Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 14 June 1939 — Page 13

SECOND SECTION

The I

By Ernie Pyle

| WEDNESDAY, JUNE 14, 1939

Upper left, radio cameras pick up a fashion show in the NBC studio and send it out over the air through

TELEVISION IN ACTION:

Hoosier Vagabond

HICAGO, June 14—It's a funny thing about airline hostesses. I suppose half the girls in America want to be air hostesses. But I wouldn't have their job for anything. The girls on these big transcontinental planes of United, TWA and American really have to work, and work hard. I should think what little romance there is in it would soon wear out from sheer monotony of flying back and forth. But they seem to love it. The stewardesses on United Airlines are an impressively swell bunch of girls. I heard several of the passengers talking about them. They are all trained nurses. Stewardesses are not a luxury on the airlines. They are a necessity. United Airlines hostesses are all nice-locking, but theyTe not the beauty-contest type. Theyte beautiful because they have grand personalities. Their gray uniforms and cocky little hats help, too. . The stewardesses have to serve all meals, do the kitchen work, take care of sick passengers (although there arent many nowadays) and chat with travelers who like to chat. On the momming run between Cleveland and New York, the stewardess has to make up two or three berths, see that the men get shaved, serve a dozen breakfasts and get everything cleaned up before arriving. She has to work like a horse. And I'd think the stewardesses would be so sick of seeing big, fat, sleepy men getting out of bed that they never could entertain the thought of marriage.

= = = Showing Their Gratitude

On the transcontinental flight, you fly with four different crews. When I woke up outside Cleveland the other morning, the stewardess was blond. Her name was Alice Severance. She has been flying that run four years, so she is a veteran. A slight, alert, fast-thinking, saucy little veteran. Making up the berths was heavy work for her. When she went to push the top berth up in its fastenings, she'd have to get under and heave it up

Our Town

Some influential pixies were abroad last week and left a copy of The Provincial at my door. It’s a brand new Indianapolis magazine and starts off with 2 piece labeled “Provincial Perspective,” in the course of which the editor, Ruth Culmer Dieter, reveals the fix were in. It's a lot worse than anybody realizes. “It is highly significant,” says Mrs. Dieter, “that any appreciation expressed in my hearing in recent years of those characteristics which make us essentially Hoosier and mark us for interested appraisal as soon as we cross a boundary or two, has come from recently arrived residents forced to move here because of a shift at the home office in New York or the building of an additional branch factory away from the congested areas. They confess to having reluctantly set up their Lares and Penates among us for what they hoped was a brief pause on their way to larger responsibilities, but they have remained to analyze and point out virtues we ourselves had not suspected we possessed, and to wonder why we of the cross roads are so persistent in the attempt to merge our identity with the muddy streams of New York-to-Hollywood, Palm Beach-to-Petoskey traffic that wash across us.”

= » » Attempting an Explanation

If Mrs. Dieter will give me her undivided attention for just two minutes, I'll do my best to tell her why we Hoosiers are so persistent in the attempt to merge our identities with the muddy streams of New York-to-Hollywood, Palm Beach-to-Petoskey traffic that wash across us.

It’s because of the “Petticoat Page,” a department run by Margaret Reid Hoopingarner, which promises to be a regular feature of The Provincial.

Washington

WASHINGTON, June 14 Considering that this Administration demands and seeks to enforce a high standard of conduct in private business activity, it ought to be more squeamish about political activity. Why this mysterious apathy in the House—which is under Administration control —toward the Hatch bill to take politics out of relief? This measure was passed unanimously by the Senate exactly two months age. Then it was promptly put to sleep in the House Judiciary Committee. Finally, after considerable prodding —mnot fr om Administration sources—a judiciary subcommittee reported the bill favorably to the full committee. There it is being subjected to another kind of treatment. Nullifying amendments are being handed around in the hope that the bill can be pasted with them and then, if worst comes to worst, it can be allowed to go through the House in the form of a mere pious declaration against sin. This bill is directed not only at political manipulation of WPA but at the army of minor Federal appointees why go into action as political top sergeants in every campaign—postmasters, collectors of internal revenue, U. S. marshals, and such. 2 = =

