Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 15 March 1939 — Page 13

1 Vaga

the cost of the sweeping compound should be

DON From Indiana=Ernie Pyle

Worn Out by Natchez Hospitality, He Finds People More Interesting Than Their Beautiful Old Homes.

NATCHEZ, Miss., March 15.—Today I've lived in the antebellum .atmosphere until I don’t know whether I'm me or Jefferson Davis. I've visited old Southern mansions till

I'm lame and full of the miseries. As fast as one escort would wear out, they’d have another one ready. We even looked at houses after dark, when we couldn't see them. The hospitality of 3 Natchez is boundless. The only way to survive it is to leave town. We went to Homewood, a vast brick mansion sitting on a knoll back from the road. It has been bought by Mr. and Mrs. Kingsley Swan, and they have moved here from New York. ; It is one of the few homes with crossed hallways. There are silver doorknobs, and huge slave quarters out back. Over the front door is the only “Marie Antoinette” balcony in Natchez. The Swans are youngish people, and they're going at their restoration with a vim. In the vast slope between house and road they're building a formal garden that,

Mr. Pyle

people say, will equal Mobile’s famous Bellingrath !

Gardens.

Mrs. Swan works like a trooper, directing all the nelp they have to have. We were talking of how the antebellum housewife had her hands full directing all the slave domestics. And Mrs. Swan said “I may be a Yankee, but I know just what they went through.” She even has to help her Negro folk get married, and be around at the births. : L We went to Melrose, one of the town’s real show places. Inside, everything is in the old style, but so bright and shiny that you have the impression it was all made yesterday, from a century-old pattern. It wasn’t. There are 16-foot drapes that are 90 years old. Over the dining tables swings a wide carved board on a swivel. It is a “punkah.” In the old days a slave pulled it back and forth, to fan the diners. There are pieces of furniture whose exact purpose the women of Natchez no longer know. One thing intrigued me. It was a sort of low bench on four legs, with upholstered swivel chairs on each side, and a silk upholstered hassock in the middle.

It’s Funny Looking Anyway

Some think the hassock was for a chaperone. Others think the sitters swiveled their chairs around to face each other, and played cards. Whatever it was, it’s a very funny piece of furniture. : You see inlaid tables, with figures of birds, and a little hole for each bird’s eye. Originally there was a jewel in each eye, but Union soldiers pried them out. We went to Monteigne, built in 1855 by Gen. William T. Martin of the Confederacy. Although the original furnishings and antiques are still there, it has been modernized until it could be a mansion on Long Island. It is owed by Mrs. J. W. Kendall, a direct descendant of the builder. : She shares the vast palace with her son and daugh-ter-in-law, Mr. and Mrs. William J. Kendall, They are important people ‘in Mississippi. “The whole family is friendly and gracioys beyond words. We went through Elmscourt, from top bottom. The house hasn’t had the retouching that moshof the Pilgrimage mansions have. It has come down t. the same family, and they are now on poor days. Dave McKittrick is your host. He has been wealthy. But our recent depression wiped him out. He lives there amidst the grandeur that isn’t. But he is no eccentric relic himself. And he doesn’t flaunt that notorious dignity that declines to recognize the passing of eras. air ER Ls : He tells you that Hé was rich and that now he is poor. His speech is one of culture and broad travel. His dignity is in his naturalness. You feel. warm toward him. 2

My Day By Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt

Inspects Building Constructed by NYA Boys for Airport at Waco.

