Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 30 March 1939 — Page 17

Second Section

Vagabond The Indianapolis Times

From Indiana=Ernie Pyle

World's Biggest Monument Nears Completion at San Jacinto Where Sam Houston Routed Mexicans.

SAN JACINTO BATTLEFIELD, Tex, March 30.—We had to get a special pass from the architectural firm in order to get inside the new San Jacinto Monument. Tourists have already started to come

though the great shaft isn’t open yet, and |

won’t be dedicated until April 21. The monument proper is finished, but hundred of men are still working on the grounds. On April 21, 1836, Gen. Sam Houston and his 780 men fought the Mexican Gen. Santa Anna and his 1300 men on this prairie knoll about 20 miles southeast of Houston. Gen. Houston lost only two men, while the slaughter of Santa Anna’s Mexicans ran to 630. The battle lasted ‘only 28 minutes. Yet so much depended on it that it is listed 16th among the world’s great decisive battles. : It won Texas her freedom from Mexico, and gave the United States all that vast territory between here and the Pacific Ocean. This huge monument, the biggest one in America, is built on the old San Jacinto battlefield. Tourists learn the history of their country from such things as this.

It has taken just three years to build and will be dedicated April 21, the 103d anniversary.

Mr. Pyle

It is a spectacular thing. . Sitting out in open. * country, you can see it for miles before you get here.

It is a light tan; sort of a golden buff. : The stone was quarried near Austin. At some ancient day this stone was under water, for it is thick with deep imprints of little fish and shells and all kinds of sea life. The monument doesn’t rise right from the ground, like the Washington Monument. It is surrounded by a large base-building, about two stories high. In here are large rooms for museums. Up close, I like this monument better than the Washington Monument. The stone is prettier; the square base-building is interesting; the history in words and bas-relief carved around the four sides of the shaft is fascinating. But from a distance, I like the Washington Monument better. I've gazed at monuments all over the

3° Western Hemisphere but I've yet to see one with the

simple grace of the Washington Monument. At San Jacinto, the structure at the bottom and the star on top seem to clutter up the great shaft, make it look shorter than it is, and not quite perfect. . This star right on the tip top is something colossal. It is 37 feet high, 27 feet across, and weighs 220 tons.

A Mistake Is Pointed Out

Like the Washington Monument, the San Jacinto shaft has a long reflecting pool. And an elevator and stairway up the inside. It takes the elevator a minute and a half to go up, and about five seconds less to come down. A young Houston athlete walked up as fast as he could, and it took him 20 minutes. I'm afraid they've made a grave mistake on the elevator business at San Jacinto. There is only one elevator, and it is small. On big days the elevator won’t begin to accommodate the crowds. The top landing, from which you gaze out, is a few feet below the giant star on top. You can see Houston, and Galveston Bay, and the ship channel which makes inland Houston an ocean port, and you can see an awful lot of Texas prairie. For some reason, the wind blows constantly across this knoll where the battle was fought. And up at the top of the monument it blows a gale. If you open a window on each side there is such a blast you can barely stand against it. You even think you feel the monument swaying. That's imagination, although it does give about two inches in a real high wind, It is engineered to lean several feet without harm, The main thing about the monument I forgot to tell you, It is 12 feet higher than the Washington Monument. The Houston Chamber of Commerce was cagey for a long time about using this figure, thinking it might be disrespectful to the Father of Our Country.

My Day

By Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt

* Enjoys Outdoor Life in Seattle; '‘Considerate’ Typewriter Balks.

EATTLE, Wash, Wednesday—Yesterday, with one of Anna’s friends, we lunched out on a green lawn overlooking the lake with the mountains in the distance. This little taste of outdoor life is a real joy to me and I must say that, to live in the city and be able to have some of the joys of the country so ‘close at hand, has many advantages. As a rule, I find Anna’s friends most congenial. * We basked in the sun until 3:30 o'clock and then came home to do a little work on the ever-accumu-lating mail. Just as I was dictating the column yesterday, there was a strange whizzing sound and ‘the typewriter ceased to work. Miss Thompson looked at me and’ said: “The spring has gone,” and then with a smile, she added: “It is a most considerate typewriter, after six years, to have waited until we were here where we can borrow another one until this is mended. It might so easily have gone back on us on a train or somewhere where we would have been without one.” So, if inanimate objects are deserving of gratitude, I think we both feel very grateful to cur little portable,

Letters Concerning “Causes”

I have three letters in my mail, all of them drawing attention to “causes” which are important in different parts of the country. Two of them come from New York City. One of them is a plea for the greater New York fund, which comprises New York City’s private health and welfare agencies and is their effort to finance themselves. This seems to me most important, for these agencies do much that City, State and Federal agencies can never do. I feel, in saying a word about this fund, I am at the same time making a plea for all such funds throughout the nation. Then my attention has been drawn to the work of the New York Adult Education Council, which is becoming a center to which all people who desire to know where they can obtain training in subjects which interest them, can come for advice. At the same time, they are accumulating a, vast store of knowledge on occupations and available opportunities for education. This bringing together of opportunities and of people who are searching for them, is certainly a great service in any community. I shall have to tell you about my third letter tomorrow.

