Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 7 January 1942 — Page 9

WEDNESDAY, JAN. 7, 1942 |

Hoosier Vagabond

ALBUQUERQUE, Jan. T7.— During those recent three months of vegetating I did manage to get in a couple of trips. In September I flew with some friends out to Los Angeles, stayed four days, saw the “Ice Follies,” spent all my money, and aad a wonderful time. Then in November I took a flying trip to Washington to arrange for the winter’s Orient trip which never came off. Washington was hectic, and almost killed me. On the way back I stopped off in Indiana to see my Dad and Aunt Mary. My Aunt Mary cried ; and said she was so glad I came; ¥3 she said she'd had a feeling that FF since my mother was gone I would = never come home again. I don't know what made her think that. My father is well, but he had a bitter year. His two remaining brothers died within a month of each other. But he is going on about his days, and he grieves only to himself. He takes little trips, and despite his 74 years gets out and helps the neighbors now and then.

Home for the Duration

MY FATHER Kept putting off his big trip all summer, but he didn’t give it up. We discussed it at great length when I was home, and finally got it all arranged. The plan was that in January (just about now) he would get on that airplane he’s wanted to ride on for so long, fiv out here to Albuquerque, and then on to California We discussed Aunt Mary's trip too. She sort of leaned toward staying at home this winter and taking her big trip next summer was fretting about closing the house, and draining the pipes, and letting the fruit freeze, and lending out the cow, and selling the chickens, and getting somebody to keep the dog It all seemed too gigantic to her.

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By Ernie Pyle

I sent them air-line schedules, and everything was all set. They were already beginning to pack their things a morth ahead of time, and then— came Pearl Harbor. Aid before you could blink an eye the word came that they'd both called off their trips on account of the war, and were just going to stay at home. I'm aamned if I don't think they were both relieved. There was great perturbation in our farm community when I was home, which was before we got into the war. It seems that some civic go-getters had got from the Government a decision to build an immense $53,000000 powder plant there on our farms. When I was home, the Government had not decided whether the plant should go north of Dana or south of Dana. That left everybody in a stew. People couldn't talk about anything else.

An Era Draws to a Close

FOR A GREAT defense plant anywhere near us means the! end of the close-knit, kindly, simple, honest community that I and my father and my grandfather knew. It means that people like my father will have to sell and move off the land they have tred a lifetime. The Government finally decided to build the plant north of Dana, which means that our own farm has escaped. But the community has not escaped. The whole country will be changed for miles around. Little old Dana will suddenly become a boom town, roaring, crowded, strange. Strangers will open juke-joints; prices will skyrocket; farmers for the first time will have to lock their horses against the 3000 “foreigners” who will swoop in and devour the community. Our farm home, in the nearly 40 years of my memory, has never had a lock of any kind on it. I know of no house in our neighborhood that has a lock. But now the farmers will put locks on their houses and their cribs. To me that one little gesture is the symbol of a tragedv—the planned and necessary execution of an old community.

Inside Indianapolis By Lowell Nussbaum

black-outs—practice or the Power & order ready, “when and if’ have prepared a manual telling all just what to do in an emergency The simplest way to effect a blackout would be simply to pull A the switches in the power plants and cut off the power at its That would do the trick, _ but it also would halt a ! other services necessary to the public welfare. For instance, hospitals, water pumpage, ventilation units, elevators, ete The utility's job boils down primarily to extinguishing street lights and the lights at its plants and substations. Some street light operated from power plants rated by time clock controls mounted

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Wanted: An Iden AN AUTO SALESMAN who a few months ago sold 8 car to Miss Catherine Bailey, reading advisor at the dropped in vesterday and asked Miss

