Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 28 February 1939 — Page 9

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WARM SPRINGS, Ga,, Feb. 28.—On the

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, ‘wiped out. They see [others of their kind all around,

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; A Quiet Day at Home

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- Visitors at banquets or enjoy the bathing pool, or

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x He Makes a Discovery

~ [Back home they were invalids. Here they are human

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From Indiana — Ernie Pyle

Patients Happy; Warm Springs Is More Like College, Than Sanatorium; He Finds White House Switchboard.

theory that everybody knows of Warm

it, we've come to take a look around. Warm Springs i is in west central Georgia,

‘the Alabama line. It is in heavily pine-wooded country, very rolling. The country is about as beau- ~ tiful as you will find in the South. This is the only

sanatorium in| America which accepts nothing but infantile paralysis cases. And while we're on it— that’s the wrong name. It’s really poliomyelitis, [called “polio” {for short. Even the patients refer to each other as “polios.” The place doesn’t seem like an institution. It| is more like a college. In fact, fhe officials here call the grounds ¢the campus.” The main building is Georgia Hall. The “campus” lies behind Georgia Hall. On one side are two beautiful one-story. buildings for patients. A. little farther down are two old buildings, used as the| infirmary. On the “other side is a big white building—the movie theater. And forming the fourth side, down there among the

trees, a big brick building is going: up. This is the |

new hospital. Warm - Springs has had no real hospital heretofore. All surgical cases, and there are many, had to be taken to Atlanta. But this new hospital will be the last word. It will be finished in June, and whitewashed in tune with the white motif of the

In fact, the whole architebtiral atmosphere is very much like that around the beautiful inn at - Williamsburg, Va. Tall green pines amond white Southern-Colonial buildings. " You see patients everywhere. In wheel chairs. On crutches. Even on wheeled stretchers. From {their ~faces, you would never know they were invalids.’| The tragedy of ‘polio” seems never to show in the [face. {Only the withered limbs and the braces-on-leg tell

This is one point I want to get over about Warm . Springs: Although “polios” are in pitiful shape, " [there is nothing pitiful at all about the atmosphere here. And I believe, that, is as important as all the scientific treatment they get. | © “Polio” never hits the head, and does not affeci the mind. Of course, back home a stricken individual gets to brooding, drops out of the stream of] life, .and is often the victim of a great melancholy. . He thinks of himself as a hopeless cripple.

But down here, almost invariably, that feeling is-

having a good time. ‘The word “polio” ceases to|be a hushed word, spoken with self-pity. They make up songs about themselves, such as “From the Tops of Our Heads to the Tips of Our Toes--We're Paralyzed.”

beings. We are staying here on the grounds, in Kress Hall, one of the hospital buildings. On one side of us is a small medical ward. On the other, the private room of a “polio.” The room is big and modern, furnished like any first-class hotel room. At the washbowl, and along the bathtub, many small bars. re screwed into the wall, to hold to while you're wa + Threre is one other thing different ‘about the Yoom. It’s something big over in one corner, covered with a heavy brown canvas. I walked past it just so long, and then I had to get at that canvas and see what was underneath. And what do you suppose? It was the White House. telephone switchboard. If had names written over various plug holes. It had.President Roosevelt, Mr. McIntyre, Gues* Cottage, Le Hand and Secret Service. I stood there staring at it a long time, feeling very close to the affairs of the nation, and as though I were practically a member of the Cabinet.

My Day

By Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt -

Mourns the Death of Tom Lynch, Intimate Friend of the President.

FASHINGTON, Monday —Yesterday afternoon a ‘very sad piece of news came to me which I know will cast a shadow over the President’s vacation. Mrs. Thomas M. Lynch wired that her husband, our old friend, died suddenly Saturday night. - She, herself. has been in the hospital and I know that his anxiety over her was great, so this must be a terrible

shock to her as well as to all of his friends. As far back as I can remember, Mr. Lynch has been associated with my husband’s political campaigns and his life in Hyde Park and New York State. He lived in Poughkeepsie and New York City and the President counted on his gnterest and loyalty. They always had many reminiscences to talk over and he was one of the men who always attended my husband’s birthday reunions, which started with a -small group in 1921 and have graduaily grown through the years as new people have become intimately associated with him in his various fields sf work. : This was the first year that I can remember when Tom Lynch was not present, but he gave as the reason for his absence his anxiety about his wife; I am particularly grieved for his little girl. I think she was probably given more attention and devotion than a younger father might have bestowed. Even at 6 or 7 “years of age sorfows of this kind make a lasting img pression. :

