Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 19 April 1939 — Page 9

Vagabond

From Indiana—Ernie Pyle

12 Years Ago, an Oklahoma Pastor Climbed a Hill on Easter And Now 160,000 Climb With Him.

LAWTON, Okla., April 19.—In Lawton there is a master showman. He wouldn't call himself a showman, and probably wouldn't even like being called one. But he is. He is the Rev. A. M. Wallock, a Congregationalist. He is a small man. Somewhat

timid. But he has created a mousetrap that is bring- | B oa Service Staff Writer

NTER the “chemurgic’ farmer. He sells skim milk to make glass, synthetic suits and dresses. He plants soy beans to build automobiles, corn and He grows cotton for roads, houses, music and bathtubs. He markets his straw stack for paper and even the chips in the woodpile are profitable. They make perfume. Fantastic? It might have been 20 years ago, even

ing the world to Lawton’s door. His creation is an Easter morning pageant. There

are hundreds of them over the world. But Lawton's seems to have risen above the others. It is possibly the finest in America. Last year the pageant drew 160.000 people. I have no figures at hand, but I wouldnt be surprised if this isn’t an attendance record for any single-stand performances of any kind in America, with the exception of the Indianapolis Speedway Race. There aren't many mountains in Oklahoma, but the small ones they have are magnificent. Just north of here are the Wichitas, rising rockily from the fiat prairies. The Rev. M. Wallock loves these mountains. In 1927 he climbed a hill, with 200 people behind him. and held Easter sunrise services. Today the pageant’s outdoor amphitheater is called “Holy City.” It is on a ridge 22 miles northwest of Lawton, in the center of Wichita Mountain National Forest and Game Preserve. The Government has created here a permanent setting for the Rev. Mr. Wallock’s pageant. It has spent $150,000 building a two block-long stage and scenic cluster of native stone. From a distance it might be a restoration of some Biblical city. The businessmen of Lawton have formed an association to help the Rev. Mr. Wallock, for it has obviously become tco much for one man. They donate $3000 a year to cover expenses. This was the Pageants 13th year. People came in autos and trucks, on foot and by horseback and wagon.

Festival Lasts All Night

As the night grows, thousands upon thousands pile in from everywhere. State police patrol the roads for

150 miles in every direction. Inside the forest boundaries. National Guardsmen direct traffic for parking. A company of regular soldiers from nearby Ft. Sill helps out. The throngs sit on the grass, on newspapers, on blankets, sprawling up the vast slope that can accommodate 400,000 people if necessary. The words of the actors in the Christ play are brought to them by loudspeakers. This vear the festival lasted all night. At 10 p. m. began the singing of choirs from all over the Southwest—Indians, Negroes, whites. At midnight, the Rev. Mr. Wallock's special Prolog was put on in tableaux, depicting the great men of all time who have given their minds toward a unified world. Sharply at 3:30 a. m. the Pageant proper begins. It is timed to end just at dawn. For an hour and a half the pageantry of Christ's life is presented by 2000 men and women, half a thousand cardboard angels with crepe wings, hundreds of spotlights, stars suspended in air, angels floating down from Heaven on darkened wires. Christ walks on a papier-mache Sea of Galilee. Judas sells his master for 30 pieces of silver. The Last Supper is eaten on a table of Oklahoma stone. Angels come down Heavenly steps concealed by the darkness of 4 a. m. Spotlights play from scene to scene. The Resurrection comes just as dawn breaks over the Wichitas. And then as Christ rises to Heaven, Col. Art Goebel comes roaring out of Heaven (if the weather is good) and writes across the sky in pouring white smoke the words “World Unity.” And a great army of human actors spell out, on the hillside, the entire Lord's Praver. That is the end.

My Day

By Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt

Family Party Is Held as Baby and Mother Return From the Hospital.

