Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 26 April 1939 — Page 11

Vagabond

From Indiana —Ernie Pyle

He Sits Beside the Track at Guthrie |

(In 1889) and Watches the Bedlam As Land-Hunters Leap From Train.

(QKLAHOMA CITY, April 26.—Suppose we are sitting by the railroad track at Guthrie a little before noon on April 22, 1889. There isn’t much doing. Guthrie “consists of a water tank, a station house, a Wells Fargo shack, and a shed called the Land Office. Government men have surveyed the 80 acres that

will soon become the townsite of Guthrie. You can see marker posts spread out over

the country. We men already here are officials—Land Office men, railroaders, soldiers, and deputy sheriffs. It is almost noon. Twenty miles to the north, spread over an unbelievably long line, are thousands and thousands of men and horses, standSS. Ying there tense and straining, waitA av Ying for a pistol shot that will start LE { Y the first mad rush for land into ] po § this new “Oklahoma.” It hits high noon. The race starts up north. And many of us deputy marshals hand in our resignations and dash out over the townsite, staking the lots we want, We who do that are “Sooners.” Many of us will pay with our lives for this smart business before another dawn comes. (Oklahoma today is known as the “Sooner State.” A “Sooner” was anybody whe ‘got in ahead of the deadline, by hook or crook, instead of waiting and making his dash with the rest when the signal was fired.) An hour passes. Then over the horizon comes the first puff of smoke. The first train is long, and resembles a limb on which bees have swarmed. Thousands are packed into the coaches and boxcars. The roofs are solid with humans. Men ride the rods, hang onto hand rails. They are on the cowcatcher, and even atop the cab. The train comes racing in. Greed gets the best of many people. They tumble off the train at full speed. There are not enough lots for all. To the quickest and strongest go the rewards. We won't forget the woman for a long time. She stands on the roof of a boxcar running at full speed, and throws over her rolled-up tent and haversack. And then in one wild plunge she projects herself into thin air. She turns five somersaults in the air with her mother Hubbard flying, five more after she hits the ground, and winds up against the fence with only one broken leg.

City Built in 100 Days As the train finally stops, the massed thousands pile off in a choking melee. Every man for himself, and no quarter asked. Men are held up at gun point and robbed without a sound or word, so crushing is the mob. Fifteen long trains come in from the north before sundown. In five hours the population of Guthrie leaps from 200 to 15,000. Counting those who went to other townsites, and those racing over the prairies, no less than 100,000 people entered the “unassigned lands” that afternoon. Long before dark Guthrie was taken, and a tent city had sprung up. There was yelling and shooting that night, but little harm was done. The newcomers were too busy. Before nightfall, frame houses had arisen. . In one month there was hardly a tent left in Guthrie. Within three and a half months Guthrie had streets, parks, a waterworks, an electric-light plant, and brick buildings by the score. Lots which cost nothing on April 22 were selling for $5000 only 60 days later. At the end of those 100 days there were in Guthrie five banks, 15 hotels, 97 restaurants and boarding houses, four gun stores, 23 laundries, 47 lumber yards, four brickyards, 17 hardware stores, 13 bakeries, 40 drygoods stores, 27 drugstores, 50 groceries, three daily newspapers, and two churches. In a town of 15,000. The same that happened in Guthrie happened in Oklahoma City, on a smaller scale. For years the two cities fought for supremacy. Guthrie lost the last stand in 1913, when the state capital was moved to Oklahoma City.

My Day

By Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt

NAR

Mr. Pyle

Our Interest in China Unflagging: Records of Workers' Songs Heard.

ASHINGTON, Tuesday.—Yesterday afternoon a number of peopie came to tea, among them Miss Freda Utley, who has spent a great deal of time in China and is here trying to awaken our interest in Chinese relief. I am sure those people of the United States who are able to do so, will help these in need in any country throughout the world. We have always had a sentimental interest in China which outweighs the interest we may feel for many other nations. Probably this is because so many of our early New Englanders, who gained their livelihood by sailing their ships to far parts of the world and trading their goods with other nations, built up not only friendly relations with the Chinese Government, but developed a respect for the Chinese merchant and his way of doing business. Miss Margaret Valient, who has been making a study of cultural backgrounds in various parts of the country, also came in at tea time and brought some records she has made of songs heard in the migratory workers’ camps of the Southwest and Western Coast. Some of them are really extraordinarily interesting and show great talent, which is remarkable to find under such straitened economic conditions.

