no American exchange was available. “We've just lost a large order in Rio to an Italian radio manufacturer,” he said. “The Italian price was 15 per cent below ours on a variable condenser. I sent for one,

and it was an exact duplicate of .

our product. The metal wasn’t as good. “There's a terrific trend in that sort of thing. The Italians come here and they explain to our man-

Everyday Movies—By Wortman

its peak three years ago. . then lurid stories of 1200 per cent

ma=-: +» rises in Japanese sales to Carib-

"If a tall, good-looking man with a small mustache comes in looking for necklaces today, mill you YATE

whim this one?"

ufacturers— You can’t sell in Italy, anyway. Let us have your rights.’ Then they get our blueprints, and now they're cutting in on our trade to South America.” Japanese competition reached Even

bean America, 500 per cent to South America, as between 1931

and 1934, were overplayed. For

even at the 1935 peak Japan's share of the Latin-American market was only 3.7 per cent. Recent Japanese competition has been in shipping. The Grace Line, with the first regular west coast trade out of Ecuador and Peru, built up a freight in tagua, vegetable ivory. Japanese vessels cut the carrying rate. This fall the new Yamashita Line, plying between Los Angeles and Rio de Janeiro, slashed the coffee freigint in half. Generally Japanese competition has been on a price basis, in smaller items and textiles. In textiles, domestic production in Latin America resulted in antiJapanese tariffs. In other items Japanese quality was too poor,

according to exporters here.

“In some ways the Japanese even helped us,” said a Commerce Department official here. “In Cuba the Cubans never had used fountain pens particularly. The

Japanese brought in their 25-cent’

pens. People got used to them, but they didn’t work so well. Now Cuba's a market for American pens—at a dollar.”

NEXT-—Use of radio to spread propaganda in Latin America.

TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE

1—In what year was the steamship Titanic sunk by cellision _ with an iceberg? : 2—What is the name of the string of \islands extending southward from Miami? 3— Which constitutional amendment provides for woman suffrage? 4—Name the U. S. Ambassador who was recently called home from Berlin by President Roosevelt. ] 5—What does the motto of the State of Colorado, “Nil sine numine,” mean? 6—Name the capital of Latvia?

» ® 2

Answers 11912. 2—The Florida Keys. 3—Nineteenth. 4—Hugh R. Wilson,

5—“Nothing Without denee.”

6—Riga.

Provi-

2 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., Washington, D. C. Legal and medical advice cannot be given nor can nd be under-

t

PAGE 15

Our Town By Anton Scherrer

What of the Toys of Yesteryear? Well, They Compare Favorably With Today's, William Huber Will Tell You.

JUST about this time 52 years ago, William Huber started selling. toys for Charles Mayer. Sure, he knows your father and, like as not, your grandfather, too. Chances are that he sold your father the magic lantern with which he surprised you that Christmas morning when you were 8 years old. It was a square= shaped = lantern—remember?—made of Russian tin with extra-strong lenses and double duplex burners

and cost your dad exactly $6, including the 15 slides, one of which was a chromotrope. I happen to know all about your magic lantern because I got Mr. Huber to open his safe the other day and show me Charlie Mayer's illustrated catalog of toys gotten together for' the Christmas season of 1902. It’s the only one in existence which was probably the reason Mr. Huber watched me all the time I Mr. Scherrer was handling it. Either that, or it fascinated him as much as it did me. Boy, it's a humdinger; 488 pages, not counting the covers, jampacked with pictures of the things you wanted all your life, and never got. The magnetic electric machine, for instance, “A. very interesting and instructive toy,” says the catalog, “entirely harmless ° to .children; affords a great deal of amusement and actually benefits those who use it, by strengthening

the entire nervous system.” Price $l.

