Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 18 December 1940 — Page 19
RAR Ere NT
i club a little less exclusive,
and swea
Hoosier Vagabond
ol 2OARD 8. =. oi weren't two hours on Pl oe 3 is voyage to Lisbon when we
There wasn’t
an £ 5 eithan y monkey-business about it,
They actually swung out the boats and tested the radio in No. 1 boat and « everything. I figured that, due ! “to the instability of world conditions (as some people call it), we would have boat drill every day. But there wasn’t another until the seventh day out. The whistle blew and the bells rang at 11 o'clock in the morning. It turned into quite an experi--ence for a British girl on board. Later she told me what happened to her. She had just got up, and was th taking a shower. When she heard he bells ringing it never occurred to her that it might be a drill. this is it!” She thought we were sinking. : So she jumped out of the shower and into slacks without even drying. The lifebelts are der the beds, and she got her lifebelt practically had to tear the bed down to
on racks stuck an get it ou She couldn’t find her money, so she ran off without it. She tarried not for lipstick or rouge. She arrived on deck pale and breathfess—to find that we Were only playing.
Looking for Excitement
We are now getting into waters where ships do get sunk occasionally. But there is no anxiety on board about our safety. We are fully lighted at night, and on each side of the ship is painted a big American flag, with a spotlight rigged to shine on it. * Outside of war discussions, and close listening to the radio news, this trip isn’t different from a similar voyage in peacetime. : Every night I've been meaning to lay out my
- heavy clothes on the other bed and have everything
ready to jump into, just in case. But we're almost there now, and I haven't got around to it. _ Some of the passengers have been hoping something exciting" would happen. One favors picking up a couple of lifeboats from a sunken ship. Another wants a raider to stop us and search. One extremist
Inside Indianapolis (4nd “Our Town”)
.. IT WILL COME OUT in the headlines, one of these days with a bang—this quarrel in the inner circle of the Republicans over the question “to appease or not to appease.” ; ; The boys who will be out on the firing line favor
a compromise arrangement with Democratic Governor Schricker. They're looking to 1942. But the behind-the-scene leaders are yelling “no quarter.” The bitterness has been building up rapidly in the last few days and it may pop into the open any day now. In addition, the chairmen of some of the larger counties which turned in G. O. P. victories are bringing pressure for some recognition from the high command. They are irked because they : ‘haven't been consulted about either patronage or proposed legislation. Dan. C, Flanagan, Allen County chairman, and James I. Bradford were in to see State Chairman Arch N. Bobbitt about the situation yesterday.
“Nobody seems to know just who is going to be
the boss,” one of them remarked while cooling his heels in the outer office.
“Uncle Louie” Wants-to Retire
AFTER 10 YEARS OF SERVICE, “Uncle Louie” Brandt is reported anxious to retire as Works Board president. . He had the same desire a year ago and Mayor Sullivan talked him out of it. The Mayor is trying again to persuade Mr. Brandt to carry on, but “Uncle Louie” is getting weary. y He will celebrate his 71st birthday soon. When he was appointed by Mayor Sullivan, he gave up his
. job as a contractor to devote full time to the post.
For six years he has been one of the administration’s closest links with the people. Nothing has been too big or too small for his attention. One of the reasons he must resign, he says, is that “too many peo-
Washington
WASHINGTON, Dec. 18.—At first glance it may not seem to make sense but there’s a good chance that outright gifts of money to England would be more popular in this country than loans. Mrs. Roosevelt is trying out the idea on the public, having spoken in favor of gifts rather than loans when questioned at her press conference. This idea has long been advocated by some of the Administration group as the better way to meet the question when the time comes. But everyone was nervous about springing it. Polivicians are inclined to be timid about new issues. Back in 1931 Mr. Hoover was urged by his advisers to declare a moratorium on the war debts. He op- : = posed it for a long time, fearing that it would be highly unpopular. When the collapse came in Europe and he was forced to act, his moratorium proved to be one of the few popular
: "things he did.’ It was regarded generally by the
country as a sensible and realistic action. ; © The quick, curbstone idea might be that we should fend rather than give. But when the alternatives are weighed, it is probable that a surprising amount ‘of support will come for gifts—or grants as they may be called. Indeed, it would not be surprising to find important Republican support for gifts rather than loans. Intimations to that effect have reached high administration officials.
