Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 13 March 1941 — Page 23

THURSDAY, MARCH 13, 1941

The Indianapolis Times

SECO

ND SECTION

- Hoosier Vagabond

SHIREHAMPTON, England (By Wireless) —Last night I decided to do a little pub-crawling, to see if maybe I could dig up a piece of conversation among some Jongshoremen. I have always thought of longshoremen as hard guys, quick to suspect an outsider. So I sidled up to the bar sort of timidly. But these longshoremen were so suspicious that before two minutes had passed I had the life history of the fellow next to me, voluntarily. The problem wasn't getting him started, it was getting him stopped. His name was “Nobby” Clark. In fact, all the Clarks in these parts are called Nobby. This special Nobby lost a leg in the last war. His brother was killed in France. His two sons are in the forces now. His sister and 4 niece were killed by a bomb in southern England last fall. And now his own house has been blown up, and he and his wife are living with friends. “But Hitler won't get me.” Nobby says. “I'm too tough and too lucky. Here, wait a minute, a stranger can't pay for his own here, and anyway this is my birthday. Here's to ol’ Hitler, bad luck to im!” Well, that was kind of a good start, so then we got to talking to Tom Woolacombe and his brother-in-law, They are dock workers, too.

Explosion of a Time Bomb

The brother-in-law’s left arm was in a plaster cast, It seems he and another fellow were sitting in front of their fireplace one night, and everything was peaceful and quiet, and no raid was on, and all of a sudden the whole side of the house, fireplace and all, leaped out and fell on them. The reason for this odd behavior on the part of the house was that a time bomb had buried itself in the ground just outside, one night earlier, and nobody knew about it till it went off. The boys said they sure were surprised After a while Tom suggested that we walk up to his place, which was just a couple of blocks. So we got two bottles of beer for his wife and walked home in the moonlight. Mrs. Woolacombe was sort of disconcerted to see Tom home so early, and with a stranger, too, and she obviously wasn't anv too pleased about it. But after we talked a while everything was all right. /

Inside Indianapolis (And “Our Town”)

IT IS A SURE-FIRE thing that traffic safety In Indianapolis will eventually be linked directly with the tax rate and while everybody is sidestepping that point right now it's in the back of their minds. Almost all the traffic surveys ever made boil down to a few basic points. One, vou've got to have the streets vatrolled by policemen and, two, the vioiators have to be punished. When that happens people begin driving carefully. It's as simple as that There is some belief that Indianapolis may be under-manned in the police lists. If that is eventually found to be true, it will then become necessary to get more policemen. And police, like anything else, costs money along with police equipment. In other words, the whole issue may- simmer down to the simple reasoning that if safety costs money, will the taxpayers be willing to pay for it?

Here and There

EXCHANGE CLUB members are rooting for the recovery of Guy K. Jeffries. founder of the club, who is seriously ill, . . . Harold L. (Speedy) Ross of the I. A. C. is in Buffalo attending a convention. «.« YOu won't be seeing many more of those glossy backed packages of matches. They have a mixture of aluminum in the coating and the Government has put the bars up on its use outside of the defense field. . . . Members of the Variety Club are having their fun painting the beauties of Army life to M-G-M's Harold Marshall, who is among those sturdy young men expecting the bugle call any day

Washington

WASHINGTON, March 13.--The Vichy Government’'s threat to use convoys to take food into France through the British blockade is regarded here as a German-inspired move and will be treated as such. This threat comes just as the United States has taken the step of including food as a munition of war in the lendlease program The Senate, by an amendment

to the bill, included agricultural commodities in the category of defense material. As he left for London to become defense expediter, W. Averell Harriman said that expediting shipments of food to great Britain would be one of the primary purposes of material aid to Britain. Before leaving he conferred with Secretary of Agriculture Wickard, who already is taking preparatory measures, as part of the general Administration effort to be ready to meet British needs promptly. This food now takes its place in the arsenal of democracy along with planes, munitions, and ships. This means that Mr. Hoover's food plan for Europe will receive no more favorable consideration here than would a proposition to supply Germany with bombing planes. It does not preclude the possibility of food for Finland or even for Spain should Franco be able to give convincing guarantees that his country will not become a corridor to Gibraltar. But as to countries under German control, this Government is determined to give no aid, and on the contrary to use food as one of the weapons to aid the British.