EATTLE, Wash, Tuesday.—This is a red-letter day in the family. The children could hardly bear to go to school this morning because they wished to be home when Anna and the baby arrived. I don’t think the question as to whether Curtis could crow over Eleanor or whether she could crow over him, was ever settled—because he returns for lunch at noon, then goes back to school, while she returns earlier in the afternoon. The two dogs were the ones who showed their joy most noisily. “Jack.” the red male setter, who usually stays as close to Anna as he can, was quite pathetic when the baby was put down on the bed and Anna sat down beside it. He smelled the bundle ali over with care and then lay down and put his paw on Anna's knee, as much as to say: “If it belongs to you, it’s all right, but I don’t quite understand it.” At the baby's first wail, he cocked his ears and looked perplexed, but Anna assured him that this was his baby and held him out for “Jack” to investigate and, I think, from now on, the friendship is made.

Visit Cancer Clinic

It was neariy lunch time when we reached home, #@ Curtis came dashing in, glanced at the baby in his room, and then settled himself beside his mother in her sitting room, where we all had lunch together. A very happy family party. While she was preparing to start this morning, John and I were taken through the Cancer Clinic by Dr. O'Shea. This clinic, at Swedish Hospital, has equipment for treatment which can only be found in two or three other institutions in the United States. We had a rather interesting discussion on the value of the crusades which are being carried on to educate people in detecting signs of this dread disease in the early stages. One doctor felt that the ignorance of the public was such a great factor in the number of deaths from cancer that this crusade was absolutely vital, while another insisted that the education of doctors, themselves. was almost more important, for frequently a patient had been treated for some time by a doctor who had not recognized that they needed special treatment. .

Day-by-Day Science

By Science Service T_T T the scientist who attempts to apply his science A not only to material things but to the relations between people and nations, there is often flung the charge that it is not within the province of the scientist to deal with general values and judgment of those values. Some such criticisms come from those who do not want to be bothered by rational and scientific facts. In others, the desire for such diffidence and detach= ment is, as the late Dr. William Alanson White observed psychiatrically, frequently a mask for fantasies of omnipotence and omniscience. A group of psychiatrists have been giving expression to values and techniques of thinking as they impinge upon present day relationship between persons as individuals or as groups. Some readers of this quarterly, “Psychiatry,” charge that the journal is propaganda or has mixed politics and psychiatry. Because this conflict of opinion is by nc means confined to either the limited field of psychiatry or the broad field of science, the following excerpted statements are good medicine for a mentally disturbed world: “Propaganda is a powerful force in modern life;

all the more powerful because people are so generally | The psychiatrist has to | avoid the influence of pervasive propaganda and to | remedy its most pernicious effects on his patients. He processes. | Also, in so far as the psychiatrist is interested in |

ignorant of its techniques.

must therefore understand propaganda

hygienic reform, he must know how to make effective benevolent propaganda as necessary preliminary to the spread of national en ghtenment. If he cannot do this, he is impotent | deal with intrenched prejudice.” :

e Indianapolis

Second Section

= =» 2

Paul Friggens

vegetables to run them.

five vears ago. Not today. For the scientist has gone to work to put the farmer back on his feet and the re-

sult is: Chemurgy. The word “chemurgy’ comes from the Greek, ‘“‘ergon,” meaning work, and the Egyptian “chemi,” origin of chemistry. So it means putting chemistry to work for the farmer. But here is no revolutionary idea. Its sole objective is the increase of farm income through the creation and the expansion of markets for American farm products as industrial raw materials. Consider how it would work. Towa farmers, facing a recurring surplus in corn, would truck their excessive bushels not to the local elevator but to the nearest “argol” plant where the corn would become a 10 per cent motor fuel biend. Mississippi's cotton farmers would raise their cotton not to overstock Southern warehouses and confound Congress but to build roads, houses, “rubber” products and scores of other things never before utilizing cotton. = = = ISCONSIN dairymen, ordinarily pouring millions of gallons of skim milk to the hogs in a year, would truck it first to the nearest casein plant, where the casein would be spun into synthetic “wool” and the milk byproducts used in a variety of other forms. After this the hogs could still have their fill and without loss of vitamins either. Or consider that the Towa corn farmer and the Mississippi cotton planter still found a surplus after utilization of their crops in these new industrial purposes. What would chemurgy do then? It would set these same farmers to raising new crops, perhaps soy beans, which are already finding wide use in automobile and other manufactured products. Or tung oil and castor beans, producing some of the valuable drying oils which United States largely imports every year. It might even set these same farmers to raising rubber and coffee, for chemurgy is confident that these crops can be successfully produced at home. Thus, over a period of years, contends chemurgy, agriculture would absorb its farm surplus, idle acres would be put to work, new crops would be substituted for old, new demands and new wealth would be created. Chemurgy, as a matter of fact, is already doing some of these things after four years’ intensive experimentation that began with the first chemurgic conference at Dearborn, Mich, in May, 1935. The record unfolds daily in the headquarters offices of the National Farm Chemurgic Council at Columbus, O. = = =