OUSTON, Tex., Tuesday.—After lunch yesterday, we started with Elliott and Ruth for Waco, Tex, but we stopped at Elliott’s office and he discovered some urgent business. Miss Thompson and I, therefore, bid them goodby and stepped into Mr. J. C. Kellum’s car which was following us, because he had promised to stop at an NYA project on the way. We stopped in Hillsboro to see a practice house for girls. Rural girls come in for two weeks periods and then return home to put into practice what they have learned, after which they return for another stretch of training. This alternating system works out very well, for two shifts are kept going and on each return a girl is given training in activities in which she did not participate during the previous period. Once in Waco, we left Miss Thompson at the hotel and I went out to see the building which the NYA boys have. constructed for the municipal airport. Then we stopped at the girls’ club of Waco for a meeting with members of the state advisory committee of the NYA. :

Arrives in Houston

In the waiting room at the station we saw a young woman with a small child, apparently sleeping on something’ which looked like a rough canvas stretcher. Every now and then the child would give a croupy cough and move her little arm which hung over the edge of the stretcher in a most uncomfortabie position. Miss Thompson felt sure that they needed some help, but since the young woman never even looked at us, neither of us had the courage to speak to her. In consequence, I think both of us left with rather a guilty conscience. We arrived in Houston at 7:45 p. m. After breakfast came a press conference and then I went off with Mr. Kellum. They have a hospital project here much like the one which is being carried on in New York State and which I described to you before. We visited a wood-working shop ‘where school desks were being repaired and then drove some 50 miles to see a little community center built for the small town of Hempstead. . " The NYA boys have done a beautiful job in ‘stone and the building is attractively planned with a big fireplace in the large main room, which also has an opening on the outside so that they can have outdoor picnics if they like.

Day-by-Day Science

VV DESPREAD announcements of new research that produces fibers rivaling natural silk and wool may seem to fashion the -erroneous picture that scientists are doing but little to find new and better ways of utilizing cotton. Scientific research aid for King Cotton, however, is rapidly being developed. . Directed by Dr. Lawrence W. Bass of famed Mellon Institute for Industrial Research at Pittsburgh, new ways of using cotton are being found through research. One new application of cotton, and an important one potentially, is the use of cottonseed hulls as the basic ingredient of a better sweeping compound. Thrown on the floors of office and factory buildings

- the mixture is swept up with a broom and gathers—

25 : 5 is pushed about—the fine particles of dirt and

Past mixtures for sweeping compounds have been made of sawdust or of mixtures with many ingredients like sand, salt, mineral wool, molasses, ground eark, corn cobs and so on. "To Dr. Bass and his colleagues it seemed that cotton hulls, with their fine fibers, might act like a dust

“eloth and catch the dirt. Experiment showed that hull

bran from cotton seeds made a very satisfactory sweeping compound. Over a 10-year period the price of hull bran has been very low, only $5 a ton, so that

«pecially on. that

low |

(Se ond of a Series) By dlioH Arnold

Time: Specizl Writer NEW YORK, March 15.— Estelle Liebling hung ur the telephone receiver and turned to Rosemarie ‘ Braacato. | “Dut on your coat,” she said, “You're going to Chicage.” : “Chicago? Why Chicagc ?’ Miss Brancato asked. “That was Paul Longone, director of the Chicago Opera, who just called. Marion ‘Talley walked out of ‘Rigoletto.’ They want you ‘o sing Gilda tomorrow night.” Mis: Brancato sat down hard. She hid never sung anywhere outside cf ‘her teacher's studio be-

fore, raver in a theater, never over the r:dio, never even at a high school commencement, “Bui Miss Liebling—-" she said.

“No time,’ Miss Liebling said.

“The train leaves in less than an hour. Put ca your coat and get out to Chicago.” liss Brancato nodded obediently. She started to rush out. Then she sic pped. ‘“Thet arie in the first act,” she said. ‘The high E aria. Can I conie cown?'’ : “you may noi come down,” schoolriarmed Miss Liebling. “youll take the high E. All the way.” v A So Niss Erancato slept on the train that right, four years ago, and tre next day, without rehearsa]l stepped into the Gilda role. She ssng the high E and brought down the house. The applause was so tumultuous Herman DeVries, dean of the Chicago music critics, took out his watch and timed it. It lasted four minutes. 3 - And when ‘he singers clustered arounc Miss Brancato and congratulated hei’ on what must have been ore of the hastiest debuts in history, complimenting her - essustained high note. &l e said: . “I hal to sing it. Miss Liebling said I raight not come down. She would | have heen angry if I had come own.” 8 2 ”

