Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 25 April 1939 — Page 9

‘Vagabond

From Indiana —Ernie Pyle

Land-Hungry 'Boomers' Have Their Way and Cleveland Gives Signal For the Great Homestead Rush.

(QKLAHOMA CITY, April 25.—The Civil War was over. The Federal Government turned to settling the “Indian problem” in the West. It had decided to move all American Indians into “Oklahoma Indian

Country,” making one immense fenced-in pasture of Indians. : The only catch was that all of this territory had already been ceded to the “Five Civilized Tribes,” in exchange for the land they gave up in the deep South. The Government had to get some of this land back, on which to settle the Western tribes. In 1866 the Government “persuaded” the Indians to sell some of this land at 15 to 30 cents an acre. All the western third of the Territory reverted to the Government, Then the Government started bringing in the Western tribes. And once again this western part of “Oklahoma” was given to the Indians, forever and forever. They brought in the Cheyennes and Arapahoes, the Comanches and Kiowas and Apaches, the Shawnees and Kickapoos, the Sac and Fox and the Towas. Altogether, there were 22 tribes of Indians occupying what is now Oklahoma. But it didn’t work. Some of these new western Indians were tough babies. The “Civilized Tribes’ couldnt live adjacent to them. They were just as much afraid of them as a white man would be. . When the program was abandoned, there was still a spot of two million acres, right in the middle, which hadn’t yet been allotted to any new Indian tribes. It just belonged to the Government, and there was nobody much on it. This was known as the “unassigned lands.” : Everybody began casting an eye toward it. Farmers, cattlemen, territory with greedy eyes.

Railroads Are Built

Railroads got land grants from the Government, and two roads were built in 1871 and "72—one partly across the territory, one up and down. White cattlemen organized associations, and rented vast pastures from the Indians for grazing. And then came ‘the “Boomers.” They were people who kept filtering into these lands that belonged to the Indians, and settling there, despite the watchfulness of Army troops. Associations were formed to lobby in Washington. Gradually the cry for the opening of some OKklahoma land to settlement by homestead grew so strong that Congress had to take notice. And so in March of 1889 President Cleveland announced that the “unassigned lands” would be thrown open. a The date was set for a month later, in April. The iand was to be free. First come, first served. Thousands saw it as their one and only chance in a lifetime to own land, a home of their own, independence. For a month the roads into south Kansas were packed with wagons and prairie schooners. They came from every state and Territory. The land was surveyed by the Government before opening day, and section markers placed. Town sites were also laid out—Guthrie, Oklahoma City and Kingfisher—and land offices established. The day before the run, the hordes of homeseekers were allowed to cross the Indian land that lay between Kansas and the “unassigned lands.” That night they camped by the thousands on the north border, about three miles above where Stillwater now 1s. Altogether, a hundred thousand people camped that night on the lone prairie. or waited for trains in the border towns. It all came to a spectacular climax at high noon on the next day—April 22, 1889.

My Day

By Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt

Mr. Pyle

Prepares for Opening of Fair; Work Is Rushed on Capital Airport.

ASHINGTON, Monday.—Miss Thompson and I had a quiet and uneventful trip back on the train last night. Mr. John Blum, who was on the train, sent me a copy of the arrangements being made for April 30, when the President opens the New York World's Fair. It read like a very hectic day, but I suppose it will all go off so smoothly that it will be possible to do all the various things described in the time allotted. Down here it is easy to believe that spring has actually come. It was warm in New York State yesterday, but it is much warmer down here. I took a ride this morning and noticed that everything is in bloom and that the work on the new airport is going ahead by leaps and bounds. As far as I can see, this is the only ride I will have for another 10 days, unless I get up “before breakfast” at Hyde Park and ride a horse. Though I don’t enjoy doing this very much. if it is as lovely up there next week-end as it js here now, I shall find myself sorely tempted to arise at dawn, for the spring and fall are the only two seasons when one enjoys riding in the woods at Hyde Park. In the summer the flies make both horse and rider miserable. I was told this morning that there is some new kind of preparation which you can put on ycur horse and which will drive away the insects for three hours and I hope we find it works out. My only concern then will be if it can be applied to the rider, for I don't like to be eaten up any more than the horse does.

Graduate Asks Question .

At 12:30 a group from the Dalton School in New York City, came in to see the White House and to ask me some questions. I was much impressed by the first question propounded:— “If you were graduating this year, Mrs. Roosevelt, what would you consider the most important question confronting vou as you stepped out into the world?” Quite a question that, especially for women today. I answered it from the broad standpoint of all young people and suggested that the study of our democracy and the place we should occupy as citizens of it was, perhaps, the most universally important question for youth to confront. For girls in particular, I have an idea that there is an interest in the position of women as it exists in the democracies and as it exists under other forms of government. There is no question that restricted general opportunities have a bearing on opportunities for women and the conditions under which women will live and develop in the future.