Loans Lead to Trouble
One of these Republican leaders reasons about as the Administration people do. If we are going to extend any financial aid to England—and most ple here take it for granted that we are—we should not deceive ourselves by calling the advances loans. For that is what it amounts to. Call them loans or gifts, it makes no difference except in the
My Day
WASHINGTON, Tuesday—Mrs. Thomas testified pefore the Tolan committee that, in order to join the electrical union here to get a job, her husband would have to pay $300. This seems to indictate that
this particular local is a rather high priced club.
All clubs offer benefits, and this particular testimony has brought me quite an avalance of letters giving me information of various kinds... =: , As a justification, the people who ‘approve of‘ this. fee, state that their members receive many ‘benefits and, in addition, that this rule keeps the standard of work high. If that standard should be let down, the danger of fire in all buildings would be greater. ‘On the other hand, one C. I. O. : .. union member, from somewhere in. the wide open spaces, notifies me that in hls union the charge is $1.50, which would seem to make his If a man has been out of work. for some time, my informant adds, he can pay it in installments out of his first earnings. I
% pose & man ‘can pay the $300 in installments too,
it might take a bit longer. v ; ging "the letters I have received, there uw ferest in this s¢pject and
WEDNESDAY, DEC. 18, 1940
She thought to herself, “My God,
thing in: which the wage earner will tive oid Bis own tayeetRati
even favors being fired at mistakenly by a submarine —on condition, however, that the aim is bad and the torpedo misses.
~All the passengers have been amused by a man|
who sits around the smoking and lounge rooms all day sewing on something. : Luke, the bartender, was horrified. “He’s tattin’,” said Luke. “Imagine a man tattin’ in a bar. And worse than that, in MY bar!” Luke was disgraced, and inconsolable. But I figured things weren't as bad as they seemed. So after a couple of days peeking around corners at the “tatter,” I up and asked him what he was doing. : i He turned out.to be a British army officer, Capt. B. Pleydell Bouverie, and he took up needlework because he spends so much of his life on shipboard he had to think up some way to kill time.
Luke Calls it ‘Tattin’’
He apparently travels constantly on missions for the government. He hasgbeen to South America twice this year, and is now returning from a trip to the States. = : He says he had read so many books on shipboard he can’t stand to read any more. So four years ago he started his “tattin’,” as Luke calls it. Of course it isn't tatting at all. He is making tapestries. He learned it from his wife. : They are like the beautiful ones that come from the Near East. He picks out designs from tapestries in the British Museum, makes a sketch, later transfers the pattern to a piece of cloth, then starts filling out the design with heavy colored yarns. It is tedious work. Capt. Bouverie makes about ‘three pieces a year. The one he is working on now was started in September. When theyre finished, he uses them to cover chair-backs at his home in London. But he understands his home has been bombed out now. . : His wife works in an emergency fire department in London. Their two children, 7 and .12, are safe in America with relatives. 7 Capt. Bouverie ¢arries all his material in a big red leather bag. “I guess I look silly carrying this sewing bag around,” he says. But he is: completely unselfconscious about’ sewing in public. In fact' he is pleased when passengers admire his work. If it ~didn’t take so long, I believe I'd ask him to whip up a piece for Luke to hang behind the bar.
ple call me at a’ of the night when I should
be resting.”