Showing Up Hitler

As a matter of policy it is considered desirable to demonstrate that Germany does not have the resources to be the master of Europe. Hitler has represented that Germany should become the protector of the whole continent. It is proposed to demonstrate that he cannot even feed the continent Studies made by the Agricultural Department show

My Day

GOLDEN BEACH, Fla, Wednesday.—The news that the Lease-Lend Bill was signed came over the radio yesterday afternoon. A few minutes later we heard that certain supplies were already gathered on the dock ready for shipment. There is a column written by H. Bond Bliss in the 4 morning paper, which I read down : here as I drink my coffee under a palm tree that looks out over the ocean. Today, Mr. Bliss stresses the importance of this moment when the great English speaking nations are joining their strength in a supreme effort to save the kind of life which seems important to them. I know, for instance, that democracy in this country is not perfect. I know that there are many things for which I want to work in the hope of improving conditions and bringing more real democracy to my own land. But in spite of that, I know that I have a better chance to accomplish this in this country with our present form of government, than I would have in any of the totalitarian countries today. While IT am talking about improvements which I should like to see come about, T should like to state the way I feel about labor organizations. To me, organization for labor seems necessary because it is the only protection that the worker has when he fecls that he is not receiving just returns for his labor, or that he is working under conditions which

By Ernie Pyle

The Woolacombes, to be blunt about it, have had | a bellyful of this war. As Mrs. Woolacombe puts it, | “I'm proper fed up. Bombs, bombs, bombs, all the, $d time.” % Tom has steady work unloading ships. He is 57. tad He says he makes just enough to get by. They live| 8 pretty well, but there is nothnig left over on payday. They rent their two-story six-room house for $2.75 a week, which they consider high. The same house in America would cost at least $50 a month, Their two sons are in the army. So is their married daughter's husband. Another daughter, Alice, whose husband has been killed, lives with them, Alice has a little boy 3 years old, and I noticed that he kept walking around saying to himself, “War's over. War's over.” “What's he saying that for?” I asked his mother. “Well,” she said, “several weeks ago he wanted something, I forget what, and I told him he couldnt have it till the war was over. Ever since he has been saying ‘War's over’ to himself all the time.” I think he's trying to use the Coue system on the war.

An Incendiary Fire

There are two more Woolacombe girls. Eileen, who is 16, sells tickets at a movie theater. Violet, who is 20, works in a munitions factory. So you see the war certainly has its tentacles wrapped all around the Woolacombes. They've had an incendiary bomb through the roof, too. This was during a heavy raid, and they were all in the backyard shelter, The fire burned up all the clothes in a corner closet. They've got this room closed off now, and aren't using it. After a while we went back to the pub and sat around talking with a lot of longshoremen, The men were mostly middle-aged and there was| no loud talk or singing, -such as you find in so many pubs on these wartime nights These longshoremen carried the bitterest feeling about the war that I've run onto vet. “This ain't war,” they say. “This is just plain murder, bombing our homes and women and children like this.” If 1 heard that once I heard it 20 times. These men are mostly veterans of the last war and they still have an idea that wars should be fought on the battlefield As you can see, they are very old-fashioned and don’t understand the new world order.

Le

now . . Second billing department: A movie advertisement saying, “Robert Taylor, in ‘Flight Com-| mand’,” and, in little letters, “Plus the U. S. Navy.”

All Aboard!

WE'VE NEVER TOLD you about Denny Duesenberg, son of the late Fred Duesenberg. Denny, who works at Schwitzer-Cummins, lives in the old Duesen- | berg home at 3290 Fall Creek Drive, with several young men roomers and in the attic is Denny's pride and joy—one of the town's most elaborate train | systems. Denny buys the rails and engines, but builds his! own gystem, which includes elevated tracks, a bridge, ! sidings, switches and sloping grades. He can regulate | the movement of any of the trains from a central control board and when the trains are in operation a| dull, penetrating roar can be heard all over the] house. One little train keeps up a constant, rather) maddening whistle, which can be heard all the way | down in the basement. Most of the roomers are used to it by now, but the chap who sleeps directly under the trains shudders every time visitors arrive.

Up in the Air

THE REPUBLICANS on that party junket to Florida went down in a plane piloted by Col. Roscoe Turner. Nish Dienhart, the Airport superintendent, was supposed to go, too, but he overslept and Roscoe took off without him. . Embarrassing moment: | Last night at the Butler Utes basketball banquet, | Toastmaster Max Wildman introducing Bob Nipper,| one of Butler's all-time greats, kept peering at the| S. H. S. after Bob’s name. He finally introduced him | as Southport’s coach.

