Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 22 January 1941 — Page 9

‘WEDNESDAY, JAN. 22, 194!

Hoosier Vagabond

LONDON (By Wireless) —If I was going to get by with calling myself a war. correspondent, I figured, it was time to get out and see some shooting. So the War Office fixed me up with a solemn, complicated pass to spend: a night with an antiaircraft gun crew. I waited until late afternoon, then put on my galoshes and my tir hat, bought 10 packs of cigarets for the gun crew, got into a taxi and went off to the war. When I got there I found that instead of 10 mer there were hundreds. So I just threw the cigarets over a ferice and pretended I was a power salesman. A soldier who iwas standing guard took me to a little cabin where two officers were having: tea. They wrote down the number of my pass, and said some boob had tdld them over the phone that my name was MacInernje. Then they asked me to-have tea with them. The day had been dark and gloomy, nd the clouds were hanging low. I was disgusted, [for my pass was only good for one night and it didn’t look like flying weather to me. “You can’t tell a thing about it.” one lof the officers said. “Sometimes they come over ¢n the .most illogical nights.”

A Gun Crew in Action

: Another officer, who was just going leave, said: . “They’ll be over. They always come when I go on eave.” He left, and another officer came in and joined us at tea. This hut was a sort of battlefront apartment. The officers don’t live there but they eat, slzep and work there, near the guns, while on duty. | A soldier in uniform poured our fea. As dusk came he pulled down the blackout blinds. It was - nearing 6 o'clock. The officers don't ea dinner until about 9:30, so they were having very late tea. Now it was dark outside. And suddenly the sirens went off. “I told you they might come,” said an officer. But I could tell he was really surprised that they had. A telephone rang. The officer on duty listened for a minute and then pointed to a wall map, indicafing a spot about halfway between the Si coast and

on 24 hours”

‘London. “They’ re right there now,”

he = “They’ll" be here in 10 minutes.”

By Ernie Pyle

He leisurely finished his tea, and had started to put on his overcoat when the phone rang again. “Righto,” he said over the phone. And to, us he sald, “The men are running to the guns now. Come along, let's sce what's up.” ‘The censcrship doesn’t, and shouldn’ t, permit any detailed description of these anti-aircraft gun stations, but I think I can tell you inn general what this one was like. Bach of the guns was set down in a sort of concrete cistern. These' gun bases were built before the war started. One of the gunrery officers used to play on this very ground 2s a child. There were several small rooms, entirely underground and heavily concreted. The insirument men sat down there, with headphones on, making red marks on a map of London. Each red mark indicated a plane. They'd erase the marks almost as fast as

. they put them down, and indicate new positions.

A Busy Night for the Bombers Up above, right at the center of this anti-aircraft setilement, was a complicated instrument through which the sertillerymen sight. In daytime they can get the exact bearings of a plane with this instrument, but at night it’s no good. So Vey have to use a sound detector. This is a big revolving machine with phonograph

horns, at which half a dozen soldiers sit in the derc and read illuminated instruments. It is extremely sensitive. The other night they got a Salvation Army berid on it. Honestly. One man calls out the readings by telephone to the control room below, where these are noted on ckizrts. All the dope from the sound machine, and that which comes over the phone irom all over London, is rapidly tabulated, and calculations are made, and the guns are then aimed and fired manually at wherever “they figure the plane should be by that time. The Germans were mighty busy this night. They were overhead constantly for four hours, starting fives and dropping heavy explosives, many of which we could hear blowing things to destruction around us. | “See,” said my friend the officer, standing there in the dark. “By all rights it should have been a quiet night, and now look at this! You were lucky.” I was lucky indeed, but here, here, we've finished the column and still haven't fired a shot yet. Fortunately I'm a newspaperman &nd not an artilleryman or we would all be dead. ‘Tomorrow we'll go into the shooting.