The mechanical toys start on Page 225 Ferris Wheel (50 cents), and end on Fase 227 3 illustrations of Clark’s famous “friction hill-climbing” toys “which are 20 times as powerful as any heretofore produced,” says the catalog. “They climb up hill, over rugs, over carpets, over small obstructions, on the sidewalk, on the street, and even plough their way through gravel.” What's more, they did. The 1202

-Auto-Hansom, “an exact copy of a New York auto-

hansom carrying a lady passenger dressed in the latest fashion and having a motorman in full uniform, neat-. ly finished in authentic colors,” cost $1. Size, 11 inches long, 8 inches high and 4 inches wide. :

Farm Wagon Was Best Seller

The best-selling toy in 1902, says Mr. Huber, was a Studebaker farm wagon with 24-inch rear wheels, which was an exact reproduction of the one on grande father’s farm. It was made by the South Bend Toy

Co., a neighbor of Mr. Studebaker who saw to it that they didn’t muff any details. With shafts it sold for

$6: A hook-and-ladder wagon with side ladders four ©

feet long and a five-foot middle ladder sold for $2. And listen! The side ladders could be coupled toe gether making a 7% -foot ladder: ; And, oh boy, the buck saw with the 22-inch bladel Mr. Huber remembers that kids lucky enough to get the jumbo size‘ ($1) used to make a pretty penny cutting cord wood with their Christmas presents. Until one year so many kids got the jumbo size that

it started a price-cutting war and the bottom fell out of the business.

Fundamentally, toys don’t change as much as ou think. With the possible exception of tricycles a board game called “Round the world in 90 days with Nellie Bly” (35 cents), there isn’t a toy of 1902 that wouldn't look mighty good this Christmas. Tricycles are dead, ‘though. It took little girls an awful long time to discover that tricycles didn’t ‘get them anye where, but they finally caught on. :

Jane Jordan—

Girl Fears Marriage May Prove Handicap to Promising Career.

DEE JANE JORDAN—I go with a young man who plays an important, part in the high school from which we both will graduate in June. For two years this boy has held the National Championship first place award in his certain line of music; also second place in the All-America Championship. He is very popular with the girls at school for he is handsome as well as famous. I am very much in love with him. He loves me and has gone steady with me for two years. College after college has offered him scholarships and he has a chance to go to West Point. The question is shall I marry him this summer as he wishes, or tell him to go to college and take a chance of losing hin forever? I have many chances to go

‘with very nice men and also to go to college myself;

but I really love this boy and always will. hate me later if I married him now?

Would he E. A.

Answer—I don’t know. It all depends on the young man’s goal in life. If he has a strong drive for an education and an ambition to succeed in a project where education is essential, he will feel deprived and frustrated if he is obliged to renounce it.

On the other hand, if he has no real urge to go to college, believes he can succeed without spermding four more years in the classroom, and would rather be married as soon as he gets a job, he will not feel that you stood between him and his opportunities for advancement, : !

Find out whether or not there is a strong conflict in the young man’s mind. If he is torn between two desires, one to get an education and the other to be married when he graduates from high school, I imagine that you would do well to encourage him to postpone marriage and go to college. But if no con. flict exists and he has only one wish to fulfill, you run no more risk in accepting him than anyone else who

marries upon graduation from high school.

” » #

EAR JANE JORDAN—I am 18 years old. I met 8 ! fellow three weeks ago whom I like a lot. The only trouble is that he works in the daytime at a factory and at night he is an operator at a show. The only time he gets a chance to go with me is after work at about 11:15 and we only stay, out until 12 o'clock. Mother thinks this is too late. I have been out with him several times on his relief hour, but he doesn’t get one, very often. Please advise me. GINGER.

¥nswer—You simply will have to make the most of the time that is available, for the boy obviously needs the money he earns or he wouldn’t tie himself down to two jobs. So industrious a young man is apt to progress to a better paying job which will not be so time-consuming. In the meantime there is nothing to prevent your geing out with other boys when he is

busy. 3 JANE JORDAN. |

Put your probiems in a letter to Jane Jordan who will _ answer your questions in this column daily.

New Books Today

Public Library Presents—

N TOSCANINI AND GREAT MUSIC (Farrar) Law rence Gilman, distinguished music critic, gives nothing of the biography or the career of Toscaning but discusses his quality as a musician and certain master works that he has revealed to his listening public. :

Supreme interpreter, Toscanini has the ability to take the symphonies and recreate them, disclosing unsuspected values in the familiar scores. Mr. Gils man points out that music cannot speak for itself and it is Toscanini’s inestimable service that he has given life to the inanimate, setting forth the works of Beethoven, Brahms, Schubert, Debussy and: Wagner as the composers dreamed they might be. The critic feels that tribute should be paid to this genius, the magician of orchestral song who has made great mus