Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 27 September 1940 — Page 19

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Hoosier Vagabond

BUFFALO, N. Y. Sept. 27.—They say the men

Bet used to it, but if I worked in the Curtiss-Wright

Plane factory here, the sound and fury of airplane

building would have me in the.booby hatch within & week, | ; :

An airplane makes almost as much noise being built as it does in one of those roaring power dives. The Curtiss-Wright factory is so noisy you can barely talk to a companion by shouting. It’s all that riveting, that’s what it is. On top of that, there is the lloud-speaker system. It has outlets all over the plant, so the phone operators can call various

phone. | Somebody is being called al-

at all above the rast they have-the thing stepped up so loud that every _word is like a sharp clap of thunder. Put that and the riveting together, and you've got turmoil. When the plant| slows down for lunch, the silence is something akin to Heaven. During that time there are fewer calls over the loud-speakers—so they put on phonograph records, and the grim factory that makes man-killing machines with such fury then re-echoes With sweet music. ‘Playing “Sweet Leilani.”

Schools for Employees

Like all other Fapidly expanding factories under the new defense program, Curtiss-Wright has to train & good percentage of its new employees. So far, they use the apprentice system very’ little. Instead they send the men to actual school, training them in a number of semi-skilled jobs. That is because a man may not be, doing exactly the same thing throughout his career with Curtis.

I assumed that the boy who runs the machine that “dimples” rivet holes—a pretty simple task— would be doing that forever. But, no. If he gets his “dimpling” all done, he may have to shift over to Wing-building, or to a machine that shapes cowling Pieces. With the expansion that will come with its contemplated three ney plants—one here, one in Columin St. Louis—the Curtiss-Wright

foremen and executives to the

most constantly. And to be heard’

While we were there they kept

By Ernie Pyle

. training program will have to become a tremendous

thing. Incidentally, those three new plants all will be windowless and air-conditioned, and all will have well-reinforced basements. Of course they aren't calling them bombproof shelters, but . . . There has been much talk of getting our various military industrial plants moved away from the coasts and borders, deep into the inland—just in case of invasion, : But Buffalo isn’t worried about its location.” For they figure that if any enemy ever actually got down the St. Lawrence as far as Montreal, then Buffalo wouldn't be any more vulnerable than Cincinnati or St. Louis. And they figure. a distinct advantage in their location of being practically in the heart of the area that produces the material and the finished accessories that go on a plane. Curtiss-Wright, like Allison in Indianapolis, does a pretty thorough check-up job on all new employees. There have been no spy or sabotage scares here at all in several years. I don't know whether there are FBI men in the plant, but I suspect there are,

Little Fear of Sabotage

Buffalo has a much larger percentage of foreignborn than Indianapolis. But that doesn’t worry the

- Curtiss-Wright people. The bulk of the foreign-born

are German and Polish. You know how they feel about each other right now. ‘And somehow it just happens that every place a couple of Germans are working alongside each other, a couple of Poles are working there, too. So that solves that. To tell the truth, I don’t see how it would be possible for any serious sabotage to take place here, anyhow. Inspection, as in all such plants, is meticulous. When a part leaves one division, it is inspected just before leaving. And that same part is again inspected when it arrives in the next division. The Air Corps has 28 inspectors in the plant, in addition to all the factory inspectors. I saw one under-cowling for a motor sitting on the floor. On it was written in red crayon, “Second try-—still no good.” The inspector who wrote it sounded mad. Consequently, with such fine-toothed inspection, and everybody on his toes about everybody else, and with an airplane factory by nature not subject to great explosions or catastrophes, it seems to me almost impossible for great flaws to be hidden into an individual plane, or for the flow of production itself to be seriously hindered,

Inside Indianapolis (4nd “Our Town”)

~ SHERIFF AL FEENEY may be a headache to bingo operators and slot machine impresarios but there is one person in Indianapolis he can't scare. That's his mother, Mrs. Mary Feeney, who lives with him over the Jail. Mrs. Feeney likes bingo. What's more she plays bingo. And if you happen to see Sheriff Al in a articularly sad mood it simply eans that Mother ¥eeney has been out playing bingo again and ribbing her son about it. If he could only discover just where it is she plays he'd raid it. But Mother Feeney won’t tell. And 'e won't tell on her, either. Mother Feeney, however, is sort of seeing eye to. eye with Sheriff Al on the slot machine issue these days. It seems that Al staged a raid and brought a cargo of slot machines to the Jail. : And Mother Feeney lost all her pocket money trying to beat ‘em.