Favored by Martin Note how Rep. Celler of New York, acting chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is worried about the measure, fearing it may go too far. “The question,” he says, “is whether political appointees who have been active in campaigns from time immemorial should be permitted to continue these activities.” Well, neither the Administration nor Rep. Celler worried very much about stopping certain activities

My Day

HYDE PARK, N. Y., Tuesday. —As we motored to West Point yesterday, I went over in my mind the general impression of the last few davs. I have 30 much confidence in the staff at the White House that I really never troubled about being able to make our royal visitors comfortable there. I did realize, however, that there might well be many little things which we did not understand, and which might seem a discourtesy to rovalty when they would be merely thoughtless acts. I can only say that if any such things occurred, the training of Kings and Queens served them in good stead, for they never showed the slightest sign of being even put out about anything. Perhaps the most personal impression which remains with me is the never failing thoughtfulness and graciousness of our guests. At Hyde Park the servants we brought from Washington suffered from a jinx which followed its course in three mishaps! My mother-in-law’s serving table in the difting-room has a center standard. Too many dishes were put on one side and in the middie of the dinner, the table tipped over. Later in the evening, with a ray full of glasses, water, ginger ale and bottles, one of our men going i b EN 1

with her back, it was that heavy. We men didn’t know whether it was the thing to do to help her or not. Nobody did. Also, nobody tipped her when we got out. But we all shook hands with her. I'll bet that pleased her. During our transcontinental flight, the only three passengers I talked with turned out to be followers of this column in The San Francisco News. That revelation so bouved my spirits that I immediately shot up about 10,000 feet, as though I had an air current under me. It sure did seem funny to see the other passengers riding along there at 12,000 feet, and me sitting way up above them at 22,000, all by myself. = ® =

A Globe Trotting Bottle

You run onto some very unusual people on an airplane journey. One of my fellow-passengers had made a long and lazy tour of the South Seas last year. He and another fellow put a note in a bottle, sealed it and threw the bottle into the ocean, just for the fun of it. He pulled a photostat of a note out of his pocket. It said: “Oceanic Line—April 3, 193¢—This bottle was tossed out of the porthole of the S. S. Mariposa at 3:50 p. m. Cabin 436. Party finding please report to Marine Exchange, San Francisco.— (Signed) H. O. Warren and A. H. Allgoewer.” The man showing me this stuff was the co-signer, H. O. Warren, of 640 Mason St, San Francisco. He pulled another paper. It was a letter from Hawaii. The bottle had been found. The letter was written by B. C. Jopling, a Navy radioman at the Fleet Air Base in Honolulu. Radioman Jopling found Mr. Warren's bottle on March 8, this year, on the shore of the Island of Kuri, which is nothing more than a sandbar about 60 miles northwest of Midway Island, where the Pan-American Clippers land. Mr. Warren estimates the bottle traveled about 4500 miles in those 11 months, and the chances of it ever being found at all were about a million to one. I told Mr. Warren that I knew a man on a sandbar at 2855 Coventry Road in Cleveland, and wouldn't it be interssting if we'd drop a full bottle as we flew over that address. But Mr. Warren wouldn't do it.

By Anton Scherrer

“Go Mexican,” says the Petticoat Page. Honest. I know it’s hard to believe after reading Mrs. Dieter's fighting words—in her own magazine, too— but there it is in print big enough for anybody to read: “Go Mexican in a pure dye silk of vivid red and green, shown for evening bv IL. S. Ayres’ with a stop-red patent belt. . . . Or you might follow the Gypsy trend in a formal with a 15-yard skirt of red, royal blue, bright green, yellow, orange and black. .. . You wear heavy Aztec jewelry in hammered silver to complete your exotic appearance.” & & &

The Polynesian Influence

There is a whole page of this kind of advice. “H. P. Wasson’s,” for instance, “are presenting the dramatically different Polynesian costumes. A sports dress in spun rayon of acquamarine, bearing an allover pattern of netted fish, named I'a Upega, reminds us of a sparkling sea and the flash of a

silver-toned catch, Manihiki Island inspires a brown and white print done in sign language. . , . For evening, go theatrical in a silk print of hibiscus and Laufala leaf and fruit. It’s the perfect foil for romantic evenings, as your heart beats just a little faster under a Polynesian print.”