HE success was so marked ‘that Miss Brancato immediately en barked on a concert tour. She gave 48 concerts that season in ag many cities. She has been in constant demand for radio and concert work since. |, > Last ear somebody failed the Chicago people at the last moment for “Earber of Seville.” Longone sought out Miss Brancato. and found she was in Wpyorning. She was flown to Chicago one hour and 40 minutes before opera time. And all for teacher. This Miss ldebling is quite a person. Her gun stock is notched with such pupil successes as GalliCurci, Jerifze, Frieda Hempel,

- Tita | Ruffo and other operatic

lights, and in the lighter field Jessica, Dragonette and others. She is a smallish person with a wonderful smile and the most motherly manner in the world. The big brave opera singers go out and do their kisst because they're afraid of making Mama Liebling unhappy. Really. ’ “Pirst of all,’ she first-of-alled, “there must be the musical foundation. That goes without saying. The pupil must be taught everything perfectly. Each pupil presents a different problem. One will have a fine wveice and fine diction buf no stvle. Another will have poise and style, but poor Jiction. Each case must be solved. “Bub once th:t is done there is something morc, A psychological something. Two singers can have everything equally alike—identical voices, manner, diction. But

Side Glances

Carlo Benetti coaches Mary Jane Walsh to give.

one will be a singer and the other will be a great singer. ; “It is something that lies in the heart, perhaps. The great singer, you see, will go on the stage with a supreme, ringing confidence in himself or herself. .It’s more than confiderice, really. It’s knowing you can do what you want to do. And this great singer will sing as beautifully and with as much truth before an audience as he will in his studio. So many singers do their greatest singing in their own room.” : It is this elan that Miss Liebling says she adds to the technical lessons. Her pupils, she says, have faith in themselves.

8 8 “IF HE singer must not compromise. A singer who compromises just once dooms himself. He will be applauded for his incomplete singing and think, well, if that’s good enough I can get away with that again, and from

then on he is lost.” Miss Liebling’s merchandise is soft maternal urge. She never scolds, never berates, sults. But she makes the artists think they would be committing the eighth deadly sin if they fell down on her. Miss Brancato is a lovely blond Kansas City girl who could get a job in a chorus line if her voice failed her. She had been studying with Miss Liebling for almost five years and. her teacher now lists her as an extremely pure colcratura whose voice one day will rank with the great. Regard now a teacher of an older school, one Nicolai Oulukanoff, who loves to tell of the time when he overfilled himself with vodka and saw Napoleon and all his army. is took place in front of the Kremlin in Moscow many years ago and Oulukanoff thought the Little Corporal was making another march on Russia. For a while Oulukanoff was torn between patriotism and his uncon-

never in-.

trollable love for Napoleon, but while wrestling with this problem he sobered and found it was only a motion picture company. “It is serious, ‘this Napoleon stuff,” Sigrid Lassen said, in his studio at 160 W. | 73d St. “He thinks he looks like ‘Napoleon. Look at his studio here, There are only two pictures, ope. of Oulukanoff when he was young and had his hair, and the other of Napoleon.” Lau A little man with an. enornious head, Oulukanoft patted himself on his pate and grimgced. Miss Lassen is the daughter of the Princess Ketto Mikeladze. People are always surprised when they come to Armando’s to | find ‘she really can sing. The princess stuff means nothing when she does her stint twice nightly and has to impress a roomful of: light hearts with a voice. Oulukanoif has developed the power of her vocal chords to such an extent she works without a mike. |!

” # 8 T= is a constant light Tun-

ning banter between this teacher and pupil. Miss| Lassen is

the daughter of a Georgian prin- -

cess and feels an odd security with Oulukanoff, a native of Titlis. She pokes fun at him and he loves it, and in that atmospheie of high ribbing, he teaches her! what he

knows.