Day-by-Day Science

By Science Service HE giant cyclotran “atom smasher” at Berkeley, T Cal, has become a mine in which has been discovered, or manufactured, one of the missing elements of the chemical periodic table. The element is number 43, closely related to manganese, molybdenum, ruthenium, and especially rhenium, to which it is a lighter homologue. Prof. E. Segre, who might be called the inventor of No. 43 rather than its discoverer, made it by bombarding molybdenum with deuterons or with neutrons. At least five radioactive insotopes of atomic No. 43 have been recognized among the products of the bombardment, and some of them have a half-life long enough to allow investigation of the chemical behavior of the element. Prof. Segre was one of the associates of Prof. Enrico Fermi of Rome, the Nobelist in physics who is now at Columbia University. Now Prof. Segre also has come to America to continue his scientific research, working with Prof. E. O. Lawrence at the University of California. In Rome, the Fermi group pioneered in discovering new elements by creating them by transmutation from other elements. Prof. Fermi found evidence for the existence of artificially radioactive elements bevond uranium, No. 92, which was considered the periodic table outpost, although ihe move Seoant split. of the uranium atom may ve the world o

omeseekers, jobless—all looked at this !

e Indianapolis Times

Second Section

WE ARM

Germany Didn't Get

Our Helium, but

She

Got Everything Else

The dictators of the world are dependent on the United States for much of their necessary war materials. They began with purchases of scrap iron and raw materials, but today are buying entire one-unit steel plants and all sorts of machinery to make their countries self-sufficient. In the following article, the first of a series. Henry Lee tells of the extent to

which we arm the dictators.

By Henry Lee

Times Special Writer

VW ASHIN GTON, April 25.—With an unprofitable batch of empty 5000-pound cylinders in her hold the Germany freighter Heddernheim weighed anchor in Houston about the first of the year and followed another cargoless Nazi ship, the Idarwald,

back home to Germany. The great steel bottles had been intended for helium for the LZ130, sister dirigible of the Hindenburg, but the United States refused to yield its monopoly gas, and struck, instead, a blow against war and fascism. A feeble, forgetful blow.

For in hundreds of more vital ways, from scrap iron to swing music, in the prosaic export of oils and metals and tons of machinery, we are patiently, profitably arming Berlin as well as Rome and Tokyo, forgetting that dirigibles and armies are spawned in the mines and oil fields, nurtured in the processing plants and brought into lethal maturity by the heavy industries. And in OUR mines and processing plants and heavy industries. Oklahoma City and Pittsburgh and Detroit have joined to make the heavy industry that makes the heavy machinery that makes the steel slings and arrows for the dictators. And Oklahoma City and Pittsburgh and Detroit must precede a Shanghai, a Vienna, a Tunisia. Thus the explanation of a paradox. Germany and Italy and the successors to the samurai rage at democracies—and continue to be among our grudging best customers. » un »

HEY can’t turn to England. England has troubles of her own. France pours her excess materials and machinery into the Maginot Line, and has none to spare, if she would. Russia is in a gangling adolescence as an industrialized nation. After they have drained the meager resources of their satellite nations they must come back to us. Even though, in the case of Germany, they must put up with our new 25 per cent countervailing duties. In coal, real coal, not lignite, we have led Germany in production by more than three to one; Russia, about four to one; Japan, more than 11 to one, and Italy, by more than a thousand to one. In steel, that mighty spine of heavy industry, transportation, heavy armaments themselves, the mills abroad smoked all year under war-scare speed. Ours slumped to 40 per cent of capacity. Yet we led Germany comfortably in ingots and castings, narrowly in pig iron and ferrous alloys. America’s production of crude petroleum is 63 per cent of the world’s total. Thus, for last year (JanuarySeptember) the U. S. Chamber of Commerce ranked Japan third, Germany (with Austria) fifth and Ttaly 17th on our best customers’ list. And Russia was 11th. They had to swallow unfavorable trade balances, too, to get their war materials. The Statistiches Reichsamt admitted that 1938 exports to us plummeted to $149,809,000, the lowest point since the World War, and German imports from here rose 43.5 per cent. Italy, though she slacked off some on 1938 buying, relied on the United States next to Germany as chief source of supply. Japan, according to the Chinese Council for Economic Research, took $142,000.000 of war materials here in the first 11 months of 1938. » » 2

UR contributions have varied

from almost six million tons of scrap (1936-38) to what the Japanese Weekly Chronicle, an

TUESDAY, APRIL 25, 1939

Dr. Hugo Eckener, left, presenting to Secretary of Commerce Daniel C. Roper, who has since resigned, the German appeal for helium. After the Government seemed favorable to the plea German

threats in Europe brought protests.

