Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 6 May 1939 — Page 9

on

Vagabond

From Indiana—Ernie Pyle

He's Of on a New Adventure! Riding an Express Truck Miles From Denver to the Coast.

OUTH OF DENVER; May 6.—It was 8 p. m. when we left the dock. The captain | immediately took off his shoes and went {o |

bed. The first mate took over the steering, | adjusted his numerous instruments and set | his course for the South. The night was | clear and cold. The way that starts off, 1

suppose you

think |

were heading out to sea for a journey to Singapore |

or something. But that isn't the case, We were leaving Denver. Our | ship of night was a cross-country | freight truck. | I'm not exactly sure why, but | I'm riding a ‘freight truck clear | from Denver to Los Angeles. It's | 1350 miles, and we'll be two days and three nights on the road. The line I'm riding is the Los | Angeles-Albuquerque Express. They | run daily scheduled service between Denver and Los Angeles. Albuquerque is the division point. There the load is transferred to a bigger truck, and another set of drivers carries it to Los Angeles. There are 18 trucks and 36 road drivers on this line. The trucks are bright vellow with black lettering. The drivers wear olive green uniforms and caps. That remark about us leaving the “dock” was | authentic. It is one of the many terms peculiar to the world of trucking It has always been my impression, gained from | fiction and cartoon, that truck drivers were the toughest guvs on earth. I understood truck drivers could from only one side of their mouths But alas and fiddle-sticks, my team of drivers turned out to be named Elmer and Ernie. By mid- | night we were calling each other by our first names. I don’t remember either of them making even a | minor mistake in grammar. Twelve thousand pounds | of freight wheeling through the night in charge of | three tough eggs named Ernie and Elmer and Ernie. Bov, we're dangerous. Grrr! | Elmer Rook is our senior driver. Ernie Ayers is | the codriver. Ernie took the first driving shift of | four hours. Elmer crawled into bed before the truck started. The bed is called a “sleeper.” It is simply a box built inside the forward part of the truck | You get into it by sliding through a little hole back of the seat. The two drive and sleep in | four-hour shifts | Being duly warned, I dressed especially for the | trip. Heavy socks, and those high shoes that have walked me all over Alaska and Hawaii,

The Exchange of Courtesies

As Denver about getting

Mr, Pyle

alls all

big bed

fret A

we were out of Ernie set his craft shipshape | He tried out his spotlight and set it where he | wanted it. He got flashlight within easy reach He felt the valves beneath his legs. to see which gas tank we were running on. He flicked all the light | switches | One of my first surprises in trucking is that they | don't use speedometers They use tachometers, | which show the motor revolutions. The road was thick with trucks. As we met or | overtook them, there seemed to be a confusing sys- | tem of light-blinking signals. Gradually I caught on. | In meeting, one truck usually flashes its spotlight. | The other truck flashes back. It's merely a friendly | helio” to some unknown fellow-trucker | If you want to pass a truck, you turn on your | spotlight. If the road is clear ahead, the other truck | will signal vou by blinking his dimmers. If he doesn't ; signal, then you stay behind until he does blink you a ‘clear” sign. | Then, after vou pass, the overtaken truck again | flashes his dimmers That's because the passing | driver can't see the back end of his long truck, and | He waits for the overtaken driver to tell him he's | clear and can pull back over New things, unrealized customs of another world were coming to me fast. Ernie and I didn't talk | much for half an hour. And then gradually we | began to get acquainted

My Day

By Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt

New NYA Study Program Drafted; College Trend Report Disturbing.

rASHINGTON. Friday —A few people dined with | Us last night, among them Mr and Mrs | Charles Judd. He is a member of the Advisory Com- | mittee of the National Youth Administration and is preparing some educational material for the use of our NYA voungsters, which I think will eventually prove of tremendous value in our school system My. James McDonald, who was here with the President's Committee on Refugees, also came in to dine with us and told me of the really remarkable radio programs which young high school pupils have | been putting on every Saturday afternoon The Rev. Fr. Dillard, from France, who has been making a study of our youth organizations and edu- | cational institutions, and who was here also, made | one observation which troubles me greatly. He feels | that the high school youngster is far better prepared | to meet a world in which co-operative thinking is | necessary, than the voung college student. Something happens, he feels. in the interim between high school and college graduation which makes our voung college graduates concern themselves almost entirely | with material things

