Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 27 January 1940 — Page 7

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Hoosier Vagabond

SANTA CLARA BEACH, Panama, Jan. 27.—Nelson

. .Rounsevell leads the nearest to an ideal life of any

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“retired” man I've ever known.

He is busy, he is thoroughly alive and broadly

intelligent, he has interesting friends and intriguing

enemies, and he has the material things of life just as he wants them.

His home is 75 miles from Panama City, and a macadamized road runs past it. His house is an oasis in a country that is already naturally lovely. He has his own electric lights and running water and icemaking machine. His floors are of beautiful tile, and when you throw cigarets on the floor you know that the house won't burn : down. Back of his house is a large one-room-and-bath guest house. I have been added to the list of those entitled to come and use it, and some day I'm going to do it. He has seven Panamanian natives on the place. They don’t work hard, and that’s all right with him. He speaks Spanish to them, says they don’t know the meaning of theft, and are completely dependable, loyal and fine. ; If you arrive at Rounsevell’s place at daylight (which I almost did) you: will find him up. First he Stuffs you with hot cakes and molasses, and then before you know it he has you out around the place, looking at things.

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Animals for Company

He has wild deer that come running up to. get their noses rubbed. He has a wild pig (dangerous in the jungle) that grunts and gurgles while he scratches its throat, and you can see happiness in its ugly face. He has wild squirrels with beautiful markings. They hang upside down on the screening of their cages while he feeds them hibiscus blossoms. He has pheasants and geese and queer jungle animals I never saw before. He has macaws and

Our Town

WHEN IT CAME TIME to read Israel Zangwill’s

novels, I suddenly became aware of the fact that to

: appreciate a good book the reader has to bring some-

: quite sure that never

thing to it, too. Indeed, now that I look back I'm the world could I have caught e significance of all the details ontained in his “Children of the; etto,” for instance, had I not had the luck to know the Widow Kavanaugh who lived in Eddy St. Eddy St. was the shortest street in Indianapolis when I was a kid. The most picturesque, too. It started just back of Otto Shopp’s' drug store at Illinois and Merrill Sts. and terminated : quite suddenly at Norwood St.— ~ IA not more than a block long as, no doubt, you South Siders know without my telling you. It wasn’t any wider than an alley, either. All in all, including the synagog, it had about 30 little

‘frame houses and in them lived the Russian Jews of

Indianapolis. Back in the Eighties, it was just as

- natural for the Russian Jews to gravitate toward

Eddy St. as it was for the Irish immigrants to ask the way "to the Hill or the Germans to hunt up Noble St. i ; “on The amazing thing about Mrs. Kavanaugh was the fact that she was the only gentile living in Eddy St. Nobody that I ever knew could remember when she settled there. It must have been way back in the Seventies, at the time the frog factory was built.. Anyway, I always had it figured out that Mrs. Kavanaugh’s husband was just the kind of man to be attracted by a factory built to turn out railway

frogs.

A Woman Apart

Mrs. Kavanaugh never talked much about her late husband, but when she did she always followed the mention of his name with two strange words which had the sound of a foreign language but unlike any I had ever heard. It was my first intimation that Mrs. Kavanaugh was a personage quite apart from anything in Indianapolis. - Later when I got to know her better, I discovered that she had been living in Eddy St. so long that she had taken on all the ways of the orthodox Jews, including the ceremony of lighting two candles on Friday. night. As a matter of fact, Mrs. Kavanaugh had the in-

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Washington

cent of the inmates are colored people, % Sri aE Sais 3 ¥ | oF :

LINCOLN, Neb., Jan. 27.—We were gathered around the fire in a banker’s home here, several businessmen and an editor, arguing about the war and politics. Finally the editor’s wife broke into the conversation. “We don’t care about the war,” she said. “We 2 don’t care about politics. What ‘matters to us is moisture. We want snow and rain. We must have water or we are ruined. Moisture is all that is important to Nebraska now.”

Everyone present agreed.” It is the same cry up and down the Plains, from Nebraska, through western Kansas and Oklahoma, down into the Texas Panhandle. The water table has fallen everywhere. Seven dry years have wrought vast damage, shaken the ; { security of thousands of farmers, and set loose brooding fears for the future of the Plains country. Land values in some sections of Nebraska are lower than they were in the 1880s. : There is no lack of spirit among the people. They

: are carrying on. What worries them is whether nature

is going to run out on them and leave them high and dry, literally dry. Nobody knows whether the desert is coming back. . * ” o 2

Bad Weather Cheered

Secretary Wallace recently advised farmers in western Nebraska to get out of corn. Many farmers already are doing so. They are shifting into more

- drought-resistant crops such as grain sorghums!