About German Propaganda

NOT ALL GERMAN propaganda which comes through the mail to Indianapolis persons is blunderbuss stuff. We happen to know a woman who lives in the house once accupied by a former woman professor of German in| an Indiana college. The professor is now deceased, but mail addressed to her from Germany keeps coming. One of the more skilfully done pieces is a publication called “Germ Art and Culture.” In scholarly fashion, .it treats with music, the theater, the stage and other arts, all devised to bring home the impression that German culture it at a far higher level than ever before in history. It seems quite evident that the German propaganda agencies have a large Indiana mailing list,

Washington

NEW YORK, Sept. 27.—Among Willkie workers here is the feeling [that during the last few days, particularly from San Francisco on, the Republican candidate has improved. Comment to that effect 1s ‘heard frequently. illkie workers are much encouraged over the bull-dog tenacity ¢ with which their candidate con- ¢ tinues to fight even while taking ¢ heavy punishment. He has had much criticism from . his cwn

upon him appears to have been = salutary. f Campaign organizations are moody affairs. Spirits rise and fall. For instance one Democratic spokesman says that at present the Administration workers are highly confident, regard the fight as practically over. But two weeks from now, he says they may be in the depths of despair. The mood goes up and down. Sure winners often become panicky and think they are about to lose. ' ' Republicans have been in low spirits, feeling defeat was ahead. he Gallup Poll has had something to do with that. Willkie’s fumbling start on this trip added to [the dismay. They are coming out of it somewhat|/ now. But one senses a brave effort to conceal and suppress doubts. One hears confident words but [ages not feel the confidence be-

hind them. | : The Far Eastern (Crisis What hangs over many of the Willkie people 1s the realization it is extremely difficult to compete with existing events. World events play daily into Roosevelt's hands. Now the Pacific crisis has reached a tense stage in which Roosevelt is in the seat of action, while Willkie|is on the outside where he can only talk and with not very much information to g0 on. You have to have access to the secret State Department reports to know what you are talking about in this kind of a situation. Even then it is difficult enough to know what is the best course for the United States.

My Day

| : 2 . ; HINGTON, [Thursday.—How it did rain in Si A City yesterday! Foolishly, I left my umprella at home, thinking I could always pick up a taxi. When the meeting of the United States Committee for the Care of the European Children came : to an end, I stood hopefully in the loorway of the State Charities Gee Building, and lo and behold, there were no taxis in|sight. The Salvation Army came [to my resie, however, and a | very kind ‘entleman walked down a block r two and brought one to the oor. | The rest of the daytime hours were consumed in seeing people. There was a time in my life when y contacts were largely through he written word, but in the last few years, individual people have the novels which, once upon a time, I read. some of their stories are as strange as any to be nd in bOOKSs. Yesterday, I mixed some people fou were strictly businesslike and practical with ii who lived in dream worlds of their own.

spoken

1 dined at home and then started uptown to at- : first Newspaper Guild meeting. I may not

tend my have any Guild, as

right to be a member of the Newspaper has been suggested by one gentman, but

chosen from lists of people who have had even rather slight connections with the old Germany.

The Right Number

A LOCAL BUSINESSMAN, an afdent supporter |

of Wendell Willkie’s candidacy, was in Richmond on business the day the Gallup Poll showed President Roosevelt in the lead. It was likewise the businessman’s birthday—his 42d. So in order to show that ine was NOT having a happy birthday, he bent over

all the tin Roosevelt signs he found on license plates |

parked in downtown Richmond-—42 of them.

Odds And Ends

SIGN ON A N. SENATE Ave. welding company: “We can weld anything except broken hearts” . ols

Employees in one of the offices at the Court House run a pool on which state the Pot of Gold will fall next . . Mrs. William Faris, of 3302 E. 33d St., has a tomato plant 10 feet high, still blossoming and bearing fruit. She has to tend it with a six-foot ladder . . . We know a young local executive. who played bridge the other evening and chortled gleefully when he crossed up the opposition by leading away from a king (a terrible thing to contemplate, indeed), but who, caught in a redoubled hand half an hour later,:complained bitterly that the doubler was breaking all the rules by doubling on his partner's hand . We've been saving the prize story of all for you. Architects here have a phrase called “scherrering” and we've finally found out what it means. It's all because an architect named .Scherrer used to work at his desk: like fury and nowadays when an architect has so much work to do that he has to plow into it like a beaver, he .calls it “scherrering.” Yes, you guessed it. The architect was your old friend, Anton Scherrer, the erstwhile conductor of “Our Town,” who has been getting back into tritn in New England.