Broadcasts for Pioneer Youths

This, I think, is natural because they have a more | mature sense of responsibility toward their families and the possibility of founding families of their own. | It should not lead, however, to the old type of in- | dividualistic thinking. If he is right, we must take | other factors besides college education into considera- | tion. as for instance, the attitude of the home toward | the older boy Last night Y spoke over the radio for the 15th birthday celebration of the Pioneer Youth Organization, which is a trade union organization looking toward the development of children of the workers A letter from Mr. Edward Bruce, chief of the seection of fine arts in the Treasury Department, tells me of a project which he is starting. He was so im=pressed by the singing of “America” by Marian Anderson in front of the Lincoln Memorial on Easter Sundav, that he felt “the solemnity, grandeur and challenge of that moment” should be captured for poster= | ity. He is raising a fund to which he is asking every voungster who can afford it, as well as their elders. to contribute pennies, nickels and dimes, in order 0 | have a mural painted of what he considered “an un- | forgettable scene.” This seems to me a fine occasion to commemorate

Day-by-Day Science By Science Service T may not surprise those who use words in at- | tempts to influence people that the power of words | is amazingly small. While the physicist has not in this instance entered into the realm of propaganda, Dy. J. O. Perrine of the Bell Telephone Laboratories has computed for Phi Beta Kappa's quarterly, The American Scholar, interesting figures upon the physical power of words: “The average power of words is one one-thou= sandth of one-millionth of a horsepower. As power this ought perhaps to be measured not in horse: | power but in ghat power. But to analogize-—if the | heat power radiated from an ordinary Christmas | candle could be properly qistributed in minute | amounts to speakers, in amounts proportionate to the | power’ of their words, 100000 people could he kept continously talking as long as the candle burned. Word power is almost the nadir of nothingness. When people whisper, the power of their voices is about one-hundredth of normal, when they talk | loudly the power is 100 times greater and when they | shout their words vet another 100 times more Ly

soon as

his

ful. The tones of musical instruments vary widely in their horsepower.”

¥ = aN

| industry is

| Side Glances—B

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SATURDAY, MAY 6, 1939

he Indianapolis Times

Entered as Second-Class Matter Indianapolis,

at Postoffice,

(Last of a Series)

By Paul Harrison

JOLLYWOOD, May 6 (NEA).—The movies have emerged from their cautious isolation with the Hag flying and the trumpets blaring full blast. Now and then vou hear a Bronx cheer for Hitler.

Generally, however, the costliness and content

of

American pictures are dictated by the foreigh market—

what's left of it.

The movie you saw last night wasn't

designed exclusively for vour approval. Month ago, when it was only a script and a budgeted

sum of money, there were

showmen tried to guess how England would like it. And how about the

France. offend the Japanese ? Would it help to restore Holly= wood’s dominance in Italy if peace is made with Mussolini ? Now and then vou hear about some daring picture which will defy the dictator nations. Yet

| “Blockade,’ “Idiots’ Delight” and

others have emerged so emascu-

lated that vou can't tell which side is which Again, vou have read that the withdrawing all its films from this or that intplerant

| country. Actually Hollywood never | has

withdrawn from anywhere until it was only one jump ahead of eviction or uniess it faced insuperable financial losses by remaining Thus the industry “withdrew” from Germany, and subsequently from the lands of Hitler's conquests ” » » HE four biggest companies wrathfully scuttled out of Italy when Mussolini decreed an 80 per cent local monopoly and also made it impossible to take any profits out of the country Italian pictures, made under the supervision of “Sonnyboy’ Vit= torio Mussolini, have failed woefully to please the populace, so Hollywood is expecting a pro= posal of conciliation from the big OSS American pictures have been in and out of Japan, depending on the vagaries of Oriental commercial diplomacy. Just now, Talkietown's foreign representatives expect to be kicked out any minute by an embargo and to have their films—already in the country— confiscated. Even friendly France has a quota restriction which almost excludes American films. England has one, too, but Hollywood is evading it by establishing produces

which wise And Would it

conferences at Latin Americas?

