Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 11 February 1942 — Page 9

WEDNESDAY, FEB. 11, 1942

The Indianapolis Times

SECOND SECTION

Hoosier Vagabond

TIMBERLINE LODGE, Ore, Feb. 11.—There is one trouble with learning to ski, as far as writing about it is concerned. That's the fact that your mood changes so often. You go through a whole cycle of determination, elation and disgust. After you've been doing fairly well for a couple of days, the beginner usually has a bad relapse. Everything goes wrong. Youre worse than the first day. Also, you hurt all over. Right theres the critical time. A great gloomy disinterest in skiing comes over you. Thats where I was this morning. It was my last day here. When I awakened I was in pain from head to foot. And it was storming outside. “I've had enough.” I said. And so I didnt even put on my ski clothes. When my friends arrived from Portland at noon, they found me sitting before the fireplace. “How do you like skiing?” they shouted.

Who's Afraid, Not Ernie!

“I THINK IT is asinine,” I said. “You go ahead and ski, and I'll be packed and ready to go when you come in.” ‘Oh no,” they said, “you're going up the ski lift with us and ski down the Magic Mile.” “Me ski down the Magic Mile?” I said. insane. It would be suicide.” But they went out and asked Olaf and he said it would be all rightt Then they had me. I couldn't refuse without being a plain coward. When I saw there was no way out, I hunted up my novice skiing companion, Maureen Jackman, and

“Don’t be

By Ernie Pyle

asked her to go along. I needed company in my misery.

The four of us rode the lift to the top. It was|

storming again, One of our friends took off. Then the other. Then my new girl friend. That left me all alone. Again came that terrible panicky feeling. But I gave shove. I guess that first straight run must have been yards, and at the bottom you either had to turn smack into a hillside. So do you know what I did? And me a guy who can’t make turns! I found my friends waiting for me over the brow of the next slope. I skied down to them. “You look fine,” they said. “You're doing dandy.” I began to feel a sort of pride.

a 50 or

We worked down the mountain slowly. A racing

skier can make the Magic Mile in a minute and a half But we took an hour, and probably covered three miles,

The Boy Who Came Back!

WE STOPPED FREQUENTLY for our legs got tired holding on the brakes. The afternoon fled by, and living became fun again. Suddenly we looked at our watches, and saw it was almost time to leave for Portland. The veteran of our party said it was still half a mile to the bottom. “Let's be off,” he said. It was the last mile which finally made a rabid, raving ski enthusiast out of me. For I personally skied that last half mile without stopping and without falling down. When we wound up with a snow-swirling flourish at the bottom, I felt an elation I hadn't known in years. I wanted to ski forever.

Inside Indianapolis By Lowell Nussbaum

A SUGGESTION that the new Army camp to be focated near Columbus be named after Private James Gresham, Evansville, “first American soldier killed in World War I.” was carried in this column last week. Now C. F. Wichser, 2654 N. Harding St, writes in to take issue with us on a point or two. Mr. Wichser says he believes Corporal (not Private) James Bethel Gresham was born and lived in Henderson, Ky., and that his family moved to Evansville after James joined the Army. We checked with the American Legion headquarters and learned: He was a lance corporal, he was born in McLean County, Kentucky, in 1893, moved to Evansville in 1901, enlisted in the Army in 1914 at Evansville, and that he was one of the first three American combatants killed in front line action. The other two were Privates Thomas F. Enright and Merle D. Hay. And we don't feel so bad about missing the title, since the Indiana Historical Society's Gold Star Honor Roll of Indiana also refers to him as Private Gresham.

An Unbalanced Menu

WE DONT KNOW why we mention it, but a correspondent suggests a sample menu from the Indianapolis telephone directory. There are, he reminds, two Coffees, a column of Greens, one Hamburger, four Salmons, six Sweets, not to mention one Kidney and five Hams. As we said before, we don’t know why we mention it. . . . The Bridgeport Brass Co., which will have its 12-million-dollar plant here in operation within a month or so, puts out a very handsome employee magazine. The February issue just arrived here and, believe it or not, contains not a single word about the new Indianapolis plant. Maybe this plant is to be a surprise to the employees at the older plant in Bridgeport, Conn.

