Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 14 April 1939 — Page 19

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From Indiana—Ernie Pyle

Getting the Lowdown on Those Patient Sidewalk Photographers; One Picture Solved Bank Holdup.

T. WORTH, Tex., April 14—In the last few years you've all seen these fellows on the streets who snap your picture as you walk along, then hand you a card which you can turn in somewhere later with a little

money and get the picture. Well, we ran onto a bunch of these boys in Ft. Worth, and I've found out some strange things about the business. They work for a Chicago concern which takes street-pictures all over the country. It’s the International Movie Flash Co. They have 20 young men working in various cities. There are three here. In some cities only one. They come South in winter, go North in summer. People don’t « > bite when it’s cold. TY They take your picture as you ans come up the street, then hand you 8% & { a card with a number on it. This $k: |} same number has been photoen Fa graphed right on the film with your Mr. Pyle picture. You can either do nothing about it, like most people, or you can send the card in, with 25 cents, and in two weeks you'll have mailed, from Chicago, three prints of your picture. The boys here say their acceptance of cards runs about 84 per cent. The other 16 per cent refuse to take the card, or else throw it away.

The boys don’t know just how many people send in their two-bits and get the pictures. But they do know it has to be at least six out of every 100 or the company couldn’t break even. With 20 boys shooting better than one roll of film each, some 40,000 individual snaps go rolling into Chicago every day. Before starting out, the young men have to take a two-week training course. Theyre instructed in the psychology of picking likely people, of being courteous under all circumstances, of being bold without being offensive. All are high school graduates, and some have been to college. It doesn’t make any difference whether they've had photographic experience. The boys average about $30 a week. Their wage varies with the number of shots they make. They use sort of a news reel movie camera. It is worth $225 and the company owns it. There are 1500 shots on a roll of film. The boys are paid $6 for every roll they shoot. One of the boys says he once shot three rolls in one day. That's 4500 pictures. Which means he snapped a picture of someone every 10 seconds for 12 hours straight.

It’s Hard Work, Tc

The head boy of the three here says the lowest he ever made in a week was $22. And the highest $87. But that includes a small extra salary for being manager. They pay for their own living in a city, but the company pays traveling expenses. This picture-taking is hard work. The camera weighs 15 pounds and hangs from a strap around the neck. That's a big weight to carry all day. If you sit down to rest, you lose money. In St. Paul, there was a bank robbery, and a suspect wos rounded up, but alibied that he was somewhere else at the time. Now one of the boys had been taking pictures in front of the bank that day. So the company went through its files, found the picture of the man coming out of the bank, and right above his head was a clock, fixing the time. The boys stand high wit the St. Paul police now. : They take more pictures of girls than any .other class. Second best bets are women with little children. . They say they get terribly lonesome the first few weeks in a new city. Gradually they build up friendships. But just when they're starting to be invited out they have to leave for some other city. In fact, it all sounds very much like my job, except the girls never look at me. Maybe I should take my typewriter out on the sidewalk to write my column.

My Day

By Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt

Greets South American Envoys; Their Thoughts Turn to Europe.

ASHINGTON, Thursday.—Yesterday afternoon I received the new Ambassador from Brazil and his wife, and the new Ambassador from Venezuela and his wife. As we sat and talked, I suddenly realized how much all our minds run in the same direction these days. For, before very long, we were talking of the situation in Europe. I discovered that anxiety was felt by us all for friends and, in some cases, even for families in the various countries which today seem to be under a constant cloud of apprehension. Here, in America, so many miles away, the clouds which hang over other countries are felt and, more and more, the thought seems to come home to us that we are fortunate to live in the Americas. I suppose, however, that no matter where you live or under what conditions, you carry on your daily tasks and adjust yourself to whatever circumstances you may have to meet. Probably this is why human beings survive all kinds of situations. Impossible as it seems today that one could ever survive and adjust to certain things, one will find oneself doing so tomorrow and almost forgetting that other conditions ever prevailed.

Christian-Jewish Parley

I was very much flattered the other day to have Mlle. Curie say that the house upstairs seemed different from any state residence she had ever been in, much more as though people really lived in it and lived normal lives. Then she mentioned the fact that there was writing paper in her desk and books in her room. These seem to me fairly normal things to find in my guest room. I arrived at the meeting today for the national conference of Christians and Jews just as Dr. Henry Noble MacCracken was beginning his speech. It was an excellent speech, as was Father Cartwright’s. The closing speech, made by Rabbi Lazaron, was, perhaps, the most moving. It is a fine ideal this, that each of us, Catholic, Jew and Protestant, preserving our individual differences of religion or race, should still join toI confess to smiling a little at human nature as each one of us betrayed the fact that we felt our own int of view was the right one, but I don’t suppose that will hurt us, if we only are willing to concede that other points of view may be right for others.