“I find a crooner and I make a prima donna,” he said. “Her voice was as big a flea. Always singing low, on the chest. She couldn’t get the sound up. And she was so lazy. Give me the right to whip her and I make a fine singer of her in six months.” i “He’s a-nasty little man,” Miss Lassen contributed. “We fight all: the time. I've walked ou} on him at least 10 times” | “But always you come back,” he said. “And one day you will walk away a great singer.” Oulukanoff sang grand opera in Petrograd before the war, then in Italy, Switzerland, Paris, and in the Boston Opera Company. He is one man who thinks James Cagney, the film actor, is a failure in life. He taught Cagney how to sing, and he says Cagney has a fine voice, and he cannot; understand why the man is wasting his time making faces into a camers. Eleanor Powell, Alida Vang, of the La Scala opera, June O'Day and others studied under him. Whether a pupil is preparing

TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE

1—State the official name for Russia, pi 2—What proportion of U. S. Senators are elected biennialy Ta 3—cCan the President order coinage of U.S. money? 4—Name the capital of the Madeira Islands. |

5—Has an absolute vacuum ever been attained? 6—What is the correct pronunciation of the word laboratory?

the

2 8 8

Answers |

Republics. | | 2—One-third. Bo ngress must enact coinage Ws. ;

! 0, | ! 6—Lab’-o-ra-to’-ry; not lab’- | ra-tory. | foo

t | : 1—Union of Soviet. Socialist

8.8 8

ASK THE TIMES

ireply when addr question of fact or to The Indianapo! Washington Service Bureau, 11013 13th St. N. W., Washingiton, D. C. Legal and medical jadvice cannot be giv

" Rosemarie: ' Brancato, (above) singing for her teacher, Estelle Liebling, hit high E in" Chicago to avert her teacher's rebuke.

for opera of musical comedy or night club work, he insists upon a long intensive classical training, much practicing, constant vocaling. He pleads innocence to the

Napoleon fetish, insisting he ad- -

mires the Corsican for his contributions to law. He insists also that he is a kindly man who never scolds his pupil and kept insisting it in the face of Miss Lassen’s open-mouthed amazement. ® 2 8

I emphasizing the need of all singers for the classical foundation, Prof. Oulukanoff ran head-on into Carlo Benetti, who offers himself as a great iconoclast. “Voice culture,” said Benetti in his studio at 724 Fifth Ave. “is hammy. It went out with radio and amplifiers, It is the personality that must be trained.and not the voice. Give me any good-

looking girl who can carry a-tune-

and I'll turn her into a successful Broadway performer. I won't make an opera singer out of her, that’s another thing, but I'll teach her to get across her personality, and that’s the important thing.” A sleek, smooth guy. who begs his pupils to forget art and develop schmaltz, Benetti’s prize pupil at the moment is Mary Jane Walsh, who certainly did all right for herself in “Sing Out the News,” and who is doing most all’ right at the moment in “The Glass Hat” night club. Miss Walsh sings low and hot, and when she chortles “Get Out of Town,” you turn and look for a valise. “I am not interested in voice,” Benetti said. “I am interested in a beautiful girl who can create the illusion of romance. Modern songs must be kept in a conversa=

Entered as Second-Class Matter at Postoffice. Indianapolis. Ind.

tional pitch. The singers must never be conscious of the fact they are singing. They are telling a story. They must live the story. / “They must speak an under= standing language with music for a background. In songs today it is the lyric that counts. The singer must never let the music get between her and the audi-

ence.” u # 2 HE has a great immoderate disgust for posey souls who reek art, and speaks with contempt of their delusions of grandeur. * “These overtrained singers sell the average man what he sees around him each day—work. They are telling him, in effect, listen to all the studying and training I've had. What does the average guy want with that kind of stuff. The layman doesn’t want a pick and shovel thrown into his face when he goes out for fun. He doesn’t want to be asked to consider a great artistic product. He wants a lovely girl who can sing a lovely song as though she means it. Singers sing to the heads. My girls sing to the hearts.” Benetti studied for grand opera in Italy, and worked up a repertory of 40 of them. After appearing in Europe he came here and sang for Arthur Hammerstein. He was singing in “Golden Dawn,” in 1928 when he ‘dost his ‘or something. = ber called “Italy,” and he used:to give it to the paying guests with all the operatic didos. And he received what is ‘known politely as a modicum of applause. Came the laryngitis. “It was Pittsburgh so I figured

I could fake it,” he said. “I went |

out. Well, the house came down. I couldnt figure it out. “When we got to Chicago I had my voice back again and I figured if I brought the house down in Pittsburgh with no voice I'd kill them in Chicago. Instead I got the usual applause. I couldn’t figure it out.” Ultimately he figured it out, of course, and now he’s making a living passing along the informaon.