Lots of Luck—All Bad

BAD LUCK continues to dog the police traffic department. Capt. Troutman has four men on the

Washington

WASHINGTON, Feb. 11.—Many letters and telegrams reflect the discouragement of this one from a Southern city: “Please advise me. if I should keep on buying defense stamps. I am a colored orphan girl 16 years. I work after school and buy 50 cents in stamps each week. That is so hard for me. Is it true that Mrs. Roosevelt is giving our money away for foolishness?” Here is a telegram from the Middle West that answers the main question of this bewildered girl: “Volunteer loyal Americans giving their time and ‘money in teaching first aid, home nursing and like civil defense projects rea sent the high salaries paid to Eleanor’s friends. ‘Volunteers won't strike because the job must be done.” That is the answer, The job must be donte. I don’t think it is possible to make a convincing defense of the way Mrs. Roosevelt has been using her position and influence to plant friends in the Office of Civilian Defense. Nevertheless we are not fighting this war because we like or do not like some things that go on here,

‘We Must Go Right On’

WE ARE IN this war because it is necessary to the security of the United States,

To stop buying defense bonds, or to stop volunteer’

civilian defense work through disgust with what may have happened here, would be to do the country serious harm. We would hurt ourselves. We must go right on. And we must go harder, because the war is going against us in the Pacific and we are suffering serious losses of ships in the Atlantic from submarines off our coasts. We are fighting a

My Day

NEW YORK CITY, Tuesday. —I went last night to speak at a patriotic rally held in one of the large churches in Washington. Those present reiterated again their willingness to fight and die for the Unit-

ed States, and recounted the part that the colored people had played in the history of our country during every war. I never like to have us remember only our contributions as military contributions, because there are so many things which people have given in times of peace which are just as important to the development of the country, even when these horrible days of war are upon us. All of our racial groups have

injured list, three of them in serious condition; four on the sick list, and four in the Arm§. On the injured list are Marion Ostermyer, struck by a backing car, in Methodist Hospital in serious condition; John Furgason, hurt several weeks ago, now in City Hospital; Jake Hudgins, laid up nearly five months, and C. F. Myers recuperating from a serious accident. To cap the climax, Sergt. Walter Houck is temporarily out of service with an injured foot. In some way he pulled the door off his furnace and it fell on his foot.

More About Weather

HOCKEY FANS may be interested to know that Referee Eddie “Honey” Kuntz, Public Enemy No. 1 on the books of Cap rooters, is vacationing at his home in Canada. And it’s very possible he may not be back here this season. Now fans, restrain yourselves. . . . Yep, Uncle Sam’s really enforcing that “no weather tips to the enemy” rule. In connection with Civic Day Friday when the Boy Scouts take over

various public offices for an hour or so, Scout Ernest Smith of Troop 79 was scheduled to become the acting weatherman. But it looks like Scout Smith is out of luck. The Weather Bureau says it's against regulations. . , . Jim Clark, the I. A. C. swimming instructor, has gone to the Great Lakes Naval Training Station to teach swimming.

Here and There

B. EDWIN SACKETT, the former FBI bureau chief here and later of New York, has the first of a series of articles in the current Cosmopolitan, It's on “The FBI at War.” , . . The City’s ice skating fans, particularly the more romatic, seem to like the “moonlight” numbers started recently at the Coli-

seum’s public skating sessions. The white lights are turned out, dim blue lights appear, and then the big “harvest moon,” with its yellow glow, is turned on. Night before last, one skater appeared with tiny red and green flashlights in one shoe as traffic guides.

By Raymond Clapper

defensive war in both directions.

bought.

INTRODUCING YOUR RATIONING BOARD

frwin R. Brown

IRWIN R. BROWN is chairman of the ration board, but there is a light-hearted disagreement about that. He says he isn’t chairman— really, that he just works there.

The others say he is chairman

really. It's the only thing approaching a disagreement the board has had since it went te work Jan. 5. Tall, energetic, Mr. Brown has been associated in various business enterprises and characterizes himself as “a rolling stone.” He has sold hardware, lumber, coal mines, oil and going businesses and industries. After the war, he associated with Henry C. Ulen of Lebanon in the General Navigation Co. of New York which operated windjammers between New York, Buenos Aires, Argentina, and Salonika, Greece, 2 2 ”

THERE WAS a dearth of steamboats after the war. He and Mr. Ulen had a cargo in South America to deliver to the States, but could find no bottoms. So they chartered the windjammers to . deliver the goods. The shipping business looked good, so they stayed in it. They hauled wood, oil and cattle byproducts. In the early 20's, Mr. Brown started, a brokerage enterprise. He still maintains offices here in

the City. ® 8 =»

HE'S A NATIVE Hoosier, born in Lebanon, Sept. 17, 1880. He attended high school there and then went to Northwestern University. He came back to Lebanon after college to go into the hardware business with his father, J. C. Brown. In 1911, he married Bess Cullom of Frankfort. They live at 5964 Central Ave, His great hobby is fishing. Since 1901, he’s never missed a fishing season in Canada, Wisconsin or Mpine. He used to go up to North Channel, Georgian Bay, —regularly. He says the fish aren't much bigger up in Canada, but there are more of them.