HROUGH chemurgy, the first Southern newsprint mill is now under construction at Lufkin, Tex, a $6,000,000 plant pointing to a whole new industry for Southern pine. Sixteen additional paper and pulp plants are planned or are being built in the South. Soy beans, with scores of actual and potential uses, a little-known crop a few years ago, reached a production of 57,000,000 bushels in 1938. Likewise, tung oil trees now cover an estimated 175,000 acres on the gulf coast. Flax for the first time is being turned into cigaret paper and a new mill is rising in Pisgah Forest, N. C. Snythetic wool made from casein off skim milk may be produced soon on a commercial basis. “Argol,” the motor fuel blend distilled from corn, has already

Side Glances

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 19, 1939

* 8 =

been produced commercially at Atchison, Kas. Cotton is now used in 35 states for lining ditches, and in highway and airport run construction. It is being tested for a variety of other uses as well, ranging from houses to bathtubs. Plastics, utilizing cotton, soy beans, woodpulp and casein, is today the most rapid growing of all chemical industries. Laurel, Miss, has adopted the title “Chemurgic City.”

UCH is the pace of chemurgy. But all this is only the beginning in the opinion of Dr. Henry E. Barnard, research director. The same view holds for Dr. Karl T. Compton, Dr. Robert A. Millikan, Dr. William J. Hale and the scores of other scientists enlisted in the movement. It is the belief likewise of such farm leaders as Louis J. Taber, master of the National Grange, and Wheeler McMillen, editor of the Farm Journal. It was one of these, William J. Hale, consultant chemist for a large Michigan chemical company, who first conceived the role of chemistry in agriculture as far back as the World War days. Hale used to discuss the inevitability of a farm surplus with Dr. Charles H. Herty of Savannah. . Then in 1926 Hale wrote his first article projecting the chemurgic idea to solve the problem. It was not to bear fruit, however, until May, 1935, when a conference of industrialists, farmers and scientists was called at Dearborn, Mich. There the National Farm Chemurgic Council was formed and financing underwritten by the old Chemical Foundation created during war time. Almost one million dollars was poured into immediate research under the direction of the late Francis P. Garvan. Since 1937 the council has operated on its own resources, financed by its own membership. It works only through the laboratories of the nation, such as Michigan State College and the University of Illinois where specific grants have been made for chemurgic work. Greatest impetus given it in the last year was the provision in the new farm act creating four great laboratories to develop new uses for farm products, located at Peoria, Philadelphia, New Orleans and San Francisco. Each laboratory can spend one million dollars a year. Thus chemurgy comes of age, begins to go places. 2 2 2 HEY'VE cut down the old pine tree and they're using it for everything from dinner to rayon.

Men, Rather Than Planes, Essence of Real Airpower, Maj. Williams Says

By Maj. Al Williams

Times Special Writer

ASHINGTON, April 19— Manpower in the air is the Ships can be bought, if necessary. And no plan for mass production of planes is worth its salt unless it is based

essence of air power.

upon mass training of pilots.