Missing—F our New Speeches
FRED HOKE, addressing the Flanner * House celebration the other night, explained he hadn’t had time to write a speech. But he had asked four men to do one for him, figuring one of them would produce. He named Schools Superintendent DeWitt Morgan, William Book of the C. of C., Vergil Martin of the Community Fund and Curly Ash, the publicity man. x “And they all produced,” he beamed—then started fumbling through his coat pockets. Suddenly he extracted a piece of paper and started speaking. Each of the four speech-writers nodded that it wasn’t the address he'd written. Later, Mr. Hoke admitted to them it was one he had given some time previously. Confidentially, the four authors believe Mr. Hoke forgot to bring along the speeches they toiled over.
It’s an Investigation Now
SINCE LAST JUNE, four State Accounts Board|
examiners ‘have been working on the books of the clerks of Municipal Court. They are uncovering some interesting facts, we hear. One state official says “what started out to be an examination has turned into an investigation.” Among other things, the state is checking on whether fines assessed by the courts have been paid. ... . Apparently the Police Department ds keeping close check on: possible “fifth columnists.” A man describing himself as an “emergency assignment” officer called on.a man we know the other day “just checking up on some of your neighbors.”. . . A well-dressed woman was before Judge John McNelis charged with failure to give a hand signal. “She just gave a little bitty hand signal . . . just stuck her fingers up to the second joint out the window,” said the arresting officer. The woman had. brought an attorney with her. But before he could say one. word, she had swung into action. And she didn’t stop until the Judge said: “Not guilty.”
By ‘Raymond Clapper
language of the legal documents. If we call them loans, then we say that money has to be paid back. We fix a rate of interest at which it is to be paid back. Our people expect it to be paid back. Then the war ends and there is that big debt and the interest to pay. The debtors, having just suffered devastation, family loss, impoverishment and national exhaustion, look across the ocean and see us, living in a land of milk and honey, untouched by even a piece of shrapnel, dunning them for the money they hired. They say that they can pay only by sending us goods. We become alarmed and shove up our tariffs and keep out their goods. Then they become bitter and say to heck with it. Let Uncle Shylock try and get it. We scale it down for them and they still don’t like it and they finally say they can’t pay. And that’s that.
Convoy Question Unpopular
Eventually we discover that we have been kidding ourselves and that what we did, although pretending otherwise, was to give them the money. Some have proposed that instead of either loans or gifts, we make a cash purchase of British possessions in this hemisphere. The Administration seems’ strongly opposed to that. The reason given is that the new bases we have obtained give us all that we want in the way of a defense screen and that there is ‘nothing left now except the liabilities of .those possessions—poverty, illiterate populations and just more problems like Puerto Rito and the Virgin IslandsThe ‘matter of money grants to England is likely to go down much easier than the convoy proposition. In fact there will be bitter opposition to changing the Neutrality Act to permit our convoying shipping into the war zone. Some Republicans who favor money grants will fight the convoy business to the end if the issue is raised. © If the Administration has taken good soundings on the convoy issue, it will not raise it. Some in the Administration certainly regard it as dubious unless we want to go straight into war.
By Eleanor Roosevelt
all of us might profit from a real out in the open discussion of the whole situation. 2 "I received a most interesting communication the other day from the Savings Bank Life Insurance Council, in which my correspondent discussed the savings bank life insurance method out in: Massachusetts set up 30 years ago through Judge Brandeis’ efforts. . Under this plan, life insurance issued by mutual savings banks “over the counter”: seems to meet the needs of the average wage earner rather satisfactorily. Governor Lehman of New York succeeded in having this form of life insurance adopted in New York state in 1939. Those who have studied the
By Ernie Pyle
+without complaint. “today are more concerned with
(Radio listeners may miss most of their favorite I Jan. 1 unless a fight between two organizations called ASCAP and BMI is settled. This tells what ASCAP and BMI are all about, how their battle royal of music mow stands, and what it means to you.)
By Tom Wolf
NEA Service Staff Correspondent
NEW YORK, Dec. 18— The radio: bells which
ring in the New Year of
1941 will toll the knell of much of the music Americans know and love the best.