Germany did not get helium, but

got huge stores of scrap iron and metal of all kinds for munitions.

English language paper in Kobe, reported: “A mass rehearsal of the two songs, ‘Pa, You Were Swell, and ‘Thank You, Seldier,’ dedicated to the soldiers at the front, was held on Sunday night under the direction of Messrs. Kiki and Wantanabe of the Columbia Gramophone Co. at the Asahi Hall in Osaka. The songs were sung by a chorus of over 10,000 voices.” In oil, particularly, their dependence on the United States is extreme. Germany has scoured the world for a less irritating source, even recognizing Saudi Arabia this year in the hopes of finding some there. She has swapped manufactured goods for Rumanian oil. Italy, through AGIP, the Gov-

ernment-controlled company, has drilled the homeland and East

Africa and Libya in a similar search, incurring, according to our Commerce Department, “heavy expenses . . . in research and drilling.” . Japan has diluted gasoline with 5 per cent alcohol, and Russia sometimes has found it cheaper to buy our West Coast oil and ship it to Siberia than transport her own across the steppes from the Caspian. So, last year, for the first threequarters, the United States exported 60 million barrels of crude petroleum, the largest volume ever shipped in a like period, and the total 1938 fuel oil exports exceeded 1929s. Italy and Japan tremendously increased their purchases. Germany somewhat decreased

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

The German Zeppelin Hindenburg is shewn above as it fell in flames at Lakehurst, N. J. It was to avoid fires and explosions on its new Zeppelins that Germany asked for helium from the United States.

hers. rels. The three together, for the entire year, paid us $41,361,000 for petroleum.

She took only 1,237,000 bar-

» » 5

ASOLINE exports during the three-quarter period were 48 per cent over the previous five year average; gas and fuel oils, 62 per cent, and natural gas, 148 per cent. Russia took 330,000 barrels of this. Italy's slight decrease in gasoline and other petroleum motor fuels was in line with a 145 per cent increase in Italian refining in 1936-37—the same two years, curiously, during which she bought $2,000,000 worth of our well and refinery machinery.

Similarly, other armament potentials fared well, though 1938 was a year when the sting of boycotts, nationalistic tariffs and trade restrictions seriously hampered international commerce.

Coal and coke, crude petroleum, gas oil and fuel oil, gasoline. and other petroleum motor fuel, corn, iron and steel scrap and wheat ranked in that order as our seven major quantity exports in the Chamber of Commerce tabulation for the first three quarters. Of them only coal and coke and scrap were off from 1937.

Power-driven metal working machinery exports jumped 77 per cent. Auto exports, though under 1937, were above the five-year average of $265,000000. Foreign orders took almost half the American output of planes and parts, Japan being second largest consumer.

Consider Japan. Up until she

Last Three States Approve the Bill Of Rights After 150 Years

By R. M. Boeckel Jr.

Times Special Writer ASHINGTON, April 25.—All 48 states now have ratified the Bill of Rights—the first 10 amendments to the Federal Constitution. Connecticut completed the list when its legislature ratified the amendments last Wednesday. Connecticut was the third state to ratify the Bill of Rights this 150th anniversary year of the Constitution. The other two states, both like Connecticut among the original 13, were Massachusetts, which ratified the amendments on March 2 and Georgia, which ratified March 18. At the time of approval of the original Constitution, seven of the state-ratifying conventions resolved that it be amended to include a Bill of Rights. The seven states whose conventions made specific proposals were Massachusetts, New

Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Rhode Island, South Carolina and Virginia. Striking similarities in both the intent and the wording of the suggestions from various states indicate that they co-oper-ated in formulating them.

As a result of these requests, Congress framed a Bill of Rights consisting of 12 amendments designed to guard individuals’ and states’ rights from encroachment by the Federal Government. The amendments were submitted to the states for ratification in 1789. Ten of the proposed amendments were ratified by the necessary number of states in 1791. The approved amendments guarantee freedom of religion, press, speech, assembly and the right to petition the Government; the right to bear arms; that soldiers shall not be quartered in private homes without the consent of the owners except in time of war; freedom

Side Glances

- 7 —= 7.7] N 7; ] >A SN

TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE

1—What is an epitaph? 2—Name Secretary of Commerce Hopkins’ predecessor.