A modern, single-seater fighting ship of 300 miles an hour, or better, But it takes at least two years to train a good single-seater fighting pilot. A bomber can be built in about 15 days, under pressure, but about five years are required to train a master pilot to fly it as well as the G. H. Q. Air Force pilots of Langley Field fly

can be built in a few days.

four-engined long-range

theirs.

There's a sweet little equation

7

i

49

“See——he openly defies me! What do you suppose would have

‘happened if |'d tried that on my

father?’

—

elon

A few years ago it was used only for lumber and fuel. Now the chemurgists have uncovered a whole array of new uses, even for the hitherto valueless slash pine. Thus you may be stepping out

one of these days in an “allwood” spring suit, sporting wooden accessories and scented with wood perfume. Wood, as the chemurgist sees it, may beceme one of the country’s foremost crops. Clothes spun from wood cellulose may take the place of cotton. Wood is valuable in just about everything from paper to plastics. There are predictions that the Southern paper industry alone may exceed within the generation the value of the annual cotton crop. Pushed far enough, chemurgy is able to produce even a full meal from wood. Take the making of plastics from wood: Out of the slabs, edging and short lengths from Southern sawmills, the Masonite Co. of Laurel, Miss, has developed a new ligno-cellulose in-

between mass production of fighting aircraft and training programs for producing pilots to fly them. Foreign nations have been wrestling with it for years, and some of them appear to be as far from having the bread and jam come out even today as when they began trying. It's going to be interesting to see what the British are able to do about synchronizing their mass production of airplanes, during this high-pressure period, with their pilot training program, which has also been speeded up. & #9 AST summer, the British need- ! ed airplanes, so they bought 400 from us. With those 400-American-built aircraft and those produced under the terrific pressure exerted

on the British aircraft industry,

TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE

1—What is the chemical name for banana oil? 2—Name the city situated on the last of the chain of Florida Keys. 3—What is the satellite of any planet called? 4—-Do the same Constitutional restrictions as to age and citizenship apply to the Vice President, as to the President? 5—Is it proper for a mother to give a bridal shower for her daughter? 6—What is the abbreviation for 12 o'clock midnight? T—Name the president of Gene eral Motors. 8 =& 8 Answers

1—Amyl acetate. 2—Key West. 3—Moon. 4—Yes. 5—No. Showers should be given by the bride's friends. 6-12 p. m. T—William S. Knudsen. ® = 8

ASK THE TIMES

Inclose a 8-cent stamp for reply when addressing any question of fact or information The Indianapolis Times Washington Service Bureau, 1013 13th St, N. W,, Washing= ton, D. C. Legal and medical advice cannot be given nor can extended research be under

They Call It Chemurgy

Science Is Turning Farm Surpluses Into Suits, Bathtubs and Autos

(This is the first of six stories on Chemurgy, science’s contribution to the task of restoring prosperity to the farmer.) i

. explosives

dustry. On the strength of it, Laurel has become the official “Chemurgic City” of America. The Masonite formula is essentially an explosion process utilizing high pressure steam which converts the fibers and lignin (which with cellulose constitutes the essential part of woody tissue) in waste woods into a product suitable for prefabrication, structural insulation, roofing, etc. This product is an inseparable mass, is resistant to fire, termites, yet it can be sawed, drilled, nailed or otherwise handled like wood. Equally significant is the discovery that pine is an excellent source of low-cost purified cellulose for making rayon. 2 » on HUS, concludes Dr. Charles H. Carpenter, technical director of the Herty Foundation at Savannah, “we predict that the young pine will be a source of cellulose for the highest grades of continuous viscose yarns, while the pulping hardwoods will be a source for less exacting uses, such as staple fiber. The cotton grower

how do the British stand now for trained fighting airmen? I can see a lot of airplanes rolling out of factories in eight months,

but, for the life of me, I have difficulty seeing an equal number of trained pilots coming out of schools in that same short period. It's going to be mighty interesting also to check the ability of this country to match the rapid production of airplanes with the training of competent pilots. There are plenty of grim angles in this business of training pilots in a hurry, and the worst is created where green wingwearers are turned loose on difficult missions without seasoning. One year of arduous training is required to develop a green groundling into a new pilot with about 300 hours of flying.