Day-by-Day Science -

B8y Science Service ATS and dogs and cats may have a higher type of intelligence than we have credited them with. Animal psychologists have thought that “out of sight is out of mind” for these animals. The ability to hold a problem in mind until such time as it is physically possible to reach a solution—that was a distinction of man. The test for revealing this trait was a sort of scientific variation of the old shell game. The subject is allowed to see food hidden in, say, one of three or four boxes. He is restrained for thz delay period and then allowed to try to find his reward. Men, of course, are not fooled by such a simple trick. But dogs, cats and rats could find their way to the correct shell or box, it was thought, only by “pointing,” or keeping their bodies fixed in the right direction, as pussy keeps her nose steadily toward the particular hole from which she expects the mouse to dart. Man's advantage was believed due to his ability to verbalize—the ability to think “It’s in that one on the right.” Now man must give up this distinction, fer in the psychological laboratories of Duke University, Dr. Fletcher McCord has found that the humble rat shares the ability to win at the shell game when it is played fair. Playing fair, in this case and from the point of view of the rat, meant painting the doors behind which the food was hidden so that the poor rat could tell them apart. And then it meant making sure that the rat saw the food hidden. It is necessary to rattle

& the pan a bit to get

The Indianapolis Times

Second Section

FRIDAY, APRIL 14, 1939

1. John Gottschalk captures two nice bass for replanting. 2. Mother Felix’s two cubs. 3. The ducks enjoy a dip in their private swimming pool at the game preserve,

(First of Two Articles)

By Joe Collier BEAR, unaccountably named Felix, this spring gave birth to twin cubs which are technically owned by the State of Indiana but which neverthe-

less are operated by Felix. The happy event occurred at the Jasper-Pulaski State Game Preserve, and was verified by members of the State Conservation Department home office on a business trip there a few days ago. Felix is a black bear in a dark mood. She stomps around her attic apartment, snooping about the bundles and equipment stored there and being very touchy. When she is out of her cage, for exercise, she charges at any of the men who venture into the attic and sometimes refuses for as much as an hour to go back to the cage where the cubs are, thus halting all work that may have to be done in the attic. When she does go back to her cage, and the workmen get it locked again, she guards the cubs as though kidnaping still was the vogue in the nation. She gets between the door and the cubs when people try to peek at them. Then, if she gets the idea you can see over her or in some other way glimpse the offspring, she covers them with hay a foot deep. ” ” s T took hours of patience for the Conservation Department to get a picture of the cubs, and since that day Felix has been in a vile humor, swearing bear all over the attic. The Felix cubs, unnamed as yet, have joined the wild ducks and geese, the hell divers, the quail and the white-tailed deer in informing all Game Preserve workers that spring is here. At the moment, winds whistle over the swamp lands at such penetrating temperatures it’s a good thing someone that knows about such things proclaims spring. Bundled in windbreakers and sweaters, one. would never know it on his own accord. Birds and animals don’t seem to feel the cold, though. Ducks, f~ instance, swim on the ice-c_id water against ice-cold win’, and haven’t sense enough to keep their faces dry. Hell divers, small birds that appear as neat and prim as parlor maids, persist in diving or just simply sinking into the water.

When a hell diver really wants to hurry under water, it dives bill first so fast it seems only that the lake is winking as a confederate. When they want to disappear at leisure they do something to themselves that makes them sink straight down like submarines. It’s pretty hard to tell how they accomplish that. = 2 2

SE and other strange things were uncovered recently when some members of the Conservation Department went there to photograph sandhill cranes which have been stopping on their way North for the summer, another sign of spring. Few persons who know much about birds will believe that the sandhill crane is there in such great numbers as Department observers have reported. On the theory that the camera doesn’t lie, it was thought advisable to get pictures of them. Sandhill cranes are exceptionally timid and require the most careful stalking. Once they were plentiful and were shot as game birds. They are supposed to be delicious. So, as the party wandered through the 5200 acres hoping to get a good camera shot of the cranes, preferably on the ground, oth-r important things came up. No one saw a crane during the entire morning, on land or aloft. But hundreds upon hundreds of wild geese and ducks kept landing on and taking off from the backed-up water in the swamp lands as though it was the busiest airport in the nation. The area is being returned to its

‘Here Come the Animals

Mother Felix’ Guards Cubs Against Prying Eyes at Game Preserve

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swampy condition as a cover for wild life. Beavers have been employed to build dams to back up the water, and they have done a good job. A couple of beavers wintered over in special pens built for them near the barns and ate wood furnished them by the State. 8 8 =» HEY drank no water all winter and insisted upon saving some of their food-sticks out to build practice dams in the waterless pens. They don’t like to be looked at and scuttle to the darkest corner they can find when they spot a snooper. The quail are nesting now, a pair in each of 1980 cute little apartment pens which have front porches. The pens are arranged in rows with streets ‘between them, for all the world like a new and very large bungalow real estate development.

