Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 3 March 1941 — Page 9

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COVENTRY, England, (By Wireless)—Coventry * represents. to Americans, and. to most Englishmen, 00, thie all-out one-night blitz at its worst. ~ Many other cities have been blitzed since then, - but Coventry remains the No. 1 example in our minds. ; { The Coventry blitz occurred on . the night of Nov. 14. I have read a great deal about it, and have seen many pictures of it. PFurther, I have seen so much hideous damage in London that you could no longer call me an amateur at viewing wreckage. Yet in spite of all that, when we drove into Coventry today my emotions were those of profound shock, I was horrified. We walked and drove around Coventry for three hours. And late in the afternoon I realized that I had been saying to myself

“My God, this is awful!” . The center of Coventry is in ruins.

~~ half out loud, saying it over and over like a chant:

Many of the A big newspaper office is a jumble

eel girders sagging among them. There are not - public eating places left. You can stand on what used to be a main corner in downtown Coventry and in three directions see Street bui now you walk in ankle-deep mud. You Would barely recognize it as a street. On each side tractors and cranes and men with

. - - «©

~ ( blowtorches are untangling and hauling away twisted

_ girders and mingled rubble.

Shelters ‘Reduced Death Toll

. Nobody" has ever. been able to put that night of - Coventry’s into words. ; . .. /The noise was fiendish. It seemed that the entire , city was burning down.. The only reason a large part . of the population didn't lie dead the next morning is that they took to the shelters. They say the final ‘ death toll was just a little over 500. * It seems almost impossible that the loss of life

Inside Indianapolis (4nd “Our Town”

. ANY DAY NOW, a traffic motorcycle “fleet”

«will take off from the County Jail garage, roar out

{ Sinto’the pastoral scene and bring the law to districts

’ touched heretofore only infrequently. Everything has been ready since December. When

spring - seems here .to stay, the “fleet” will roar. And so—watch out! : : Pressed by the press for the date when the “fleet” will take off, Sheriff Feeney let go with this pronouncement: “I'm not going to.take a chance on scratching up that new cycle on these icy roads. Wait until the roads are’ clear and then we’ll bring it out.” “Perhaps you should know that the “fleet” consists of one shiny gr : motorcycle, waiting patiently in the garage. But come real spring, then , . . ZOOM.

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‘Chivalry Marches On!

LAST FRIDAY “Inside” told how one lady gets “a seat on inbound N. Illinois St. streetcars by spotting a pair of white shoes (belonging to a nurse) and - waiting until the shoes get off at 16th St. for Metho-

- dist Hospital.

Here's another method brought to our attention,

_ A young mother, accompanied by two young children, “gets on the E. Washington St. line. The car is full

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‘up and bulging. This is the cue for one of the children to start whining in a high and nerve-shat-tering key. ; “I told you youll have to stand up all the way

“home; mother says in a loud voice. “You can see

- that there are no empty seats.”

Whereupon some one or two men arise ‘with a tip

N ew Books

. ‘THE OUTSTANDING BIOGRAPHY of the mo-

‘ment ‘is an’all-Indiana production. It is “Zachary

Taylor, Soldier of the Republic,” the twelfth President

of the United States who played a considerable role

campaign ‘in Indiana Territory. . The author is Holman Hamilton of Ft. Wayne, the introduction has been written by the distinguished Hoosier author and diplomat Claude G. Bowers and the publisher is our own BobbsMerrill ($3.50). Noteworthy to Hoosiers is the publication of a special, limited, autographed Indiana edition (250 copies), bearing the unusual decorative design illustrated here. The prepossessing figure Ls of “Old Rough and Ready” comes to life in Mr. Hamilton’s pages. It is the * scholarly study of one of the greatest of the y Americans whose fame has been allowed to WW idim. This book takes the reader to Zachary pat 62 and another volume is to come to finish i. Careless “Old Rough and Ready” may ie despair of his fellow .officers but he ling of his troops and Mr. Hamilton paints picture of a man who was certainly one of the ¥ frontier military geniuses of his day.