Washington

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Jan forgivable fa ith war prodt That unfortunate fact is that we have no opposite who can do business with Lord Beaverbrook, the British minister of supply Beavertrook came here with Churchill to sit down and try to British production with ours. But nobody in the American Government can talk with Beaverbrook on a footing of equal auhority except President Roosevelt The heavily burdened President of the United States should not have to take time out to settle production details that Churchill delegates one of his cabinet ministers fet that is the situa- \ When Beaverbrook tries to deal th arfvbody except Mr. Roosevelt, he has to clutch y fog shadowy figures. When he gets hold of e &f them, thev can't reach a decision because no ican official. whoever he may be. has the authorto act nald Nelson, executive of SPAB, is regarded nany 2s the top man in war production. That is In fact, Nelson was in Cuba, taking a rest, when the automobile industry asre to discuss with OPM the gigantic task verting industry over to war I was under the impression that Nelson would ve something to do with that. But I understand That is OPM babvy—Knudsen and Hillman

Hold Your Hats—

YOU GO DIZZY trying to understand this complicated setup, and when you follow it through you seem th have nothing left to get hold of.

My Day

BOSTON, Tuesday —After writing my column yesterday afternoon, I went over at 6:30 to the opening of the American Womens Voluntary Service Club They have been given the use of Mrs. Sumner Welles’ stable, and they are to use it for their activities. I hope that the attendance at the opening means that they will have a large number of workers, because I feel sure that there is plenty for them to do. There are too few places in this city for the newcomers who are department workers, or for the influx of sightseers from the camps, etc, to meet in a congenial atmosphere. After dinner, I went up to the Library of Congress to the opening of an exhibition of South American posters. A few of our own are also shown. but I do not think we have yet learned to use or best artists, so our posters do not seem to be quite as vivid and colorful as some of those from the South American countries. I was struck by the fact that so many of them dealt with questions of social security, pousing and

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Bailey for a book. The book he wanted, and got, was “1000 Money Making Ideas.” . . . Audley Dunham, the locksmith, reports people are buying padlocks like the proverbial hotcakes—all for garages. Many also are scratching their heads, trying to figure out some means of devising a burglar alarm for their garages, now that tires have become precious. . . . The Children's Museum is reminding school children, and adults likewise, to remember the birds with a warm drink these days—warm, or even hot. so the birds can get a chance at it before it freezes. Birds also need plenty of food In the winter months, including suet for fat, The Museum's motto, too, is: "Keep ‘Em Flying.”

Cherchez la Jap!

THE GOVERNOR and most everyone else in the State House huddled around radios yesterday listening to the President's address. Right in the middle of it the electric current in the building was cut off for some unknown reason and the radios went dead. Everybody, especially the Democrats, suspected sabotage. . . . The Kiefer-Stewart Co. had flag trouble one day this week. Observers noticed the firm's flag, not only at half mast, but also upside down, which happens to be the distress signal. An employee aceidentally got it upside down, “they” say, and the wind whipped it down to half mast. . It still looks Christmasy at the Crossroads of America. The Ayres store still has its big 2-stoty candle on the front of the building.

Hizzoner, the Colonel

BELIEVE IT OR NOT Departrient: Secret operative No X-87—he snhoops around the political circles only—came slinking' in with the report that Col. Roscoe Turner is being boomed for mayor. There was no indication what ticket he would run on. But what with the Colonel's blue uniforms, his penchant for appearing in public with lion cubs and the like, it could be a colorful campaign. And if he ran on the Republican ticket, maybe he could talk Homer Capehart into managing the campaign. Wow!

By Raymond Clapper

SPAB is an advisory board. Four of its seven members are also members of OPM. Nelson is executive officer of SPAB but is not on the board. But Nelson is also a subordinate of Knudsen. being priorities officer under OPM. Leon Henderson is member of SPAB. But he is also under OPM. i u are becoming confused don’t mind. Every-

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There probably isn't a responsible official in the Government who isn’t alarmed at the confusion. Mr. Rooseveit ie wrestling with it. What will be done, or when, I don't know. Everyone here is hoping it will be soon and that it will be something more than a makeshift like SPAB,

Same Confusion in OCD

KNUDSEN DOESN'T have authority, although he is being held responsible for production. He can't let a single contract. The Army, Navy and Maritime Commission do their own contracting. That is why, when OPM prepared today to put the automobile industry to work on war orders, the Army and Navy had to clear the way by announcing they stood ready to grant the automobile industry five billion dollars’ worth of new contracts

There is the same confusion in the Office of Civilian Defense. The only clean-cut job that I can cite offhand is the quick organization of the tire-rationing machinery.