Average annual rainfall in Nebraska for-60 years has been 27.09 inches. In 1939 the actual rainfall was only 19.73 inches. In 1938 it was barely above average,

have just returned from a little jaunt out into the snowy wilds of the District of Columbia. I decided to pay a visit to the home for the aged and indigent people run by the District of Columbia in. Blue Plains. I took some flowers and cigarets with me. Mrs. Morgenthau, another friend and I started off with no idea that we were going to find ourselves stuck in the snow, but that is what happened to us! We got out anf walked, leaving the car in a position from which we could return to the streets of Washington. ; Following a partially cleared road, we reached a door in a brick building which opened directly into a long corridor where : many old colored women were congregated. We finally found a woman who seemed to be an employee and asked her how to find the office of the institution. She directed us and we sallied forth on the opposite side of the building, glad to breathe fresh air again and remarking that at least the old people were warm, and I think we The superintendent greeted us very kindly and took. us through the institution. More than per

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SATURDAY, JANUARY 27, 1940

By Ernie Pyle

_ parrots and two beautifully marked turtles that he

picks up and talks baby talk: to. He has flowers in utter profusion; his house and water tank are completely vine-covered; you can reach out a window and pick orchids of a dozen varieties; he has banana and papaya and avacado trees all around. Rounsevell likes to talk; he likes people; he likes

to have somebody around. And it’s a good thing|’

he doesn’t require privacy, for constantly there is someone here. A He is a picturesque and brilliant talker, He swears so profusely and naturally you hardly notice that

he’s swearing. He smokes cigarets constantly. He|

wears glasses, and is almost bald. . He goes into town about once in two moriths. He says the only things he has to go for are to get his hair cut and borrow money. ® = His Last Drink | _Rounsevell eats little meat, but he’ll polish off three pieces of pie and two pieces of cake at luncheon. He is a teetotaler. . “Have you always been a teetotaler?” I asked. I knew, but I wanted to see what he’d say. He said: “No, I was drunk for 18 years, and now I havent had a drink for 26 years. I couldn’t drink without drinking to excess. Suddenly I quit, and I personally had no more to do with it than you had. I just knew I was taking my last drink. It has never been any struggle for me. It would he impossible for me to take a drink ncw, or ever again.” “Do you object to ather people drinking?” I. asked him. , “Not in the slightest,” he said, “as long as they don’t want to fight or drool all over me. Then I just move away.” ‘ : Friends of Rounsevell tell me he can get just as drunk with animation as others can with liquor. He is interested in everything. He inquired about newspapermen I know in Washington and New York. He nas no telephone, but he geis thie paper every morning before 8, by truck. He drives a Dodge sedan, and pays so little

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. attention to it while talking that it often dies in

the middle of the road, or runs with ‘one wheel in the ditch.

By Anton Scherrer

side of her house: fixed up just like those of her neighbors. Nailed to every door, for instance, was a tin box inside of which was a folded manuscript called, I believe, a “mezuseth.” At any rate, that’s what it sounded like to me at the time. Mrs. Kavanaugh said it brought good luck to those within. I remember, too, that Mrs. Kavanaugh had two sets of dishes with which to cook and serve every meal. One was for meat and the other for milk. Everything made of milk was eaten first, after which came the meat. It’s so long ago that I'm not too sure of this, but that’s the way I recall it. Of this I'm sure, however: Mrs. Kavanaugh never permitted the two sets of dishes to come in contact. She was so particular about this detail that she even .washed them separately, in different water. After which it probably won't surprise you to learn that Mrs. Kavanaugh observed the Jewish Sabbath, too. On that day she ate only cold dishes. Come to think of it, I believe she put out all the fires every Friday night and didn’t start them again until Sunday morning. : ” ” ”

She Knew How to Laugh

Mrs. Kavanaugh didn’t betray hey Irish ancestry altogether, however, because 1 remember that she always wore a green ruching around her throat, something the Jewish women didn’t do. Moreover, she knew how to laugh when the occasion called for it which wasn’t often in Eddy St. Indeed, with the exception of Mrs. Kavanaugh, I never heard anybody

laugh in Eddy St. The faces down there were seared

with the suffering of a thousand years and it always struck me, young as I was at the time, that they knew more about the bitter side of life in Eddy St. than anywhere else in town. Well, the point I'm trying to make today is that when it came time to read Mr. Zangwill’s books, it was just like finding Mrs. Kavanaugh again. There was hardly a thing his characters did that Mrs. Kavanaugh didn't do, too. And I still remember my surprise when I came across a widow in one of Mrs. Zangwill’'s books who said the very same thing Mrs. Kavanaugh did when she mentioned the name of her late husband. The cowntext made it clear that it was the Jewish equivalent for ‘of blessed memory,” and you don’t know how relieved I was. Up to that time I had never been absolutely sure how Mrs. Kavanaugh felt toward her late husband.