Idol of His Men BE INNINGS OF Zack Taylor's career are y Shaped by Mr. Hamilton and in quick order rade is living through the Indian warfare, and publes with his daughter's fiance, Jefferson

~ As 8 romance which ended in tragedy. out ‘it is not these personal incidents which make

Vi y Day

WASHINGTON, Sunday.—A perfectly delightful "thing happened to me the other day, but I have been ‘so pressed for space that I haven't told you many of the things which I should like to tell you, How- ! this I must tell you! A young Viennese friend oe of mine, Charlotte Kraus, a singer, in collaboration with a friend of hers, Madame Rona, a Czechoslovakian sculptress, induced my son, Franklin, Jr, to sit for a head which will belong to me after Madame Rona’s exhibition. I am perfectly delighted to have it. In a curious way, this head showed me certain things about my son which I had not noticed before. He looks older, and yet from the right profile the childish resemblance is still strong. My youngest son, John, and his home from their cruise on Thursday, havsplendid time on the first holiday they have er in some time. I was glad ‘to be able to them a healthy baby, who had acral teeth during their departure and had ally to crawl. any : nd Ann brought to my attention a child's pthy Taylor, Ambassador of Good Will,” te I think that many adults, as well enjoy this story in verse of a little &) : .

in Benjamin Harrison's

Migix io. -

Hoosier Vagabond = By Erie Pyle

¢ hothing- but waste. You can walk down what was a _

should have been Io more than that. For Coventry is a city of a quarter of a million people. That means that only one out af 500 was killed. The city had two mass burials, with more than 200 bodies in each. And such is Coventry’s opinion of the Germans that they kept the time of the funerals secret, for fear of a blitz directed at the mourners. ’ Other dead were buried privately by their families. Scores of bodies were unidentified. The only way the death of some of the people was known was the fact that their families never saw them again. I feel certain that they will be finding bodies in Coventry long after the war is over, when the final removal of tumbled debris is undertaken,

King Starties People Out of Stupor

Daylight found Coventry in a daze. I have friends in Birmingham who’ were here by dawn. As they drove into town they found people leaving the city by any means at hand. My friends say the look of horror in the faces of these people was something they can never forget. / Everyone was stunned. You could ask a simple question and they either did not know the answer or would just stare at you. Their minds seemed dead. What brought people out of this, and back to life again, was two things.” One was the visit of the King, who came on the second morning. He came unannounced, and only a few people were around when he arrived, but the word spread quickly. And somehow the realization that the King was there among them startled the people out of their stupor and they were actually able to cheer. The second thing was the prodding into action: by city leaders.” An emergency council was immediately formed. A local “Churchill,” a man who had never held office, just walked’ into the breach and started orders flying while others stood by helpless. Loudspeaker | tricks and handbills spread the order that Coveniry had to be cleaned up. And it was this getting people info action again—even though the action was merely throwing brickbats from -one pile onto another—that jerked their spirits back into circulation and started the stream of life flowing once again in Covenfry.

of the hat and offer their seats, which are accepted pronto. :

Even Then, the Two-Feature

THOSE WHO HAVE joined the camp against the double, triple or quadruple feature in the movie houses may be interested to know this sort’ of thing was going on even in the happy days of the early 20s. For the week of June 25, 1922, the old Isis, the downtown Illinois St, theater, advertised two for the price of one. The attractions were Dustin Farnum in Sans Idols” and Al St. John in “The Village Sheik.” We hope this will make you happier.

Hiya, Judge!

THIS IS THE slory we hear of a local attorney defending a main charged with drunkenness in a Municipal Court case: The attorney orated that “the presumption of| innocence has followed this man clear through this trial. ‘Why, your honor, this man was as’ sober as the proverbial judge. . . . Er, why, well now, I didn’t mean anything perscnal by that, judge.” His honor dracked not a smile.