. It cleared yesterday afternoon, but I somehow made up my mind to stick to. my work and stay in- | “doors, It was rather nice to feel unhurried. of | course, one wastes a good deal more time when thenecessity for . accomplishing a great deal quickly: is not hanging over one. In fact, I think frittering time could become quite a vice with me, for it is all I can do to make myself go to bed at night after I have once closed the door of my sitting room and feel that the t#me which remains before I go to sleep is all my own. There are a hundred and one things I would like to do, whereas the rest of the time I have been doing the things I ought to do!” Yesterday’s paper carried the story that Groton School will lose Dr. Endicott Peabody as head master next year, after 54 years under one head. That will be a most difficult parting for both the “rector,” as the boys call him, and for his family and the school. He has seen many bays pass through his _ ‘hands and in large part lived their lives with them.

Day-by-Day Science

By Science Service

Cru HISHAM, who wanted to spend his winters in a warm, dry climate—and who never got his wish—is now gaining belated fame on the subject a * thousand years after his death. This Caliph of the eighth century found the damp and chilly winters in Damascus were bad for his health. So, he began building a delightful winter resort palace in the warm, dry valley of the Jordan River, north of Jericho. But he never had a chance to hold audience in the throne room or to entertain

: Worship in the palace mosque. ~~ When Hisham died in 743 A. D., the winter resort was unfinished. An earthquake not long after shook down part of the construction, and Hisham’s suc‘cessors ignored the whole project. Dug up now by the Palestine Department of

EElravaga t beauty at command of old Mdslem . Hisham himself has long been a bone of: historic contention, Some writers denounced him for a | and grasping Bedouin. Some praise him highly &s an able prince and the enemy of luxury. ~The winter resort suggests the work of an able rince, but not exactly the enemy of luxury. The

} mean by atom-smashing?

Second : Section

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 1939

ade in Atom Smas ing

Entered as Second-Class Matter ab [Postoffice, .Indisnapolis, Ind.

Our Town

New World Lies in Energy Thus to Be Released, Scientists Say

‘At the Left—This huge pear-shaped tank, 47 feet high, houses the new atom-smasher under construction af the Westinghouse Research Laboratories in East Pittsburgh, Pa. At the Right (above)—Lightning flashes, such as shown here, contain the, energy which physicists hope to duplicate in their atomsmashing machines. Below—The first Yan De Graaf generator

for atom-smashing.

By David'Dietz

Scripps-Howard Science Editor

CIENTISTS are closer today to unlocking the secret of atomic energy than they have been at any time since

the beginning of the century.

The score or more of gi-

gantic machines for atom-smashing recently completed or nearing completion in universities, research institutions and industrial laboratories, promise to accelerate the at-

tack.

Whether victory will come in five years or 50 years

no one éan say. But one thing can be said with certainty: The release of atomic energy will usher in an era as different from the goresent as the 20th Century is from the

reign of King Tut in Egypt.

Today’s sources of energy are coal, petroleum, natural

gas and water power.

Their possession, more than any

other single factor, divides the nations of the world into

the “haves” and the “havenots.” The individual who owns them finds himself possesed - of riches and

power. Control of these sources of

energy would become meaning= less once atomic energy was put at the disposal of mankind. For energy would then become as abundant as the air we breathe. The “en ergy of the atoms in a glass o: water would be enough to drive an ocean liner from New York to Cherbourg. .That same glass of water would provide enough power tc send an airplane in a nonstcp flight around the earth’s equator or to propel a rocket to the moon. Only the gifted vision of a prophet could tell all the changes in international affairs, economics, sociology, industry and science which would result from the release of atomic energy. At this point, no doubt, the average layman would like to interrupt to ask a number of questions. They are: What do you

is its relation to the rclease of atomic energy? And how would you put atomic energy to work? 8 » 8

answer these questions we must begin with a word or two about the atom itself. These are the units out of which the universe is created. There are

What.