Leon Henderson gave the job to Frank Bane. of the Council of State Governments. Bane moved to decentralize it by lying responsibility on each state Governor plus the mavors of New York and Chicago. 4 That is not the pattern for war production, except that in the tire-rationing job everybody's author ity was clearly defined and was complete within the prescribed limits,

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By Eleanor Roosevelt

youth activities. This exhibition will be open for two weeks and I hope a great many people will see it. Back from the poster exhibit, I qressed for the train, then had a short talk with one of the assistant directors of Civilian Defense and, finally, Miss Thompson and I made the 11 o'clock train for Boston. We arrived here this morning and after breakfast at the hotel, drove out to Hingham with Mis. Frances MacGregor. It is fun to be out in the country and to enjoy a change of scene even for a day. I would hardly have come at the present time, if [ had not broken this engagement when I went Wes cight after Pearl Harbor. I Matened 0 the President's message over the radio today and wished that I could be in two places at once. It is rather an interesting thing, when you are accustomed to watching a person speak, to hear him now and then over the radio, and to have an idea of how it seems to other people who never actually see the person face to face, even when they know his voice quite well and have listened to him many times on the air The war news seemed a little better last evening and for some reason we all seemed in a carefree mood at dinner. Perhaps I was just happy myself because [ hed talked to Franklin Jr, and so imagined that

LE Sg t x

MANILA BATTLE DELAYING JAP BLITZ IN INDIES

U. S. Delaying Action Pays Debt to Britain for Holding Hitler.

By GEORGE WELLER

SINGAPORE, Jan. 7.—America’s heavy sacrifices in the Philippines have served to blunt and delay Japan’s long-prepared effort to seize the British and Dutch empires, it is acknowledged here among observers of the Pacific situation. Manila’s agony has protected their East Indies colonies and Australia from the annihilating blow which could have been delivered had the forces of Gen. Douglas MacArthur been unable to interpose resistance to the death. Had the American and Filipino soldiers collapsed before the Japjanese blitz, it is certain that many |troop transports and aircraft, whose |concentration upon the Singapore and Borneo fronts may soon be ex|pected, would already be here where ‘pressure is already great.

Debt to Britain Cleared Although the Philippine defeat makes part of America suffer what little countries like Norway, Belgium and Foland already have known, it is considered here that this sacrifice has at least accomplished one thing. America in sacwificing the Philippines has fully cleared her debt to Great Britain for delaying Hitler's plans of world conquest. The American Philippines has been the price of the delaying action which has saved India, Burma, Malaya and Dutch Indonesia. Hongkong could not help Manila and Singapore has been too occupied saving herself to venture across the south China Sea.

Permanent Pacific Problem

It is felt here among American political observers that the time is at hand for overhauling the Pacific political situation complementary to war strategy. The first step in such a plan would be the immediate creation of American air and naval bases from Singapore southward under a permanent American flag and administration. Even the most unregenerate isolationist will admit from Japan's behavior and ideology that the United States is faced in the Pacific with a permanent and not a tempodrary problem. Japan's defeat like Germany's, will probably be the signal for the same period of cyclic abnegation and national renascence as Germany has demonstrated under Hitler.

U. S. Needs Total Victory

The United States. which dodged long-term political commitments in Europe after World War I. eannot

jescape them in the Pacific this time.

Security will demand far stronger insular footholds than befdre Japan dropped her mask. Some bases will be provided by slow reconquest from Japan but not enough. Japan will be difficult to down and if Britain and Holland want her held down—being patently unable to do this and handle Germany in Europe, too—they will look to the United States to do it.

