Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 16 February 1942 — Page 9

- MONDAY, FEB. 16, 1942

FE ng a A Wg i Mh ey Ah i beg |

‘Hoosier Vagabond

.| SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 16.—~Well what do you know about this! Here we are in San Francisco again. If I'm not careful I'll get to calling San Francisco home instead of Albuquerque or Indiana or Washington. . i : In addition to torrents of rain wwe and the key to the city, I was welcomed here by a large batch of mail. On the whole the mail was nice and the writers wished me much health, happiness and wealth. . However, there were a few letters which made me feel bad. It seems some people are being wracked by an indignang concern over the apparent disintegration of this noted author's moral fiber. So perhaps a little explanation is due them. you know that cooking column I wrote from Albuquerque a few months ago? The one in which we took up a collection from the guests to buy flowers for the delivery boy who broke his leg (although there wasnt ‘any: delivery boy and he didn’t break his leg). And I said that instead of buying flowers I took the "money and bought whisky with it. , that seems to have upset several people. That I could be such a rat as to buy whisky with that

money! | Now Here's What Happened

WHAT ASTOUNDS ME is that people apparently have taken to believing everything they see in this column. Why, I've been writing fantasies like that for seven years, and nobody ever got so serious about it” before. So I'll draw those disgruntled Teaders a picture | of that nasty whisky-buying ep. , . No collection was ever taken to buy flowers for ‘the delivery boy who didn’t exist. And I did not buy ’t collected. All the world knows that I don’t buy whisky. What I actually bought was a trainload of burros, all named Pete. Now, everybody happy? | 4 :

By Ernie Pyle

“It does seem to me, as a man with his finger on the nation's pulse as they say, that there has been an altering of public reception to humor-attempts since the war started. Take me. I'm a humorist, as everybody knows. I've been laughing hysterically at my own stuff for years. I have no proof that anybody else ever did, but at least my occasional efforts at wit never brought the firing squad to my door.

Yep, Ernie Bars Humor

YET SINCE PEARL HARBOR it seems to me that some folks have deliberately set out to misunderstand what they read. I've actually had the recent experience of being raised by one reader to the status of a traitor because of a line I thought was harmlessly funny. Light-heartedness is ticklish business these

days. So, as far as I am concerned, a gay touch isn't

worth the struggle any longer. Down with humor].

for the duration, I say. Long live gloom. if that’s the way it has to be, Maybe I'll change my mind tomorrow, though. ” f os . I HAVE A FRIEND here who went to enlist in the Air Corps. He passed the physical and mental tests easily, but they wouldnt take him—because he bit his nails! Guess they figured it indicated he was too nervous. However, they said that if he’d come back in a week with unbitten nails, they’d take him. So my friend summoned up all his will power, went for a week without biting a nail, returned to the recruiting office, and was accepted. Gleefully he rusned back to the office where he worked, and started telling the boys that he had been taken. The boys gathered around and congratulated him, and then one of them said: “But what's the matter with your fingernails?” Everybody looked, including my friend. And discovered that he had bitten all his nails clear down to the quick on his way back from the Recruiting Office!

Inside Indianapolis By Lowell Nussbaum

and in the Motor Vehicle License Bureau have:

LEONARD SOLOMON, who went to Washington Dec. 7 as a “nothing a year” man, has been promoted. Home over the week-end to look after bis other duties as head of the Victor Furniture Co., he reported he’d been upped to a “dollar a year” job with a re- { soundingly important title. The title: Acting Assistant Chief of the ‘Wholesale and Retail Policy Sections and Regional Policy Analysis ‘Unit of the Division of Civilian Supply of the War Production Board. That's all of it we can remember, . . . Twenty=three girls in the Bell Telephone Company’s Indianapolis commercial department have a birthday defense stamp club. Whenever one of them has a birthday, the I “T.. other 22 each give her .a 25-cent defense stamp. Everybody comes out even by the end of the year, except Uncle Sam, and he’s ahead.

Here and The

IN CASE YOU'VE been wondering why the United States flag flies from the court house rqof both day and night, rain or shine, we've got the answer. We asked County Commissioner Bud Bossgn about it. . “Well,” he ‘told us, “the boys pretty nearly broke. their necks getting up there when they first put it up, and ‘it’s too dangerous to have someone climb up twice a day.” It looks as though somebody was gging to have to make a trip up there pretty soon to put up a new flag. “The old one's getting pretty tattered. ... . The war is playing hob with some long standing pinochle, " rhum, etc, associations at our ‘fire stations. As a precaution, the Fire Department has ued strict regulations barring loafing by outsiders tions. That means some of the outsider+regulars no “longer can "drop in of an evening for a friendly game. herman was right, wasn’t he, boys? . . . The boys and ‘girls in the office: of Secretary of State Jim Tucker

