Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 10 May 1939 — Page 10

Vagabond

From Indiana—Ernie Pyle

He Takes a Turn in the Sleeper Of Big Freight Truck and Finds It] As Comfortable as a Train Berth.

LBUQUERQUE, N. M., May 10.—When we stopped for coffee at Raton, N. M,, |

it was pitch dark, But when we drove out of} Raton, there was a sense of dawn already ! there. You could sense it, yet you couldn't

see it. The hour was 4 a. m. Gradually the faint light of day became real. In the half-light the mesas over to the east stood against | the Jighter sky like battleships at rest. The driver said, “There's Venus, the morning star.” And when the sun rose. it came up behind a cone shaped mountain, with a groove right in the top. Our first sight | of it was just a fiery pin-point, | rising into this groove.. It was like | a glowing target in a gun-sight. |

Frost covered -the ground. The |

NE i va.

The Indianapolis Times

- Second Section

rolling, treeless desert stretched as ||

far as we could see. Once again | we were in that peculiarly moving | vastness of New Mexico, and I was | so glad I wanted to shout. | Ernie Ayers was driving again. | He puffed away at his pipe, and figured the time tc Las Vegas, and pointed out little | lakes where ducks wintered. | But I wasn't paying much attention by now. I | had got through the night fine. Never got sleepy once. | But when the rising sun brought a little warmth, and the solitude of the desert spread out before us. and | the hum of the tires and the motor made a monotony, | then I kept faliing off into a weird half-conscious- | ness i We hadn't eaten all night. We had stopped twice for coffee, that's all. But at Vegas, we ate break- | fast From Las Vegas it was Ernie's turn to sleep. he insisted that I take the “sleeper.” Jovfully I took off my shoes and skinned through | the little opening into the “sleeper box” behind the cab I was amazed at the softness of the bed. There was plenty of room. And heavy blankets. When I pulled the cardboard across the opening, only a tiny sliver of light came into my cave. In a few minutes I was asleep. I slept for more than an hour. The bed | was more comfortable, and no rougher, than a berth on a train.

One of the Gang, Now At last I was awakened by a sensation that we | were no longer moving. I pulled the cardboard aside, | and saw Elmer and Ernie out looking under the hood. | We wer: 20 miles from Santa Fe, with a broken | fan belt. light hours and some 250 miles after Elmer | had notic i it. the belt let go. We put on the new | one and : jarted on This ti he we all three sat in the seat. After my | nap I felt wonderful. And that country around Santa Fe always fills me with an elation that wipes cut smaller things | We pointed out things as we went along. Emie | said “There's a bridge where a man was killed last | week.” And I said “See that house. I know the | man who lives there. He's an artist. His name is | Carlos Vierra.” | We stopped for coffee in Santa Fe. It was midafternoon now. I wasn't sleepy any more. And it was crowded with three in the seat. So Ernie took his turn in the “sleeper.” It was exactly 1 p. m. | when we backed into the Albuquerque dock. | We took out my bags and typewriter, and I went into the office and asked one of the bovs if he would | mind calling me a taxi. Later he told one of the other bovs. “Say, these hitch-hikers certainly are getting prosperous. One frowzy one just came in on | a truck. and then asked me to call him a taxi!”

Mr, Pyle

But

My Day

By Mrs. Eleanor Roosevelt

Receives Gifts of Cloth From |

Representatives of British Trade. YDE PARK. N. Y. Tuesday.—Yesterday the representatives of the various trade interests of Great Britain. with a certain amount of ceremony, presented me with the box containing the three beautifuliv woven pieces of blue cloth. They made a very charming little speech and gave me the key to the box. which I then unlocked to find three different weaves. all light, sheer and beautiful in texture. With Miss Clare Potter's help, we decided which was the lightest. Before 1 left the hotel, she took my measurements and I promised to try to give her a fitting the first time I came to New York. From there I went to Mr. George Bye's office, with whom it is always a joy to talk. Then I went on to see a lady who had written me an interesting letter and begged me to come and see the screens which she is now painting professionally. after years of doing it purely as a hobby. The screens seemed to me very charming and the idea of having a screen especially made for the room struck me as rather interesting Then came a most delightful two hours. The Barter Theater in Abingdon, Va.. has decided to pre- | sent an award to the American who has given the most outstanding performance on the stage in the current vear. The first recipient of this award is Miss Laurette Taylor. and they accorded me the honor of presenting her with it.