tion units in London and making pictures there. The Scandinavian countries, England and her dominions and commonwealths, and

South and Central America are about the only markets left. Hollywood is conducting a determined conquest of South America, and even last vear sold 377 features there against 14 made by German companies. It now is try= ing to cut in on the business enJoved by the studios of Mexico City, Buenos Aires and Rio. » » =

ATELY there has been a flurry of production in Spanish= language films right here in Hol= Ivwood. Several of the major studios are making them, and tal= ent scouts are bringing Latin stars here i Cobian Productions, releasing through 20th-Fox, has imported Blanca De Castejon from the Argentine; Fernando Soler, the John Barrymore of South America, and a glamour-gal named Carmen Mora. Inseparable from Hollywood's foreign policy is its patriotic one, especially since the leader of the cycle, Warner Brothers, is daring to thumb its nose at Hitler. So, presumably, is Charlie Chaplin, who has begun work on a burlesque called “The Dictator.” But there may not be anv dictators by the time his film is finished. Another alternative is that the picture may never be finished. But Warners’ “Confession of a Nazi Spy’ names names and shows faces. Of course, it is based on actual cases which eame out in the New York spy trial last aus tumn. Nevertheless, it is a de= liberate affront to a nation with which we still earry on diplo= matic relations. So will be a second picture, “The Bishop Who Walked With God.” a factual drama about Nazi persecution of the Rev. Martin

y Galbraith |

| |

NEA SERVIC E INC. T. 3 BEG 1). | PAT. OFF

"We should have organized a party, but you insisted we celebrate

our anniversary alone.”

con Magis A

1. Charles Chaplin is reported turning out a burlesque on the totalitarian countries in a film entitled “The Dictator.”

2. A group of notables assembled

in front of Brass Betsy, an

ancient locomotive used in “Union Pacific.” one of the epic movies now

currently enjoying popularity.

Left to right, Producer-director Cecil

B. De Mille, George Raft. Mrs. De Mille, Evelyn Venable, Mayor Fletcher P. Bowron of Los Angeles, President William Jeffers of the railroad, Patricia Morison, Lynne Overman, Llovd Nolan.

3. Henry Fonda. left,

and Don Ameche in

“The Storv of Alex-

ander Graham Bell” a good example of the biographical type of

new storv trend in Hollywood.

Niemoeller, head of the German Lutheran Church. The Hays office approved the spy seript. but individual members of the Producers’ Association are uneasy about both pictures. Hal Wallis, Warner production chief, told me that he had not bothered to determine the attitude of the rest of the industry ” ” ”

VERY now and then some # local swami peers ino his highball glass and foresees a day when movies will be based on something more important than the love of a beautiful girl for a beautiful boy. The film masters have been giving a lot of anxious thought to the question of “important” stories and have decided that about the only fields they dare touch are biography, history, medical science and nonaggressive patriotism. Only permissible sociological theme is crime and penology; this is because conviets de not pay to see movies. So Hollywood now is involved in a multiple eyele of life stories, empire-building stories and doetor stories. There are 23 biographies on the production schedules for the current season. Today, though, the screen is anticipating a renaissance of ro= mance

TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE

I—In what bodly of water is the island of Malta? 2—The Queen of which country was recently ferced to flee with her 2-dayv-old baby? 3=With which sport is the name of Bobby Riggs associated? 4—What is the correct pronuns ciation of the word computas tive? 5=—Name the unit of eurrenecy in Chile 6—Should olives be eaten with the fingers or a fork? V=Name the president of the New York Stock Exchange. # ® @»

Answers 1—=The Mediterranean. 2--Queen Geraldine of Albania. 3=—Tennis. —Kom=pu'=ta=tive; pu=ta’=tive, 5—Peso. 6—Fingers, Ve alan MeChesney Martin ¥.

not koms

ASK THE TIMES

Inclose a 3-cent stamp for reply when addressing any question nf faet or information ta The Indianapolis Times Washington Service Bureau, 1013 13th St, N. W, Washing= ton, D. C. Legal and medical advice cannot be given nor ean extended research be under take

hy La #

~~

To find out about story trends, I went to see Julian Johnson. He is the story editor of 20th Cen= turv-Fox, the studio that made the largest profit last vear of any of the Hollywood majors Mr. Johnson speaking