3—Name the chief seaport of British Somaliland. 4—Who was called “The Beloved Disciple”? 5—Name the Chief Justice who presided over the impeachment trial of President Andrew Johnson,

.6—What is the correct pronunciation of the word horizon? T—Name the great lyric poet of Scotland.

2 ” 5 Answers

1—Commemorative inscription on a tombstone or monument over a grave. 2—Daniel C. Roper. 3—Berbera. 4—St. John. 5—Salmon P. Chase. 6—Ho-ri’-zon; not hor’-i-zon. 7—Robert Burns. s = ”

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 be given nor can

from unwarranted searches and seizures: that no person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law; trial by jury; that excessive bail, excessive fines, or cruel or unusual punishment shall not be required or inflicted; that rights not specifically delegated to the Federal Government or prohibited to the states by the Constitution shall be reserved to the states or the people. The states which originally ratified the Bill of Rights in the order in which they acted are: New Jersey, Maryland, North Carolina, South Carolina, New Hampshire, Delaware, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont and Virginia. (Vermont had joined the original 13 states prior to ratification). The Bill of Rights was automatically ratified by states which later joined the Union when they accepted the Constitution as it stood.

started her Pan-Asian campaign, she imported one-third of her raw materials and semimanufactures for industry. A barren little country, as unproductive as an abandoned New England hillside, she furnished 8 per cent of her petroleum products out of native crudes. Her miners pecked at coal beds sometimes only a foot thick. She had little wool, no nickel, antimony, platinum. ‘" u ” HROUGH the taking over of Chinese resources, she has perhaps bettered herself. She says so. Sfill, according to an estimate given in the Senate the United States has furnished more than half the materials she must have for the Chinese incident. Peace groups estimate

she has taken 300 millions worth of war materials here. Take the enigmatic Russians, rich in resources, slower in production. From 1929 to 1937 there was “radical change” in her American imports, the Commerce Department points out, from crudes to finished manufactures. Half the 1937 purchases, about $20,000,000 worth, were in machinery. And her buying last year (Janu-ary-September) increased 95 per cent. Or consider Italy which, irherently or temperamentally, couldn’t produce anything very much more lethal than olive oil and concertinas. Her copper-lead-zine is negligible. Her machinery is alien, eithér American or German. But last year, she took almost 44,000,000 tons of American copper, and copper is an ingredient of artillery and small arms ammunition. Or Germany. Austria and the Sudeten have been embarrassing riches. Both heavily industrialized, they have intensified her dependence on the outside world for raw materials. Lucky when she acquired Sudetenland, also to acquire in St. Joachim’s valley the world’s second largest radium deposit. Not so lucky in also getting, within two weeks, 2000 miles of railroad track with insufficient rolling stock that strained an already-wobbly transportation system. Bogged by arms and the additional men, she has resorted to American machinists and machinery for help. German officials admit immigration of our mechanics. The financial pages recently revorted a major German order for excavating machinery that couldn’t be duplicated abroad. Her copper purchases here last year doubled; scrap iron purchases more than doubled. She spent seven millions for gas and other petroleum motor fuels. . . . But she can’t get our helium.

NEXT-—Iron and Steel Scrap.

Ne

—————y

Everyday Movies—By Wortman

BR

In and Out of the Red With Sam

me, my bahk bosses me, and the union bosses —-

"The mills boss

‘when anybody comes up with a con

PAGE 9

Our Town

By Anton Scherrer

It Develops That Eddie Nolan Didn't Invent Curve Ball at All; Princeton Man Gets the Credit.

NOTHER point that future historians will ponder is the present practice of finding relief in nostalgia. The lament for the past and for dead things in general permeates every phase of

modern life. Indeed, it permeates every phase of modern literature, if William Lyon Phelps counts for anything, and it’s gotten to the point now that captious critics come right out and say it's the

trouble with this column, too. Well, what of it? A column, like any other victim of a long, sad period of economic ills—to say nothing of blood thinned by carbon monoxide—must necessarily find relief in something. Certainly, in something besides vitamins, the Berlin-Rome axis and all the other trivia thought up by this cranky, nervous and utterly preposterous period. M All of which is by way of saying that this column is now prepared to settle, once and for all, the question whether Eddie Nolan, the grand old pitcher of the Indianapolis team back in 1877 when we belonged to the National League, was the inventor of the curve ball or not. This much is certain: When the “one and only” Nolan came to Indianapolis in 1877, he brought with him Frank S. (Silver) Flint. Old Silver, as he was called, hailed from St. Louis where he played amateur ball until he came to Indianapolis. It was while in St. Louis that Nolan first met Flint, and it was there that he pitched his first ball to him. When the two finally made up the Indianapolis battery, they were recognized as the best in the business. Indeed, they were so good that people began to wonder what Eddie had on the. ball. Believe it or not, it was an inshoot—the first of its kind anywhere in the world. The inshoot, however, wasn’t the first ball with a curve on it. Eddie, for one, had an undisciplined curve in his repertoire before he invented the ine shoot. So did a lot of other pitchers, like Arthur Cummings, for instance, and Fred Goldsmith (Chicago), Jack Berry and Bobby Matthews (both of Baltimore), Tommy Bond (Boston) and Blondie Purcell of the Olympics (Paterson). All these men, ine cluding Eddie Nolan of Indianapolis, have been credited with inventing the curve hall. probably hecause it came into general use in 1877, shortly after it was discovered.