By Raymond Clapper

and in 1936 only half of average. Year after year Nebraska has been short-changed in rail. In the last 20 years rainfall has exceeded 30 inches only once, whereas in the previous 20 years annnal rainfall went over 30 inches 10 times. The figures show that the last 20 years have been decidedly driet than the previous 20 and farmers are paying the price. So ‘when Lincoln woke up one morning recently in a terrific blizzard of heavy snow, there was no complaining about the weather but city-wide rejoicing. Merchants ‘whose customers were kept indoors by the cold gathered at luncheon and told me how this would mean good business for them in the fall—if only there would come more snow and still more snow and rain. Everyone prays for bad weather here. 2 8 ”

Cannot Afford Paint

The countryside through Nebraska and Kansas is, it must be said in all frankness, run down at the heel. Farmers are run down. You ride for miles by train without seeing a trim, well-painted, prosperous-appear-ing farm. A wholesale hardware man told me that most farmers cannot afford paint. ? Enormous activity is going on to combat the prolonged drought conditions. Throughout all of this Western Plains country the Federal Government is throwing its resources of money and scientific skill. Some partial victories have been achieved. The dust bowl has been driven back 50 or 60 miles away from Amarillo, Tex. Shelterbelts in western Kansas and Nebraska are not laughed at as they were when President Roosevelt first proposed them. . Politicians who sit in Washington .and bellyache about spending can grow sentimental about Finland— but the farmers out in western Nebraska, western

Kansas and the Panhandle Country are putting up a!

heroic battle which also deserves a hand.

*

By Eleanor Roosevelt

The institution has a farm, so that one would expect on 63 cents a day per person the food might be fairly good, but it looked unappetizing and. was set out and getting cold long before the people entered the dining room. The plant is so old and so utterly inadequate, and the personnel so overburdened with work because of the overcrowding of the institution, that I think anyone visiting it must leave with - an aching heart. In comparison with what smaller nations, such as Denmark, Belgium and Sweden, do for their indigent old people, you cringe with shame for the standards which are accepted in our country. : . It seems to me that the sub-committee of‘ the Appropriations Committee in Congress might well visit this institution. In addition, the women’s clubs of Washington could make a tremendous difference in the lives of both the attendants and the inmates of the institution if they took an active interest. + I think the thing which made the deepest impression on me was the lack of segregation where the senile old were concerned. It was most striking to find .an old woman, said to be nearly a ‘hundred years old and considered an: example of happiness, sitting on the edge of her bed, laughing in a somewhat eerie fashion when addressed by the doctor, while on the bed next to her sat a young woman, sent from Gallinger Hospital to convalesce. Friendless and penniless, where will she go when she is pronounced well? No, it was not <h ul morning.

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1e Indianapolis Times

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© SECOND SECTION

men were at the speakers’ table.

FULL TRUCKING PACT DEMANDED

Reciprocity on All Classes Sought by Finney in Wisconsin Fight.

“Full reciprocity or nothing” was the answer Frank Finney, Indiana

Motor Vehicle License Buregu Director, gave Wisconsin officials today in.connection with the latter’s demand for a partial truck license pact between the two states. George W. Rickeéman, Wisconsin Motor Vehicle Commissioner, yesterday warned that the entire southern Wisconsin border would be closed to Indiana trucks not bearing Wisconsin plates unless Mr. Finney agreed to a conference. “I have notified Mr. Rickeman that I will confer with him in Chi-

tiate a reciprocity agreement,” Mr. Finney said. He explained, however, that Wisconsin officials have offered reciprocity on only one class of trucks— private carriers weighing 8000 pounds or less. “This class of trucks would be

only and Indiana could not enter such an agreement because state police would have to determine not only the weight of all trucks stopped but would have to determine the ownership,” Mr. Finney said. “We are willing to negotiate on an agreement involving full reciprocity for all classes of trucks or nothing.” Indiana officials began reciprocity negotiations with Wisconsin more than six months ago but Wisconsin officials claimed their laws prevented entering into a pact for all classes of trucks. Meanwhile, stage police have been instructed to arrest drivers of all Wisconsin trucks not bearing Indiana plates.