Washington

WASHINGTON, Feb. 16—Speechel by some Republican leaders during the last few days have done a good deal to shut the door against a sneak entrance " by defeatists and appeasers, and to bind the country together for a finish fight until Japan and Germany are smashed. Somé have been fearful that after the succession of defeats which is now going on and which probably‘ will continue for some time until we are fully in action, certain groups would try to use the Republican Party as the vehicle for a “what’s-the-use-of-going-on-with-all-this?” campaign. If you took seriously the line which some of our people were handing ‘out before Pearl Harbor that would be logical. Some of + iphem thought Germany was going to win the war and that we might as well adjust ourselves to it. They were for a negotiated peace. They thought we ought to get out of the Far East and let Japan have her own way there. f advocates of such views had intended to fifthcol their way into the Republican Party and use it as their vehicle, they oan scarcely hope now to do that. : All along it has been clear that Wendell Willkie would employ all his power to prevent any such use of the G. O. P.

Shutting the Door

® NOW THOMAS E. DEWEY, who is getting ready to run for Governor of New York, makes himself clear to the same effect. He says the issue of appeasement and compromise will surely rise. He warns that appeasers may attempt to sneak into the Republican

My Day

NEW YORK CITY, Sunday.—Lincoln’s birthday is a day I always like especially to celebrate in gpirit, for to me Lincoln was not only one of our great Presidents, but a very great man. It seemed very fitting .to be, for that ay in Cornell at Farm and Home Week, for Lincoln was of -the earth, earthy, close to the soil and

rural people of our nation. I am always interested in the ~ exhibits at farm and home week i 4s usual, ingenuity and ini displayed in various The biack-out room for the ‘was very well arranged, ut tha t is one thing the farmers 1 fairly sure will not often sed by them, for it is too costto waste a bomb on isolated appealed to me was the conequipped in| a way for which any farm provide. They had large milk cans placed ] d by excelsior, and the other I wag told they could

his spirit was akin to that of the:

. Syopics Of pel 15 Jpyening in the sate, then, We

pledged themselves to buy $21,625 worth of defense bonds this year.

The Metal Shortage

THE TECH CAMERA CLUB has decided to help relieve . the metal shortage by saving all the metal film spools, film pack cases and 35 millimeter film magazines they can collect. These will be shipped to the photographic companies which are having trouble getting materials. . . . There's been quite a bit of whispering around town to the effect that the current epidemic of gastro-intestinal disturbances “has been traced to our drinking water.” Dr. Herman G. Morgan, Health Board secretary, says “t’aint so.” .The Board tests the water every day except Sunday and there’s been no change in the water's bacteriological content, he says. And besides, he adds, the epidemic, now tapering off, has been reported all over the state —not just here. :

Zzzzzazzreyz

Made from the deck of a warship, this photo shows a unit of the fleet, including an aircraft carrier in the background, speeding ahead to participate in the smashing blow the U. S. Navy dealt to the Marshall and Gilbert Islands in the Pacific in answer to Pearl Harbor.

THE ZYXWYTHES are gone, but the number|:

lingers on. All of which is just another way of say-

ing that the three young men who coined a name to get the last listing in the phone book, all have moved

out of their bachelor apartment and their places have | 3

been taken by three others, who also took over the phone listing. The three originals were Bob Howard, now married and a Navy yeoman; Ernest McIlwain, who has moved to Gary, and Kermit W. Arnold, of the State C, of C. When McIlwain moved out, Harry Hull, of the Triple A offices, took his place. Then Howard and Arnold left and now a couple more AAA boys have joined Hull. And they still have the same phone, listed as H. McArnold Zyxwythe. The only trouble is that it’s no longer the last listing in the phone book, A Mr, “Uriah R. Zzowzed” squeezed them out of last place. In the next issue of the phone book we’ll .be looking for a Mr. Zzzzzzzzzzzzsszzzzzys.

By Raymond Clapper

Party and use it to achieve what he calls their cowardly end. Dewey says even suggestion of compromise must be rejected, that there is no room for difference of opinion on this, and that the war must go to a total victory. Another voice is heard to the same point. Clarence Budingtgn Kelland, executive director of the Republican National JCommittee, says “If any man, Republican or Democrat, raises his véice in appeasement or for “negotiated peace, I shall denounce him and the Republican Party will denounce him.” Kelland was an isolationist before Pear! Harbor, " There you -have pretty good evidence, one witness being a former isolationist and the other an ambitious candidate running for Governor of New York with an eye. on the ‘White House in 1844. Both have shut the door against anything except total victory.