. volves one electron. .

atoms of hydrogen, of oxygen, of iron, of copper, etc. Atoms are not very large. Suppose that a drop of water were magnified to the size of the earth. The atoms of hydrogen and

oxygen which compose the mole- ~

cules of water would be about the size of marbles. Atoms average less than one one-hundredth-millionth of an inch in diameter.

Now one of the great achievements of 20th Century physics has been the discovery of the structure of the atom. Space does not permit at the moment the telling of how this was done by the great physicists of our day—Thomson, Lorentz, Rutherford, Einstein, Millikan, Compton, etc. But we know that each atom is formed of smaller particles arranged like the parts of a miniature solar system ‘These subatomic particles are three in number, the proton, the neutron and the electron. The proton has a positive electrical charge, the neutron is neutral or uncharged, and the electron has a negative electrical charge. Simplest of all atoms is the hydrogen atom. It has: a nucleus of one proton around which reAll other atoms have more complex nuclei

~ formed of combinations of protons

and neutrons while additional numbers of electrons revolve around this nucleus. Smashing the atom really | Means

- the-box.

disintegrating these nuclel. The outer electrons are easily pried loose by electrical or chemical means. All chemical reactions depend upon the habit of the atoms of trading these outer electrons with each other.

» » »

N electric current is now known to be nothing more or less than a stream of electrons moving ‘through a wire. No doubt you remember the oldfashioned toy called the jack-in-When you opened the cover, Jack popped out. The nucleus of the atom is like that. It contains excess energy, ready to pop out if only somebody touches off the trigger. To date, physicists know only one way of smashing an atom. That is to bombard it with subatomic particles. These may be the rays of radium or they may be artificially produced streams of subatomic particles such as protons or neutrons.

Atom-smashing, then, is an artillery game in which ultramicroscopic projectiles are fired at targets that are not much larger. The trick is to shoot a particle into the neucleus of the atom, disrupting it and knocking the particles out of .it. When a direct hit is scored, particles come flying out of the nucleus with more energy than was possessed ‘by the projectile, In other words, these flying particles bring the energy of the nucleus out with them. 2 x = N addition, some particles are completely destroyed or annihilated in the. collision and turned into radiant energy resembling that of X-rays. Thus, more energy is released. | “The _ trouble with the whole business at ‘the present time is that about a million projectles have to be fired to score one direct

hit. As long as this state of af-

fairs obtains, atom-smashing is not practical. The big job, therefore, is to improve our marksmanship. ‘The present. effort has been di-

rected largely toward developing

means of obtaining streams of subatomic particles of high speed and therefore high penetrating

power. To date this has required -

the use of either very high voltages or very powerful magnetic fields.

‘The most successful machine for obtaining high voltages is the Van ° .De Graaff generator.

This uses moving belts of silk to concentrate heavy charges of frictional electricity upon gigantic metallic spheres. This is merely an ex= tension of the method by which a small child by rubbing his feet on the rug accumulates enough static electricity to draw a spark from the doorknob. !

] # 8 =» N atom-smashing experiments this powerful electric discharge is confined within a long vacuum

tube where all its fury may be released directly upon the thin strip

of foil or the tiny amount of gas:

whose atoms are to be disintegrated. Improvements have been made in the original design by which it is hoped to get voltages up to

‘10 million volts, perhaps eventu-

ally 15 million volts by this method. The latest fashion is to build a great iron tank, equal in size to a four or five-story building,

‘and to install the generator in

this tank under pressure of about 100 pounds per square inch, Huge, towering structures for this purpose, between 50 and 60 feet high, are rising today upon a number of university campuses and industrial laboratory grounds. Four of them nearing completion are located at the Westinghouse Research Laboratories, East Pitts burgh, Pa.; Massachusetts Institute of Washington and the University of Wisconsin. The second method of atom-