By RICHARD LEWIS ONE MONDAY morning in January, four In-

dianapolis men sat down around a table and began the strange, new task of rationing tires to their neighbors. From tires, the rationing of the nation's goods in war time spread to automobiles, then sugar. It threatened to cover gasoline and oil—and the numberless goods Arhericans have been accustomed to buying freely in years of peace.

HerbeH J. Reade

HERBERT J. READE is publicity shy, just hates to have his picture taken, but usually gives in when the other members do. He was associated with the Wheeler-Schebler Carburetor Co. during the years that the automobile industry made the carburetor business big. He went to work first for Kingan & Co. as a clerk in the purchasing agent’s office in 1901. 1908, he joined the carburetor concern and stayed with it until 1931. He was general manager and also secretary-treasurer of the concern. A native of Indianapolis, he was born on the North Side in a house at the corner of Broadway and Arch Sts. Neither he nor his sister, Miss Anna R. Reade, with whom he makes his home at 4360 Washington Blvd, can recall whether the house faced Broadway or Arch, They've wondered about it for years. Miss Reade is principal of School 41. ” 2 ” MR. READE ATTENDED Shortridge High School and has maintained a wide variety of civic interests. - Since the carburetor days; he has served as receiver for Rub-Tex Products Co. and has been associated with the John Lees Co. makers of auto moldings—stainless steel trim for the brightwork on automobiles, Not long ago, he bought a farm northeast of Zionsville which is separated from a farm owned by Maj. Gen. Robert H. Tyndall, County defense director, by Eagle Creek. Therein lies a tale. Like his colleague on the board, Mr. Brown, Mr. Reade loves fishing. He's fished all over the United States and Canada. But he says his luck has been terrible. He always gets to a spot a week before or after the fish are biting. Two years ago, he returned from a Canadian fishing trip with nothing big enough to keep. Just before he put his tackle away, he gave one last cast into Eagle Creek. You guessed it , , . he hooked a one and one-half pound bass!

In

. ® ; 4. 8 0

Today, these men, members of the Marion County Ration Board, know that this is only the beginning of a great war time task.

The men, women and children of 100,000 homes will feel their influence as consumers’ appetites are increasingly curtailed. These men serve without pay, taking time out from their own businesses. This may serve to introduce the County's rationers:

Charles E Foreman

CHARLES E. FOREMAN. says he is a farmer. Actually; he’s been in the oil business most of his life. He's the same age as his buddy on the afternoon shift of the ration board, Tom Clark. He's 46. Mr. Foreman has promised his colleagues on the board a duck dinner out on his 280-acre farm one mile west of Allisonville. The other members say they want that dinner before ducks are rationed.

Light-haired, youthful looking, Mr. Foreman has had a varied business career. He started in with the Campbell-Zortman Oil Co. in 1913. He attended Indianapolis Business University and later Indiana University Extension while he worked. In 1914, he became traveling cashier for the Western Oil Refining Co., rose to auditor and, in 1929, formed hi¥ own oil concern, the Mid-Western Petroleum Corp.

” ” ”

HE SOLD HIS interest in the concern in 1937 to the Socony Vacuum Oil Co. with which he became associated until last summer, Sept. 11 is his best date. That's the day in 1916 when he married Ruth Miller of Rushville, ‘It was also the wedding date this year of his younger daughter Lois Eleatior, who was married on the 25th wedding anniversary of her parents, to Richard H. Martin, An older daughter Eloise, is Mrs. Frank Hamp, Indianapolis. Warren Rydel Foreman, the son, is a young writer-poet in New York City. When he's not at home, 5620 N. Delaware St., or working, you can find Mr. Foreman inspecting his Spotted Poland China hogs of which he is very proud on the Allisonville farm. He likes to bowl; runs a bowling alley in Broad Rippie as a sideline. He's also on the board of directors of the Hearthstone Life Insurance Co. - A native Hoosier, born at Berne in Adams County, he likes to call himself a farmer by occupation and, he adds, by choice. :

Thomas E. Clark THOMAS E. CLARK has the afternoon shift on the Marion County Ration Board. He's the big man in the dark suit. He knows the tire business. and has been the board's tech nical expert on tire rationing. This is his 21st year with the U. S. Rubber Co. He's local factory manager now. He started in the drafting department after being graduated from the Unie

versity of Illinois in 1921 in mechanical engineering. Like many a college student in the ‘teens of the century, he joined the Army after his sopho= more year. He was in for three years, served overseas with the 59th Infantry and became a first lieutenant.