By Raymond Clapper

Indicative of the nervous state of mind in the ‘Willkie camp is the expectation that Roosevelt is about to pull another international rabbit out of the hat—this time with regard to the Pacific. - Some Rebublicans think Roosevelt is whipping up a crisis to enhance’ his position. Others are realistic enough to acknowledge that the situation is critical, and that it is not of our making but has been made in Berlin and Tokio. In their case it makes campaigning nard for the Republicans. Without such a situation, the. Republicans feel they would have much effective ammunition. They would be able to make something of the Elliott Roosevelt case. The Democratic National Committee crowd is burned up by Roosevelt's action in sending, Tommy Corcoran here to head up an independent third-term movement under Mayor LaGuardia. Apparently the Democratic National Committee was not consulted, and Corcoran won't be a too-welcome vsiitor around regular Democratic headquarters.

The Dakar Incident

There are ‘apparent lags in defense work which

normally would be exposed. There is the grumbling | :

over the treatment of Jim Farley, the sending of Harry Hopkins to supersede Farley in managing the Chicago convention, not to mention the distaste for a third term that many Democrats have. But matters more vital to the nation overshadow all of ordinary political grist and the Democrats ber.efit | by that. situation while the Republicans are muffled. ithout doubt, although Republicans tind it bard

The fiasco at Dakar was a heavy because it means that the Axis now controls the base that juts farthest into the Atlantic, menacing| shipping routes to South America and virtually within bomber range of Brazil. Simultaneously with that reverse, which weakens our situation in the Atlantic, Japanese pressure in the Far East is intensified to a dangerous degree, Obviously it is an extraordinary situation for us and it necessarily throws an ordinary political campaign askew, completely revising the values by which the country usually measures its Presidential choice.

By Eleanor Rugsevelt

I was admitied last night, so I am at present apparently in good standing. hope, have a comfortable feeling that if they really want to, they can always get rid of me. In the meantime, I enjoyed a rather long drawn out evening. A great many years of listening to speeches and conversations have made of me, I hope, an appreciative and understanding listener. Since we never end our education, I hope this, like many other experiences, may be a valuable contribution to mine. We flew down to Washington this morning and picked up Maj. Henry Hooker or our way to the airport. He had never flown before and I was glad that we had such a beautiful day and that he enjoyed it. | Miss Thompson is becoming a veteran flier, for our trip was quite bumpy in spots and she was completely unperturbed. I have just seen the first copies of “The Moral Basis of Democracy,” which the publishers have sent tome. At least it looks short enough not to frighten anyone by its length. The other little book, which I wrote this summer, is a child's Christmas story and is considerably shorter. It will come out in November. I understand that several other people have followed in Mrs. Dwight Morrow's. footsteps and have written Christmas stories for children, which also may have some meaning for older people. The Crown Princess of Norway is here to look

‘The Indianap

By Joe Collier Y next June, if every- - thing goes right, the Ohio River and its tributaries will have no personal

secrets.

The United States Government will know all, particularly how healthy they are. It's a big job, and it’s under way now. Swarming all over the system are men with thermometers to take its temperature; chemists with test tubes to see what foreign matter it contains; biologists and botanists with microscopes to study it. At the moment, a crew of these scientists is in Indianapolis, parked in a laboratory trailer on the Sanitation Plant grounds in Eagle Woods, patiently checking the quality and quantity of wa-

the big stream. Streams near here under the clinical eyes at the moment are White, Big Blue and Flat Rock Rivers, Youngs, Sugar, Brandywine, Cicero, Fall, Prairie and White Lick Creeks, Pleasant Run and the Cdnal. ! : When the project is finished, -and the myriad notes of scores of scientists digested and put into articulate continuity, the United States will know how fast each of these tributaries flaws, how much foreign matter it contains, how much oxygen it holds and how much it should have, what. bacteria are present at different

points and how many of them, .

and how much top soil it is carrying away down stream.

2 ” ”

DDED up, this information will tell the United States Public Health Service whether any or all of the streams is polluted to the extent of endangering public health; it will tell conservationists where and for how far any of these streams is polluted so that fish can’t live in them; and it will tell the U. S. Army whatever mysterious things it needs to know about these inland streams. The information is expected to have a direct bearing on, and can be used as gauge for local, regional or national reforestation, land erosion problems, stream pollution from either public health or conservation points of view, flood control, commercial fishing, and water storage. The project was authorized hy Congress and was undertaken hy the War Department and the Public Health Service. It is hy all odds the most thorough physical investigation of the Ohio River system ever attempted, though there have been other more sketchy surveys made from time to time. When you survey the streams contributing to the Ohio River you are taken intg part of New York, Ohio, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Tennessze. Hundreds upon hundreds of streams must receive detailed |attention of scientists and engineers. In ad-

mammy Ohio is taken constantly from a large laboratory boat which idles up and down, checking and rechecking findings in all sorts of conditions and looking for new symptoms.

n » ”

HIS is, more or less, how it is done. The crew here consists of Francis I. Norris, Marietta, O., junior chemist of the Public Health Service; John J. Hamilton, Covington, Ky., laboratory assistant, and George E, Dotterweich, Cincinnati, sample collector.