Eddy’s Seminar Is Received

A press conference this morning and an opportunity to meet a seminar group under Mr. Sherwood Eddy’s leadership, which is taking a trip in our own country instead of a foreign country. This idea seemed to me so admirable that I greeted them all with the greatest joy. Now I am off to join the Cabinet ladies at our annual luncheon with the ladies of the Senate, which is always a very pleasant occasion. - There were two articles I read in the Sunday newspaper magazine sections, which I have thought about a great deal. One was a short article by Dorothy Canfield in “This Week” on: “Where Do We Go From Here,” which every young person should read. The other was an account by Anne O'Hare McCormick on the state of mind, or perhaps we should say nerves, of various European capitals. She left out one or two capitals that I would like to know something about just at present. Her remark that AngloSaxons are not always the calmest of people under certain conditions amused me greatly and I think it is perfectly true.

Day-by-Day Science

By Science Service IABETES has not usually been considered anything like an asset. To the individual who must watch his diet closely, take insulin regularly and take special pains to avoid illness, the complaint certainly seems a liability. The 600,000 diabetic patients in the United States are, however, a great asset to the country, Dr. Elliott P. Joslin of New England Deaconess Hospital, Boston, recently pointed out. These patients, he said, represent an army of health officers who serve without pay and whose tenure of office is not endangered by politics. These persons are truly health officers, in Dr. Joslin’s opinion, because they know the health advantage of proper diet, of cleanliness (the diabetic must be constantly on guard against gernis, fighting them with scrupulous personal cleanliness) and of regular exercise, and they are being taught more than any other group the value of eugenics. If diabetes is on both sides of the house, the offspring are likely to have the disease. Young diabetics at Dr. Joslin's clinic are Taneht to marry nonguabeucs.

Indian

w

apolis Times

Second Section

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 26, 1939

WE ARM the

U. S. Supplied Three Fascist Countries in 1936-38 With Scrap Iron for $95,515,000

(Second of a Series)

By Henry Lee

Times Special Writer

EW YORK, April 26.—The esthetic emotions of the mustached little man who used to color postcards for

a living, were outraged.

All over his country there

sprawled uncouth inclosures and railings—built in an era less tenderly artistic—iron fencings about the public hall and cemeteries and statues of great dead generals. “Away with the ugly iron fence!” he had it proclaimed to all his municipalities.

“Promote and assist voluntary removal of superfluous barricades,” his

police were told. «The iron fence, particularly prehistoric enormities that can still be seen at times as inclosures, no longer meets the demands made today respecting the beauty of the street picture, especially when such a fence is only superfluous and when a like purpose can be served, for instance, with a pretty hedge.” Unfortunately, an earlier announcement had admitted the program really was a measure necessary for the production of jron within the framework of the “Four-Year Plan.” It wasn’t Hitler estheticism, just pains in the Ruhr. Scrap, with pig iron, makes steel. But he needn't suffer. There is an American iron and steel scrap industry most solicitous of the growing pains of the axis. From about $2,000,000 export business in 1932, it spiraled to $79,000,000 in 1037. Last year it slid off, but still was the second highest year on record, and for the first three quarters was 1.5 per cent of the value of our total exports. In 1036-38, the years of imperialism, it supplied the three Fascist powers with 5,771,652 tons of scrap and received $95,515,000. This was more than the total foreign dollar sales of American munitions in 1938. The world ransacked dry fer scrap, Brazil studying a plan to reclaim a million tons of rotting hulks and junk, Nicaragua scooping 30-year-old wrecks out of the sand for Japan, the axis, nonetheless, has had to come back to us. Last year, through November, Ttaly took 68 per cent of all her scrap imports from us. More than 63 per cent in 1937. On the basis of Nazi admissions that a million tons had to be imported last year, Germany relied on us for a fourth of her imports. Japan's purchases, of course, are notorious, her dependence on us pathetic. Of our three-million-ton exports last year the axis took more than two-thirds. “This country,” said a WorldTelegram editorial, “has become the junk dealer for the world— junk to us but armaments to them—and everyone knows that our big customers are not the democratic powers.” And here are the figures for the last three noisy years to bear it out: Country Germany