From. cotton:

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

iy

olass and roads

has suffered by the inroads of artificial silk. His opportunity for compensation lies in growing pulpwood for a Southern rayon pulp industry!” The chemurgist has found a variety of chemicals in wood, also, including camphor, anethol and fenchome. The waste hardwood now can be transformed into chemicals. The wood distillation industry is coming to life in this connection. Processes are being developed to make briquets, dense and rich in fuel value, from waste wood. Pine oil and resin are finding new uses. Resin is employed today in a world of forms from disinfectants to automobile batteries and tires. The chemurgist is able to make perfume from old pine stumps. The pulp and paper development alone ushers in an industry of vast importance, particularly to the entire South. Already it is changing the character of Dixie from Georgia to Texas. No. 1 chemurgist and the man largely responsible for this new Southern hope was the late Dr. Charles H. Herty of Savannah. It was Dr. Herty who exploded the theory that the only wood suitable for making newsprint was northern white spruce. So far did he push his research that he was able to announce just before his death a few months ago production of newsprint even from the cottonwood tree. ' The chemurgist sees no reason, in fact, why a nation could not EAT its trees, say during a war. Dr. Friedrich Bergius, the Nobel prize winner in 1936, projected just that idea as a war measure. The trees would be converted into their sugar and sugar derivatives, the sugar would then be fed to hogs to obtain fat, the fat would be combined with yeast and synthetic ammonia in turn to produce proteins. That process, of course, would just about eliminate the farmer except for hog raising. But the farmer is the very fellow the chermurgist wants to save!

NEXT — Cotton, greatest challenge.

chemurgy's

Everyday Movies—By Wortman

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Mopey Dick and the Duke ?

"Do you remember, Mopey, when you could read a.newspaper

PAGE 9

Our Town

By Anton Scherrer

Virginia Potter Found Time to Write 400 Poems and Conduct World-Wide Correspondence as Officer of Club.

OLORADO ST., always ready with a surprise, now gives us Virginia Potter, an Indianapolis poetess with more than 400 published poems to her credit. Enough to make a book, and that’s exactly what she’s up to

right now. It’s going to be a 68-page volume, she says, printed on high grade slick paper with a nice cloth back. And her picture is going to be a part of it, too. Unlike most poetesses I know, Miss Potter is without that forbidding monumental look. Offhand, you'd think that writing so many poems would keep Miss Potter more than busy. It turns out, though, that she has a lot of time left on her hands. For one thing, she is one of the busiest letter writers in Indianapolis. As assistant secretary of the World Wide Pen Pal Club, she gets loads of mail and makes a point of answering every letter. What's more, she has Mr. Scherrer assembled two “Pen Pal Quilts.” A Pen Pal Quilt, I deem it my duty to tell you, is a quilt made of squares, all cut to the same size. Every square repre= sents a contribution of her far flung army of fans, The two quilts, now finished, represent all the States of the Union as well as many foreign countries such as Italy, Australia, France, England and New Zealand. Miss Potter knows where each square comes from because, either by design or inspiration, each square carries the embroidered name of the correspondent and that of the state (or country) she lives in. After that, of course, comes the sewing and quilting—a detail Miss Potter finds time to tend to, too.

Grass Skirt From Hawaii

Besides that, Miss Potter gets a lot of gifts, all of which have to be acknowledged. The gifts come

from fans who adopt a more substantial way of showing their appreciation. In this way, she got a grass skirt from Hawaii, a Spanish shawl from Cuba, and a pair of tiny handmade beaded moccasins from an Indian Reservation in Wisconsin. Sure, even the Indians have heard of Miss Potter's poetry.