- smashing employs the cyclotron,

sometimes called the atomic

whirligig gun. This is the device

invented by Dr. E. O. Lawrence of the University of California. It requires a gigantic magnet, weighing from 50 to 200 tons. A metallic container is placed . between the poles of thg big magnet. Subatomic particles introduced into this chamber are whirled about in a spiral. The effect of the magnet is to increase the speed of the particles with every revolution. Finally they emerge with speeds equiva=lent to energy values of several million volts. Cyclotrons are in operation in the University of California, Cornell, Princeton, Michigan, Illinois and Rochester, ‘and the Bartol Institute, Philadelphia. Physicists have been particularly successful in ° disintegrating atoms with the aid of neutrond as projectiles. Prof. Ernico Fermi, now a visiting professor at’ Columbia University, was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics for 1938 as a result of such experiments. : # ” 2

ARLY in February experimenters at Columbia - confirmed discoveries previously made in Europe as the result of suggestions first made by Prof. Fermi and Prof. Neils Bohr of Copenhagen. This was that when uranium was bombarded ‘with slowly moving neutrons, a disintegration took place which yielded an unusually large amount of energy. It was this confirmation at Columbia which has made atomsmashing seem more important than ever before. Perhaps

‘physicists are nearer the goal than they imagined.

One question remains to be answered: How will atomic energy be put to work? It is not easily answered. When Faraday was per=forming his first experiments in electricity, n® one foresaw the electric motor of today. It took time to develop it. 3 One suggestion is that the particles knocked out of smashed ¢ atoms will be permitted to strike targets. Such targets would become whitehot. If the targets were the exteriors of boilers through which © water circulated, steam could be generated in this way and used as now to operate electric generators. It seems more likely that a way will be found to change the energy of the atom into the energy of an electric current by direct means. But+ this is something for the scientist to. work out. No one. yet knows how it will be done. There is every reason, however, to be optimistic.

Side Glances

| 4—Did Victor McLaglen

‘TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE

1—Does light travel as fast as electricity? 2—Which State is represented in Congress by Senator Dene nis Chavez? 3—Which is the smallest bi of dogs? er win the annual award for the outstanding actor made by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences? 5—Did aliens who entered the U. 8. Army during the World

War automatically become

American citizens? - : 8 = »

Answers

1—The speed of electricity o assumed to be the same’ as that ‘of light.

2—New Mexico. '3—The Chihuahua.

4—Yes; for his’ performance in :

“The Informer.” 5—No.

ASK THE TIMES

Inclose a 3-cent stamp for reply when gd 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 advice cannot be A

be given HOE SARL,

Everyday YaoviseBy Wortman

PAGE 9

By Anton Scherer

Back to 1880 and How an Unfruth Was Spiked by William H. English, Then Candidate for Vice President.

N the summer of 1880, the New York Herald sent a reporter to Indianapolis to in« vestigate a rumor that William H. English was living in an iron-clad house. That was the year Gen. Hdncock was the Democrats’ pick for President with Mr. Eng= lish as his running mate. It was a bitter campaign, made so largely by a story started by Murat Halstead, editor of the Cincinnati Commercial. Mr. Halstead

said he knew for a fact that Mr. English was the most hated man in Indianapolis, and was so scared of his life that he had to line the walls - of his home with armor plate. First thing Mr. English did when the reporter came to call on him at his office, was to take him his home on the Circle. “If is an ordinary two-story double brick house with a kind of square tower running to the top,” said the New York . Mr. Scherrer Herald. “We ‘entered and looked. The doors are like thousands in New York and have no iron lining or- protection inside or oyt. One window in the second story was then pointed out. “There,” said Mr. English, “you can see the bare ricaded window of which so many lies have been told, When I was president of the bank, Col. New’s room was entered by a burglar and shots were fired. He and I exchanged opinions about" it and agreed that we ought to be more careful of our persons, lest prying burglars should seize and bind us and, carrying us back to the bank, compel us to open the safe. 1 then had that lattice work which slides in and out, put up, so that if burglars attempted to get in I would be aroused and prepared to defend myself and protect the property of the bank, an at’s the whole egg from which Halstead’s tremendous lie was hatched.