1936 1937 8,799 88,153 1,058,000 1,912,000 285.000 381,000 PAYMENT Germany. $ 122,008 $ 1,610,000 $ 2,945,000 Japan ...14,17%,000 39,386,000 22,035,000 Italy .... 8,564,000 6,640,000 6,036,000

1938 228,700 1,380,000 432,000

It has been a deliriously boom-

Side Glances

ing business. The hulk of the President Hoover, wrecked near Formosa, is sola to a concern in Kobe for $145,000. . . . Peddlers, who make about 35 cents a hundred pounds, range the countryside for old plows and small junk, like antique dealers hunting prizes in barns. . . . The bottom of Lake Erie is sounded for the tons of shells dropped there when the World War proving ground for artillery was nearby. About a quarter of a million persons are employed in the industry, the Institute of Scrap Iron and Steel estimates, from the peddlers, who account for 20 per cent of the collections to the great junk yards, which may handle the accounts of factories and wreckers that disgorge the remaining 80 per cent of precious wastage. There are, too, sorters (for the 83 classifications of scrap iron and steel), balers and loaders, whose processing operations cost $3.50 a ton, according to the institute. That cost, plus railroad charges (between $5 and $6 a ton from New England to Pittsburgh), makes it unprofitable to ship sea coast scrap inland to the big mills. But profitable enough to export —25 per cent through the New York Custom District——in such an exodus that the War Department has been considering hoarding secondary metals g% part of the national defense scheme. The Bureau of Mines is establishing a secondary metals section to “formulate a sound public policy.” Export of tin and its scrap (tin plate scrap and waste tin plate generally are merged in the scrap iron steel figures) already require license. “If we tried to store it,” one junk dealer argued, “we'd just

The city of Shanghai is shown above, burning after an aerial bombardment by the Japanese. At right the Japanese liner Moqul Maru is shown loading scrag iron at Long Beach, Cal.—scrap from which bombs and shells were fashioned to rain down on China.

by 3 HS

have a swell pile of rust at West Point in 20 years.” The institute, representing 90 per cent of the tonnage in the trade, says it objects to being whipping boy for all the war materials industries. It says it will sacrifice its profit in yen if all exports to Japan are embargoed, but it resents being singled out. In 1937, it says, we consumed nine times as much scrap as we exported; last year, when we shipped abroad three million tons, there was seven times that for our own mills. The supply is “enormous,” the institute says, and export doesn’t jeopardize domestic supply. Others, including Congress, are not so sure. Emory E. Smith, who was a $1-a-year War Industries Board

The man at the left is dying on a Shanghai street, stricken by shell fragments, made, perhaps, of that

old bed you threw in the junk pile.

Commissioner during the World War, said that American scrap made possible the “bellicosian” situation abroad. In his opinion if the United States were involved, it would be forced to resort to newly-mined iron, while our export nations were preparing with American scrap. “So that,” he said, “the costs of major war equipment would be three and four times that which it would cost Japan.” Such was the consumption in the war, he disclosed, that at the Armistice, our mills were 12,000,~ 000 tons behind on imperative war orders, and Germany, England and Japan were stripped of iron. He demands a flat ban on all “metallic war material.” “Even in this period of foreign wars,” said James A. Farrell,

U. S. Airline Leads World in Safety; Ends 12th Year Without an

By Maj. Al Williams Times Special Writer HILE American airpower still is in the “talk” stage, we do own one honest, topside air record to the open envy of the world. Pennsylvania-Central Airlines has just completed its 12th year of carrying passengers, mail and freight, without a single injury to passenger or crew members. And, after all, we can be a lot more proud of such a performance for safety in the air than if we were just able to point to warplanes that darken the skies. -~ We'll get those warplanes in due time; at least there’s reason to hope

a 1 EA SERVICE, INC. T. M. R rR ;

"Wasn't it mumps we iin to have when they wanted to visit

ii

we will. Meanwhile we can pat ourselves on the back a bit in the realization that this unparalleled safety record of the airline is one no foreign nation can duplicate because they've all cracked up passengers, crews and lost payloads. Our country leads the world in commercial aviation. And in the long haul that ability to set the pace along the peaceful lanes of air commerce will bring us out on top.

PCA carried 92,000 passengers last year, and flew three million miles to do the job. It serves Chicago and Milwaukee in the Middle West; Ste. Sault Marie, Mich., Cleveland and Buffalo in the North, to Baltimore, Washington and Norfolk in the

TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE

1—What is the common name for tetanus? 2—What is the name for the side of a right-angled triangle opposite to the right angle? 3—Where is Mt. Etna? 4—What event is called The Na= tivity? 5—For what government agency do the initials FSA stand? 6—Name the Norseman who colonized Greenland. 7—What are the colors of the flag of Denmark? 8—Name the largest of the Canary Islands.