The hearts of the radio broadcasters and of the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers do. not beat in threequarter time. The broadcasters will not renew their contracts with ASCAP, America’s most powerful group of music copyright holders; and ASCAP will take its copyrighted music off the air. In ASCAP's library of perhaps 2,000,000 melodies are a great ma=
jority of the favorites—standard,
popular, and classical—of the past ,00 years. These copyrights extend for two 28-year terms. The radio broadcasters will be hard put to replace varied perennial favorites ranging from “Sweet Adeline,” “The Stars and Stripes Forever,”
and “Mademoiselle From Armen=>i
tieres” to “Stardust,” “St. Louis Blues,” and the present top popular hits.
As ASCAP goes, so go the melo-
dies of America’s best-known modern composers, from Victor Herbert, John Philip Sousa, and Ferde Grofe to Berlin, Cohan, Gershwin, Hart, Hammerstein, Kern, Porter, Carmichael, Rom=berg Rodgers and Youmans. «
2 2 = : O fill this gap, the broadcasters, prompted by the big
networks, called a special convention.in September, 1939, to es tablish a rival to ASCAP—Broadcast Music, Inc. To date, some 452 stations, representing more than 90 per cent of the industry, large and small, have bought shares of BMI’s $1,500,000 stock. BMI’s first catalogue appeared early last April—with five tunes. Today it has grown to cover more than 200,000—including most of the Latin-American music heard on the air; some of the most important hill-billy music; American folk songs; Western songs; ballads; sacred music; “Songs of the. Sunny South”; “Songs Children Love to Sing,” etc. :
These tunes, plus those songs that are in the “public domain” (i. e., their copyrights have expired), plus any new hits. BMI can find—these will compose America’s radio musical fare untii ASCAP and the broadcasters come to terms. ; Broadway wiseacres think BMI stands for “Bad Music Indefinitely.” BMI replies: ‘ 1—Our music has already been heard exclusively on most suse taining programs for some time, 2—Listeners
the band playing a tune than the
‘music itself; and most of the
“name” bands are playing BMI
. songs. 3—No one missed Herbert,
Porter, Youmans, Kern and Rom-
- berg—great as they are—when
their tunes were pulled off the air for six months in 1936.
HE present battle royal of music is the climax of a fight as old as radio. The specific issues are manifold. Radio’s biggest kick is against being charged a percentage of its entire income —part of which comes from nonmusical programs. The broadcasters want to pay for music on 8 per-program-used basis.
JOHN SAID ‘NO,’ BUT {RONALD HAD STARTED
Ronald Joséph Quigley will be 6
years .old just two days before Christmas. looking forward to next week with a wondrous curiosity.
Naturally he’s‘ been
But now Ronnie is in City Hospi-
tal with a possible fractured skull and injuries”to his right arm and leg. His condition is critical.
His parents, Mr. and Mrs. Leo
Quigley, '1530 N. Rural St., have been at his bedside since midnight.
Yesterday evening Ronald was
playing with his two brothers, John Robert, 10, and Richard Earl, 9, and some other boys near the north drive of the 2500 block of Brookside Parkwa,
y. | A One of the boys said, “let’s run
problem of helping the small wage earner, many of|gcross.”
whom go without food to pay insurance premiums,|
seem to think that this type of insurance meets the
John Robert said “no”—but Ron-
ald had already started. He was
needs of this group of people better than any ether.lalmost on the other side when a car
It certainly would not fit the needs of some of the well-to-do, nor of people who need certain specialized types of insurance, but with the experience in Massa‘chusetts, and with the backing of Justice - Brandeis and. Governor Lehman, it would seem that wage ‘earners might do well to look up their mutual savings banks and find:out about this service. Under the law, no solicitors can be sent out, so this is one
ist Ap ERTS Fae
driven by William R. Griner, 2130 Brookside Ave, struck him. knocked Ronnie almost 17 feet.