UNION RAPS OUSTER OF COUNTY WORKERS

The Teamsters & Chauffeurs Union has protested formally the dismissal of 56 union members from

county highway department jobs by the new Republican majority on the Board of County Commissioners. The union, in a statement issued last night, charged that the Commissioners ignored an agreement signed by the Board last September, agreeing to recognize seniority rights. Commissioners William Bosson and William T Ayres, who took control of the Board on Jan. 1. replaced all Democratic workers at the Highway Department with Republicans “The agreement signed by the former Democratic majority of the Board . is not binding in any way on the present Board,” Mr. Ayres said. “We have informed the union that so long as the two-party system of government prevails we will reserve the right to control patrone age regardless of union member. ship»

MEDICAL SOCIETY HONORS DR. RITCHEY

Members of the Ingianapolis Medical Society honored their oute going president, Dr. J. O. Ritchey, last night at the Indianapolis Athletic Club. . Dr. Goethe Link was installed to succeed Dr. Ritchey. It was reported that the society has the largest enrollment fn its history, 600 active members, inelud« ing 40 in military service. The total membership, including honorary and inactive members, is 672. Dr. Larue Carter, chairman of the military affairs committee and medical liaisch member of the 5th Corps Area Procurement Board, and Dr. William M. Dugan, secre-tary-treasurer of the group, also spoke,

WELFARE GROUP TO MEET

The Family Welfare Society will hold its annual luncheon meeting at nopn next Wednesday in the Ine dianapolis Athletic Club. ‘The society will hear a report of work ac Herbert 8.

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Japanese

dipping machinery.

command er-in-chief, Gen. Sir Henry Pownall, is striving to protect] against Japanese pressure from the] north. Sir Henry, in undergraduate days, was known as one of the talented | “heavenly twins’ but the role he is called upon to play here resembles] Ce more that of the| boy at the dyke. Yellow Japanese waters are lapping at the end | of this concrete | highway whose] winds and twists | make every advance on their part fraught % with the danger a er. of British amPownall bush. For the most part, contrary to the impres-! sion created by early dispatches from this front, the highway runs| through the civilized belt of what/ was once jungle but now is no longer. Modern five to eight-room villas, deserted by their owners, are] to be seen on both sides, Rubber trees, looking like some-| thing between elms and birches,| stand in neat rows, their entwined branches giving off the shadows | that snipers enjoy. Behind them! lies the jungle—sometimes the thick| green wall of the adventurers’| stories, but more often a scattered tangle not much thicker than un-| derbrush in a northern American forest. Although damp and somewhat] humid, the country is healthy even in the present monsoon season when | showers oteur throughout the day. | The land is dark, rich and amply] watered and grazing for the big,| jet-black cattle with their curled horns is abundant. When Benito Mussolini conquered Ethiopia, eritical comment from the Anglo-American side made the country a wasteland. Nothing like that can be said of Malaya. Aside from its tin and rubber, which will fall into Japan's hands if her advance remains unchecked, the rich soil would make any farmer's hands itch.

Europeans are uniformly healthy here, cholera and yellow fever being unknown and malaria driven away from the towns, despite the swamps, by an anti-mosquito belt of oil-surfaced moats. From Kuala Lumpur in Selangor, capital of the Federated Malay States, which is about as far north from Singapore as Boston is from Philadelphia, to Ipoh, about 150 miles northward, is a line of bright blue, yellow and pink villages, once busy, clean and normal and now shuttered and silent with military bolice keeping order.

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An effort has been made to remove every kind of military supplies which the Japanese might use, but villa owners and those Malayans, Chinese and Indians living in “storehomes”—stores with homes on the second floor—have been loath to destroy their only| goods. Their plight is relatively more serious than that of the plain rice farmer in his straw hat, as wide as| a wagon wheel, and bare feet, who pads along the road pushing a wheelbarrow with one sack of rice lying upon simple household pots and pans. Europeans flee in sport cars, taking little with them. Nippon's officers will find the villas, although scarce of food, as comfortable as anyone woulfl be if presented with hundreds of homes in Winnetka, Beverly Hills, or Bronxville, with nothing to impede their entrance but shuttered windows. Your correspondent saw a single villa whose owner seemed to have preferred destruction rather than the invaders’ pollution. It was burning alone among its intact neighbors and the crash, as the blackened rafters sagged and fell, was the only sound and the ranks of nearby rubber trees were the only other witnesses as the flames did their work. When a home dies, much of life seems to die with it. And the Japanese bombers and fighters shuttle unmolested back and i1orth upon this read, contentedly humming to themselves and destroying everything as they go. They do not drop poison gas bombs nor are they piloted by German aviators, but their placid purpose is to destroy all which is not useful to the Mikado’s empire and to cut away the channel along which flows tin and rubber via Singapore to the democracies.

