Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 16 April 1941 — Page 14

WEDNESDAY, APRIL 16, 194]

The Indianapolis Times

SECOND SECTION

Hoosier Vagabond

DANA, Ind., April 16 —Now the days ot reconstruction have come to our house. Lives formed to a pattern in a long, almost timeless routine must be adJusted to a new design. The first convulsion of grief shades away into the greater trial of lonesomeness and tearing down comfortable cycles But we are all being sensible. The other night Aunt Mary and I were talking, and she said that she had asked my father what he was going to do, and he had said to wait till I came, But he needn't have don't believe in children their parents’ business. I decided to do nothing except find out what he really wanted to do, and then agree with him, So one afternoon we looked all through the new smokehouse he built last fall, and then he got a bucketful of corn to feed the chickens, and somehow oot to the chicken-yard gate we got to talking about it, and he asked me what I felt he should do And I said. "Why I haven't the What do voy think vou'd like to do?” And he said. “Well, I think I'd rather just stay right here. This is our home, and all our friends are here. I probably wouldn't be happy anywhere else.” And I said. “That's what I had hoped you would gay. You can keep one cow and a few chickens so vou'll have something to do. And you can take a trip once in a while.” And he said I was thinking of that Clarence wants me to come out to New Mexico for a little visit, I could go on the bus and it wouldn't cost much.”

For 1 running

just as he

remotest idea.

5 un

Aunt Mary Is Pleased

while I think parents

but he isn't

it's all right for children affairs. He thinks he's He doesn’t know it unbut he’s going by airplane. He's been busting for vears to take a long trip on an airplane, so this summer he's going to do it After that I went back to the house and told Aunt Mary what my father had said, and you could see the pleasure in her face and she said, “Oh I'm so glad. 1 think that's what we both ought to do. We're getting old and all our friends are here. If we left here I'd Just have to take a room in town somewhere, and he would, too.” So it's settled. Nothing much is changed, except now it's two instead of three, which, of course, is evervthing. But they'll do the best they can Aunt Mary wants to paper the bathroom and the dining room, which is all And Dad has to put & new floor in the front because there are holes in it vou can almost fall through. And they'll reswing the porch swing so the sun doesn't shine in Your face Reconstruction is no simple thing turface it may seem so. Loneliness

Once in a to butt into then £0ing on the bus til he reads

this

right

porch

though on the will haunt my

Inside Indianapolis (4nd “Our Town”)

about “Miss Indiana”

ALL got

THIS LOOSE TALK to come to an end. We might as well let that right now. Folks have been calling for a good long time and it's completely

has vou know her that wrong We found out about it the other afternoon when a veteran of some 60-odd summers walked mto Monument to gossip with some of his old cronies from the Spanish-American War. He, too. referred to "Miss Indiana” atop the Monument and you could have heard a pin drop “Listen here, son,” finally broke in the only Civil War veteran in the house, “this loose talk has got to stop. That ain't no more Miss Indiana than I am. That's ‘Liberty’ and we got the records Monument to prove it.” he has right name is

that

Spry

the

right here in this What's more The lady's Remember

Gone But Not Forgotten

WE KNOW the defense industry has just

Washington

April 16.—Although there is good I would want to about the institution of war does sometimes accidentally leave a useful survive the human wreckage which is its principal product. The last war, as an incidental by-product, helpea develop aviation and radio, Although both flowered during the subsequent years of peace, the roots found their first real nourighment in the war itself, Some think that an accidental by-product is comIng out of this war-—the use of scientific nutrition for whole peoples. Some revolutionary progress Is easily possible, The Germans have done more in this field than any other naBy close attention to vitamins—those spark plugs of the human system—they are increasing the physical stamina and nerve health of their soldiers. Medical men hear reports that the Nazis are making deliberate use of vitamin starvation to reduce the populations of occupied countries to a state of depression and mental weakness and despair which will make them easier to hold in subjection, Such reports have come to Dr. Russell M. Wilder, chairman of the Nutrition Committee of the National Research Council

Morale Bu ilding Foods

The role of thiamin, or Vitamin B-1, in building morale has been definitely proved. England has legisJated it into white flour by law to help build the morale of the people and to prevent illness and nervous depressions resulting from bombing and crowded conditions of air-raid shelters, The same thing is being undertaken in this country by voluntary action. A few weeks ago the Millers National Federation and the National Retail Bakers Association agreed lv to fortify white flour

“Liberty

learn that the moon-

YOU'LL be interested to about put

WASHINGTON practically nothing SAV

dood : iegacy io

tion

voluntarily with thiamin and n.cotinic acid, both of the R-1 complex, and iron. The U. S. Food and Drug Administration a few days ago recommended that another item