Answers 1—Lockjaw. 2—The hypotenuse. 3—Sicily. 4—The birth of Christ. Sam Security Administra« on. 6—Eric the Red. 7—Red and white, 8—Teneriffe, ss 8 &

ASK THE TIMES

Inclose a 8-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 extended research be under

Accident

Southeast, with Pittsburgh as headquarters. Common-sense leadership and teamwork built this airline and its 12-year safety record. The organizer was Cliff Ball, a shrewd, farsighted Pittsburgh businessman. He was succeeded by C. Bedell Monro, an astute business excutive of Pittsburgh, who still holds the reins. It’s not easy to cancel a schedule on account of bad weather, with a planeload of eager passengers wait= ing. But PCA looks you in the eye and says no. There are airlines all over the world, but it’s a U. S. airline, built the way the whole country was built, by individual initiative, courage, and common sense, that leads them all.

Entered as Second-Class Matter Indianavolis,

at Postoffice,

former President of the United States Steel, a good judge of American trade, “the United States continues to export to belligerent countries raw materials of strategic military value, including scrap iron and steel, cotton and other commodities, which at a future time may under neutrality law be treated as contraband of war.”

Ernest T. Weir, chairman of National Steel, fifth largest steel producing company in the country, said export of steel scrap should be banned till “we have built up reserves of this basic raw material to meet any emergency.”

And in the House, Rep. Fish has submitted a bill to embargo shipments of pig iron and iron and steel scrap to both China and Japan. In the upper House, Senator Schwellenbach (D. Wash.) has reintroduced his licensing bill which died last session in the Military Affairs Committee. It would require Presidential license for scrap exports.

(The Institute of Scrap Iron and Steel is against it.) Although others have fulminateed, and the laws of economics have worked against the scrappers (the average price per gross ton dropping from $19.35 in 1937 to $14.95 last year), the cynical Japanese may be right.’ He is quoted, anonymously, by the American Committe for Nonparticipation in Japanese Aggres= sion as saying: “We Japanese have no fear of any change in America’s foreign policy, for Americans have no real morality but only pious phrases. What Americans have means so much more to them than what they are that they will continue to sell to Japan whatever Japan has the money to pay for, regardless of what Japan does with it after she gets it” In this spirit we began the year 1939, shipping Japan more than two-thirds (153,000 tons) of our January export of scrap. To Berlin and Rome went another 37, 690 tons.

NEXT-—The continuous mill,

In A

Everyday Movies—By Wortman

Dolly and Dolores "To look my best | always have to spend just. a little more than

PAGE 11

Ind.

Our Town

By Anton Scherrer

A Thoughtful Contributor Fills In Some Important Gaps in the Delightful Story of Jose's Lane.

Y life would be a drab affair, indeed, were it not for the vivid material sent in by cash customers who know more about writing a column than I do. Thus, the other day I submitted a piece, such as it was, about the Jose family, and right away came a letter from somebody who hides her identity under the tantalizing pseudonym, “A Tenant of Jose's Lane.” It’s a woman, all right.

“You never even mentioned the big copper kettle and the way they made soap under the trees in Jose’s Lane,” says my correspondent. “And not a word about the gallons of apple butter. All the tenants got some of that. When strawberry and cherry picking times came, we kids all helped, and we could take so much out of every gallon we picked to take home for mother to can. “We had a large lot and raised everything for our table, but not wheat. We had 300 chickens, 200 geese and ducks, all the eggs we could eat, and lived on the side of the lane backed by Pleasant Run. Those days there was water in it. We waded and fished with pins. In the evening in the moonlight we children would play in the lane under the maples with lambkins and billy goats at our heels. We were afraid of nothing in Jose’s Lane where the gates were closed after dark, and we all felt safe from harm. “When spring came, we used to go and watch the growing things in Mr. Jose’s hot beds. He had so many of them. And how I loved the dormer window in Linda Jose’s room, and have her show me all the pretties she had packed away for future use. Linda was older than I, and I gave her all the adoration of a child. She was sweet and gracious, and I remember that she took me to school on my first day. It was No. 20; the baby-room teacher was Mrs. Oliver; the principal, Mrs. DeVire. That was 53 years ago. j “And dear old Mother Jose! One day when I was only 5, I was sent to the Joses to get some milk and as I went through the orchard I saw seven or eight large luscious pears lying on the ground. I wanted them very much, but my mother had taught me not to beg or steal. So I passed them edging myself away inch by inch, following them with my eyes and finding it very hard not to take one, but minding my lesson well. When I got to the gate and turned my back on them, I ran as fast as I could to get away from temptation. =