When the sun cc: into the

doorways, all facing the sanz way, ‘

mamma and papa quail stand in the doors and look and sunbathe and are lazy. In all the 1980 apartments the quail were standing there in the sun, as if waiting for callers, or the commuters’ train. These quail parents are particularly fortunate, because, after the eggs are laid, the State takes them and assumes responsibility for the hatching and subsequent care of the children. They have gotten to know the khaki uniforms of the attendants and make no commotion when they are around feeding and tending to them. But any person in another garb throws them into a four-alarm dither when he enters

the enclosure. No woman ever is allowed in the place because the quail never have gotten used to skirts. ” ” ” BOUT noon the party decided to fish with barbless hooks because the Department of Fish and Game wanted to transplant as many bass as possible into a lake just completed in another section of the state and unstocked. The winding drive through the preserve had failed to uncover a single sandhill and every one agreed they probably were off some place for the day and might return near sunset to feed in the wheat fields. But no sooner had the rods and reels been unpacked than a detachment of sandhills flew over the pond and the chase was on again, with no luck. They kept on going over the horizon. Not until sunset did the party see any number of sandhills, and they were aloft. Two enormous “v's” of them went skywriting over the trees, heading toward the Kankakee preserve. And although they were too far away for a picture, bird experts with powerful field glasses estimated that there wer: at least 250 in the flock, and guessed that they might even be heading on toward the north after their two-week rest in the marshes. Conservation men want to make things comfortable for the sandhills in the preserve in the hope they eventually will nest and live there most of the year. Considering that a sandhill crane is a formidable adversary to any man in a hand-to-hand

encounter; that they have a nasty habit of pursing their sharp bills and aiming them straight for the eyes; that a wallop from their wings and legs would be likely to be very uncomfortable; and that they are protected by law, you would think the sandhills would settle down and quit playing so hard to get. And maybe, the Conservation people hope, they will,

NEXT—The lynx and some of his neighbors.

Ocean Airmail ° Plea Faces Cut

By Science Service ASHINGTON, April 14—PanAmerican Airways’ application to the Civil Aeronautics Authority for mail payments for the trans-Atlantic air service it will inaugurate shortly will probably be cut by the Authority to threefourths or even only three-fifths of the requested amount. Payments which will cost the U. S. Government a net ranging from about $10,000 per round trip for four return crossings a week, or a gross from about $24,000 up, are asked by the airline in a hearing before a three-man board of the Authority. A gross annual payment of $5,000,000 to $5,750,000 is asked by the line if four services a week are authorized. Not only will the annual payment by the Government probably be held below this total, but the per trip subsidy will, in all likelihood, be reduced as well.

Side Glances

J

TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE

1—In which ocean is the island of Madagascar? 2—How did the wintergreen plant derive its name? 8—What is the number of the prohibition repeal amendment to the Constitution of the United States? 4—Should fruit cocktails be eaten with a fork or a spoon? 5—What type of boat is a lighter? 6—What is the correct pronunciation of the word acumen? $8 8 ; Answers 1-—Indian Ocean. 2—Because it remains green throughout the winter. 3—Twenty-first. 4—Spoon. 5—A barge employed in. ports for loading and unloading

cargoes of ships. 6—A-ku’-men; not ak’-yu-men. ” t J

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

Everyday Movies—By Wortman

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Ines _Sdyaee’ |

PAGE 19-

Our Town

By Anton Scherrer

If You Like Spooky Stories, That William Allen Wood Collection

HE William Allen Wood Collection of Demonology, consisting of 359 nerve racking books every one of which dips into that narrow margin bordering the incredible, has been under lock and key on the shelves of the Public Library ever since 1932. But it wasn’t until the other day, so help me, that I got wind of it. I haven't been my old self sinee., Demonology, I don’t mind saying now that I have found out, is the scientific study of beliefs in and evidences of the existence and influence of evil spirits. I can give you a fair example, cone I picked up at random in the Wood Collection. It’s called “A Straunge and Terrible Wunder,” written by one Abraham Fleming who, for all I know, may have seen what he talks about. Anyway, Mr. Fleming reports: : “Sunday, being the fourth of this August in ye year of our Lord Mr. Scherrer 1577, to the amazing and singular astonishment of the present beholders, and absent hearers, at a certain towne called Bongay, not past tenne miles dise tant from the citie of Norwiche, there fell from heaven an exceeding great and terrible tempest, sodein and violent, between nine of the clock in the morning and tenne of the day aforesaid.” fe After a spectacular account of the tempest, the lightning and thunder, not to omit his description of the rocking church, Mr. Fleming continues: “Ime mediately hereupon there appeared in a most horrible similitude and likenesse to the congregation then and there present, a dog as they might discerne it, of a black colour; at the sight whereof, together with the fearful flashes of fire which then were seene, moved such admiration in the minds of the assemblie, that they thought doomesday was already come,