My Day

WASHINGTON, Tuesday. —Yesterday was a beautiful day in Los Angeles and the sun shone on the small wedding party gathered at Mr. and Mrs. George Converse’s house. Their drawing room was a bower of fiowers and the lunch afterwards was served in their patio. What kind and considerate hosts they were! These California houses are enchanting for a party of this kind, and it was a party of real friends who were happy in each other's joy. It seems extraordinary, of course, to fly across the continent and arrive at one's destination only a half hour late. Two of my children, who had flown from Seattle on Sunday, met me with Jimmy and his friend, Maurice Benjamin. Jimmy went off to do some necessary errands and Mr. Benjamin took Ann. John and me back to his house, where we talked hard until we had to dress and leave for the wedding Romelle looked charming, but one can have beauty and charm and lack character and sweetness. As I looked at her face yesterday, I decided that she has both cheracter and sweetness. She will need them, boor child, in the weeks to come, for after two days’

father. Sometimes he and Aunt Mary will get on each other's nerves, but they'll just have to sit it out. If I know them at all, I know they'll carry on. My father is a mild man. So far as I know, he] has never said an unkind word about anybody in his| life, and I doubt that anybody has ever said one about | him | MY mother was not like my father. She loved ! deeply and despised quickly. She was the dominant | one. I did not say dominating. She always almost] forced my father to let her bow to his decisions, and | as they grew older, she drew closer and closer to him, | In her later years, especially after her illness, she seemed to live only for him. My Aunt Mary said the other day, “There was never a sweeter patient than vour mother. Through it all she never uttered one word of complaint. And no matter what she asked] of your father, he did it. I've never seen anything like the way they worshipped each other. It was absolutely beautiful.” Five years ago my mother had a stroke of apoplexy, | which left her semi-paralyzed. One year later she] was wracked by another stroke. From that day on-| ward she never moved alone. There is irony in the manner in which the last vears of her life were spent. Her father—my grand- | father—was paralyzed for the last seven years of his | life. My mother had the almost inhuman task of] caring for him. He died when I was 11. . = 2 2

Her Mark Will Remain My mother was a tremendously active woman, | physically strong and with great vitality. She loved | action. I have heard her say a hundred times that| she had only one wish, and that was to go suddenly. | and not be helpless like her own father. And vet, the thing she feared and hated most is! the thing that came. But with it there came miraculously some sort of composure, almost an indifference to her condition. I do not believe she was especially unhappy through all those years of just sitting and doing nothing. I know I have asked her what she thought about just sitting there all day, and she would laugh and say, "Well, IT just don’t think about anything.” | And then, after all that, it was not another kindly stroke which brought her death. It was cancer. To think that one so vital had to be scourged and rescourged by nature until, beaten on _ all sides like a deer attacked by wolves, she finally was completely destroyed, I cannot help but be bitter about it. But now it is over. In our more logical] moments we are all glad for her that it is over. We wil] re-| shape our lives, all of the scores of us who were molded in some way by her presence, and go on about our business, Her mark will stay a long time in the world. Few people have the good fortune to be born from a really great woman. I am one of them. I do not say that just because she was my mother. I say it because 1 think she bore a son with enough objective intelligence to recognize greatness of character when he sees it.

shining industry out of business. We ran on to that one when we found that Internal Revenue Department (the Revenooers) are | taking things easy these days. The way the de-| partment explains it is that the moonshiners are | finding more pay in defense factories and lots less risk Anyway, most of the moonshiners are mechanics of considerable skill, They had to be to make the complicated stills] that used to give the Government so much trouble. |

This and That— |

FROM PENSACOLA. Roy Brown writes his Kiwanis colleagues: “No big fish no sun tan, no other lies—Just traveling” . They're painting the dome on the State House! No kidding. And what's more they've painted the flag pole on top of the dome Even the people who saw it don’t believe it vet Dr. John Benson, superintendent at Methodist Hospital, has cut off 35 pounds by dieting. He looks nice and trim The big crowds of prosperous- | looking gentlemen milling around the downtown hotels vesterday were the representatives of the road building industry, in town for the letting of more than $4,000.000 in bids for state highway construction! That isn’t gravel!

the |

By Raymond Clapper’

from the B-1 complex, riboflavin, be added. This new fortified flour will be pushed by public- | health authorities in the hope of encouraging the whole nation to change over to it in place of the old white flour, which has always been deficient in health-building vitamins. 1 don't know enough about all of this to go into detail but there is no question among medical men of the effect of vitamins upon heaith. Dr. H. C. Sherman of Columbia, one of the leading authorities on nutrition, says that our knowledge of nutrition is now entering a new era in which it can, and | doubtless will, play a larger part in the attairtment of | a higher general level of health and efficiency than has hitherto been thought possible, |