Income Tax Study Due 7

By Bertram Benedict Times Special Writer : ASHINGTON, March 15— Secretary Morgenthau ' has announced that he will study the first income tax payments this year before deciding what tax recommendations to make for next year. About 70 per cent of .the people who ‘make personal income: tax returns this year will show net incomes of less than $3000. But this 70 per cent. will account for only

about one-third of the total net in-

come reported by all income-tax filers, and for only about 3 per cent of the total income tax paid. More than 50 per cent of the total personal income tax paid will come from those with net incomes.of $50,000 or more. This class, accounting for only about 7% per cent of all the net income reported, is less than 1

per cent of all people who have to file a return. - At least, these results obtained. in 1936, when payments were made for 1935; and economic conditions .in 1935 were . not. greatly dissimilar from those in 1938, for which income tax returns are now being made. : ? Considering, then, how little of the aggregate income tax tomes from the many small taxpayers, it would seem. as though broadening the base would not go very far toward reducing the deficit, estimated next fiscal year as $3,972,000,000 net. When Senator La Follette moved in 1937 to reduce the exemption of married persons from $2500 to $2000, and on single persons from $1000 to $800, he figured that his proposal would produce $110,000,000 more in revenue. :

WN)

wan

\ go STE NS USENET, WY

Cs ~ Er . 2 oo x X an rt 2 oh ’ yy hy TaN SE ess CI Ny, 7 NAAN by % -

voice in Pittsburgh. Laryngitis

Now he: had & delightful: fume | eek, The rest had lace yokes,

‘| 7gO those of us who live in constant dread of the

Second Section

PAGE 13

O ur To wh | By Anton Scherrer 5 i

A Tribute to the Porch Girl Who Created a Restful Retreat Out of A Previously Ignored Decoration.

NOTHER point that future historians will ponder is the uhique importance of the Porch Girl, a feminine phenomenon that contributed as much as anything/to\the ex« . citement of my formative years/ Time was when évery home in In olis had a porch. Some, indeed, had as three—front, side and back—an architect range ment which permitted people to take adventage not only of the sun, but of the moon : as well. Theoretically, too, it was a splendid place in which to practice philosophy, thus perpetuating the tradition of that great porch which gave its name to a whole school of Greek philosophers. Curiously enough, however, people around here didn’t appreciate the porch until sometime around 2800 up ie that time it was a bare place with a couple of rickety chairs and a threadbare mat for the New- Mr. Scherrer foundland dog to lie on. As a matter of fact, it

wasn't until the Newfoundland went out of style that the porch came into its own. :

It came into its own with the Porch Girl. In some mysterious way, she sensed the possibilities of the porch, and got busy right away. First thing she did was to make it a retreat. She got some wire netting, cut out diamond or circular openings, and started growing vines. As a rule, they were quick-growing vines like the morning glory, for instance, and the cinnamon vine. In this way, the Porch Girl secluded herself from the public gaze, but had it so arranged that she could see out of her leafy bower and feel herself in touch with the outside world. All at the same time, mind you. That was just the start, however. She fitted up the inside of the porch, too. From the ceiling she suspended a number of hanging baskets filled with brightly coloped ivy-leafed geraniums. One girl I remember went even further and used Japanese ginger jars for the same purpose. She is now the wife of a Janke, and you can’t tell me that such things just: en, !