Amusing Incident Recalled

There were old friends and coworkers who could praise her with warmth and affection, but I am sure that none of them had experienced more real appreciation of her performance, nor were they any happier at being given the privilege of being present at a party in her honor. I had a double interest in this party because my father had lived for a number of vears in Abingdon and the place has alwavs had a little halo of romance for me on that account. A few vears ago, I went to the White Top Music Festival, which is a folk-festival held on the top of a mountain not far from Abingdon, and the storv of the Barter Theater was told me as thev pointed out the hotel and the old playhouse on our way through the cit) Mr. Robert Porter Field is responsible for the idea. Of the stories he told me. I like best the one of the man who came in te ask how much milk he would have to pay in order {o attend a performance. When told it would be about half a gallon, he disappeared and was seen milking his cow on the lawn. When he reappeared, Mr. Porter Field, who had seen the mountaineer’s wife standing nearby, inquired if she too was not going to see the play. The husband's answer was: “Yes, but I ain't going to do her milking for her.”

Day-by-Day Science

By Science Service UCH has been said about the dangers that menace the health of workers in chemical industries —dangers which may increase with each new process that is developed, each new chemical that is brought into use. Now a chemist, Dr. Henry F. Smyth Jr., of the Mellon Institute of Industrial Research at Pittsburgh, tells how to overcome these health hazards in chemical industries. Eight protective measures are discussed by Dr. Smyth. First is substitution of a similar but less toxic material. This is not a good method, he says, pointing out that it is much better to learn how to use safely a hazardous material. Second measure is installation of exhaust ventilation adequate to remove toxic materials at the point of production. Third is isolation of processes so as to avoid the risk of general plant exposures. Fourth, shorten unnecessary exposures of unprotected men and alternate dangerous jobs with safe ones. Fifth, provide for personal protection of workers by adequate respirators, positive pressure air helmets, protective skin applications. Sixth, see that safe devices are kept in good order. Seventh, examine employees before employment and exclude those likely to be particularly susceptible.

By E. A. Evans

Times Special Writer

Secretary Ickes

\W ASHINGTON, May 10.—On that November day in 1936 when Franklin D. Roosevelt was triumphantly re-elected, a strange thing happened at the voting place in the Tennessee Mountain village of Gatlinsburg. The Democratic election officer—a minor employee in

the Great Smoky with an ink-stained finger tip the ballots cast by certain voters, one of these voters being J. Ross Eakin, the park superintendent. Elections in that region are apt to be wild 2ffairs, and this one was no exception. “There was a sight of liquor drunk that day.” savs one man who was there. The Republican election official denies stoutly that he got drunk and insists that he was sick. At any rate, the records show that he

was arrested and seni home and when the counting began that night there were none but Democrats in the polling place. And, as the ink-smudged ballots were taken from the box, they were separated from the rest. Later, they were sent to a Knoxville lawyer. And still later, according to Secretary of the Interior Harold Ickes, they found their way to the office in Washmgton of Tennessee's senior Senator, Kenneth D. McKellar. The matter of the inky ballots becomes news now, 30 months later, because of its connection with Senator McKellar's ferocious, though so far unsuccessful, battle to get Superintendent Eakin fired from his position in the Great Smokies and from the National Park Service. This battle finds Secretary Ickes standing firmly behind Superintendent Eakin, and thus defying one of the most powerful and certainly one of the most patron-age-minded Democrats in the Senate. Secretary Ickes, in making public the story of the ballot-smearing at Gatlinsburg, said he has sworn statements from the Democratic election clerk and from other park employees, telling how they “conspired” to get possession of

Mountains

National Park—smeared

Mr. Eakin's ballot in an attempt to show that he voted for Alf M. Landon for President. Mr. Eakin, himself, swears that he voted for President Roosevelt. n N ”

ASHINGTON observers have been mystified by the fierceness of Senator McKellar's drive against the relatively obscure park superintendent. But Tennesseans who have watched the Senator in action for vears are not surprised. They say he never gives up in a fight to defend his political prerogatives — though just why the superintendency of a national park should be considered one of these is not so clear, Senator McKellar's first charges, made about four months ago, were that Superintendent Eakin is not a Tennessean (he was born in West Virginia), and that practically all of his employees in the Great Smoky Park are Republicans and from states other than Tennessee. Secretary Ickes, refusing to dismiss the superintendent on such charges, took the position that jobs in the National Park Service are under Civil Service and so open on equal terms to members of all political parties. He found that, in fact, all but five of Mr. Eakin's 27 employees are from Tennessee and North Carolina, the two states in which the park lies. And he pointed out that Mr. Eakin has a long record of good service in other national parks as well as in the Great Smokies. Senator McKellar's next move, last month, was one so unusual as to excite much comment here. Being a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, he succeeded in having inserted in an Interior Department appropriation bill a brief amendment stating

ANA IN BT

that no part of the money should be used to pay Superintendent Eakin's salary. Adoption of that amendment would automatically have ended Mr. Eakins Government service. When it came up for debate on the Senate floor, Senator MecKellar was loaded for bear. He read into the record page after page of the transcript of a “committee hearing” in his office (at which he had been the only Senator present, and at which the witness was an Interior Department auditor who had gone over the books of the Great Smoky Park). This hearing, the Senator asserted, established that there had been serious shortages in the park's funds, and that Superintendent Eakin had been guilty of negligence and worse offenses. His friend, Senator Carter Glass of Virginia, chimed in and called Mr. Eakin a “crook.” Prospects for the superintendent looked lack. But other Senators—Republicans—began to take an interest in the proceedings. They argued that it was no part of the Senate's duty to fire a Park Service employee, especially since, as it developed, Mr. Eakin had never been given an opportunity to defend himself against the McKellar

. charges.