MceNuti Supports Campaign

The Nutritional Advisory Committee of the National Defense Commission has recommended vitamin | fortification of many staple foods. Paul V. McNutt, | head of the Federal Security Agency. has become | interested and is assembling an organization to pub- | licize and educate the country and give the house- | wives of the nation the most thorough information on how to provide effective food. | Much educational work will be done through schools, and especially through the free school] lunches which are being given now to several million | children, The Surplus Commodities Corporation, | under Milo Perkins, is co-operating in this. | Already, in the last few years a notable trans- | formation has taken place in the American diet. The | enormous increase in consumption of fruit juices, | tomato juice, green vegetables and milk is having its! effact in improved national health, What is proposed | now is to step up that trend bv more intensive and | more conscious education and by incorporating the | same health-building vitamins in other staple foods. | The fight, early in this century, against®pellagra in the South showed what could be done. Apparently we have barely begun to utilize the possibilities of improving the health and vigor of the American people. For what lies ahead we must be a tough people physically, and fortunately science has come to our assistance.

By Eleanor Roosevelt

leave, which is not to be taken more than three hours away from San Diego, Jimmy will report to San Francisco and leave from there for the Pacific. Of course, Army and Navy wives are accustomed to these separations, but I have never found that they liked them. Romelle said firmly to me yesterday: “I am not thinking about James having to leave.” But I knew that all too soon the time would come when she would have to think, and all of us know it can’t be a very happy experience. We saw them off with plenty of rice down their necks and in their hair. Then Anna, John and I went back to the Benjamins to sit in the sun for half an hour before we went to the afternoon plane. I boarded it a little after 4:30 and was delighted to find J. F. T. O'Connor seated opposite me. He came out to speak to Anna and John, and he and I had much pleasant conversation during the trip back. Mr. O'Connor is a grand story teller and has a fund of really delightful tales, which 1 wish I had the ability to remember and use as aptly as he does. We came through an electrical storm in the night] Just before we landed at Dallas, Tex., but on the] whole the {rip was a smooth one. Again, to my great relief, we landed in Washington at 10:55, only 15 minutes late. This column is being written in the automobile while I wait for the plane to arrive at 11:15 to take us to Greensboro, N. C, from whence we go to Charlotte, where I speak tonight,

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Attitude Undermines

Good Will in Thailand

Copvright The Indianapolis

1941, by

A, T. STEELE

Times

and The Chicags Daily News Inc

BANGKOK, Thailand, April 16.—Washington’s morally meticulous attitude against agression has undermined overnight an edifice of good will, painstakingly erected over more than half a century of friendly intercourse.

Inadvertently, the United |

has contributed to

the realization of Japanese

ambitions here. It all dates back to last October when the United States halted at Manila a shipment of 10 airplanes made for Thailand by an American factory. Thailand

States

awoke to find itself bracketed by

Washington in the same unenviable category as Japan. This was the opening the Japanese had been looking for. Within a few dayvs, the Japanese had approached the Thai Government with an offer to provide all the airplanes and munitions Thailand might need, and at a cost far below American quotations. The Thais jumped to the bait Everything that has happened since then indicates pretty conclusively that it was a barter deal. The Thais have ordered 125 Japanese airplanes, of which about 50 already have been delivered. Japanese ships are arriving here with cargoes of machine guns, rifles and other light armament. Rice, rubber and tin exports to Japan have been stepped up. It is impossible to say how much of these vital commodities Thailand has promised Tokyo, but it is apparent that Japanese agents are shipping out all they can lay hands on. Bangkok gossip says the contract provided for an exchange of $8.000,000 worth of materials each way.

= ” n

Ruled by Army

SINCE THE BLOODLESS coup of 1932, which ended the exotic but decadent absolute monarchy and reduced the King to a mere figurehead, Thailand has been ruled by its Army. To be sure, Thailand has a constitution which will make the country a democracy, if it ever becomes fully operative. But, at best, that day is still far off The voung men who staged the rebellion rine vears ago are Thailand's ! of today. This little kKing- om piobably, the youngest set of officials to be found in any country. The old heads of

princely rank, whose education and experience in world affairs is badly needed now, no longer winld much influence. They are either in exile or sit on the sidelines in positions of minor importance. The boy King, Ananda Mahidol (mow in Switzerland), is popular but powerless.

=n n ”

Started to Pattern U. S.