War-Dressed Man Will Be 'Louder

' PHILADELPHIA, Jan. T (U. PJ). —The International Association of Clothing Designers today considered recommendations for changes in men's clothing styles to conserve materials. Recommendations, upon, include: 1. Abandonment of two-pants suits. 2. No cuffs on trousers. 3. Shorter topcoats and overs coats. 4. An end to the pocket flap. 5. Less buttons. 6. Brighter colors.

to be acted

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SECOND SECTION

Riches

Bren Carriers manned by British troops advance through the tropical jungle in Malaya,

Press From North in Attempts To Gain Civilized Belt That Was Jungle

(This is the third and last of a series of articles on military techniques employed in the jungles of Malaya.)

By GEORGE WELLER Copyright, 1942, by The Indianapolis Times and The Chicago Daily News, Ine. WITH THE BRITISH TROOPS, bedded road with a stony-white surface and red-tipped milestones flanked by continuous files of rubber plantations. rice paddy fields, and brown, swampy pools upon which float the giant structures of tin-

BIRTH RECORDS REQUIRE PROOF

Court Certificates Subject

That is the precious line of communications that Great Britain's new

To Challenge; Clerk's Office Swamped.

The new court-approved birth certificates, sought by hundreds since the war started, are not ironclad documents that will stand up in all legal emergencies. This was made clear by County Clerk Charles R. Ettinger whose has handled nearly 2600 of them since the law became effective last July. “Even when the certificates are issued under the seal of Circuit Court, your place and time of birth may be challenged by a prospective employer or a Federal agency,” Mr. Ettinger said. “I advise persons getting them to fortify themselves doubly with documentary evidence on which they are issued—photostatic copies of baptismal records, school attend« ance records or family birth records.” Several employers in defense industries already have challenged some of the certificates and have asked the clerk for additional verification. Sought by 900 The law authorizing Circuit Court to issue the certificates was passed to accommodate thousands of Hoosiers who can find no official record of their birth. In many counties, permanent birth records were not kept until 20 or 30 years ago. More than 900 applications for certificates have been filed since the war began. The high for one day was reached yesterday when 55 persons applied. Mr. Ettinger said the rush has disrupted his office operation be= cause of the extra clerks needed. He said there is no money in his budget for extra clerks and it may be necessary to ask a special appropria= tion. He suggested also that extra personnel be provided for hearings necessary before certificates are granted. A deputy clerk assigned to Circuit Court has been handling the hearings.

PARTY RIVALS UNITE IN RED CROSS DRIVE

Politics will be adjourned tonight when county leaders of both the Democratic and Republican parties help launch the war relief fund campaign of the Red Cross in Toms« linson Hall. James L. Bradford, Republican County Chairman, and Ira P. Haymaker, Democratic chairman, will speak. They will be introduced by George 8S. Olive. Others scheduled to speak are Mayor Sullivan, Col. Roscoe Turner, Sherwood Blue, Albert Stump, Miss Hannah Noone, Democratic County Vice Chairman, and Mrs. T. B. Wright, Republican County Vice Chairman. American Red Cross headquarters in Washington set a quota of $350,000 for Marion County. Both Mr. Haymaker and Mr. Bradford expected at least 1000 workers from the fwo parties to assist in the campaign.

