Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 10 February 1943 — Page 9

"Hoosier Vagabond

38 THE FRONT LINE IN TUNISIA (by Wireless). ~The afternoon sun went ever the hill and the evening chill began to come down. We were sitting on a ‘bushy hillside—just a small bunch of American officers forming what is called a forward command post. Officers who. had been in the battle for Ousseltia began wandering in brush on foot, to report. They were dirty and tired. But the day had gone well, and they were cheerful in a quiet and unexpressed way. A medical corps major came up the hill and said:

“Those blankety-blanks! They've

knocked out two of my ambulances that were trying to get the wounded back. A hell of a lot a Red Cross means to them! Nobody said anything. He went back down the hill, as mad as a hornet. The officers kept talking about three fellow officers who had. been killed during the day, and a fourth one

who was missing. One of the lead men apparently

had been a special favorite. An officer who had been beside him when it happened came up with blood on his clothes. : 3 “We hit the ground together,” he said. “But when I got up, he couldn’t. It took him right in the head. He felt no pain.” “Raise up that tent and pack ‘his stuff,” an officer told an enlisted man. Another one said: “The hell of it is his wite’s due to have a baby any time now.” ~~

Hoosier Captured and Released

JUST THEN a sergeant walked up. He had left the post that morning with the officer who was now missing

“Where's Captain So-and-So?” they all asked. The sergeant said he didn’t know. Then he said self had been captured. “Captured?” the officers asked. “Yes,” he said. “The Italians captured me and then turned me loose.” . - The sergeant was Vernon Gery of South Bend, Ind.

he

all day | : for the body of a popular officer who had been killed.

He is a married man, and. was a lawyer before . the war. He is a young ang husky fellow. He didn't appear to be ‘very much ‘shaken by his but he said he never was so scared in his life. Sitting there on the ground he told me his expe-

rience. He and the missing captain and a) jeep driver|

had gone forward at 9:30 in the morning to hunt They parked the jeep, and the captain told them to stay there till he returned. ; They covered the jeep with brush and them hid in the bushes to wait while the captain went on

alone. As they were lying there the driver yelled to|

Sergt. Gery, “Look, they're retreating!” He saw eight soldiers coming toward them. He

thougit they were French, but, actually they were an|

Italian ‘patrol. The driver's. shout attracted !their attention and they began shooting. The two Americans fired back. The jeep driver was hit and killed instantly. Gery said the driver yelled just once when he was hit. “I'll be hearing that yell for a long time,” he said. In a moment the Italians had Gery. Apparently they were on a 'definite mission, for seven of them went on, leaving one guard to watch Gery. They had taken his rifle, seached him, and given back his identification cards, but they kept his cigarets, pipe, tobacco, chewing gum and message book.

Artillery Too Hot for Him

FOR AN HOUR the one Italian sat 10 feet from Gery with his rifle pointed at him. Gery says the Italian must have been well acquainted with the American rifle, for he passed the time taking it ‘apart and putting it together, and did it rapidly and correctly. The Italian didn’t try to talk to Gery. Sudenly our artillery began dropping shells close to where they sat. That was too much for the Italian.

He just got up and disappeared into the bushes. And|

Gery started home. As Gery finished his story, the commanding colonel came back from his afternoon’s tour. He sat down on the ground, and the officers gathered around to heat Ha reports and get their instructions for the That is the way war looks from a forward command post. :

Inside Indianapolis By Lowell Nussbaum

CU S DGES got tired of yelling: “Hey, you;

telephone,” to fellow workers in the busy war ra-

tioning office in the war memorial building. So he just dug around in the attic at home and found his college megaphone. : ‘gets immediate action. Looks just like a ‘movie lot. , , . Mrs. Dorothy Stephenson Stout, 925 Fairfield ave., thought up an idea the other day. “Why,” she asked herself, “shouldn’t the thousands of mothers who have ‘taken men’s places in the defense plants and war industries be given a name by which they can be known na“tionally? Like the WAACS, etc. Surely these "factory mothers are doing work every bit as noble as ‘their uniformed sisters, and a name might lend a little glamour to their hard, untiring labor. Why not call these mothers the ‘MOMs’? Such a name not only describes who they are but it stands for their purposeful battle cry of: ‘Move Over Men!’ »