Day-by-Day Science

By Science Service ‘WO Egyptologists have set themselves an arithmetic problem: Knowing dimensions of a huge

artificial lake at Thebes, and the brief time in which |

Egyptians dug it, how many workers were required? . Reporting their work in the Bulletin de l'Institut d’Egypte, R. Engelbach and J. W. Macaldin take a privilege that school boys would envy. They offer two answers, Either Pharaoh Amenophis III put 242,652 men to work on this lake of his, or else he employed 777,262. Even the smaller number would populate a sizable city. The men were rushed to work on the lake project and 16 days later water was let in, and Queen Tiy and King Amenophis sailed regally on their newest

possession, : That Egyptians could organize for so swift a job Is impressive. Amenophis announced the news of the new lake on a commemorative scarab, which told practically everything a news reader would want to know except the amount of labor. The lake was over a mile long and over half a mile wide. The Egyptologists get two answers as to laborers required because they do not know how far away the excavated earth was carried. If workmen dumped

_earth close to the lake, for the time being, 140,716 car1 gh. If earth weg removes

THURSDAY, MARCH 30, 1939

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

1. Note to the “boy friend”: The lady of your heart will surely be the queen of the Easter parade if you send her a corsage of fresh white freesia for her coat and a matching bouquet to pin on her hat. The flowers would go well on

a sheer wool dressmaker coat worn by this model. It tops a gay print frock. Over her arm she carries the ever-popu-lar sables.

2. A back-off-the-face bonnet sailor is worn with this

Mangone imported tweed coat in a definite plaid. The luster calf bag has saddle stitching and the slipon gloves are hand-made glace capeskin.

3. The latest in cut, color and accent is shown here: Box coat with shallow revers and exaggerated shoulders; pencil slim skirt with wide box pleats. The suit is in wood rose, a new shade of pink. Two tones of gray are used for accent in the hat, gloves and bag. Se 4, Bright prints for bright days. The brighter the bet ter says Jane Bryan, Hollywood actress. The elbow length sleeves and exaggerated shoulders are new notes. The smooth surfaced crepe dress is further flattered by the soft turned down collar of lace. The print has a background brightly splashed with red, green, yellow and white.

6) e 5. Less shoe, more chic! This open-toed sling style pump is in kid—coolly perforated. It has a high heel but is sans heel in the body of the shoe. 6. Stripes are smart. Here’s a gray and black striped crepe dress with a black fitted jacket. The other model wears a navy sheer crepe frock with chartreuse top and navy jacket,

The concluding installment in the series, “Here

Come the King and Queen,” will appear tomorrow.

Side Glances

TEST YOUR

ih (YE:

Everyday Movies—By Wortman

KNOWLEDGE

1—Is the sun a star. 2—Name the manager of the New York Giants baseball club. 3—Can a naturalized American . citizen be elected to the U. S. Senate? 4—-Who is Chief of the United States Army Air Corps? 5—What is the correct pronunciation of the word automaton? 6—When it is 12 o’clock noon (E. S. T) in New York City, what time is it in London, England? T—Name the capital of the Re= public of Colombia. » 2 2

Answers

1—Yes. 2—Bill Terry. 3—Yes. 4—Maj. Gen. H. H. Arnold. 5—Au-tom’-a-ton; not au-to-ma’ton, 6—Five o'clock p. m. . 1—Bogota.

2 2 n 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

PAGE 17

Our Town By Anton Scherrer

Clothes Closets at the Bottom of Spring Cleaning Turmoil and He Strongly Urges Their Abolition.