The Old College Spirit Which brings me to the point of today’s piece, namely that the curve ball wasn’t invented by a professional at all, not even Eddie Nolan. It was the work of an amateur, one Joseph McElroy Mann, a pitcher of Princeton College, of all places. During the Presidential campaign of 1876, so runs the story, the students of Princeton organized two teams—the Democratic and the Republican Clubs. Honest. Mann, it appears, had pitched most of the games; so many, in fact, that he had blistered his fingers in throwing the swift underhands that were in vogue at the time. In the final game of the series, he took third base and the substitute pitcher went into the box. He was batted all over the lot. Despite his sore hand, Mann resumed pitching, determined to do something for Princeton and posterity. Back in the box, he found that the ball hurt his finger if he let it go from his hand in the usual manner; so he did the next best thing and threw it in an unnatural manner and was surprised to note that the batter missed it a mile. The next pitch went the same way, and Mann knew at once he had something on the ball. It was a curve, all right. I beg you to believe this story. For two reasons: (1) Because it was the one Eddie Nolan told him=self, right here in Indianapolis, when asked about the origin of the curve ball, and (2) because Eddie not only was born in Paterson, but learned to play ball in New Jersey just about the time Mann was a Princeton student. Sure, Mann’s side won, and copped the series.

Jane Jordan—

Dates on School Nights Not Good For Young Pupils, Girls Advised.

EAR JANE JORDAN—We are two girls aged 15 and 16 and we have been going with boys for some time. Lately our parents have forbidden us all pleasure. They say that we should see boys only on week-ends and when we do see them we should just sit around and talk. My mother went to the show one Tuesday night and the boys came to see us while she was gone. I have a brother 10 vears old. When the boys came he caused trouble and ordered them to go home. My mother said nothing to him because she had told the boys not to come on week nights. I never go to bed early, yet I cannot have friends come In. Our parents have threatened to put us in the Girls’ School, and we get tired hearing this same old stuff. We are determined to go with them. I might add that we only can stay up until 11 o'clock on week-end nights. Our only hope lies with you; so please give us some good advice, TWO DESPERATE GIRLS. ” 2 n Answer—As much as I sympathize with young people who have problem parents, I am obliged to admit that dates on school nights are not a good thing for either boys or girls. I think highly of a group of popular young peopie who go to Shortridge High School. All of them are good students and none of them has dates on school nights, My own two boys have never at any time gone out or had friends in during the week, and neither feels the slightest sense of hardship. There can be no doubt but that young people observe hours much too late for their own welfare, Nevertheless, those of us whose children are otherwise reasonable and successful in school have given up on the question of week-end hours. We simply compromise with the youngsters by letting them stay out until midnight, and even later when they're dancing, for most dances do not begin until 10. We do not ask our children to sit around home and talk, but leave them free on week-ends to go to movies and parties and do whatever their group does. I cannot sympathize with parents who threaten to send their children to reform schools. It is an admis sion of their own failure as parents. To begin with, they do not mean it, and you know that they don’t. This in itself makes the threat an impotent gesture, Neither do I think that removing pleasure over the week-ends makes the taste for it any less keen during the week. Their cue is to arouse your interest in school and to find out why ambition sleeps at the switch while pleasure rides in the saddle. An even balance is necessary for the good life. Try to strike it. JANE JORDAN.

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

New Books Today Public Library Presents—

OW much do you have to spend on your vacation? $50? Why not spend six or seven days in New York at the World’s Fair or seven days in San Francisco at the Golden Gate Exposition? Or for $100 you can have a five-day Decoration Day cruise to Bermuda from New York or from two to three weeks in the Berkshires at Great Barrington, Mass. Horace Coon lists 100 VACATIONS COSTING FROM $50 to (Doubleday) with budgets of all expenses, including transportation, tips, extras, greens fees, and reasonable miscellaneous expenditures on land or ‘sea. He

Scherrer

tells you what to take with you, the time of departure