ILLEGAL SPENDING OF $8174 CHARGED

A report issued by the State Ac-

illegal cash disbursements totaling $8774 were authorized by Charles

A. Nutting, Clark County Auditor, from Jan. 1, 1936, to Dec. 31, 1938. Of the total alleged overpayments, Otto. Jensen, assistant Accounts Board director, said $2196 had been turned back to the County by persons getting the money. One item which the board declared was illegal included $1073 payments to Harry E. Jacobs, Clark County surveyor, for traveling expenses. The payment of $1875 to Clark County Welfare Board members for expenses was declared illegal because \“no itemized statement was filed.” The Board. declared il-

relief. The report was turned over to the Attorney General's office for possible civil action to recover the funds.

5 SCOUT RALLIES

TO BE HELD TONIGHT |

Five district rallies will be held by Boy Scouts tonight in the series leading up to the city-wide rally at Tomlinson Hall next Satur day. . Tonight’s schedule: Dixie district at the Jewish Communal Building, Garfield district at the Garfield Park shelter house, Rainbow district at the Kirshbaum Community Center,~Roogsevelt district at the Brightwood Methodist Church and Washington district at the Hawthorne house. | Rallies were held last night at the First Reformed Church, TaberAttucks ‘High School, Meridian the ‘Indiana State School for the Deaf.

INHERITANCE TAXES SPURT LATE IN 1939

oR / Inheritance taxes collected by the

of $10,000 over the preceding three

disclosed today. The collections in the last three months were made: from estates totaling $17,388,395 compared to es-

those carrying the owner’s goods|'

counts Board today charged thatj

legal the payment of $2200. tothe Auditor for administration of poor

nacle Presbyterian Church, Crispus|

Street Methodist Church and at!

State during the last three months| of 1939 totaled $390,347, an increase

months, State Tax Board records| ency

tates valued at $13,879,744 during the ‘|preceding three months, © |

When the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce held its 50th anniversary dinner at the Claypool Hotel last night, honoring charter members and awarding scrolls to firms for 50 years of service here, these Left to right are Sanford B. White, secretary of the International Harvester Co.; William Fortune, first secretary of the Commercial Club, and Fowler McCormick, second vice president of International Harvester.

cago any time next week to nego-| ju

Honored as C. of C. Celebrates 50th Anniversary

Not only was it an occasion to bestow honors, but the dinner provided an opportunity for retiring and new officers of the C. of C. to

discuss plans for 1940.

Those szated at this table are (left) C. D.

Alexander, the retiring president, and W. I. Longsworth who last night became his successor. Mr. Alexander received a scroll.

Those who accepted the scrolls of honor in behalf of 235 firms were seated at tables together so .that they might reminisce on the progress of their firms. It was a happy occasion for these three as they awaited awards. They are (left to right) C. V. Loughery of the Link-Belt Co., Anton Scherrer of The Indianapolis Times, and R. S. Foster, president of the R. S. Foster Lumber Co.

Times Photos.

Among those seated at the speakers’ table were (left to right) J. A. Brookbank, manager of the farm machinery department of the Indianapolis sales district of the International Harvester Co.; William A. Zumpfe, charter member of the C. of C., and A. W. Seacord, manager of manufacturing of Inter-

national Harvester.

The Gathering Storm—

’

Lull in Fighting on Western Front

Slows Up U. S. Defense Program

(Last of a Series)

By Thomas M. Johnson

NEA Service Military, Writer

In these days of critical prelude to Europe's trial by -

fire, here too the sky is red. Only the struggle impending abroad

can answer the burning question facing this country: yd

“If we are drawn in, how

shall we defend ourselves?” That discussion, in Congress and country, today is hotter than ever in our history. Never before in peace time has a President asked Congress to spend in one year for defense $2,231,878,429. “It’s too much!” some cry, and others answer: “Nothing’s too much for defense today!” The Navy asks $1,224,521,330 for a fleet 25 per cent stronger than now—a fleet: that can beat any power and protect our main Atlantic trade routes and Panama, Hawaii and, Puerto Rico, though not Guam and the Philippines. The Army asks $1,007,356,586 for a. force equipped for scratch defense of the same territory but not also of the Western Hemisphere. They ask air forces totaling 12,000 planes. . i Is this enough for all emergencies predictable in these unpredictable days? To settle that a war wages between “General Ex- | plans came out of the Adminperience” and “General Expedi- | istration wringer thin as a Finn ency.” from a steam bath. The $2,231,878429 the President asked for military purposes was two-thirds what the generals and admirals wanted, and toward that he proposed ‘additional [taxes of $460,