Inside Indianapolis (And “Our Town”)

CONTRARY TO REPORTS, Louis : Brandt, the veteran City official, has not resigned as president of the Board of Works. As a matter of fact, “Uncle Louis” is still very much in evidence &s boss of the board. What happened is that Mr/ Brandt has been toying with [the idea of retiring and late in| ’39, he mentioned it to Hizzoner, the Mayor. Hizzoner and the | rest of the Board of Works wojildn’t hear of it so “Uncle Louis” just let it pass. Just before last Christmas, he got to thinking about it again and sent Hizzoner a nofe saying he'd like to quit but he’d stay in harness until the Mayol found some=one to replace him. “I've been on the Board long enough,” he told thi Mayor, “and besides, next summer is our golden wedding anniversary and I'd like to take my wife on a little trip.” Hizzoner told Uncle Louis he could take as much time as he wanted without resigning. “You stay with us and I'll look around,” the Mayor promised. The story somehow got out about that letter, but the truth is that Hizzoner is still “lobking around” . and Uncle Louis is still president of [the Board of Works.

The Decorations Got Him

ONE OF THE new young lieutenants in the medical corps went into a downtown store th buy a pair of military shoes before leaving for Canmip Shelby and

Washington

WASHINGTON, Jan. 22.—Again, as on the day he first took office in 1933, it has fallen to President Roosevelt to summon the American [people to new faith in themselves.

“We do not retreat,” he said. On his Third Inaugural, Mr. Roosevelt: found e country as confused and uncertain of itself as it was eight yedrs ago. As he said, we were then iin the midst of a shock and seempd frozen by a fatalistic terror. I recall that many questioned whether capitalism and private property would survive the pre-Roosevelt crash, A leading Republican Sendtfoy said the country needed a Mulsolini But we came out of it. “We acted quickly, boldly, decisively.” - Now many are again wondering whether democracy is not doomed by g$ome world-wide tide. Some say we-might as well recognize that Hitler is riding the: wave of the future. Mrs. Anne Lindbergh picked up that phrase and €xpounded it in graceful and persuasive language. She touched upon the physical comforts which modern tyrants have sought to give their people, causing some like steelman Ernest Weir to say that the New Deal is out of the same box as naziism, fascism ay communism.

‘Wave of the Future

Not such a graceful picture was grawn by Hitler, speaking to Dr. Rauschning: “There will be a ruling class tempered by battle and welded from the most varied elements. There will be the gyeat hierarchy of the party. And there will be the great mass of the anonymous, the serving collective, the eternally disfranchised, no matter whether they were members of the old bourgeoisie, the big land-owning class, the ‘working class, or the artisans. Beneath them will be the class of alien subject races; we need not hestitate to call them the modern slave class. § The “wave of the future” already has rolled over Austria, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Sgandinavia, Belgium, Holland and France. It is pounding hard on

My Day

WASHINGTON, Tuesday.—In thinking over yesterday, the only thing I wish I is oteor our guests finally Succeeded in getting gny lunch or tea! That is the one difficult thing about trying to invite all the people whom we would like to see on ‘a day of this kind. - Even as it was, I heard of one or two cases of husbands invited without their wives, and of wives invited without their husbands. They came to the. door together;

only to find ‘the regulations about

each person having, their own ad--mittance card had td be enforced. Had there beén anyone who could have identified A people . from all over the country, these mistakes .. could have. been avoided. But that, of course, wag impossible. : I was able to go in for a few minutes last night to the ‘dinner which Edward, J. chairman of the ‘Democratic, National * Conimites ve for its members and for the Democratic! te Chairman and Vice Chairman, who were here. It was a great pleasure to have s ‘glimpse of them all. Then I went over to hear the last part of the program presented by the Inaugural Committee and thé Committee on Special Entertainment, at a musical by Negro artists in the departmental auditorium. It EE ily ate Teaviry n gr are lea aga. FrankJr, went last night so as to be at Work morn-~ abd Anne ‘have

the clerk told him he'd “like these very much. They're tlhe same kind General Tinsel bought las; week.” The lieutenant gasped, is wondering what (en. Tyndall will say when he sees this. . . . Judge Frank Symmes called a recess in the Iozzo trial. the other afternoon, lanked with judicial eye at the crowded courtroom ard announced: “Now I want each of you gentlemen to get up and give a lady your chair for the second half of this performance.” They did, too. . . Robert Fortune, son of Russell and | grandson of William Fortune, has passec his examinations and is awaiting assignment to a training school in the Army Air Corps. He told friends that the hardest thing he had to do was close his eyes and walk in a straight line. “I walked real fast,” he confessed to friends.