Or “Take the Dutch,” says the Petticoat Page. “Those amusing shoes with their clicking soles are

not the only noteworthy reminders of Holland among |

this vear’s fashions, for we are going to be treated to the new Trinka Van Dorn cotton prints whose Patrgns and colors were suggested by 17th Century tiles.” Even more amazing is the nervy way with which Petticoat Page comes to an end. “We're convinced,” it says, “that fashion is a real international bond.” I believe I'm convinced, too, and I just wonder what Mrs. Dieter is going to do about it. Anyway, I can hardly wait for the next number of The Provincial to come out.

By Raymond Clapper

of stock market manipulators merely because these activities had gone on from the immemorial. Rep. Joseph Martin, Republican Leader of the House, says he intends to exert every influence at his command to bring about enactment of the Hatch bill. How does Rep. Sam Rayburn, the Democratic Leader of the House, intend to use his influence? Reluctance to act is explained by the imminence of the 1940 elections. Last vear, during the 1938 campaign, the Senate voted down such a proposal offered by Senator Hatch as an amendment to the relief bill—in response to a desperate plea by Senator Barkley, the Senate Administration leader. He was up in a hard renomination fight in Kentucky, and urged that WPA, PWA, CCC and AAA not “be tied with a rope to a tree.” £ & 4 No Starry Eyed Idealists In particular Senator Barkley didn’t want his Rentucky WPA director, George H. Goodman, tied to a tree, for, as later correspondence disclosed— correspondence which Goodman had urged the recipient to destroy—Goodman was instructing one of his WPA supervisors to take lists of WPA employees and collect 2 per cent of their pay for Senator Barkley’s campaign fund. No wonder Senator Barkley opposed the Hatch amendment, After the election everyone was willing to vote to keep politics out of relief—during the off year. Such an amendment was written into the emergency relief bill last winter. It expires at the end of this month, well in advance of 1940. But to enact a new measure, that will carry over into 1940—well, that appears to some to be going possibly a little too far. They must be sure that it retains no dangerous teeth. Starry-eyed idealists? Not in matters of this kind. They can be as “practical” around here as Frank Hague himself.

By Eleanor Roosevelt

into the big library slipped and dropped the entire tray on the floor. And as a final catastrophe on Sunday afternoon, my husband, moving backward across the grass by the swimming pool, almost sat on another tray of glasses and pop bottles!

On each occasion Their Majesties remained completely calm and undisturbed.

From the standpoint of the public, I think this country will have a kindlier feeling toward the English nation, because so many people saw and welcomed a smiling King and Queen. I had the pleasure yesterday of introducing te my husband the gentleman whose acquaintance I made on a plane flying from Oakland, Cal, to Seattle, Wash, last spring. We were the only passengers. Ever since then I felt I would like the President to meet and talk with Mr. Walter Leavitt of , Wash. He arrived with his wife and son on Sunday evening, and I stopped at Nelly Johannesen’s, where they were staying, to guide them thro the woods to the big house on "Monday morning. all left for West Point a little after 10, and in about five minutes my husband and Mr. Leavitt were talking about trees, The President made the address and handed the diplomas to all the bays which is quite an undertaking. I had a special interest in one of the graduates because I had known him ever since he was struggling to get an appointment. In the afternoon he married a young lady who has hat Up patience to wait six years, which I think augurs for a. future. i

q id

Television Makes Bow

(Television finally has turned the corner and 1s an actuality today, with sight programs being broadcast on a regular schedule in the New York area. What is it like? Where is it going? This is the first of a series of articles by Norman Siegel, SerippsHoward radio writer, describing the start of the mew entertainment medium, and pointing to what you may expect from it in the future.)

By Norman Siegel

Scripps-Howard Radio Writer EW YORK, June 14.—After 55 years of theory and experimentation in various parts of the. world, television has finally been presented to the American public as a scientific reality. 1t is not a question any more of “When will it be here?” but rather, “Now that it is here, what?” Having been pushed off the end of the laboratory gangplank, the art of sight broadcasting is now on its own to sink or swim as an entertainment medium! The lusty young infant is far from a finished being. But it has been lifted out of its sheltered crib to develop a world of actual experience. have listened to them over sound The door to this 20th Century receivers for years. on he motile Tuts Anetly boen , sw rt invited to wate and partienate ae as i doen sound in its growth into a scientific : : giant, : radio, which has reached a high No less spectacular a setting state of perfection. However, it than a World's Fair was used to will now be done while a regular present television to an eager, but public program sevice is being maintained by the studios broad-

skeptical public, which had been awaiting its arrival for more than : : casting sight programs. America is now doing what

10 years. clevision had been taken out Tr ° England started more than two and one-half years ago, when the

of its workshop for brief public British Broadcasting Co. launched

“canters” a number of times dur2 years, bu hi 4 . h Ing Wie Dest ay : oh Le a two-hour daily service from its Alexandria Palace studios.