From a town in Texas, the poetess received a boX containing snake rattlers, Virginia sent her a bag of peanuts. Scotland came through with a bit of heather, and just the other day she got a pin cushion made of coal. From Pennsylvania, of course. West Virginia sent her a tiny iron skillet and from somewhere in the South came a miniature bale of cotton. Montreal fans sent her a snapshot book and, believe it or not, a hand-painted fan. The British West Indies, as a token of their appreciation, sent six (6) handmade lace doilies with a real fern (grown in B. W. I.) embedded in the lace. From Ceylon came an elephant, and just the other day, a New York art student painted one of Miss Potter's poems on glass and sent it to her. Shows what goes on in higher art circles today. Almost every mail delivery brings Miss Potter the perquisites of her profession. And there's no telling when the gifts will stop coming. I happen to know that because only recently Miss Potter extended her list of pals to include correspondents in India, Egypt, Japan. Barbados, Ireland, China, South Africa, Ger= many, Alaska, Palestine, Singapore and Straits Set= tlements.

Jane Jordan—

Youth Taking Wrong Way to Show His ‘Superiority,’ Girl Advised.

Dee JANE JORDAN—I met my boy friend two years ago and accepted an engagement ring. He comes from a fine, well-to-do family while my people are poor and fight and drink. Last week we quarreled and he told me his folks didn’t like me. This made me feel badly because they treat me well and I haven't done a thing to make them feel this way except to be poor. He is always throwing it up to me that my people drink, but I can’t help it. He finds fault with the lit= tle things I do and embarrasses me in front of others. He gets me clothes now and then, but if we quarrel he throws this up to me. Although he has a good job he never takes me any place because he wants to save his money. He is very jealous and says I'm playing him for a sucker. I have my faults. I've been very stubborn and have a terrible temper, but I always give in to him. I realize that I haven't any money, but if he thought enough of me it looks like he would overlook my people. He thinks that he is better than I am and hasn't any respect for me. I love him very much and he is constantly confessing his love for me, but sometimes I wonder if I should marry him. My mother is dead and I can’t talk to dad; so youre my only hope, He is 23 and I am 19. DESPERATE. ” on »

Answer—Your unhappiness does not come from the fact that the young man thinks he is better than you are, but from the fact that you fear he may be right about it. Your whole attitude reveals a set of very tender feelings which make you extremely touchy and quick to take offense. Because of your shaky feeling you live in constant expectation of criticism, and defend yourself with outbursts of temper. If you really were convinced of your personal worth, you would not permit yourself to be embarrassed, humiliated and hurt by the young man, but would check him out when he shows disrespect. What has this young man done to prove his superiority? One of the first tests of superiority is the manner in which one treats those who are less fortunately placed than oneself. If he were gentle and kind and tolerant with you I could accept his estimate of himself as correct, but instead he is arrogant and unkind. Try to help establish his superiority on a less ob= jectionable basis. It is fitting for any man to feel superior to the woman he expects to marry, but his feeling should be based on his ability to protect her and not on his ability to tear her down. Build up his self-esteem by your admiration of his good qualities and make him ashamed of his wrong attitudes by quiet disapproval instead of belligerent self-defense, You can command his respect, but first you must learn

to command your own. 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—

% HE voice of naziism is trumpeted, but the true voice of Germany is a murmur so low that only the patient and gentle can hear it.” It is this half-articulate tone which Nora Waln catches and which with infinite sympathy she interprets in REACHING FOR THE STARS (Little). A Pennsylvania Quaker and creator of that lovely Chinese pageant, “The House of Exile,” the author found herself in June 1934 a resident of Germany. Her book is the record of four years spent with this oppressed people who, she feels, are like children suddenly flung into a hostile world. Here is the Germany of our childhood which we have loved; the deep forests, the quaint homes, the festivals, the charming folkways of a simple people seem the same. But into the narrative has crept the nightmare quality which is the shadow of Hitlerism, Almost against the author's will, it seems, are revealed stories of only partly suppressed terror, of coercion, of regimentation, of exile and of unexplained disappearances. Czechoslovakian and Vien= nese interludes supply a Central European back= ground, which is added to the German setting to

form a storgdnow heartbreakingly familiar,

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