What Won't Women Do?

WE'VE JUST LEARNED that the women’s hats clisplayed in our local stores have undergone a thoroigh investigation. Not for sense, mind you, but for feathers. | One Richard Pough from Washington and Charles White, a deputy Indiana garie warden, visited most of the millinery and department stores and found (and confiscated!) feathers from 25 species of birds which are protected by law against being harvested for hats. Among the birds which had been illegally feathersnatched for hats on sale here were the copper pheasant, the magpie, the albatross, both the great and tle screaming vultures and (of all things) the bald ezgle. Just goes.to show you that women stop at nothing!

By Raymond Clapper

tie shores of England. Its gnnounced aim is to exfinguish all “plutp-democracizs.” President Roosevelt is saying in effect that this wave of the future is not the private property of totalitarian rulers. He challenges the idza that they are destined to ride it. He believes demriocracy must and will ride the wave of the future. it; the wave that humanity has been riding throughout history. Ancient struggles in Greece and Rome were part of a current toward more democracy. As Nir. Roosevelt said, democratic 'aspiraticn is human history. It surged in the ‘rerisissance; ir, the Magna Charta. It reached a new crest in America.

The Sacred Fire of Liberty

¢ It is this spirit, this thirst for liberty and for a life that reserves to each one some freedom of choice, this passionate desire for more equity in relations between man and man, which. has pushed forward tarough: the centuries and which the totelitarian idea scorns, believing that man lives only for the state, always and totally. This universal longing for liberty, which became so triumphant in early America, was described by George Washington in his First Inaugural, quoted by Mr. Roosevelt, as the ‘sacred fire,” the sacred fire of liberty. Mr. Roosevelt said this sacred fire must not be smothered by doubt and fear. He blew a friendly breath to fan this sacred fire. That, I think, is the central meaning of the Third Inaugural. As ealled for by the event, the inaugural was addressed primarily to tlie American people. It was not concerned directly with other nations. It was a summons to faith in an hour of inner doubting, # summons back to the spirit of the Mayflower, the Declaration of Independence, Valley Forge, the Constitutional Convention, a summons back to the Lin¢oln of the Gettysburg Address. America has been in peril many times. It has been in peril from without and from within. But it has never retreated. Not.even when the odds were much against it. There has always been a spirit—greater, 4s Mr. Roosevelt said, than the sum of the parts— which has come through the shouting znd doubting and kept the path of our faith lighted, | It is that light which Mr. Roosevelt turns up now to a brighter glow.

By Eleanor Roosevelt

Elliott has started for Wright Field, Chio, but we are toe keep his two children for a little ‘while at least. Jimmy's two. children started back today and he will leave tonight. . . One of the things that eppeals to us all is the jraining of handicapped: children. We cre gradually

learning that children who are deaf, durib or handi-

capped in some other way, cen be enormously helped by proper training. Blind children havi been given this training for a good many years. I think, perhaps, we have progressed farther in our knowledge of how to help them, thax we have in the -care of some of .our other handica pped groups. This type of education is always experisive and all the institutions serving this group need inaterial help from every person in the community On Saturday evening, Jan. 25, E Town Hall in ‘New . York City, the school chorus of the New York Institute for the Education of the Blind will give its second annual concert to:raise money for the additions to the-school’s Braille library. | This chorus of } 32 voices will be: joined by Lauritz \Melchoir, tenor of} the. Metropolitan Opera’ Company, whose devotion to fais work is enhanced becaus: his sister, who is blind, is a teacher in an institution for the sightless in (CJopenhagen, Denmark, There was one mistake th my coluran yesterday about the concert in Constitution Hall, which I should | th lave corrected. Robert Sherwood was taken ill at|shi the last niinute and his plaice was ably filled by|for

It is, as he sees

2 Immigrants Boss Mighty Defense Effort

(Here is the first of a series of stories about the two utterly unlike men who share the command .of America’s defense program.)