Around the Town—

WE DON'T KNOW ‘what the weather will be when you read this, but al least we’ve had one satisfying flirtation with spring. Kites, many of them flying red, white and blue colors, were up all over town yesterday and | one ingenious lad let his string out from a fishing reel. Washington St. promenaders strolled in full force nearly all the day, highways were gorged and Erown County got a sizable play. Anybody feel a poem coming on? . .. Among the birthdays coming up are those of Bowman Elder tomorrow and John Péter Frenzel Jr. on Sunday. , . . Among the newspaper hawkers we like is the one who worked Englishi’s "entrance after the Gladys Swarihoue regital. “Ice cold basketball results,” he owed, :

‘By Stephen Ellis

up the story of Zachary Taylor. The story is that of a fighting man. In Mr. Hamilton’s own pages: “Captains might look askance at his attempt to master problems of strategy. Majors might nod knowingly when they saw his plans. Lieutenant Colonels might bity his abysymal ignorance. But the rank and file never questioned, never wavered in their faith. They loved leaders who could be both natural and brave, and they had learned to adore Old Rough and Ready, the name by which they knew him when they did not say Old Zack. “There he was; in a ‘blue checked gingham coat, blue trousers without any braid, a linen waistcoat and a broad brimmed straw hat. Neither his horse nor his saddle had any military ornament.’ Simplicity! This well-born son of Virginia gentlefolk personified simplicity. And every time the privates saw him, plain and unprétending, mounted on Old Whitey with one leg swung over the pommel of his saddle, they felt that impelling urge to obey his orders and to march or rage or ride wherever he might lead.”

Poem Tells the Story

TAYLOR'S BATTLES with the Mexicans make dramatic reading in the hands of an artist like Holman Hamilton. He has given us an intriguing portrait of a great American fighting man. It probably tan be summed up best by simply lifting the little coggerel that runs on the frontispiece of the book:

Zachary Taylor was a brave old feller, Brigadier General, A. No. 1 He fought twenty thousand Mexicanos; Four thousand he killed, the rest they ‘cut and run.’

In the thickest of the fight Old Zachary appear-ed, The shot flew about him as thick as any hail, And the only injury he there receiv-ed Was a compound fracture of his brown coat tail.

By Eleanor Roosevelt

boy whose father made him feel that coming to the United States during the war, was really being an ambassador who made friends for his country in a period when friends were much needed. Friday in the midst of oyr snowstorm. I drove up ‘to Howard University to see the exhibition of paintings by Negro artists of Chicago. It was like a fairy world outside, and the young students coming across the. campus, baftling with tne wind and snow, were a gay group. Inside the paintings were almost entirely ‘reminiscent of gay colors’ and summer scenes. George Neal, who represented by two paintings, lost much of his work in a fire two years before he| died, but he was the inspiration of many other painters. He gathered them around him and taught them. They painted in spite of poverty, living in attics and practically starving while they worked. ; One little ceramic by Edward “T. Collier is the loveliest shade of green I have ever seen, and one’ or two of ‘Joseph A. Kersey’s sculptures are extremely interesting. I am always fond 'of water colors and would have liked to walk away ‘with some that were on exhibition, : : : Friday night I clined with members of the Federal Bar Association. While I felt they were<very kind to invite me, I also felt very hesitant about inficting any words on such an. important group. I was very glad to have the opportunity, however, to hear two extremely interesting and able speeches from Robert Patierson, Assistant Secretary. of War, and Francis Biddle, the Solicitor Genergly =. +. 5

" By LELAND STOWE

icago Daily News, Inc. VWHEN we returned to Athens from our last front trip I was in luck. There were letters from home at last and also several issues of the Chicago Daily News which had come through from somewhere. That was just after Christmas and the date of the latest Daily News was Sept. 11. : You might think that a pretty stale newspaper. It - was three and a half months old, but I almost ate its columns while flying across

the Mediterranean to Cairo.