"RESERVE OFFICERS’

CLASSES ARRANGED

College algebra and trigonometry classes for men desiring to enter Naval Reserve Officers Training as well as other service branches’ will start tomorrow evening at the Ine diana University Extension Center. The classes will meet three times a week for four weeks. The usual fees will be charged. Herbert G. Ludlow of Washington High School and Cecil L. McClintock of Teche nical High School will be instruc tors. ———————— TIME TO RETIRE GREENSBURG, Ind, Jan. 7 (U. P)) Rather than bother with all the troubles of tire-rationing, Lloyd Kanouse of Greensburg has decided to garage his car for the duration. isn't wi

BEADLE'S JOKE EVEN TICKLED ~ STOLID NAZIS

It Got Laugh Though Whole French Village ‘Died’ to See It Through.

The following article was written by an American newspaperman who recently passed through France, Copyright, 1042, by The Indianapolis Times and The Chicago Daily News, Ine. CERILLY, France, Dec. 30 (by Clipper). .—For more than a year the most important man in Cerilly has been Pierre Guichard, the village beadle. Before the defeat he was as unknown and as little heard of as was his little village. Nestling along the slopes of the hills dominating the Creuse valley, Cerilly is the typical little French village. The only excitement was the vil lage gossip and the price of fat stock at the village fair. Then came the defeat—and the demarcation line, which cuts France in two, sliced through Cerilly. It divided the village territory.

Pierre’s Rise to Fame

Cerilly found itself in Free France, and its churchyard; half a mile up the road, was in the occupied zone. Hence Pierre Guichard’'s sudden rise to fame. With the patriotic complicity of the cure and the mayor, Pierre Guichard became the most famous guide for those of his countrymen wishing to cross the line. Now the cat is out of the bag, so Pierre Guichard has permitted me to reveal the details of the vast Joke. This was the game. The Germans could not refuse the villagers the privilege of burying their dead. Funeral processions passed freely from Cerilly to the Rurial ground.

Se Many Relations

Funerals became more and more frequent until they were a public (but well guarded) joke. On the night before the funeral, the family and numerous relations of the “dear departed” arrived in Cerilly dressed in funereal black and wearing the appropriate mournful appearance. At the cemetery they were met by an equal number of sad mourners. The outgoing mourners changed places with the incoming mourners and trooped sadly back to Cerilly under the benign eye of the German guards. ; X This went on steadily for more than a year, The fame of Cerilly spread abroad, and Guichard, whose fees were small as befits a patriotic Frenche man, was overwhelmed with clients, The Cerilly system of passing had three big advantages over all the others: (1) It was foolproof, (2) in stead of a small group, Guichard could organize a magnificent funeral procession and pass a hundred persons, (3) instead of working only one way, it worked both ways.

All Good Things End

Alas. all good things come to an end. One fine day, tipped off, probably by one of Guichard's less suc cessful rivals, the Germans suddenly became concerned at the alarming death rate in the once healthy vil lage. In one year Cerilly had “lost” practically the whole of its normal population, “One thing must be said for the Germans,” said Pierre Guichard afterward.

“We fooled them, but when they found us out, they seemed to think the joke as amusing as we did. “One morning a note came from the Sous Prefecture telling the mayor that the German authorities had decided that the demarcation line cutting the village off from the churchyard was abnormal, and that henceforth the cemetery would be reattached to the Free Zone. That was all.”

TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE

1—=Which of the following cannot be described as a kind of porch: Piazza, stoop, veranda, patio, portico? 2==Which state is nicknamed the “Lone Star State”? 3==Does the Dominion of Canada belong to the Pan-American Union? 4-~The Falkland Islands are in the Atlantic Ocean, Pacific Ocean, or Caribbean Sea? b-Kathleen Norris is an American singer, novelist, or social worker? 6-—How many signs of the zodiac are there? T--When it is noon, E. 8. T,, it is 1 a. m. the previous day, the same day, or the following day in Manila, Philippine Islands? 8—In what branch )f the Army is there a unit calied a “Group”?

Answers 1—=Patio, 2-=Texas. R=N0. 4-—Atlantic Ocean. 5-=Novelist. 6-=Twelve. 7-=The following day. B==Air Force, . » o

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