8 M »

AFTER THE WAR, he went back to college to complete his engineering course which the war interrupted. He married Vera M. Crosby of Indianapolis. They have six children and that 14-room house at 4220 Central Ave. isn’t a bit too large for the Clark family. There are five girls and a boy —Tom Jr, 17, who attends Cathedral High School. Annamay, 19, is the eldest and she is a student at St. Mary’s of the Woods Academy. The other girls are Rosemarie, 16; Vera Jean, 14; Mary Louise, 13, and Joan, 10.

2 ” #

MR. CLARK HAS lived in Ine dianapolis all of his 46 years, exe cept when he was a student at college and a soldier in France. He still is bothered by an old war wound in the leg which makes his golf occasional. 3 He likes t6 bowl though, and quietly admits he’s averaged 180 for the last 10 years, After a day's work at the factory and the ration board, he likes to go home and sit down in an easy chair with a current best seller, usually historical fiction.

More effort is|} needed. More defense bonds and stamps must bel}

Loyal Americans won't go on strike. They will do a

just the reverse. They also will hope that the conditions at the Office of Civilian Defense which have so shaken puklic morale will be corrected soon so that they can have more confidence in the direction at the top. That it will be corrected seems to be open to some question. Mrs. Roosevelt's dancer protege, who was put on the OCD pay roll at $4600 a year to encourage rhythmic dancing among chil@ren, says she is going to stick. Mrs. Roosevelt herself says whether she remains or not will be up to whoever succeeds Mayor La Guardia as director of OCD,

Mrs. R. Is the Boss

CAN YOU IMAGINE any director of OCD firing Mrs. Roosevelt? There you get at the heart of the situation. She is a subordinate employee of OCD. But she is the wife of the President of the United States. The boss of OCD obviously is the lady under Mrs. Roosevelt's hat, no matter who holds the title, That situation on its face strikes the average person as so unfair and so undesirable that the protest against its continuing is almost universal, so far as } have been able to observe. It is strong within the Government also. For most officials in Washington have at one time or another had to contend with situations of the same type. There is, as there has been in the past, a wide and useful field for Mrs. Roosevelt outside of direct governmental activities. She has done a vast amount of good and can continue to do so, going about the SSUY: turning public attention to conditions that n t But it should be obvious to anyone now that public sentiment is bitterly resentful of petticoat government such as has prevailed at OCD.

By Eleanor Roosevelt

to these shores from Africa, Europe, the Near East and the Far East. It is not only in these material ways that people have contributed to the development of this country. Think of what has been given by writers, painters, actors, dancers and musicians to the general culture of the nation. No country is fully civilized which cannot" appreciate its artists. They make a contribution not just to the' entertainment side of life, but to the educational, economic and spiritual sides. I had a word before I left Washington this morning that Franklin Jr. came through his operation very successfully, though it was found to be most necessary. I am now on my way to New York City by plane and hope to see him this afternoon. I was glad of the chance to see

pF

Chapter IX—"Fifth Column" in Hawaii

FOR YEARS IT has been the habit in official and in newspaper circles at Honolulu to minimize the very obvious danger to our position there caused by the enormous

number of Japanese residents in the Hawalian Islands.

It was the fashion carefully to avoid hurting the sensibilities of those who might be loyal American citizens by foolishly retentng

that the number who might be disloyal would be so small that they could do no damage, and could be of no help to the enemy in case we were involved in war with Japan. The folly of this attitude was well exposed by the tragic events of Dec. 7. Japan received aid of immeasurable value from disloyal Japanese in and around Honolulu. In fact Secretary of the Navy Knox himself has admitted that never during the past few years of world hostilities has “Fifth Column” work been so successful as at Honolulu with the single exception of the case of Norway.

If the perfidy of these enemies of our nation

Hallett Abend

has not already been sternly, even harshly, punished, the military and civilian authorities of the islands have been remiss in their duty. And if the Japanese of Hawaii, &s a class, are still blindly trusted in

the islands, such an attitude of trust is obviously, now a criminal folly.