After all, an American news=paper of any vintage has long been as rare and treasured an article, anywhere in the Balkans, as a Havana cigar. I know about both because I bought the last Havana that any Bucharest tobacco shop will see until after the war—and that was way back in September. Well, America’s news of midSeptember can be a quite wonderful Christmas present, especially when you’ve been living for seven months in countries where you're more cut off from home developments than Admiral Byrd was in Little America. . . . ” ” ”

On Keeping Informed

E MOVED around so much we couldn’t get home radio programs but now and then. For printed news we had to depend, like the Balkan publics, upon such items and interpretations as the Nazi official news agency, DNB, thought it useful to supply to the press of southeastern Europe about a very few

American developments or alleged |

developments. Yes we did learn that Roose- - velt was re-elected—but I was never able to find out how many states he carried until I got home the other day. This, by way of confessing that the folks in Tahiti are much better informed about the United States than it’s been possible for me to be for a long time. This, also, by way of explaining how most Europeans today have a tremendous lot more faith in America than they have information ‘about the sharply, divided and confused state of mind which prevails among Americans at this moment.

‘Let the Meaning Sink In"

N all the neutral or now-occu-

pied countries where I have

worked since Finland, one year ago, I have encountered extremely interesting convictions about America’s interests and America’s role in regard to the war. Most of them have been based fundamentally upon the amazing faith which almost all Europeans have in the United States as a nation which already wears the mantle of world leadership and therefore—so they assume and believe—could not conceivably toss that mantle into the ashcan. Europe looks at America. You can repeat this at least three times to let the meaning sink in. Yes, today Europe looks and looks and never stops looking at America. Maybe you have already reacted something like this: “Sure, they want us to go over there and fight their war for them.” But before we get too hasty, let me say, in all honesty, that there's a lot more than that to the very great awareness which European peoples have for the U. S. A. at the present time. I really doubt whether scores of millions of inarticulate Euro-. peans ever had such universal belief in Americans and American leadership, even in 1918 and 1919, as they have today. # EJ »

Attitude Always the Same

INCE this is supposed to be a reporting job, let me try to give

youa straightforward synthesis -

of what Europeans currently think about America. Although I have been in 21 countries since the war began, this analysis, for accuracy’s sake, is limited to the 12 Northern, Eastern and Southeastern European countries where I have spent most of my time in the past year, It seems unquestionable, how-

.ever, that the popular attitude in

occupied countries like . Holland and Belgium and in neutral

Switzerland, for instance, is much- Ty ; . | “Dependents? Hm-mm-—why no

the same. Ch

“I remember the Finns, the Norwegians and the Greeks especially: How they all felt that America was the one land which wouldn’t let them down, how they counted on American medical supplies, food and materials and how grateful they were for aid of any degree, however long it might have been in

arriving.”

tions with all kinds of people: With cabinet members and restaurant waiters, with counts and chambermaids, with army officers and soldiers, with Scandinavian labor union members and (through an interpreter) with Rumanian peasants harvesting their wheat. Well, with quite a hodge-podge of old world citizens of all classes. I never met anyone—except an outright Nazi, an outright Fascist or an outright Communist—who didn’t speak of America with hope in his voice. ” ” ”

America Means Hope

ILLIONS of Europeans, the A overwhelming maiority of Europeans, look at America with hope. To them America means hope—and hope means opportunity and generosity. It" also means leadership and championship of freedom and, above all, human decency. Sometimes the simple assumption that America couldn’t mean anything less than these things has been almost frightening. Sometimes it seemed that Clara, our Helsinki chambermaid, and a Bulgarian taxidriver believed more in Americans than we believe in ourselves. I remember the Finns, the Norwegians and the Greeks especially: How they all felt that America was the one land which wouldn’t let them down, how they counted on American medical

supplies, food and materials and’

how. grateful they were for aid any degree, however long it migh have been in arriving. I remember the anxious, eager question of several Norwegians during the first days of the German occupation of Oslo: “What is America going to do?” That seemed a foolish question. After all, what could America do—

‘in a hurry at any rate? 3ut they

asked: the question. . . Why? Be-~ cause every Scandinavian, from the depths of his being, believed that the people of the United States are incapable of remaining indifferent to two things. They believed that Americans, more than any other people on earth, are incapable of shutting their hearts to human suffering and misery. They believed, and still believe, just as firmly, that Americans are incapable of remaining indifferent to the destruction of freedom and parliamentary government among nations, large or small, which had always shared these privileges with them. # 8.8