By Tom Wolf"

NEA ‘Service Staff Correspondent HE two gentlemen who are ordering your fighting planes, building your new warships, procuring your new guns and outfitting your boy at camp— the large, woolly, gruffmannered gentleman and the slight, darkish, curly-

haired gentleman—are on

their jobs promptly at 9 o'clock every morning.

They pass each other, as like as not, in a hall of the great white building that houses the National Defense Advisory Commission in Washington, and they bow to each other and smile and say, “Good morning, Bill,” and “Good morning, Sidney.” Then they proceed to their offices, which are as neat and prim as your maiden aunt’s boudoir, sit down to desks as clean and clear of left-overs as a Newfoundland dog’s platter, and start their day’s work—which is probably the most important work being done in America today. They give orders with somewhat the same positiveness and simplicity. They dispose of the mail before them with the magic ; given only to big-time executives. They hold face-to-face meetings with their co-workers in preference to phone conversations. They talk directly and briefly. There end the similarities— temperamental, physical and philosophical—between these two important gentlemen,

8 o 2

R William S. Knudsen, director general of the office of production management, and his associate director general, Sidney Hillman, have traveled life roads so far apart that they weren’t even within hailing distance until President Roosevelt summoned them to Washington, and—

But let Knudsen tell it: “The President informs me that my job is to equip 1,200,000 men with what they need to wear, carry, sleep in, eat and ride in, and I have to get heavy equipment of all kinds for S00.000 more, That's all my job And let Hillman tell it: “I have been asked by the President of the United States to serve as a defense commissioner. I shall consider it my first responsibility that the country is Prepared to defend itself.” It's remarkable—if you'll look back to the arrival at Ellis Island early in the century of a frankly

CAPITAL TENSE, SCHRICKER SAYS

Governor Describes Behind-the-Scene Jitters on Return From Inaugural,

By NOBLE REED

Hoosiers, complacently going about their daily routines of living, have little conception of the real “war Jitters” going on behind the scenes in Washington these days. This was the first impression. described by Governor Henry PF. Schricker upon his return from Washington yesterday. “They (Government officials) appeared to be more worried over the international situation than their public statements have indicated back in Indiana,” Governor Schricker said. Inaugural Lacked Cheerfulness He described the inaugural scene as lacking entirely in the usual ballyhoo of cheerfulness that has marked other inaugurals. “The officials and people in the crowd were grim-faced and worried, betraying d«general atmosphere of nervous tension,” the Governor asserted. He said Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson and Secretary of Navy Frank Knox talked informally with a group of Governors, including himself, Sunday. “Frankly, they appeared genuine-

1ly worried over the possible collapse

of Great Britain,” he said. “Both

‘lof them seemed uncertain whether

Britain could last 90 days, 60 days or only 10 days.” Atmosphere ‘Nervoys*

The Governor said the Secretaries didn’t say anything different than what already has ‘been released publicly, but I could detect a feeling of nervousness.” “That seemed to be the at phere in Washington ,everywher went,” he said. “Washington is fearful that if Britain should collapse that Hitler would take all the combined navies and land a staggering force in South America within a few: days,” he

id. “The. possibilities of all ‘the things that might happen in the Western

you happen to know all the- facts about: the international’ situation.”

CAMERQN INQUIRY ASKED

Rep. Lee E. Geyer (D. Cal.) today introduced a bill calling upon the Justice Department to investigate Sows, of American cifizen-

las Fairbanks Jr., Who acted as master of cere1 minutes’ novice. Vi yhody”

part Te

Hemisphere are frankly alarming if}:

WASHINGTON, Jan. 22 (U. P.).—|

Cameron, spokesman| Rep. op. Geyer said the resolut

William S. Knudsen , , . sometimes called “General Production.”