You couldn't blame Robert] a: for looking a little peeved.

British Troops M

These British troops arriving in an English port last summer from what had been a “hell on earth” in Flanders and later at Dunkirk now may | well be among the 175,000 reported to have landed in the last few days in Greece. There they may try to get their revenge for the most amazing re- | treat in history when 335,000, apparently doomed, came safely back to Britain,

These two are representative of the British fighting forces in the

By Raymond Clapper

MAGELLAN SEEN

that Germany's most critical situation in foodstuffs is a shortage of fats. By midyear most of Germany's

fat reserves will be used up, with Holland and Denmark no longer able to supply appreciable quantities. | Derimark., Norway, Holland, Belgium and France|

would actually be able to feed their peoples, so these] Government studies find, despite the British blockade, — if Germany were not adjusting their agricultural | . . economies to her own growing food needs, and their Straits Will Be Defense

| Hub if U. S. Becomes

industrial machinery and transport systems to her| Involved in War.

war effort. Gambled on Short War Present food shortages are not considered Pri-| copyright, 1941, bv The Indianapolis Times el Ph result of reduced crops or the British / and The Chicago Daily News, Inc. ockade. If the continental countries had been able y : y to adjust themselves in accordance with their own | SANTIAGO, Chile, March 2 (By needs, they could have fed themselves. But German | Clipper). — Control, protection and political and economic domination have completely | patrol of the Straits of Magellan in upset the possibility of such readjustments, according| ase the United States is involved to these Government studies. The Germans have|in war could become one of the made their military interests superior to any other| important features of hemispheric need. They have requisitioned food and slaughtered | gefense breeding stocks on the theory of a short war, without| ghould anything happen to the regard to the needs of the occupied countries. | Panama Canal, there remain only In Norway, the German army of occupation is| these cold and stormy straits and estimated to be consuming enough to keep one-fourth| the open sea south of Tierra Del of the population from malnutrition. Germany has| Fuego for American warships and taken from Denmark enough meat to supply Denmark | merchantmen sailing between the and Norway combined for two years. Emergency| Atlantic and the Pacific Oceans. slaughter in Holland took enough meat to supply the| entire Belgian population for six months. Nazis are drafting Danish, Norwegian, Dutch, Belgian, French,| Large German settlements in Czech and Polish prisoners and civilians to overcome | Chile which have been efficiently the shortage of farm labor in Germany. Confiscation | and ruthlessly forced into the ranks of rolling stock and other forms of transportation in!of overseas Nazi organizations are conquered nations has interrupted the distribution|located in the Temugo-to-Puerto | of foodstuffs to the population. The occupied coun-{ Montt region in southern Chile. tries are being merged into the Nazi wartime new| On friendly action by Chile and order and their food supplies are being used as an! Argentina depends whether a conintegral part of the total German war effort. | siderable force of United States Those are some of the findings made officially | Warships can be spared from guardwithin our Government, and they account for the firm | ing east and west entrances to the opposition to proposals such as Mr. Hoover's. straits. There are no naval bases in that region now, The Chile - Argentine treaty of 1881 provides that free navigation| of the straits be assured ships of | all nations, and that “no fortifica- | tions nor military defenses will be he can not accept as fair. I also feel that dealing| constructed on their shores.” with organized labor should benefit the employer! and make for better mutual understanding. Pe Deiense ESpetie] Believing in this principle, however, does not| Chile has a small air force based mean that I think the decisions made by groups of at Punto Arenas while Argentina workmen or their leaders are always correct. 1 do Organized a few years ago its Sixth not expect from them infallibility and superman Army Corps to operate in Patagonia. qualities, any more than I do from groups of em-|Military experts believe that the ployers, or from politicians or from Government combined fleets of Argentina, Chile officials. |and Peru, totaling 240,00 tons, could There have been and are abuses in the labor ©2sily defend the approaches to the movement, and I think we should fight them. The Straits of Magellan, people who uncover these abuses and speak fearlessly] Argentina could, and probably about them, show courage and perform a civic duty.| Would, want to assume control of the I think, however, they fail in their full duty when|Atlantic approaches. Her main they do not point out that it is only the abuses they|naval base is at Bahia Blanca, 1000 attack, not the idea and fundamental right of or-|Mmiles away from the straits. ganization for mutual support. The only feasible base nearby A union organization fails in its fuli duty when it| Would be Port Stanley in the Falkloses the ideal which lies back of all unionization.|!and Islands. But these islands are This ideal, it seems to me, is an unselfish interest in|British. those who are not as strong as others in their ability EAL IDENTICAL TWIN to defend themselves, and in a willingness to suffer REAL TUENTICA, ¥ 5 to obtain for others the rights you may have already] PRINCETON, Ill. (U. P.).—Allen achieved for yourself. “land Charles Thompson, 3-year-old I do not believe that every man and woman should|Sons of Mr. and Mrs. Orville be forced to join a union. I do believe the right| Thompson, are identical twins— to explain the principles lying back of labor unions|€ven to appendicitis scars. They should be safeguarded, that every workman should have been exactly the same height be free to listen to the plea of organization without|and weight since birth, cut teeth fear of hindrance or of evil circumstances, and that|together and learned to walk together. They underwent appendec-