Tea Table Strongest Ally

So much for the decorations. Now for the essen tials. There was always a hammock, of course. It was stretched across one corner. When not in use it was piled high with cushions. Porch pillows, they were called. And if I remember correctly, there was. always a willow steamer chair, and, like as not, a wile lowy rocker and a couple of small chairs. The strongest ally of the Porch Girl, however, was her tea table. On top of it stood a chafing dish and a brass tea kettle. Beside it stood a small ice chest, As a rule, it contained a big jar of ice water and a couple of lemons, to shake up a lemonade, or serve tea the Russian way if the temperature called for it, A well equipped porch with a clever girl running it could operate until sometime around Thanksgiving. Then there was the Porch Girl's guitar. Gosh, ¥ mustn’t forget her guitar. It hung on the wall near the hammock, and came into play sometime around 10 o'clock. Sometimes earlier on moonlit nights. Girls who couldn’t twang a guitar had a Swiss music box hidden behind the rubber plant which nearly always occupied the corner opposite the hammock. Why, I even remember the gowns the Porch Girls used to wear. They were pink or pale blue dimities. Nearly all were made collarless and showed the girl's frarsparent enough toshow her shoulders. The old-fashioned Porch Girl— God bless her—thought of everything. : 5

anape

Jane Jordan— Young Wife About to Have Baby

Told to Delay Plea for Own Home.

EAR JANE JORDAN-—I was married last June at . the age of 18 to a boy of 19. He is very devoted to his parents and doesn’t ever have any intentions of making a home for us. I am expecting a baby next month, and at that time I am going to my parents’ home. f - Would it be a good idea if I told him then that I wasn’t coming back to live with him until he got a: house for us so we could go housekeeping? There is a house in the town we live in that is for rent, and I am almost sure that we could get it, but my husband just won’t ask about it. He intends to live with his parents always. ; : : ; I like his parents, but at the same time, living with’ them is not like having a home of our own. What must I do? > M. Z. > ” EJ ” Answer—A passive type of man might cave in if. you issued an ultimatum of “no home, no wife,” but: if your husband is at all aggressive, such an attitude would antagonize him and set him against you. The, best time to issue an ultimatum of this kind is before: marriage, not afterward. : What if he called your bluff and told you to stay: ‘away with your baby and see if he cared? A father: who shares none of the care of a child when it is little," is not apt to develop much interest in his baby. Are you prepared to accept the full responsibility of your, child cheerfully, or would you be worse off without: the father than with him, even though you have to! live with his parents? 0s : 1 wonder if you ¢ouldn’t find a more diplomatic! way of getting your own home than by<donning the: pants of the family and issuing orders? Your husband is immature. He only has been a husband for; eight months. Perhaps fatherh will mature him a; little more. Increasing responsibilities, if he accepts! them, will weaken the parental tie. Advancement in, his job will also help alleviate his financial timid ity at: leaving the nest. : You like his parents. If either of them have any, common sense you might get some vowerful support, from this source. It is too bad to find an unweaned * married’ man, but you really should have faced this: beforehand. Now I am afraid you will have to pro-: ceed gradually, in getting him used to the idea of: living without the protection of his parents. You can’t! afford to let him Teeand 3 You as. 8 Sor; of kidnaper. ow that you are ve & baby. Row you. 0 ; JANE JORDAN.

Put your problems in a letter to Jane Jordan who will : answer your questions in this column daily. 4%

Ww we

New Books Today Public Library Presents—

split infinitive, so prone to scatter itself through out our speaking and writing, or the preposition which | falls so naturally at the end of a sentence and so’ awkwardly elsewhere, Charles Allen Lloyd's book, WE WHO SPEAK ENGLISH (Crowell) comes as a verit able’oasis in the desert of errors in the use of our: mother tongue. For, according to this authority, there ; are cases where it is not only permissible but ads! visable to use the split infinitive and where even such reputed writers as Milton and Shakespeare have been known to finish off excellent sentences with: that. most maligned part of speech, the preposition. : Mr, Lloyd premises his discussion of right and wrong: in the use of “The King's English,” with the state=: ment that, although as a nation we are daily becoming more sensitive to errors in our speech, we are, in our zeal for A ‘by much false teaching En ing ne I