» ” 2

INALLY Senator Vandenberg (R. Mich.) demanded producticn eof a letter which Secretary Ickes had written weeks before to Senator Havden (D. Ariz) and which had since rested in Senator Hayden's files. The letter was produced and read. It proved to be a complete exoneration of Mr. Eakin, In it. Secretary Ickes stated that he had investigated thoroughly ail charges of shortages and irregularities in the Great Smoky Park funds, and had found that most of them were simply bookkeeping matters and that Superintendent Eakin was in no way responsible for any of them. The Senate thereupon voted down the MecKellar amendment, 31 to 28. So Superintendent Eakin remains at his post in the Great Smokies. A few weeks ago he was

WEDNESDAY, MAY 10, 1939

'‘McKellarism’' vs. Merit System

Ickes Bares Ballot Marking in Fight to Bar Ouster of Park Official

Senator McKellar

Entered as Second-Class Matter Indianapolis,

at Postoffice,

J. Ross Eakin

ordered transferred to the Shenandoah National Park in Virginia. The order, Mr. Ickes now says. did not mean that he was deserting “an employee who is being hounded for political reasons,” but merely that Mr. Eakin might do better work if removed from the scene of a “cruel assault.” And while the tinues, the Secretary adds, the transfer will not be made. “I am not willing that such an order should go through in the circums=stances that developed in this in-

assault con-

stance,” he wrote the other day to one of the many Tennesseans who have urged that Mr. Eakin be Kept where he is. That was a challenge, direct as could be, to Senator McKellar. Now Washington is waiting for the Senator's next blow in what may develop into a major war within the Administration. The Tennessee Senator has much influence at the White House. But so has the Secretary of the Interior, and he, too, has a reputation for not pulling any punches.

Side Glances—By Galbraith

60bR "1930 BY NEA SERVI

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LINC. T. M. REG. U. 8. PAT. OFF!

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Eighth, have periodic physical examinatiens of em- Hurry, dear—the guests have grrived and:| know. you're: going to.

a a a SR et SE be § ATURE | Res

TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE

1—On which island of the Philippines is the city of Manila? 2—What is taxidermy? 3—Name the president general of the D. A. R. 4—Where is the Assuan Dam? 5—What is the correct pronunciation of the word credence? 6—Name the capital of the Republic of Latvia. T—What is the name for a seven-sided geometrical figure? 8—Which Tsar of Russia was nicknamed “the Terrible"? = =» ”

Answers 1—Luzon. 2—The art of skinning, preserving and stuffing skins of animals. 3—Mrs. Henry M. Robert Jr. 4—In Egypt, on the Nile River, 5—Kre’-dens; not kre-dense’. 6—Riga. 7—Heptagon. 8—Ivan IV.

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

ae ee : t be taken,

Everyday Movies—By Wortman

Hl | titude improves, your indifference will lessen.

"Look, darling! . Mame's- going to. let y

* a

u; take your medicine: cut

| cratic machine at the time, | all the arrangements.

PAGE 9!

Ind.

Our Town

By Anton Scherrer

Wherein Various Items Are Set Down for the Benefit of Any. Who May Essay a History of the City,

ORE memorablia set down for the future use of him (or her) who may one day

attempt a history of Indianapolis with some regard for details.

Item 1: It was right here in Indianapolis in 1896 while singing at a May Festival that Lillian Nordica married Zollan Doeme, a Hungarian tenor who was also engaged as a soloist. It was supe posed to be a secret, but somebody let the cat out of the bag. Leon Bailey, a leading local lawyer and a cog in the Demomade They were married at the old Bates House with Episcopal The marriage Her next husYoung, an

Item 2: Big Bill Reedy, the

special policeman of the cld Empire Mr. Scherrer

| Theater back in the days when it | was going good, was a

real-for-sure cowboy. In 1887 when Buffalo Bill took his show to Europe, Mr. Reedy went with him and stayed two years. To help

Be-

Inside the Just as they were all going “Well, Colonel, you

four Kings.

to dismount, the Prince said:

| don’t often hold a hand like this with four kings."