The Spiritual Conception

THINK you will understand the difference between these two convictions and a hadly egotistical assumption that they expect Americans to go over and “fight their war for them.” These universally prevalent European convictions spring chiefly from a spiritual conception of America, of what America represents, of the American way of life. : Maybe that’s our hard luck, maybe that puts some pretty terrible responsibilities upon us—at

HOLD EVERYTHING

COMING

Leland Stowe has been flooded with questions from readers from all parts of the United States in c o nnection with this series of articles. Mr. Stowe is answering these questions and : The Indian- 7a apolis Times will publish in series form this important question-and-answer feature, which promises to be every bit as exciting and interesting as these articles.

much-discussed

least in the eyes of all those peoples who have sent their sons and daughters to help make America

a ut the fact remains that the common men and women of Europe, the voiceless millions, got this conception of America from an acute understanding of all that America has been, done and stood for throughout our history.

If they are mistaken or if we have changed, we can’t blame them. For them America has always meant hope and fredom— and today she still means hope and freedom to them. SS =R "HF a

The Motal Angle

HIS is one angle from which Europeans, for more than 160 years, have consistently looked at America. It is a moral angle— which makes it rather uncomfortable. Once, during the late 1920's, the European peoples began to have grave doubts. I lived among them then and know whereof I speak. For the first time they had grave doubts and much disillusionment and then, if I remember correctly, most Americans felt a great deal of resentment over the changing European attitude toward us. But we lost an awful lot of money, and maybe as much pride, and soon Europe’s people thought we were just what they had always thought we were—a great people with a great heart and a conscience peculiarly sensitive to the moral values of the world. Perhaps that’s as embarrassing for us as it is for a very human young man to be described to everyone within earshot as a model son: But there it is. The world’s masses simply expect Americans to be big and openhearted and immovably dedicated to “government of the people, by the people and for

the people.” » » ”

Taken for Granted

UROPEANS today still take these things for granted, but among those millions who are

COPR. 1961 BY NEA SERVICE INC. T. M. R88. U. 5. PAT. OF. . 33

-in the Nazi-ensla

now enslaved by Hitler or exist

at the mercy of the Nazi creed there is another conviction. The overwhelming majority of European peoples, whether in Finland and the Scandinavians or throughout Central. and Southeastern Europe, are . absolutely convinced that the United States cannot permit Britain and the last non-American strongholds of parliamentary government to be destroyed by Hitler. ro They believe, blindly but from bitter ‘personal experience, that the United States—from its own self-interest — cannot conceivably permit ‘the British people to be defeated. This is why the vast majority of Northern and Balkan peoples, however tightly underneath Hitler’s instep they are now compelled to live, still believe with a surprising confidence that Britain and her Alles will win the war. In their eyes, Americans and the American form of republican government would simply be committing suicide if they allowed anything else to happen. They are convinced of that because they know, all too painfully, what has happened or is still happening to them. They know now the things they themselves didn’t want to believe —and learned too late. Such things as the frightful cost of hoping to remain neutral and free and unharmed, all alone. Such things as the terrific price of the failure of Scandinavian nations and Balkan nations to unite and treat their freedom as a common possession, to be .defended in common.

» » »

What They Think

HEY know, and have learned

too late, how Naziism builds trojan horses and undermines

from within—through treachery and exploitation of ambition and greed. Now they know these things from experience. That's why the mass of Europeans cannot imagine that Americans, if Hitler once rules all Europe and Africa and' inevitably dominates Latin America, can possibly fool themselves into thinking they can be the only democratic people on earth to remain immune to the perfected “conquest from within” tactics of the brown bolshevism of the Nazis. Maybe they credit us with being more prudent and intelligent and farsighted than we are. I suspect that time will answer that question before very long. Anyhow, Europeans of all classes look at America and they have certain very widely-held ideas about America and the war.

They think that Americans cannot conceivably risk destruction, even more from within than from without, by letting the Nazi system engulf the British commonwealth of nations and so consolidate a gigantic, forced-labor industrial hegemony over two-thirds of the earth’s surface.