It
'CULLINAN TO RETIRE NEW YORK, Dec. 18 (U. P).—
George. E. Cullinan, 62, senior vice prosigens of the Graybar
Electric
Inc, will retire on a
ASCAP’S president, sentimental, old-timer Gene Buck, replies: “Conservatively, 70. per cent of every radio eperation. is music. Music is the backbone of radio. An individual program is only part of an Integrated ‘mass of. radio entertainment:: Because it’s an integral part of radio, we charge for music on an over-all, available basis.” He might have added that (although it is looking for a better system) the broadcasters’ own BMI also charges stations on an over-all basis. Other broadcaster complaints concern ASCAP’s proposed price, which would come to nearly twice the $4,100,000 ‘radio paid ASCAP last year. They also say some pretty unpleasant things about ASCAP’s management and about who gets the money ASCAP collects. s ” 2
UT these, and an additional welter of charges and countercharges, though important, are side issues to the underlying bone of contention.. Conferees might iron out differences were it not for a background of 20 years of mutual distrust. " Ever since commercial radio was born in 1922, ASCAP says it has had to fight broadcasters’ at-
tempts to plunder its music — in .°
the courts and in the legislatures. And radio equally dislikes and distrusts ASCAP, which has never lost a battle. Radio squirms at being at the mercy of a small group of men who have what radio needs. : No one can predict how this
fight will end. That will largely
depend on how strong ASCAP really is. And that, in turn, is largely dependent on one man— Gene Buck, a founder and for 26 years the president of the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers.
» ” 2 SCAP was conceived in earnest one day in 1913 when the late Victor Herbert, then at the height of his musical greatness, walked into.a Times Square restaurant to hear the orchestra playing the tunes. from his current hit, “Sweethearts.” He asked for compensation, wag refused, and sued the restaurant. He was met in court, not by the individual concern, but by a national association of restaurants.
This incident made it plain, if it hadn't been previously, that only by forming a national association of their own could song-writers and publishers protect their works. At Victor Herbert’s suggestion, ASCAP was formed in 1914 at a meeting in the famed , Lambs Club here in Manhattan. For six years ASCAP struggled along in the red. Then, in 1921, for the first. time the society made more from its royalties than it spent trying to collect them. This was lucky, for the following year commercial radio broadcasting began. And radio brought ASCAP its greatest threat. . Radio broadcasters have spent
much time and thousands of dol- *
lars trying to convince U, S. au- , thors, composers and publishers— via the courts and legislatures— that radio did. them a favor in airing a tune. It made the tune popular, said the broadcasters. Songmen contended this “favor”
pounded a tune toa quick death °
.—Xkilling the long. period of .royalties they once knew from sales of sheet music. s
” 2 ® INALLY and soundly beaten in the courts, radio went to Congress to seek a bill legalizing the free playing of copyrighted
Joe Louis Fight to Help Build Kansas City Church
KANSAS CITY, Mo. Dec. 18 (U. P.).—Dr. Burris Jenkins, pastor ‘of the Community Church, said today that he asked Fight Promoter Mike Jacobs for a $40,000 donation to his church building fund and instead of getting it, was cut. in the gate of a Joe Louis championship bout. He hoped the fight would ‘make a nice bit of change for his church, but: he expected some unfavorable reaction to the temporary alliance between pulpit and prize ring. The fight will be held here in March between Louis and the winner of a series of elimination fights. Dr. Jenkins, who has done the unconventional most of his 71 years,
may be at. the: ringside.. Though
once a Missouri Boxing Commissioner, he never has seen a fight. With. Louis fighting for a church fund, he may make an exception. Dr. Jenkins’. church was destroyed by fire. The famous architect, Frahk Lloyd Wright, was commissioned to design a- new one. His Plans were s0
feared the
a
unusual that the : would: | needed,
earthquake, thought the idea silly. Those differences are being composed. Meanwhile the financial question sent. Dr. Jenkins to New