ambitious Danish bicycle mechanic and a czar-hating Lithuanian pants-cutter—that these two men who direct our national defense program ever met at all. For, once they had trudged through the portals of America, they set out upon extremely divergent paths. ” ” » HE one path veered sharply to the left, and that was the path the socially conseious young Sidney" Hillman took. This path led through an unhappy labyrynth of steam-filled cutting rooms, of dingy, overcrowded loft buildings, of hectic garment workers’ strike meetings, of feverish demonstrations in Union Square, and finally to the creation of the populous and potent Amalga= mated Clothing: Workers’ Union, The other path veered just as sharply to the right, and that was the path young Signius Wilhelm Poul Knudsen of Copenhagen chose. This path led to hard work, to the mastery of a trade through personal initiative, and . to the consequent rewards: wealth and power in the best tradition of American success stories. Yet these characteristically opposed men sit in Washington to-day—co-holders of the biggest, toughest, most complex, most urgent ‘and most heartrending -job ‘in the country—pulling together (“like a team of well-trained draft horses,” says a colleague) to make impregnable this America which can be so many things to so many men.

8 2 8

F SOCIAL compromises called for by exigencies of the national emergency ever cause

To Tom Sawyer

And Huck Finn—

ST. LOUIS, Jan. 22 (U, P.).— Benito Mussolini has been dropped as an “honorary president” of the Mark Twain Society, Cyril Clemens, nephew of the author and founder of the organization, said today. Mr. Clemens said Mussolini

has not resigned, “but we haven't heard from him for a couple of years.” The Italian dictator was presented with the society's medal for his contributions to education.” “Winston Churchill was an honorary officer, too,” Mr. Clemens said. “When the war came along ‘we just let matters slide in our relations with foreign members.”

PLASTIC AUTO BODY WINS C. OF C. AWARD

CHICAGO, Jan. 22 (U. P.)—The U. 8. Junior Chamber of Commerce announced today that Robert A.

Boyer, 31-year-old head of the Ford Motor Co. research laboratory, has been named winner of the group’s Distinguished Service Award for 1940. Mr. Boyer, in charge of the laboratory since he was 21, was creditd with development of plastic marial suitable for @utomobile bodies. Henry Ford announced late in 1940 that Mr. Boyer’s plastic car will be in mass production in from one to three years. The award was .made by. three judges, A. N. Marquis, editor of Who's Who in America; John R. Steelman, director of conciliation, U. 8S; Department of Labor, and Felix B. Streyckmans, editor of Future magazine. It has been given annually since 1936. .

Steel being Sorel out of a blast furnace in one of the nation’s mills

handling defense orders.

Knudsen, long-time General Motors executive and one-time foe of unionism, and Hillman, successful builder and leader of unionism, to swallow hard and painfully, they

C. OF C. FAVORS TRUSTEE CURB

Urges ‘Little Hatch Act’ to Bar Solicitations From Relief Clients.

A House sub-committee today was investigating the advisability of

passing a “Little Hatch Act” for township trustees. The bill is supported by several state-wide organizations, including the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce and would prohibit the solicitation of funds for political purposes fom persons on relief, William 1‘ook, Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce executive vice president, told the House Criminal Codes Committee that this bill would place township relief on the same basis as the WPA. He said it would help raise the level of township relief and prevent scandals. Leo X. Smith, attorney for the Township Trustees Association, said there are plenty of laws on the books governing this subject. “You can’t reform people by passing laws,” he said. “It would place a handicap on an incumbent trustee who wished to run for re-elec-tion.” A sub-committee composed of Rep. Guy Dausman (R. Goshen), Charles Bond (R. Ft. Wayne) and Robert ‘Smith (D. Portland) was named to study present laws -governing trustees.

REPORT SOLDIER HELD PANAMA, CITY, Jan. 22 (U. PJ). —A United States Army sergeant attached to Ft. Amador, Coast Ar-

tillery station on the Pacific side|tree

of the Panama Canal, was reportedly under arrest today on Sharpe of selling vital military secrets to an “unauthorized” person.

TELEFACT

AIR RAID PR

Sidney Hillman , . , sometimes called “General Co-operation.”

i

don’t do their swallowing in pub= lic. For each now has ‘dedicated himself to . .. production, produc= tion, production, production . , «

By JOE COLLIER The zinnia elegans, a foreigner, was made the Indiana State flower by an act of the 1931 Legislature.