193% World's Fair unveiling was Subsidized by the Government,

the first time it was offered es British television was launched.

a permanent thing. The American Telephone & American engineers scoffed at the idea of bringing it out then. They

Telegraph Co., through its subsidiary, the Bell Laboratories, c,ntended that much more rapid advances could be made by not

first presented a television demfar back as 1927. Since then Ee. 2 there have been many demon= They proceeded on the theory of brief periods of experimental

strations. broadcasts, punctuated by inter-

Svstem had a daily schedule of television shows in 1930 and ‘31. They were crude performances conducted before a small camera in what resembled a 10-cent photo booth. But the public was unable to purchase sets that would get the programs. Within the last four years, NBC has been on and off the air a number of times with sight broadcasts. However, they were strictly experimental and aimed at receivers in the homes of the network's officials and engineers. Now television is being offered as entertainment. The public can purchase receiving sets and watch programs in their homes as they

The Columbia Broadcasting

July 4 to Mean Freedom From Slums for 1000 U. S. Families

By Bruce Catton jot its ultimate capacity of 668; WilTimes Special Writer {lert Park, also in Buffalo, which ASHINGTON, June 14 —More Will eventually house 173 families pes a jpop. families and will take in 30 on Independwhich used to live in slums Will anes Day, and Red Hook, in New Independ . sl : "hi ‘ year " roriot into brand-new YOIk City, Where S00 Jamilies i homes Which are clean, airy, mod. nove in and where Wy analy

be housed. em—and which they can afford i Elaborate pains have been taken

live in. | tain that none but Although the New Deal has ween (0 Ieke Ce dwellers occupy tangling with the rchousing prob- (hese new homes. lem ever since its early days, this| 1, the first place, rents are kept is the first time that any really very low. The average per month, large-scale movement of actual sxeluding the cost of gas, light, sium dwellers into new homes has ater, ete, runs as follows: taken place. | In Jacksonville, $1050 per dwelMany slums have been cleared jjng: jn Austin, $6.60 per dwelling; before, to be sure, and many new i, the two Buffalo projects, $13.25 homes have been built with Fed- per dwelling; in the New York eral money—but, in practically all project, from $360 to $435 per cases, the new homes have been|ygom. too expensive for the slum dwellers.| 1, the second place, there is an Now it is going to be different. |jron<clad rule that no one may Five housing projects, being built rent one of these homes if his famunder the program of the U. S.|jjy jncome is more than five times Housing Authority, are now getting as great as the monthly rental. their finishing touches and will be<| gome 160,000 dwelling units are gin providing homes for their new now under construction or eontenants on July 4. ‘These projects/iracted for in the United States AN under the U. S. H. A. program. The homes are tax exempt. Each project is built by a local housing authority; and one condition which the U. S. H. A. stipulates in each case is that the home town officials relieve the new dwellings of real

$$ 8 8

Brentwood Park at Jacksonville, Ma, where 60 families will move in and 240 will ultimately be housed; Santa Rita at Austin, Tex, which will open for its full capacity of 40

estate taxes, as part of the local contribution to the project.

x Xk i 3

families: Lakeview, at Buffalo, N. Y, which will take in 100 families

vals when the studio and transmitter equipment were torn down to make improvements. This, they said, was impossible under the operation of a fixed schedule. They still held to this theory of operation as late as last summer. Then suddenly came the announcement in the fall that a number of manufacturers would offer television sets to the public by spring. This was followed by the setting of the opening of the New York World's Fair on April 30 as the date for the inauguration cof a regular program service in the Manhattan area by the RCANBC studio. Up until then the studio had been broadcasting spasmodic groups of programs from its Radio City studio through a transmitter tower in the Empire State Building.