Only after Munch did we listen

opinion of Army and Navy leaders. : Then we begah arming. - The present war's outbreak = found the Navy coming along but the Army a fifth as large, and about as well. equipped, as’ Poland's army. Shocked by her erasure, the country applauded when President Roosevelt authorized an Army: of 600,000 regulars, guardsmen and reserves. General Experience drew plans for further increases: ( An’ Army of nearly a million, a Navy stronger than any possible hostile coalition. iE Pr Then the war died down to unspectacular sniping by sea: and air, save for remote Finland. Even Japan appeared melting, Whereat the country heaved a sigh of relief, believing too that the Allies ‘did not want us in their war —and their: peace. : . So General Experience’s further

"The latter has sent us into ‘every war poorly prepared, as Germany knew in 1917. We spent 25,000 lives needlessly, plus 22 billions of dollarsy excluding loans,

to’ General ‘Experience—the expert

And this in a Presidential year when the deficit neared its legal limit of $45,000,000,000; Many Congressmen and other demanded:

“All that money to defend—

what? Our own soil? The Western Hemisphere? all we may not have to defend anything?” Voices arose for. a merged defense department, even for a committee including pacifists but no generals or admirals, to “define our defense policy.” This is a large and complicated order, since defense policy must

follow foreign policy which: in:

turn depends upon foreign na‘tions, including dictatorships that seem capable of anything. So for anything conceivable, we must be ready. ' What that means for us will appear only in the issue of Europe’s fast approaching crisis. Only then will our own defense crisis really end—if the Allies win, in vast relief; if. they lose, then in arming still more hastily and costly. For if the Allies win, then even the $2,231,878.429 may prove more than we need spend. If they lose, then it is too little. : For we shall find General Experience asking for a fleet that

can defeat a combination of Ger- -

many, Russia; Italy and Japan perhaps strengthened by the British and French navies surrendered as was the German navy in 1918. And General Experience will call for an army heavily -equipped, of a million men at least, backed not inconceivably by some form of

universal service, and for both a:

combined air

force of some 20,000

When after

ls

George J. Marott was among those presented with .scrolls of honor for 50 years of service to the crganization. He was a charter member of the Commercial Club.

CONDUCT BOYS’ STATE SESSION

Biff. Jones Among Leaders ~ At Conference of Legion Groups.

The fifth annual two-day Boys’ State Conference of the American Legion opened at national head=quarters here today. Representatives from 20 of the 51

states which will operate Legion Boys’ States next summer attended, Among them was Maj. Biff Jones, University of Nebraska head football coach. He is president of the 1840 Corn Husker Boys’ State. More than 25,000 selected high school boys will receive the prac= tical 10-day training in’ the American form of self-government next summer, National Americanism Director Homer L. Chaillaux said. “At ‘least seven new departments are entering the Boys’ State active ity for the first time this year,” he said. ; All phases of Boys’ State operation will be discussed at the current session. They will include medical attention, athletics, curriculum, eli= gibility, insurance, sponsorship and alumni association. The Boys’ State is a summer course in civic government sponsored by the American ‘Legion. Boys enrolled in the project are expected to organize a mythical 49th state of their own, patterned after the state government of their home state, and set up machinery of gove ernment from elections to law enforcement. The Boys’ State was originated by the Department of Illinois in 1935. s

HERTZOG MOTION LOSES

CAPE TOWN, South Africa, Jan, 27 (U. P.).—The South Africa Ase sembly, voting 81 to 59, today de feated a motion by former Premier Gen. J. B. M. Hertzog calling for immediate peace with Germany.

"TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE

1—In what year was the capital of the United States moved to Washington, D. C.? 2—-What is the name of the instrue ment used by doctors for the ex= "traction of foreign bodies, such as nails, coins, pins, etc. from the lungs and bronchial tubes? 3—What position in the U. S. State Department does Adolf ‘A. Berle Jr. hold? 4-On which continent are the Andes - Mountains? 5—How many time zones are in the United States proper? : 6—Steel can be made by the Be Day process, Bessemer process or Haber process? ” ” » 1 Answers 1-—1800. 2—Bronchoscope. 3-—Assistant Secretary, 4—Sbuth America. 5—Four. 6-—DBessemer process.

= ” 2 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., Washing“ton, D. C. Legal and medical advice cannot be given nor can extended research be under-