This, most nature lovers charge, was an overt act. To them, the zinnia elegans, beautiful as it is, is a sort of garden fifth columnist. It is a window box spy, a floral Mati Hari. It’s got to go and it’s got to go this session of the Legislature, they say. Not only was it made the State flower for reasons they suspect were purely commercial and by means they charge were sneaky, but it is a native of Mexico and is in Indiana only by infiltration, Charles C. Deam, Bluffton, one of the most eminent living botanists, is the father of a bill now before the Legislature which would unseat the zinnis and return the flower of the tulip poplar to the status of State flower. The garden and nature cluks are organizing a lobby.

First It Was Carnation

As early as 1870, poets were linking Indiana with the tulip peplar, but the Legislature apparently took no note of this because on March 15, 1913, it adopted a resolution making the carnation the State flower. This was wholly unsatisfactory, because the carnation is a native of Europe, and it was rumored th: 5 the only reason the Legislature adopted the resolution was that the carnation was the favorite flower of a popular politician of the time. This was corrected in 1923, when the. Legislature passed a law drawn up by Dean C. H. Eigenmann of Indiana University making the flower of the tulip tree the State flower. The tulip tree is the State

The most ‘active lobbyist for. this law was. Mrs. Fanny Baker, a teacher at Blaker’s School: To promote the measure, she dramatically bought more than 100 tulip tree saplings and gave them to friends. One is now quite a large tree at the home of Mrs, Mary L. Bastian, 2410 Park Ave. Zinnia Drive Opens

Things rode smoothly until 1931

“Iwhen a bill was. introduced that

would: make the -zinnia the State flower. Nature people heard about

‘| the bill, they say now, .and were fa ao Erion at any public hear-

and they are said to differ with surprising infrequency on the ways and means of obtaining that % production. Both are arch realists. Both “hate futility. Both are “today men.” Hillman/ for example, While certainly having strong soe cialist leanings, has never joined the party because he has con= ceived of his job as being that of securing better conditions for his people today—rather than holding out a rosy goal to be attained some future day. Both also believe in the respons sibility of labor. Either might have said: “With union member= ship constantly increasing through ‘the mandate granted by law, a force as large as that has got to be either on the constructive side or the destructive side, It has got to understand the employer's po= sition.” Knudsen said this, but i it is a fair description of the Amalgamated Clothing Workers’ dealings with business. How does it happen that Amet= y ica has not hesitated to intrust her defense ' program into the hands of two immigrants? Sid ney Hillman put his finger on the answer at a recent Congressional hearing. A congressman was bait=' ing him for his Russian birth, “Yes,” replied Hillman heatedly, “I-was a Russian by accident of birth. But I am an American by choice.”

NEXT: “Bill” fl” Knudsen—first and last the Production Man.

Zinnia, 'Floral 5th Columnist,’ May Lose State Flower Title

specialized in growing zinnia: seed. And they say .that the legislators made a joke of the bill and the con:

troversy. It was cloakroom . banter the they say, for. one legislator to out to the sponsor of the bill Riv if he'd vote for their pet measure they would help him enthrone th zinnia. . The law. passed. Mr. Deam, who has just finished the most complete and authoritative book on Indiana flora ever published, has this to say of the matter in a foreword: “The Indiana flora is rich in the number of native species that are attractive and beautiful, Out of our abundance of native flowers we should be able to select one for our State flower. . . In 1931 the Legise lature named the blatant zinnia the State flower, a native of Mexico, Why advertise some foreign couns try? I hope the Legislature will . . . cease paying homage to any other country.” The Nature clubs are back of wl to the gardener.

TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE

1—Who preceded Jack Dem heavyweight champion. of the world?

panion on the first non-trans-Pacific airplane flight in 1931? ; pi 3—Finish the proverb, “A good name is rather to be chosen han 4—-Who wrote “Mrs. Miniver”? 5—Can pulty push more than he x can ? (ih Which Associate Justice of the "'U, 8. Supreme Court was in in February, 1940? T—Lazaro Cardenas was forme: President of Panama?

8—Were Gioacchino ‘Rossini ‘Giuseppe ' Verdi SYeHOrE, pOSers-or: actors?

Answers, 1—Jess Willard. 2—Hugh ‘Herndon Jn 3—Great riches. 4—Jas Sruther, 5—Yes.

2—Who was Clyde Pangborn's coms