HE technique of Spring Housecleaning hasn’t changed much since I was a boy. In fact, it has changed so little that I hazard the bold and brilliant guess that, of all the traditions to come down to us, it’s the only one to come through clean. ; As far as I can see, spring housecleaning still starts with upsetting everything downstairs, beginning as a rule with my favorite sitting room, just as it did

when I was a boy. By slow and fitful stages, it moves upstairs and lands in the bedrooms. After which the closets all over the house turn up. . For some reason, the closets are never considered a component part of the room. They never were, not even when I was a boy. I haven't the least idea. why. All I know is that the cleaning of Sinsets > a Gigs tinct and separate operation Ie for the very last after everything is Mr. Scherrer supposed to be clean. Which means, of course, that housecleaning starts all over again after everybody thinks it’s done. Well, that brings me to the thought of the day namely, that housecleaning wouldn't be the duplicated affair it is were it not for our closets. Which is the same as saying that housecleaning could be simplified a lot if we didn’t. have any closets. The more I think about it, the more I am inclined to believe that most of our troubles can be traced to clothes closets. Some superficial people, who haven't given the matter as much thought as I have, seem. to

think that automobiles and bathrooms are at the bot-

tom of our troubles. Shucks, they aren’t anything compared with the cost and maintenance of closets.

He Offers a Substitute

In the first place, I'll bet it costs more than a hundred dollars to construct a closet by the time you have it dressed with decent hardware, and when you multiply this with the astronomical number of closets in the average American house, you somehow begin to realize why nobody has been able to solve low-cost housing. I tell you, it’s the cost of closets. The trick, of course, is to find a substitute for closets. Well, I've got that figured out, too. At any rate, as far as new houses go. If I had my way, which I haven't, I'd take a little of the space now allotted to closets, throw it into the bedrooms, and make them big enough to accommodate one more piece of furni-

ture—a wardrobe, or even two, if the wife insists on it. I'm not going to be a cheap skate about it.

Of course, that costs money, too, but certainly nothing compared with the expensive plastered cubicles we put up with now. The confiscated closets will serve another purpose. They will add immeasur=ably to the beauty of our rooms, for it’s been my experience that the prettiest rooms, certainly the coziest, are those with the least number of doors. Indeed, the nicest room I ever saw had only one door. That’s the least part of my contribution, however. The big part is that I have brought the closet into

the open and made it a component part of the room.

If I can bring it that far it may just be possible that the closet will be cleaned with the rest of the room. When that happens spring housecleaning will be reduced to a single operation instead of the serial affair it is today.

Jane Jordan—

Girl, 15, Told to Select Those Her Own Age as Companions.

EAR JANE JORDAN—I am a sophomore in high school. I have been going with a bunch of kids for about a year with my mother’s permission. I am very fond of one of the boys and I have been going with him. He is 18 and I am 15. I wrote a letter, I do not know why, because I had no intention of sending it to anyone. In the letter I said that my boy friend was married and he is not. I left this letter in my purse and my mother read it. Now she will not let me run around with him or any of my other girl and boy friends. She Jd I ould go with someone else if I wanted to, but on’t. . I care very much about my friends and I feel that I cannot do without them. I have thought of sneake ing out and going with them. I am a girl who is frye ing to do right and to be happy. I thought you might help me with my problem because this will influence my whole life. A SCHOOL GIRL.

Answer—You've . let your imagination run away with you and are living in a make-believe world. You’ve made your friends into grownups and married them off in your mind. Now I honestly do not think that your mother should hold this against your friends as they cannot help the fancies you weave around them. If she has no other objections to them, I should think you could convince her that they are not to blame for the flights of your imagination. Perhaps she thinks your friends are too old for you, and this may be true. You say your boy friend is 18, Wouldn't it be better for you to go with boys who are 15 and 16 years old? You can have lots of fun at 15 without pretending that you are years older than you are. : » ” » EAR JANE JORDAN-—I have gone with a boy steady for about two years. We get along very well except for one thing: He is very jealous. He doesn’t want me to have either boy or girl friends. He wants all my attention for himself. We split up because of this but I haven’t found anyone I like as much as I do him. He wants me to go back with him again, but I am afraid things will still be the same. Is there any way I can cure him of this jealousy? PUZZLED.

Answer—The cure of jealousy is too big a task for you to undertake. It is the boy’s misfortune to be so constituted that he can’t get along in a group of people, but must single out one whom he requires to live for him alone, sacrificing all other contacts for his sake. Some babies are like that. Accustomed to their mother’s slavish attention, they scream if she leaves the room. When they grow up and find that the world is not their nursery, they scream about it. Find someone who has outgrown this infantile attitude, no matter how long it takes. JANE JORDAN.

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

New Books Today

Public Library Presents—

ISCUSSING the outcome of the Czecho-German crisis, Hamilton Fish Armstrong in WHEN THERE IS NO PEACE (Macmillan) states that what Chamberlain and Daladier accomplished in September, 1938, was made possible only by an intense gisteus, of war as a policy, and a desire for peace among peoples. Thi anivessal sentiment enabled Mr. Chame Cf Rp) 1d’s real reason for peace at any cost; n y lack of military preparedness. = = :

Sm TR er a A A TA 8 a SEE ii