The Appeasers Will Appear

THESE ARE. SIGNIFICANT weathervanes of American: sentiment. But as Dewey warns us, appeasers and compromisers will appear. They won't wear those labels, They will call themselves patriots. They will hide under some kind of slogan about being for America

-Our Navy Sifiered some damage, too, as * witiess this hole left on a

Cruiser by a Jap bomb,

first so that the unwary will not suspect what they|g

are up to. They will dress up their case in plausible language about why should we try to keep our nose in Far East affairs and why should we go on fighting to fish the British empire out of the soup. Appeasers will distort the issue and be as blind to the real danger to the United States as they were before Pearl Harbor. Afl of us will have to be on guard against being innocently trapped into swallowing their sugar-coated propaganda. For we may be sure the appeasers will try to get it down by sleight-of-hand, not by Frankly labeling it poison.

By Eleanor Roosevelt

. cooking and eating ensiic, and a portable canned

gas stove which could heat a large quantity of food. This truck could feed 150 people at an emergency meal in a very short time. The book fair, the art exhibit by Ithaca artists, and the craft work done primarily by women, were all interesting exhibits. I could have spent much more time seeing them than I Wag able to give to any one thing. : We drove tb Syracuse in the altoniioon, and were grateful for the clear weather, We met with the defense council in the morning, "and saw the volunteer bureau, established under the local defense council. They are getting on very well with - their ‘Work and Mrs, Pennock, who heads the voluntary participation part of the civilian defense program for the state, has done a very fine job. The same difficulties arise in every community, of course, Some volunteers do not take their duties seriously enough and fail in meeting professional standards. Some agencies are hesitant about taking on the training and placing of volunteers. By and large it seemed to me that if Syracuse and Schenectady, which I visited in the afternoon, are good

can be proud of the organization here

Swarming over a Navy plane as it returned from the raid, mechanics refuel and rearm

it for a return to battle.

staged the devastating attack.

Smoke rises from Wotje Atoll, one of the targets in the. island group, testifying to the marksmanship of the sea and air gunners who

But the attack was not without its v. S. ehsugltio: Here, the body of .one of the fallen heroes is eased

gently overboard to its grave afi sea after i services aboard his ship.

And this is a closeup of the belts of atanpniiib which were fed to- atiacking lanes

aboard a carrier.

WORKERS USE PART OF PAY ON STAMPS

Almost a quarter of a million dollars.a month is being poured into the nation’s war ‘effort in the form of a Defense Stamps and Bonds by Indianapolis employees. This was announced Saturday by “victory salesmen” at a meeting of the Marion County Defense Savings Staff at the Columbia Club. The money, $244,511, is now being deducted from ‘the regular wages and salaries of the employees under the “wage. allotment” plan, representing 249° employing units. The “victory salesmen”. believe the total may reach $600,000 by March 1.

‘Russell. W. McDermott, Savings

Staff ‘chairman; presided at the meeting and those who spoke included Col. Walter S. Drysdale, Ft. Harrison commandant, and John D. Hughes, sub-chairman.of the group. Mr. Hughes said ‘that the State House, Court House and City Hall will be 100 per cent organized by March 1. :

13TH A LUCKY DAY WASHINGTON, Feb. 16 (U. P). —Subscriptions for the Govern-

ments Friday ths 1dth $150,000.00] |

HOLD EVERYTHING -

The. 21st nanie sppetied today on the Marion County motor fatality list. for 1942. Howard McQuinn, 55, was the latest victim. He died in City Hospital yesterday of injuries received when he was struck by ap autp at Washington and Missouri Sts. The driver, William Johnson, 35, of 813

blameless by police. Mr. McQuinn, an employee of the | State Highway Commission, roomed at 711 N. Alabama St. His home was at Edinburg, Ind.| The funeral will be at: Nineveh tomorrow. ‘Three other auto fatalities were reported over the state during the week end. They were: JAMES JENNINGS, 53, fatally injured by an auto when he was walking across a highway near Winslow. STEVE LOGSDON, 30, Black Oak trailer camp resident, killed Saturday when. struck by Joseph Kulchard of Hammond. ROBERT B. POTTS, 34, ‘Mo-

N. ' Hamilton Ave., was declared’

rocco, Who ‘died ‘Saturday of in-

Local '42 Traffic Toll Now 21; 3 Die in State Over Week-End

Jured shortly after midnight today when their auto struck a loading platform guard at Michigan St. and Arsenal Ave. THe driver, William Sprankle, 29, of 1918 Carrollton’ Ave., said he had fallen asleep at the wheel. His condition at City Hospital was pronounced fair. ‘He received internal Injuries. frafich, ie His companion, Reece Griffith, 47, Peru, Ind., was taken to the: Was bash Employees’ Hospital: at Peru. He received head and chest injuries, . Nelson Mitney, 16, of 1402 Bridge St., received scalp cuts from broken glass in a collision between an auto and a truck at Union South Sts. yesterday. He was ri ‘in an auto driven by. LeRoy. Fletcher, 37, of 1218 Union St. The truck was driven by Jesse Fletcher, 27, of Lebanon. The boy's condition was called fair at City Hospital today." ’