In announcing the new plans, David Sarnoff, president of RCA, stated that his engineers now be= lieved that the problems still confronting television could be solved only by actual operating experi= ence gained through serving the public in its homes.

- & »

"N\RIGINALLY planning to op= erate on a two-hour-a-week schedule, NBC is now giving own= ers of sets within the 40-mile operating range of its Empire State transmitter a full week of sight broadcasting. The station also is televising five hours of film broadcasts five days a week and numerous special events shows, particularly in the field of sports. The film programs are being broadcast primarily for dealers displaying sets and as a television

TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE

1—-In which South American country is Lake Maracaibo? 2—What is the lighest known gas, next to hydrogen? 3—What are homonyms? 4—With what sport is the hame Raymond (Sonny) Workman associated? 5—On whieh river is the Shoe shone Dam? 6-—What is the correct pronuns= ciation of the word iterative? 7—Whiech was the first country that officialy recognized the Soviet Government? #2 2 8

Answers

1—Venezuela. 2—Helium. 3--Words which differ in sense put are alike in sound or spelling or both, 4-—Horse racing. 5--Shoshone River. 6-—It’<er-a«tiv; not it-er-a’<tiv, T=Turkey. ® & 8

ASK THE TIMES

Ifnclose a Scent stamp to. reply when addressing any question of fact or information to The Indianapolis Times Washington Service Bureau, 1013 18th St, N. W., Washing= ton, D. ©. Legal and medical advice cannot be given nor can extended unders taken,

signal for service men installing receivers in private homes. Within the last few weeks New Yorkers have seen a baseball game, the six-day bike race, two exhibition prizefights, the BaerNova fight, a track meet and numerous other outdoor events.

In August they'll be able to wit ness a spectacular television pick= up of the U. 8. Army maneuvers at Plattsburgh. Actual pictures of the maneuvers will be flown to NBC for nightly broadcasts.

By midsummer the owner of a television set in the New York area will be offered a second pro= gram service when Columbia starts broadcasting from its studios in the Grand Central Terminal through a transmitter on the top of the Empire State Building.

Up to now we've been talking about television in terms of New York, where it is actually being broadcast. Where does this leave the rest of the country? Where does it leave the dialer in Cleves land, Indianapolis, Columbus, Cincinnati and Albuquerque who is still as far removed from tele= vision as he has ever been? For the moment he’s still on the side= lines.

Experts a year ago were relucs tant to set a date for the birth of the radio baby, which has already cost the broadcasting industry in this country and Europe $13,000,000. Now they are predicting that by the end of "he year television will have crossed the Hudson to become a nation-wide reality.

y - 5 9

T the moment there are 18

licensed stations throughout the country. The Don Lee Broad-

the television antenna on top of the Empire State Building, home receiving set, lower left.

below, to the

casting Svstem in Los Angeles has a transmitter in operation and within the last few weeks ane nounced that it had stepped up its picture definition to the generally accepted standard of the 441 line screen. General Electric is building a transmitter in the Helderberg Hills, 12 miles from Schenectady. It will be constructed at an elevation of 1500 feet and with its 106-foot towers will be 250 feet higher than the NBC transmitter on top of the Empire State. It is estimated this transmitter will serve an area with a popula= tion of more than 500,000 people, Expansion throughout the country now depends on the success sight broadcasting has in New York; in the number cf sets that are sold there this summer and the development of programs that will create a desire on the part of the public to want to see them, This, despite the fact that a television transmitter now entails an investment of about $200,000 tw start broadcasting. During the last two months the Federal Communications Commis sion has had a committee investi gating the progress made in the television field, with the view of licensing sight broadcasting stations on a permanent basis. Pres ent licenses are experimental and noncommercial. # a

OR the time being the FCO has adopted a “hands-off” policy. . 1t, too, is awaiting the results of the New York experiment, The future of television in this country is now in the hands of the engineers, production men, announcers and artists who are ac= tively engaged in presenting it to the public. its success and spread in this country depends on their develop= ment of entertaining and interest= ing programs for radio’s news= found eyes.

TOMORROW-=Outdoor events, the backbone of sight broadcast ing.

Everyday Movies—By Wortman

~

EE ——e

Mopey

Dick and the Duke

"Now you see, Duke, if we'd of taken out insurance you could

sue me.’