They established their base

a few days. In this area, engineers have designated about

Beautiful]

ter this water shed contributes to -

dition, of course, the pulse of old :

here Sept. 5 and will be here for .

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George E. n

olis Times

main SRL Te

otterweich set his water traps.

Francis I. Norris, chemist; inspects samples.

40 sample spots in the streams listed above, and from each of these spots in rotation water must be obtained for tests at three seperate times. Mr. Dotterweich does that. In his business coupe, equipped with two ice boxes and enough bottles to start a drug store, hej travels his sample route daily, Bringing in an average of nine samples a day. When he has covered the entire sample outline, he starts over and when he has co it a second time he starts final round. i Mr. Dotterweich takes three bottles of water at each sampling. Two of them are used for determining the amount of oxygen,

on the

mpleted

foreign matter and so.forth in the stream and the third is the bug bottle—the bottle in' which water is collected for bacteria analysis. No baby’s bottle ever was more antiseptic or more gingerly handled than this bottle which collects muddy river water. (It is

“ sterilized in the trailer steam pres-

sure outfit and its top then is covered with lead foil. When Mr. Dotterweich uncaps it, he touches only the foil. He inserts it and the other two in one of two types of gadgets used to submerge them. He immerses them upstream from himself so that no bacteria from his [boots can be collected.

E then places the bug bottle in an ice box and the others in racks, takes the temperature of the stream, records the identity of the stream, temperature, place, time and date, and goes on to thes next one. He brings back the samples to the trailer laboratory, and there the various tests are made. It takes five days to make the bacteria tests and four days to prove out the oxygen tests. The laboratory is equipped with refrigerator units, lights and enough other electric | apparatus to require a heavy-duty electrical connection. An individual record is kept of each sample and of each test of

each sample. While this is going on, an engineer is measuring the various streams, recording the swiftness of their flow, and analyzing their sediment. Other samples are sent to headquarters at Cincinnati where botanists search for glues to the plant life in the streams. And thus, in the shorthand of numbers and symbols, of equations and formulae is being writ-

‘ten the biography ‘of the Ohio

River System. 2 Ti By next June the United States will know how the system stands on these important issues of the day: Sanitation; conservation, and natural resources. Come on, Ohio, fess up!

BOARD REJECTS

WPA-BUILT UNIT

City Refuses to Open New Community Center on Northwestern.

The Park Board has refused to open the WPA-built community

center at Northwestern Avenue and!

Fall Creek. Board members are demanding that the WPA complete it. For more than a year that the building has been in construction,

City and WPA. City officials claim the building, elaborate on the exterior, leaks. They find fault with the walls and doors. Board ‘members have asked the WPA to rework sections of the building's interior and to make the structure waterproof. Meanwhile, the board yesterday approved a $1400 expenditure for a

shelter house and community building at the Meikel and Wyoming Sts.

The group as a whole, I!

playground. They also asked J. Edward Perry, Park Engineer, to submit shelter house plans for the new Ross-Claypool playground on the South Side. 2 ” 2 Opposition to the Indianapolis

Railways, Inc., proposal to substitute trackless trolley service for the E. 10th St. motor bus has been gathering. Residents opposing the change claim it would create a hardship for bus users by eliminating service between New York and 10th Sts.

Proponents of the change point

to a three-cent fare reduction on the trolley. The company plans to extend the 10th St. trolley service from Olney Ave. east to Arlington Ave. a route now served only by motor bus. A delegation of East Side residents is planning to attend the City Council meeting Oct. 7 to oppose ratification of the change which was adopt-

ed recently by the Works Board,

Our America

8

‘Nation With Faith in Self Can't Be Corrupted

By FAITH BALDWIN

'HOR OF “AMERICAN FAMILY,” “SKYAPER,” “THE MOON'S OUR HOME,” ETC.

yenteenth of a series of articles by 24 authors)

it has been a headache both for the|.