“No.” said Buffalo Bill, “four kings and a joker is

| certainly a rare hand.”

Item 3: Eliza Browning who was City Librarian from 1892 to 1217, a period of 25 vears to be exact,

| spilled a lot of secrets after she resigned her office,

And among them was the one about the circulation bean box. For each book taken out of the library back in those days, a bean was dropped into the box.

| The increase in beans indicated the growth of the

| library.

I don’t see why I have to explain everything,

' Brain Teasers in Vogue

| of Stoughton A. Fletcher, but until they met at Port Said, Egypt

Item 4: Dr. E. F. Hodges married Laura, daughter he didn't know her Seems that he was traveling with a party of Harvard friends. So was she, except that she was with her parents. At the wedding everybody remarked what a small world

| this is.

{ |

| |

| 40 years ago, consisted of one-third each of

Item 5: The “Sidewalk Cocktail,” much in vogue Scotch

| whisky and the two Vermouths with a sprinkling of

orange juice and Angostura Bitters. It got its name, says the old-time bartender I was talking to, because it was supposed to be a leveler of all ciasses--see? Item 6: Right on top of the Sidewalk Cocktail—e it was right around the Thanksgiving of 1903, I re=

| member—everybody in Indianapolis started figuring

| the age of Anne.

It went like this: Mary is 24 years

| old. She is twice as old as Anne was when she was

| as old as Anne is now.

How old is Anne now? Some people said 16: the rest held out for 12. Item 7: While Anne had everybody guessing,

| Charlie Dennis propounded the question “What does

Ghoughphtheightteau spell?” He thought it up

| one night at the drug store at the corner of Alabama

| and 16th Sts.

This will slay vou. The answer was

| “potato”: Gh-p, as in hiccough: ough-o. as in dough; | phth-t, as in phthisis: eigh-a. as in neighbor: tte-t,

| it is not necessary. | feet one inch high and weigh 130 pounds.

as in gazette, and eau-o0, as in beau. Wonder why nothing like that hapnens nowadays.

Jane Jordan—

Chided for Plumpness, Wife Told To Employ Flattery on Husband.

EAR JANE JORDAN-—How would you react to a husband who tells you that if you weren't fat everything would be different? By everything, he means that he would treat me better and take me with him more places. The girls who take his eve are of the flirty type with a streamline shape. He has asked me to leave, and he told me that he didn't love me.

He said that he was ashamed of me. We are both young and have been married three years. Although he has a good job he wants me to go to work when We have no children. I am five I try to

| laugh these things off but they hurt me very much. | He has killed something inside of me which makes me

| feel indifferent toward him.

Try to help me. YOUR READER. ” ” o Answer—If you weigh only 130 pounds, it wouldn't

| take much reducing to come close to the streamline | figure your husband desires. A fruit and vegetable diet | plus a systematic course of exercise would soon bring | your weight down to normal.

your difficulty.

However, I doubt if your figure is the real cause of It probably serves as a symbol of all the things your husband dislikes in you, and is a cone venient peg upon which he hangs the discontents for which he can find no adequate expression, Since the only complaint you mention is your weight, I do not know what is wrong between you. Whatever it is, I am sure that it is not entirely your fault but is a mutual failure. I am equally sure that you can improve the situation by using your wits as a woman. You say he likes the flirtatious type ever asked yourself why this is true? girl makes him feel desirable as a man. know what a lift this is to the ego If you study your married life, I believe vou will find countless incidents where you have made your husband feel small and mean. In your disappointment you must have told him off plenty of times, thereby creating a need within him for the admiration of others. His assertion that he is ashamed of

Have you A flirtatious Surely you

| you is only an attempt to turn the tables

| virtues.

Suppose you see how often you can praise his His attitude toward you will improve with

| more skilful handling on your part, and as his ate

After a couple has spent several years in tearing each other down, the process of building each other up again may be slow, but it is worth trying. 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—

O many people, in cities and towns scattered over the length and breadth of the United States, Katharine Cornell and her company of players brought for the first time the living theater. For the theater itself, Miss Cornell's pioneering spirit and her faith in the power of the drama brought new life and the realization that “legitimate” drama is not a Broad-

| way monopoly.

In I WANTED TO BE AN ACTRESS (Random

| House) we find the autobiography of this lovely and

| talented actress, as

she related it and as Woodbury Sedgwick wrote it down.

Ruth The narrative

| begins with her first ventures on the stage, when her | part in the play was limited to the “offstage cries of | a woman in childbirth,” takes us through her days

of apprenticeship in and out of the stock companies, and brings us to the last few years, when she has charmed and moved thousands of spectators in the roles of Candida, Joan of Arc, Oparre, Juliet and Elizabeth Barrett. A kindly and humorous spirit, devotion to her pro- } |. 4 youth $8 which has survived me

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