Honesty Is Rewarded ET TTT

“Now unknown to me, Mrs. Jose had watched the performance from behind a curtained window. It pleased her so much that she called after me, but I was too scared to hear. Pretty soon she came to our house and asked my mother to call me. I came out very much frightened, not being able to imagine what she wanted of me. “She handed me a whole basket of pears, saying in German: ‘Honesty is the best policy and carries its own reward. Eat as many of these as you want, Child, and do with the rest as you please.’ It sure helped me to be even more strict about doing anything underhanded, and from that day I was a favorite with the Joses. Whenever Mrs. Jose had company and I was anywhere around, she would dress me up in Linda's pretty clothes and make me sing and dance. “Mrs. Jose gave mother many of Linda’s outgrown clothes, and those days one was not too proud to accept charity gracefully. Though we were poor and mother sure had hard work to make ends meet, we gardened and canned and did without what we didn’t have cash for. But we had shoes and stockings on our feet and our stomachs were fed, and everybody was happy in Jose’s Lane.” .

Jane Jordan—

Happy Young Wife Urged to Ignore Slanderous Attack on Husband.

EAR JANE JORDAN-—I am 24 and have been happily married several years. My husband is wonderful to me. He is always bringing me clothes. Sometimes it is a coat, a suit, a dress, and sometimes it is a bunch of roses. He is always telling me he loves me and we get along fine together. The other day an unknown woman called me up and said that my husband had been having dates with a friend of hers for six months. I was stunned and hung up on her. I told my husband and he denied it. I really do not know when he has time for dates for he is always with me. Since this occurred he is always asking me if I still love him. It runs through my head that he might have had some dates and when he quit, the woman called me up, hoping that it would cause me to leave him, but I would not give up my husband to another woman without a struggle. The only thing I can say is that if he has been going with another woman he must be a good actor to treat me the way he does, What do you think of all this? UNHAPPY,

Mr. Scherrer

2 =» =x

_ Answer—Well for mercy’s sake. I suppose if somebody called you up and told you that your good husband had robbed a bank or shot a man that you would spend your life wondering whether or not the incredulous thing might possibly be true. Consider the way in which you received this infor mation. Was it told to you by an honest person with constructive intent? No. It was told by a dishonest person with destructive intent. I would not trust the woman who told you this yarn. Judge your husband by his attitude toward you in= stead of by slanderous tales uttered by an unknown adversary. Think how much more you have in your life than many women whose husbands hardly know they exist. I like your spunk when you say that you would not give up your husband to another without a struggle—and so will he! It is a much healthier attitude than that of the woman who simply dissolves in tears when fearful of her husband's fidelity. J JORDAN.

Put you problems in a letter to Jane Jordan who will answer you yuestions in this column daily. :

New Books Today

HE much-discussed National Labor Relations Act is the background of the conflict ih THE STARS AND STRIPES FOREVER (Random House) by ale Paul. A former European correspondent, Mr. Paul is perhaps best known for his novel of the Spanish War, “The Life and Death of a Spanish Town.” His newest book is of a géire of labor fiction which probably will survive as a record of the ine dustrial conflict of our time. When the old ine dividualism which built Meldon’s factory meets the new drive toward industrial unionism, the peaceful Connecticut town is converted into a bloody battle ground. Marcus Loring, president of the plant, opens & finish fight against the union which threatens to usurp his power as Meldon’s lord. He evades the act, beats the union strikers back to work and wins & citation from the Manufacturer's Association. The struggle here is epitomized in the words of the aged legal adviser to the Loring family, whose counsel goes unheeded: “There is no such thing as the government. There are many governments. The bankers

and the large employers are governments. The A. F. of L. and C. I. O. are governments, too. These gov= ernments occupy territory and fight for control. They

by

are all governments of men, not of laws, and hey fe \ bY. 1 hevo » 0 hi

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