“Hollywoed - has surface material the last 10 years. By now it is filming 10 times more stories—= stories of consequence and ims portance—than are being writs ten for publication “For 20 years the screen has lived on current novels, plays and short stories and the obvious masterpieces of previous times. The supply is exhausted now and we have had to dig deeper. One source is biography, but only stuff of dramatic value such as Pasteur, Zola and Alexander Graham Bell. “Another source of contempo= rary life and aection—aviation, medicine, industrial progress. Most major industries are worth a picture—railroads, e¢ommunica= tions, newsgathering, movies. In ‘Lloyds of London’ we made a pretty good one on insurance “Sometimes the screen has to work over fragile or old materials. ‘Gunga Din’ and ‘Charge of the Light Brigade' were based on poems. For ‘Jesse James we had to create a lot of incident for our purpose.”

used up the pretty fast in

Everyday Movies—By Wortman

3 i. p=

HE absence from the screen of stories about exciting events abroad is not due merely to policy, Johnson said. “Wherever you go back, vou'll find that at the time things were happening nobody wrote *about 'em,” he told me. “Some time, the things that are happening in Europe today will emerge as intensely dramatic stories. Why, the peril of life over there is as great as it was in American frontier days. But right

now the whole picture is out of

focus, and it's likely to stay out of focus for years. “For one thing, most of the good writers are here in Hollywood,

and the others have become too |

personally embroiled in political and social issues. People Ernest Hemmingway and Vincent Sheean turn out a fair job once

in awhile, but mostly they're write |

ing their own opinions.” Original stories such as “Made for Each Other,” and "Three Smart Girls Grow Up” are forerunners of the new cycle, but in the absence of enough ins

spired authors Hollywood is dige

ging a lot of old hits from dusty shelves and scheduling them for remakes. Twenty-two of these have been announced, the majority with new titles. Four of the pictures are being revived and revised for the third time, So Hollywood seems to be starving for story material in a time of world-shaking events, and there are many who criticize the screen for refusing to mirror vital problems, Julian Johnson, who is a suc= cessful showman and not a propas= gandist, says simply: “The movies are not only an appraisal of life; they are an escape from it.”

Dolly and Dolores "It's simply divine: having a Werld's Fair,

it means we'll

probably meet a lot. of cute fellows there," ;

\ as

Second Section

’ —_

PAGE 9

Ind.

Our Town

By Anton Scherrer

A "Crime" Involving the Dousing of Two Cops With World's Biggest Snowball Solved After 44 Years,

XCEPT for Frank B. Keeter, who was the hero of yesterday's West End story, I wouldn't pe able to clear up a number of mysteries which have baffled the police of Indianapolis for more than 40 years. Back in 1895, when Frankie Keeter was a kid of 7 or thereabouts, he traveled with a gang made up of Frank Fox and Mike and Albert Zollner whose father ran the butcher shop in the Riley

Block on the corner of Washington and California Sts. The Fox family lived somewhere in the same building. The kids went to School 5, the one across the street, which has since been replaced by the Oscar McCulloch School. I mention the school merely to show that Mr. Keeter and his gang didn't spend all their time raising ned on the streets of Indianapolis. Well, ore evening in the winter of '95—the frightfully cold one with the heavy snows—Frankie Keeter and his gang

Mr. Scherrer

climbed the three stories of the Riley Block, worked their way through the scuttle, and got to the snow covered roof. Arriving there, they started rolling a snowball. It got to be bigger and bigger until, finally,

| it was all of five feet in diameter—at any rate, the | distance

measured by Mr. Keeter's outstretched arms, which was his graphic way of picturing the size to me, I hope I've convinced vou, as Mr. Keeter did me, that it was the biggest snowball ever rolled on top of an Indianapolis buflding. Of course, the kids didn’t roll the snowball just for fun. There was method in their madness. When the snowball got to be the size they wanted, they rolled it over to the parapet, lifted it on the wall (the kids were awful strong for their age), and waited for something to happen. They didn't have to wait long. Pretty soon, Mike Rafferty and John Lowe, the two policemen walking the West End beat, came along nonchalantly swinging their clubs, never once suspecting what the peaceful winter night had in store for them.