| York to see if ‘any of his old pars
ishioners there would contribute. His son, Burris Jenkins: Jr., the sports cartoonist, suggested he ask Jacobs for, a. donation. “After we had passed the time of day I told him I'd like to have him donate $40,000,” Dr. Jenkins said. “He just.grinned at me and started pulling clippings out of his pockets. He said it wes a coincidence, but that I had dropped ‘in sas City. : : “He said he was thinking of sending Joe Louis out here to fight and that maybe . we ould «work out something. When I we hoped to do in the way of expanding our recreational facilities s0 ‘we could have programs’ for the young, including boxing, he became really - interested. .. Anyway, as I understand it, we are getting every-
over e When told
‘just when he was thinking of KanHe Bald
Id him what|
1. Hoagy Carmichael, Hoosier composer. . . His “Star Dust” and other famous tunes will be withdrawn from the air after Jan. 1 unless the ASCAP-BMI dispute is settled. 2. Bonnie Baker . . . maybe her song “Oh Johnny” won’t be heard either. 3 3. Ginny Simms, Kay Kyser’s songstress . . . like other vo-
music on the air. Later the hroadcasters asked a bill enacting a set fee for playing the music. But ASCAP won all its battles. A leader in these fights from the beginning was ASCAP’s lanky, soft-hearted, blue-eyed president, Gene Buck. His background served him weil. Lyricist for 26 Ziegfeld “Follies,” Gene was 8 master at soothing ruffled feelings —3 task to which Ziegfeld often assigned him. Sentimental, bubbling Buck got to know every one, soon became big brother to the musical show world. : It was just as well. ASCAP’s internal workings are such that without Buck all might not run smoothly. The radio broadcasters, "in their fight with the ASCAP, have taken a sudden paternal interest in the songwriter. They charge ASCAP with doing wrong by the song-writing Nells. This would be unimportant to the fight except as it affects ASCAP’s strength as it begins battle.
” ® 0» ‘ NQUESTIONABLY, ASCAP members divide the royalties the society collects on a tricky basis. Members are graded intg classes every three months, class being dependent, on: the present popularity of a member’s tune. Members receive pay propor- . tionate to fheir class. A man may be in Class AA (tops) one quarter,
and slide way down the next. This
juggling up and down might well
WINCHESTER SCHOOL | HEAD TO AID MALAN|,
Times Special l seh TERRE HAUTE, Ind, Dec. 18— Dr. C. T. Malan, new State Superintendent of Public Instruction, has announced thé appointment of Ellis
H..Bell, Winchester School superin-}{
tendent, as his assistant. er Mr. Bell's appointment will become effective when. Dr.. Malan , office next March, succeeding
requirement is five
Floyd
diana State Teachers’ 1917 and: received his
calists her broadcasts would confined to songs -in the B portfolio. :
4. Neville Miller, head of the broadcasters . . . he charges ASCAP seeks to establish a moe nopoly of music. :
5. Gene Buck, ASCAP president . .~. puts the blame on the broadcasters. '
involve jealousies which would rend ASCAP asunder if the mem= bers’ motto were not: “Anything Gene says is O K with me.” BMI leaders say they wonder if whom you know isn’t more ime portant than what you write, for ASCAP’s board of directors is self-elected. . ASCAP minimum membership published songs, although this does not ale ways guarantee membership to a songwriter, ; ; ASCAP is strong today, despite
"a few disaffections. Behind Buck
into battle with radio go 1308 aue thors, composers and publishers— most of the big names in song toe. day. Buck himself is confident. “Our material is the whole structure of radio operations. We only want money for what we sell, I think the radio broadcasting gentlemen are going too far«in trying to dictate to 130 million Americans what music theyll
. “hear.
“Their attempt to establish a source of music to satisfy 130 mile We_ of .the, American society are. artists. We're used to starving— literally. ‘If ‘the gentlemen of radio think they can lick the cree ative writers ‘of this country,
arts degree at Indiana University|;
in 1926. “He is am Phi Delta Kappa,
Education Club and the STRIKE ‘ORDER A strike orderta 15 = Ss ' oraer-. ur: E facturing ‘Co. plan - ‘today by ‘the C. 120 \ 3 do ] = b )
C05.
fall far ; DF. en
¥
that the ‘fight take |