It Came True, Too

“I was greatly interested in Mr. English’s Sor? continued the Herald reporter. “He appeared to be entirely earnest and honest, and spoke of himself and his affairs with commendation as though it was a perfectly accomplished fact that Mr. English and the world were friends. He is building an opera house, a fine structure to hold 2000 people with a beautiful broad deep stage, absurd little boxes and an entrance dire¢t from the street. “It is to be opened later in the month by Mr. Barrett in one of Shakespeare’s plays. Mr. English showed me through it and pointed with apparent sate isfaction to the name English worded in the particolored tiles upon the roof. His son who is theatric~ ally minded is to have the management of the theater which stands next door to his dwelling and, like it, is to be part of a systematic frontage along the entire block owned by Mr. English.” It all came true, too. On Monday, Sept. 27, 1880, English’s Opera. House was opened with Lawrence Barrett playing “Hamlet.” As for the election, Mr. English was licked. Score: 4,454,416 to 4.444.952,

¢

Jane Jordan—

Man Who Wants Children Shouldn't Wed Girl Who Doesn't, Is Warning.

DEAR JANE JORDAN—I am a young man of 23 and intend to marry the young lady with whom I associate at present. She is 21. She is neat, sensible,

a good mixer and a swell friend. She said in somewhat ‘definite terms that she would enter only into a companionate relationship in marriage. Although I love her for her sterling qualities, I am very fond of children, and I believe that a marriage would not reach the greatest amount of happiness without them. If she is serious in her present attitude toward marriage, do you think that it is likely to change with further maturity? Should I drop the affair and seek other company? I would hate to do this as she is educated and can keep an interesting conversation going. I believe that quality would be an asset in society and to my success in business. S. M. G.

Answer—It would be highly dangerous for a man who wants children to enter into. a marriage with a woman who does not. To begin with I believe that the average normal woman does want children. Since the beginning of time, the bearing of children has been a woman’s greatest source of power and prestige, If she does not want children, I would say that some thing very serious has gone wrong in her development, Would your young lady be interested in delving into her reasons for wishing to avoid a relationship leading to children? If she will recognize her attitude as a neurotic symptom, and be willing to accept aid from someone capable of tracing her history back to the place where her’ normal _ development was retarded by some shock, fear, or ill-founded prejudice, and give herself over to a process of re-education, she may be able eventually to adapt herself to marriage. As it is she is unfitted for the role of wife. To assert for sure that she would change with further maturity is too risky a statement. If you marry the girl, be certain that she has changed her’ ideas before her marriage instead of waiting until afterward with nothing but hope to guide you. . I do not mean that childless couples are never happy, for often they are. Where a woman's inability to have children is physical, she either can adopt them or find fulfillment in certain sublimations. - But where her rejection of her destiny is emotional, she isn’t apt to fare so well in finding substitutes, particularly when she rejects a normal marriage along with the children,

JANE JORDAN.

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

New Books Today

Pliblic Library Presents—

ESPITE the insight and the ability of ot modsin American dramatics, Eleanor Flexner believes that fundamentally they are failures because they are afraid or unable to follow their characters and situations to the ultimate reality from which they spring. » eS etie O'Neill, Sidney Howard, Maxwell Anderson, Phillip Barry, Robert Sherwood—in all these she sees honesty, vision, and talent turned back théme selves because these AMERICAN PLAYWRIGHTS: 1918-1938 (Simon & Schuster) failed: to strike deeply énough into the social fabric to find nourishment for

4 fl | growth. Their plays, she holds, remain always this

of greatness. And because. they do not fulfill the ise of their earlier work, they wander into the bypaths of fantasy, romantic pseudo-realism,’ or futility. What the author covets for the American drama is a constructive and aggressive social philosophy which will impart its boldness and ruthlessness .to the plays of today. That so far this philosophy has not emerged she attributes not alone to our playwrights, but to the conditions under which plays are produced: The necessity of financial successes, the fear of offending influential portions of the public, the virtual limitation of dramatic production to Broadway. * = = T is just a “deadly superstition” pe this & cry “too old at 40 to get new jobs”! Two women, C. B. Thompson and M. J. Wise, started out in a brand new way to get jobs for themselves. They succeeded again and again, not only for themselves, but for friends and finally for strangers This story of the birth of & job formula is full of new ideas and old ideas revamped. The authors of WE ARE FORTY AND DID GET JOBS Cippmeoiy launched their treatise feeling thai they had some-