His Conscience Relieved

Sure, the kids let the snowball drop. It completely buried both policemen, mashed in their hel mets, and left them looking like Lot's wife or somes= thing equally outlandish. (On second thought, Lot's wife isn't the happiest metaphor because Mike Raf ferty had the most luxuriant beard of any cop on the force.) What other damage the snowball did, Mr. Keeter didn’t wait to see. By that time the kids were off the roof and safely hidden in Frank Fox's home which, if you'll remember, was in the same building. Mike Rafferty and John Lowe spent the rest of their lives—right up to the day. of their deaths—trying to find the culprits. They vowed they'd get ‘em if it was the last thing they did. They didn't get to first base, not even after they got Tim Splann interested in the case. Detective Splann, astute as they make them, did his level best to solve the crime, but to no avail. Every clue led down a blind alley, with the result that not until today-—44 years after the night of the crime-is anybody in a position to reveal the identity of the perpetrators. And the only reason you know about it today is because Mr, Keeter broke down the other night-—-right before my eves—and confessed everything he knew. He said he felt better after it.

Jane Jordan—

Girl, 22, Won't Work, Father Told Hostile Attitude Is Wrong.

like |

“Love Affair” |

| upset you. | prohibitions as some parents do.

EAR JANE JORDAN-I would like you to tell me what I can do with a 22-year-old daughter | who will not try to get work of any kind. She wants to lie around home and read books. She cannot cook | and won't learn. She threatens to have me knocked | off the WPA. 1 know there is no law that can make me support her. She thinks that she has me bluffed, xX ¥. 2 Answer-—Your trouble with your daughter started far back in her childhood. Your attitude is so une sympathetic now that I only can assume that it ale ways has been unsympathetic, and that this is what | has set your daughter against you. It is too bad, for a girl's relationship with her father exerts a power ful influence on her entire life, and helps to determina | her attitude toward men. Whatever is to be done for your daughter now must be done by somebody else, for she is hostile toward you, and your suggestions will be rejected. Where is her mother? You do not say whether she is living or not. Is there anyone in your family who could take the girl for awhile? It is better for her not to live with | you, for you show no love for her. I assume that you | hate each other and had better live apart. The girl feels that she is not loved, and this is the cause of her | ugly, defiant attitude. I am sorry to say so, but I be | lieve that you are more to blame for this situation | than the girl,

EAR JANE JORDAN-I am past 16 and a junior in high school, I have been naving dates lately | with a boy of 17 who has asked me to go steady with him. I wish to accept but am afraid that my parents. would not approve as they are old-fashioned I have one date a week and perhaps once or twice a week I spend a few hours at a girl friend's house after school, and twice a month I go to a club meet« ing, yet my parents object to my going out too often, SIS.

Answer-—T do not think you go out too often. You

will simply have to overlook the fact that your pare

ents are old-fashioned, and not let their complaints Be grateful that they do not issue actual

It is not wise for boys and girls to "go steady"

| while they are in high school because it prevents them | from making a wide circle of friends. | high school “case” breaks up within a few months, | and often the girl has a hard time finding another

The average

boy friend because she has dropped her contacts. However, if any young couple wants to have a whirl at "going steady,” I think they should be permitted to do so in order to fini out the disadvantages for themselves, JANE JORDAN.

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

New Books Today

Public Library Presents—

ITH a vitriolic pen, Lewis Mumford, piling up his evidence in an almost unbearable crescendo, presents in MEN MUST ACT (Harcourt) a tremene dously effective arraignment of fascism, together with a fervent plea to his fellow citizens of the United States to be about the business of saving our democs= racy while there is yet time, His arguments fall like blows on minds made doubly apprehensive by those events which have continued in swift succession following the momentous “Peace of Munich.” Outlining as a first step a comprehensive “none intercourse act,” he advises the abandonment of our present Neutrality Act. He suggests a revision of ime migration policy to include the cream of persecuted minorities, proposes the registration and surveillance of active Fascists, and urges a general reconstruction of domestic and foreign policy with the addition of adequate armaments to fight the menace. Action— intelligent, vigorous and immediate—is the burden of

his passionate message. =