Just One of His Pursuits =

“This black dog, or the divel in such a likeness (God hee knoweth all who worketh all) running all along down the body of the church with great swift ness, and incredible haste, among the people, in & visible fourm and shape, passed between two persons, as they were kneeling uppon their knees, and occupied in prayer as it seemed, wrung the necks of them bothe at one instant clene backward, in so much that even at a moment where they kneeled, they strangely dyed. “On the same day,” continues the incredible tale, “in like manner, into the parish church of another towne called Blibery, not above seven miles distant from Bongay, the like thing occurred, in the same shape and similitude. This is a wonderful exampie of God’s work,” concludes Mr. Fleming. And so it is. Not half as wonderful, though, a8 what William Allen Wood did himself. The Collec= tion of Demonology, it turns out, was only one of his pursuits. A corporation lawyer by profession, he was also a collector of paintings and the author of “After Dinner Speeches” and “Wood's Modern Business Cor= poration.” On top of that, he contributed to the Cen= tury, Life and The Outlook. At the time of his death in 1927, he was collecting material to be used in a play about Napoleon. In his day, he was a sure field shot, and one time, right here in Indianapolis, he scored 193 out of a possible 200 in a trap shooting match. Nobody could lick him playing whist. * I remember him well. He had a pleasant habit of standing in front of the State Life Building at the close of day watching the people go by. He certainig had me fooled—I never would have guessed, not in & hundred years, that he was a collector of demonology.

Jane Jordan—

Girl, 25, Advised Not to Spurd Parents’ Counsel on Marriage.

EAR JANE JORDAN—I am 25 and have been going with a man quite a few years older than myself. My mother doesn’t like this man but I think I am old enough to know my own mind. Mother doesn’t like him because he is older than I am. J don’t think age has anything to do with it. This man has no work now but we are not think= ing of marriage yet. Dad thinks I ought to marry for money, but I think one should marry for love, don’t you? I have seen too many homes go on the rocks because the couple did not love each other. Don't you think I am old enough to know? READER.

Answer—A woman of 25 is old enough to make & good choice in marriage, but it does not necessarily follow that she is wise enough. Some people gather wisdom with the years and some do not. The mere fact that you are 2b does not convince me that you have good judgment. I would have to know how you meet situations before I could draw any sound cons clusions. On the other hand, parents have not proved theis ability to choose mates for their children successfully. I do not think that it is smart for you to throw out what your parents have to say without giving it due consideration, although you need not accept their word as law. You say your father wants you to marry for money. I wonder if this is true? Your father probe ably wants you to marry a man who is financially re= sponsible because he knows the importance of having enough to live on. Haven't you misinterpreted his advice because it doesn’t fit in with your” present desires? When a man has reached maturity without prove ing his ability to get a good job and keep it, we have a right to wonder if he ever will do so. Due allowances can be made for misfortune and bad business conditions, but the strong usually recoup their losses in time. If the man you love has a long record of failures and is unable to get on his feet again, it should at least give you pause. I am afraid that you cherish the romantic ideal that a marriage made for love is sure to succeed under any circumstances. This is not true. Love is often an unstable emotion which vanishes when it is exposed to trouble and strain. JANE JORDAN.

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

New Books Today

Public Library Presents—

N the spring of 1936, William Beebe and three meme : bers of his staff accepted the invitation of Teme pleton. Crocker to spend two months on board his two= masted Diesel schooner in the Pacific and the Gulf of California. The ship was the Zaca, and ZACA VENTURE : (Harcourt) is Dr. Beebe’s account of the expedition, known officially as the Twenty-fourth Expedition of the Department of Tropical Research of the New York Zoological Society. Their route was south, from San Diego to Cape San Lucas at the tip of Lower Califor= nia, around the Cape and north to Santa Inez Bay, then to Clarion Island 400 miles cut in the Pacific; and, in each of the chosen spots where they anchored, fished, dredged and dived, they observed and studied countless creatures of the sea. ; Dr. Beebe says that to him adventure means “the

sudden breathless glimpse under the microscope of

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Will Be Right Down Your Alley.