Depends on U, S,

By Eleanor Roosevelt

he should have the right to join with his fellows in a union if he feels it will help others and, inci-|tomies within 45 hours of each dentally, himself, * other, :

desert of Egypt where they showed Mussolini of Italy how to fight. -—

The reopening of the Balkan front may bring back scenes like this. With fixed bayonets members of the British expeditionary force followed up a bombing attack through a wood in France in the early days

of the war.

HOLD

EVERYTHING

0

oe x

“Say, pal, will ya tip me off when we get to Guam?”

RR

Australians have done their part for the British Empire at Bardia

BRAKEMAN IS FOUND MYSTERIOUSLY HURT

FRANKFORT, Ind.,, March 13 (U. P.) —Ernest E. Henson, 50-year-old

Nickel Plate brakeman of Frankfort, lay near death today white state, county and city authorities sought an explanation of injuries he mysteriously received. He was found Tuesday night lying on State Road 39 near here in a semi-conscious condition from a| skull fracture and broken ribs, | Passersby who discovered him said there was no indication he had| been hit or run over by an automobile. Police officials said his injuries indicated he had been the victim of an attack,

SWISS TO ESTABLISH N. Y. CARGO OFFICE

WASHINGTON, March 13 (U. P.). ~The Swiss Legation has announced that it will establish the new office of “Swiss Carge Commissioner” in |New York Saturday to handle applications for American export licenses and British navicerts on goods destined for Switzerland. The Commissioner will be Ernest Theiler, now commercial secretary to

| |

the Swiss Consulate General in New York,

ay Get Revenge

and Tobruk, and now they may be

among the thousands at Salonika and the port of Athens ready to meet the Germans,

BOMBING OF U. S, HELD ‘FEASIBLE’

Long Island Likely Target, Refugee German Chemist Declares.

By Science Service FAR ROCKAWAY, N. Y.,, March 13.—Air raids on the United States are now .echnically feasible. None stop flights of bombers across the Atlantic Ocean are not necessary to

accomplish this, Dr. Curt Wachtel, refugee yerman chemist who helped institute poison gas warfare for Germany during the First World War, said in a lecture here. Dr. Wachtel declared that “Supply bases can be established anywhere between the continents. Supply submarines may approach the coast of this country at very small dis= tances. “The most modern American bombers,” he continued, “used by an enemy of this country and starting either in the Atlantic or the Pacific, could reach every point of the United States, however remote, unload 36,000 pounds of bombs on the target it selects and then return to its base through the stratosphere beyond the reach of anti-aircraft action.” Long Island, Dr. Wachtel cone tinued, with its factories, airdromes and Navy yards, is especially likely to be attacked. The sooner air raid shelters are built, the better, he said, for when the danger is imminent, material and labor will be difficult if not ime possible to obtain. Each person with property should build his own shelter, he believes. Dr. Wachtel suggested that the recent self-invited flood of radio

{messages to Germany, commenting

on their radio programs, was ine tended to help fifth-columnists come municate messages.

LARGEST RIVER TUG NEARLY COMPLETED

CHICAGO, March 13 (U. P.).— The Ashland, largest river boat ever built in Chicago and believed by its builders to be the only river tug equipped with air-conditioned crew quarters,” was moored in the Calu= met, River today after its launching from ways of the Calumet Shipyard and Dry Dock Co. The tug, 145 feet long and 31 wide was built for the Ashland Oil Refining Co., of Ashland, Ky. It will be used to push oil barges on the Ohio River, and is expected to handle a train of 12,000 tons cargo if necessary. It will be completed for service in about 45 days.