WHEN IT WON control, the present Government set out to pattern the country’s develop-

ment after that of Britain and the United States. But the accomplishments of the dictatorships

have given Thailand ideas. In the last few years, the Thai government has gone in more and more for totalitarian experiments. It has fostered nationalism and race consciousness. It has dabbled in private business, It has tried monopoly, not always with profit, Big British and American oil companies have had to close up their plants and offices in the face of government pressure. A race of gentle. short-statured people, the Thais got their start on the highlands of southwestern China and filtered down into what is now Thailand about 1000 years ago. The miracle is that been able to retain their independence despite the fact that they have always been sandwiched between powerfui neighbors. Thailand is today the tropical home of 16,000,000 people—a population made up mostly of rice farmers and jungle-dwellers. Maj. Gen. Luang Pibula Songgram, 44, is one of the youngest and certainiy the handsomest of all the dictators. As Premier of Thailand, commander-in-chief of the Thai Army, Minister of Foreign Affairs and Minister of Interior, Luang Pibula looks on paper to he a one-man government.

they have

HOLD EVERYTHING

“Boy=—I could go for a marshmallow sundae right now!”

COPR. 1541 BY NEA SERVICE INC. T. M, REG. U. S. PAY. OFF.

9-/é

! | | | |

government

the Far East,

Actually, his power is not so sweeping. Like most of his race, he is a mild-mannered. compromising person who rides along with the tide and is easily swayed. He is the voice of the Army. And that is what gives him his power. Thailand was — and probably still is—the home of the politest, the gentlest and the most delightfully naive people in Asia. But the viruses of nationalism and Fascism are at work, Thailand 1s changing, and changing fast. un " n

Shout 'Lost Territories

FIFTY THOUS A ND excited brown people surged through the streets of Bangkok recently and assembled in a shouting, flagwaving mass in the great square fronting the glittering spires of the Imperial Palace. Orators, yelling through loudspeakers, harangued them with sizzling patriotic speeches. The crowd was told that Thailand would not make final peace with Indo-China until all of Thailand's “lost territories,” amounting to more than half of IndoChina's area, had been returned. The French were denounced as greedy, deceitful rascals. The virtues of the Thai race were extolled. Under the Thai-Indo-Chinese agreement signed in Tokyo March 11, Thailand won some 25,000 square miles of rich rice and forest land in Cambodia and Laos provinces of the French colony. Veteran foreign residents of Thailand watching demonstrations of this kind are sure prised and a little shocked. These fevered,» nationalistic sloganshouters are so unlike the quiet, courteous people they have known. And the foreigners were even more distressed and puzzled when word came from upcountry of anti-foreign incidents. Missionaries, not alone French, but of several nationalities, had been insulted or warned to get out of the country. Behind this belligerent nationalism is an organization called the Thai Blood Party, which has sprung into being since the outbreak of the trouble with French Indo-China. The party's origins are obscure, its leaders unrevealed. It is generally believed that behind it are militant persons of Fascist tendencies, inside the government and out, who were determined to push the country into a war on which it was hesitant to embark, There is no doubt that the movement bad moral, if not active, support from certain Japanese, 2 n ”

Party Demanded Action

LONG BEFORE THE THAI had reached the

grave decision to invade IndoChina, the Party was stirring up a popular demand for action. From all indications, the topmost leaders of the government, including the Premir, were re= luctant to carry things to the point of war, They sought merely to intimidate the French, hoping to settle the frontier issue by compromise, But the refusal of the French to give way and the growing nationalistic fervor at home forced the government to act Even after a truce was signed, the Party continued to incite the people to demand enormous territorial concessions and extravagant indemnities. The Govern= ment, embarrassed, finally forhade all demonstrations. Every Japanese forward move here weakens, in greater or lesser degree, the Anglo-Dutch-Ameri-can defensive advantage in the South Pacific. None are better aware of this than the British and the Japanese. Both are maneuvering for diplomatic gain in the Thailand arena.

” o o

Angered by U. S.

NOT SO THE United States, which has chosen, rightly or wrongly. te treat Thailand as an aggressor nation because of its campaign against Indo-China. The United States is still reaping the bhounteous crop of ill-will sown by its ban on airplane and arms shipments to this country. Thailand and French IndoChina are today trembling under the blistering focus of Japan's southward policy. Japan is concentrating her immediate attentions on these two lands because, unlike Malaya and Netherlands India, they are incapable of serious resistance, The Japanese are confident, also, that they can do pretty much as they please without danger of goading the United States to war, Japan works ceaselessly to sell Thailand on the “new order” and to railroad them into the socalled ‘Greater East Asia Sphere of Co-Prosperity.” The Thais still cling to their neutrality, which remains the basis of their foreign policy—but it is a neutrality waich is becoming increasingly difficult to maintain. British diplomacy here aims to give the Thais as much mcral support as possible in the hope that they will be encouraged to resist political and military demands when they come. It is questionable how long the Japanese will be satisfied with economic goins only If military pressure tuted for diplomatic Thailand will be lost

is substi pressure,