They think that Americans cannot conceivably renounce the humanitarian and moral principles which alone have brought the United States to a unique position of respect and leadership in world affairs. ” » o

Convinced of Our Support

1 =Y think that Americans, for both selfish and idealistic reasons, will never permit Britain's outpost of freedom to be annihilated: That the United States will do “everything short of war” to give the British the tools with which to stand. If the day should come when even this is not enough, they think the United States will have to fight—because, in their conviction, that would be the quickest, cheapest and the only sure way by which free government in America can be preserved. They think, the overwhelming majority of them, that the British commonwealth of peoples — with American aid of whatever category and degree as may prove necessary—will win the war, Millions and millions of Europeans look at America and really believe these t today. So much that to them these things are self-evident, merely in the slow process of achievement through the ponderous evolution of American hearts and minds. These are facts. These are the things which the voiceless masses ved or Nazi-dom.

ue 9 ¥ ? x I have been working, believe with =

\ -

an almost fantastic faith. 8 2 8

They May Be Wrong ~~ 1 & \ FAYBE they are wrong. I am'

merely reporting what I. know about them, Maybe they are

. terribly wrong,

If they. are wrong I wonder . what these tens of millions of European men and women will think about America throughout’ the long, unbroken blackout in which they will pass the rest of ° their lives? ie Perhaps that wouldn't make . much difference to most of us’ Americans. For if Europe's mils’ lions should be mistaken about .

' the role of the United States in

butfressing and defending the only international front for freedom that now remains, Americans —it seems clear to me—would shortly be living in the same kind of blackout in a blacked-out world. Oro TOMORROW: The War As I See It. h k

FUNDS LACKING

FOR WARFLEIGH

White River Project Is Not

Affected by Slash in U. S. Program.

‘|gram for the Mississippi River

Times Special WASHINGTON, March 3.—Ne¢ funds for the $1,019,600 Warfleigh flood control levee in Indianapolis are proposed in the Army Engineers report to Congress today. . «ww id The report points out that only = $410.50 for surveys and explorations has been ey on the project so far and it is being held up te await “local co-operation.” However, anticipated cuts in the U. 8. Army Flood Control program for the nation, will not affect the Army flood project on White River) now 85 per cent complete. Tak Shoals Reservoir Included ; An appropriation of $366, : requested today by Maj. Gen. Julian L. Schley, chief of U. S. Army Engineers, will probably be cut to but 45 per cent of this amount. Seat +The largest of Gen. Schley’s pro= posed projects was a $50,000,000 pro= gram for the Mississippi River and its . tributaries.. Included in: this; plan is the huge Shoals Reservoir to be built in Martin County, Indiana, near the Government's new Nav Munitions Depot at Burns Ci Gen. Schley asked appropriation of three million dollars for that reser<: voir, which will be on the Eas Fork of White River. : :

Cash Already Available Other recommended Indiana exe penditures were $1,533,000 for Levee Unit No. 5 on the Wabash Rixer, $1,941,000 for flood control at Jeffersonville and Clarksville and $1, 000,000 for - flood control at New Albany. Expenditure of $1,093,40C for flood wall and levee projects at Evansville, on which $3,515,000 has been spent in the past two years, also was recommended. The local White River project, which consisted of widening the channel and building levees from Washington Ave. to 10th St., was started last year and no new ape propriation is needed to complete it, according to U., S. Engineers here, The White River project was part of the Army’s Flood Control pro= = and its tributaries. a

DISCUSS PROBLEMS -

The problems of the conscientious objector to war will be discussqs b) a group of interdenominstio: leaders in g national conference the First Friends Church March to 16. HE Dr. Errol T. Elliott explained that the ' conference does not intend te persuade young men to become con scientious objectors. It will to arrange for work camps maintenance for the men n holding convictions against war, Elliott said. . The guest speaker of the con ence will be Dr. Thomas E. recently appointed supervisor United States camps for conse tious objectors. : Attending the conference will be Dr. James A. Crain of anapolis, nationally known C and secretary of social. educatio and social’ action for the Unite Christian = Missionary Society; | Charles F. Boss of Chicago, al Methodist peace worke!

wu p

tional representatives c of the Brethren and