8 2 =» Danger Remains

THE LAST census revealed that 155,042 persons out of the total population of Hawaii were Japanese or at least half Japa-

nese. Even if 1 per cent, or about 1500 of them, were spies

or disloyalists, the damage they:

were able to do our cause must have been tremendous. If the total of disloyalists runs as high as 10 per cent, or about 15,000 people, the situation must be appalling. The danger has not been, ahd is not now, only to Honolulu, Pearl Harbor and the Island of Oahu. On ‘some of the other islands the Japanese resident population is strong encugh to seize control. It is not beyond the bounds of possibility that Japan could thus obtain a land base in the Hawaiian group itself! The situation before the war was particularly delicate and difficult. It was held that if suspicion were manifested by official quarters the resuit would probably be the alienation of thousands of men and women of Japanese blood who are American citizens by birth and who might be entirely Jayal and devoted to

but not universal, among Japanese children born in Hawaii who are now grown young men and women. In the islands they have not clannishly kept mainly to theniselves, as they do in most

other parts of the world, but have:

freely mingled socially with the

people of many races and col-:

ors who make up the population. Ne ow.

Being Polite Costly

THE OLDER Japanese, those born and reared to maturity in Japan, are in many cases more pro-Japanese than pro-American. This is particularly true of those who have never returned to Japan since they first emigrated. Many of those who have paid re-

turn visits to their motherland

have been so sharply struck by the contrasts between liberty and restraint, between prosperity and poverty, in their old homes and their new, that they returned to Hawaii staunchly pro-American. In Hawaii we have been guilty of the same official folly that the British have perpetrated in Singapore and elsewhere. We have permitted the maintenance of Japanese-language schools,

openly paid for by the Govern-

ment of Japan. This example of “‘good- neighbog policy” may now

the Hawaiian Islands “has no that these Japanese-language schools have done less harm than is generally imagined. They say that since all Japanese chiidren in the islands are required to attend the regular American public schools, five or six hours a day, five days a week, this has more than offset any tendency to divided allegiance that might have been inculcated by one hour a day in the Japanese-language schools. German plans for Fifth Column activity in Hawaii were fairly easy to detect, and it is believed they will be easily checkmated. But unhappily Japanese officialdom in the islands adopted the Nazi system in all its objectionable details—probably under secret German prompting and guidance.

” ” »

Experts in Hatred

NORMALLY, one would think the personnel of the Japanese Consulate-General in Honolulu would have diminished as the number of Japanese-born residents decreased, and as Japan's ‘trade with the Hawaiian Islands declined. But the reverse was the case. The number of Consular officials grew amazingly, and continued ‘to increase, and ‘consular agents” were on all other islands and in most towns of any size. Education and religion were also utilized by Japan to increase the ‘number of pro-Japanese propagandists in the islands. The number of Japanese teachers increased beyond all reason, and although

- «Japanese followers of Shintoism

were rapidly decreasing in numbers, the number of Shinto priests during the last two years was increasing even more rapidly. During the first week of 1941 Senator Guy M. Gillette of Iowa made public charges to the effect that Japan was trying to conscript Hawaiian-born Japanese between the ages of 21 and 36, and he asked the State Depart-

. ment to investigate.

Key to West Coast

TO THIS CHARGE the then acting Japanese Consul-General

at Honolulu, Otejiro Okuda, made

military significance.” He did admit, however, that Japanese with dual citizenships who visited Japan might possibly be drafted for military service, but said “very few have been drafted in the past.” For several decades the large proportion of Japanese in Hawaii, in comparison to the total population, was purely a domestic social, economic and lingual question for the islands themselves. Now, however, the problem has become not only of national but of international importance. So long as Pearl Harbor and Hawaii are firmly in our possession no other nation can attain naval superiority in the Eastern Pacific. It would first be necessary to wrest Hawaii from us before any nation could attack our western coast or successfully assail the Panama Canal from the Pacific side. Hawaii has now altomatically

become, in strategy and in intere national politics, the most ime mensely valuable and important place in the world today. If we were to lose Hawaii we would lose control of the Pacific, California, Oregon and Washington, and British Columbia and Alaska would be vulnerable, and the Panama Canal might more readily be subjected to attack.

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Must Hold It

WHEN THESE dire improbabilities are suggested to Navy or Army leaders in Hawaii they grin widely, and say: “Let ’'em come and take it—if they can.” If Japan could capture Singae pore, it is not at all unlikely that she might try to capture the Hawaiian group. If she succeeded, our own western coasts would be wide open to things more serious than prowling submarines or hite and-run air raids. With Hawaii lost, California, Oregon and Washington, and Canada’s rich British Columbia would be open to invasion.

NEXT: Perilous Frontiers.

ht, 1941, by Hallett Abend;

Copy dise y United Feature Syndicate, Ine,

tributed

HOLD EVERYTHING