For nearly 50 years I h re been an American, yet it has taken me almost half a century to become

call traveling in certain countries in deo. was

I can bin re-

made 0 - feel mildly apologetic because Ij was an American. These citizens [of an “old” world had tradition] and culture. | Mine was a new land, deplorably pro - gressive, @a mu sFaith ing, grasping. Baldwin raw—or so they said. I was very young then, I rose to the bait and defended the United States with all the eloquence at my command —still with faint apology. Many of us are apologetic today. It is time we ceased to be. Europe, as my generation knows it, is dying. It is being consumed by flame and whirlwind. It has taken me the better part of a lifetime to comprehend the privileges which I enjoy as an American, under a democratic government. I have accepted these as a man accepts the air he breathes. Until he is deprived of air he does not think about, he does not evaluate it. When his supply is threatened, he fights, for breath, for life itself. My generation has seen change and disaster, prosperity and hunger. It has seen

the greatest discoveries of all time.

Yet it seems to me that, having accepted marvels as our due, having taken bad time and good in our stride, we have been indifferent to the basic importance of our citizenship. We have lived on the surface and dismissed with the usual cliches the growing unrest and disunion which imperils the democratic ideal, the American way of life. This American way is the heritage of all those born to it, of all those adopting it by conviction. It can continue only if we will its survival, work for it, pray for it, adhere to it with grim determination and, above all, believe in it, Belief is essential . . . not mere lip service, but belief as rooted as the belief in Almighty God. A nation which has faith in itself, and in its chosen way of life cannot be corrupted or conquered by traitor ideology, cannot stumble, and fall, in darkness. Every day brings its challenge. We can meet it. Belief in a priceless destiny founded this nation. Belief - renewed will enable it to endure. In time of fear, indecision, in a country. clamorous with promise, the wail of the defeatist, the cheery platitudes of the optimist, Cassandra warnings and shallow

- cynicism, one fact emerges clearly.

We must consider what it has meant to be an American, and what it must always mean. We must believe in ourselves, and reaffirm that belief, the belief of an entire people, the belief in a nation of such people, which shall survive, awakened, unified and forever. free.

James Boyd tells why this country can rightly be called the “child of courage.” in the next article on “Qur Cougs

|lish a factory

ELWOOD GETS AVIATION PLANT

New Factory to Produce Plastic Plane Wings, Hiring 400 Men.

ELWOOD, Ind. Sept. 27 (U. P.) — Plastic airplane wings, fuselages and pontoons will be manufactured by a

new corporation which will estabhere in the near future, Milo E. Miller, president of

British Tough, Says Nazi Ace

BERLIN, Sept. 21 (U. P.). Maj. Adolf Galland, 28, a top-. ranking German ace, told the foreign press today that British Fighters were the toughest opponents he had met but, he said,

. they are not tough enough.

| “They are tenacious fighters,” he said. “But the vast majority of British fighter plane pilots are . pure beginners. They are very young and extremely poorly trained.” .. = Maj. Galland said that Brish air defenses provided only “very weak” obstacles to German attacks.

the National Trailer Corp. said to-| day. Mr. Miller said the new organization would be called the National Aircraft Corp. Production is expected to start within 60 days, he said.

TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE

The factory will make parts for|1—Name the capital of Australia.

two and three passenger light planes for aviation training schools. All parts will bé made under patents held by the Rose Aviation Corp. of

2—-Animals which eat both meat and

plant substances are classified as carnivorous, omnivorous or herbivorous?

New York. .13—Of which university is Robert M.

Mr. Miller said that test models of the new. planes were being. constructed now. The plant: is expected to employ |

between four and five hundred met. ls.

THREE SOUTH BEND

Hutchins president?

4—Who wrote “Scarlet Sister Mary”? 5—Which. state is called “Sunflower

State”? -~What occasion is commemorated by Jackson Day, Jan. 8.

{7—Is Cuba, Puerto Rico or -His-

paniola known as ‘the “Queen of

OFFICERS SUSPENDED A Ellery Queen, a

SOUTH BEND, Ind. Sept. 27 (U. P.).—Three police officers were to appear before the Board of Safety today for trial on charges of conduct unbecoming officers. They were Arthur M. Campbell, Murray Thomas and Floyd G. Zellers. All were suspended by Police Chief W. K. Ingram yesterday. Ingram suggested they resign, but all refused. 3

QUEEN WILHELMINA TAKEN OFF STAMPS

THE HAGUE, Sept. 27 (U. P.),— Queen Wilhelmina's portrait will no longer be used on Dutch. postage stamps, it was announced today. New series of stamps will show values and have no pictures, it was i

real or fictitious character? Answers

1—Canberra. 2—Omnivorous. 3—University of Chicago. 4—Julia M. Peterkin. 5—Kansas. - 6—Jackson’s victory over the British

at New Orleans.

7—Cuba. 8—PFictitious.

i 2 8 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.,. Washington D C. Legal and medical advice cannot be given nor can extended research be undertaken. r