Right Road, Wrong Piredtion ~ WHILE DRIVING on road 431-seven or eight miles south of town, John Norris, the printer, saw a soldier ‘ walking south. Stopping, John asked if the soldier would like a ride, then, to be sociable, inquired: “Going to Camp Atterbury?” “No,” replied the soldier; “I'm going to. Fi. Wayne, my home.” He added he was en route from Ft. Knox. “Well, son,” said John, “just. turn around and start walking the other way. You've been heading right back to Ft. Knox.” . ., Mrs. Blanche K. Watson, formerly of Indianapolis and “now living with: hier son, Don Watson, at Ada, O., re=cently fell on ‘the ice and broke her hip. She’s in . Memorial’ hospital‘ at Lima, O. « . + Tom Christen

‘Washington

WASHINGTON, Feb. 10.—Most people around here think our longest and hardest war is the one in the Pacific.

The more we see of it, the more convinced some:

people are that in the Pacific we are going at it the hardest and slowest way, and that | we can defeat Japan only through | China. The Guadalcanal campaign, started six months ago, was | fought under appalling hardships. Progress was painfully . slow. : How long will it take, at that rate, to clear the Japs out of the scores. of islands they occupy between Guadalcanal and Tokyo? ~ To clean out every Japanese airfield between the Solomons and : | Toklo by landing and cutting our * way through will take more time than there is to be had. ‘Eddie Ricken \cker came back from there and said it would take too long to win the war that way. Many military men m be thinking the same thing.

& we can Win Only With Help of Allies

. WBE CAN only win this war with the help of allies. It will be won in Europe only with the help of with the help of Ci , and vast amounts of lend= lease. * The chief criticism of lend-lease in congress now is that it has not provided more supplies to China. Those who heard President Roosevelt's annual message to congress remember that the loudest applause came at his refer: nces to China. ' The instinct there points to the reality, which is tory i lis Pacific’ Wil come through our

and not by lone-hand naval

warfare punctua 2 | with island landings. : That this view is entertained in ‘high gaara

ITY, Tuesday —Yesterday, in Campautiful day. There was a blue sky rand snow lying .under the New

NEW. YORK den, Me, was, ah and sparkling: wate %] cr trunk’ Blistent 2 amid the dark green.

Now he just bellows once—and

e Russians. (It will be: won in the Pacific only

with here and there a white _ one man said to me:

berry, 6145 Haverford ave., formerly with the Concrete Silo Co., left today, for Camp Crowder, Mo., via Ft. Hays, O., where he is to be inducted into active service. He's been attending the signal corps radio school at 46th and Keystone as a reserve.

This Is the End

DICK STONE, who does the Eatitorially Speaking program over WIRE, writes that every time this column gets going on the subject of food, we get mixed up. “Don’t you let anyWody tell you that a good chef ever makes borscht without eggs or sugar,” he writes. “Now if it’s Polish, there must be some duck, mushrooms, fennel, ‘sausage, besides. julienne vegetables . . . and beet juice added at the last minute. And perhaps you'd like to know that ‘bortchock soup’ is another way of saying it... and then there is ‘barsch’ . . .,and ‘Barszez’ which is the real Polish beet soup which takes five days to make. But YOU'D never eat much of it.” And that, Dear Readers, is the end of ‘bortsch’ etc., so far as we are concerned. It’s a promise.

Stout Field Notes

~ FROM THE Stout Fielder, we note that Pvt. Ralph Duncan, air base squadron, asked Pvt. William Dembitsky; of the same unit, how his fatigue clothing became so black. “This is my soot zoot,” replied Pvt. Dembitsky. . . . Also from the Stout Fielder: “The Aerial Confucius say: ‘There are old pilots and there are bold pilots, but there are no old, bold pilots.” « + » Capt. Edwin C. Stein, the persuasive public relations officer at Stout field, is in New York celebrating his promotion to a captaincy. , . . Our Miscellaneous Information department discovers in the new Market

‘Data book for 1943 that there are 14,216 more females

here than males, that there are 2571 foreign born Germans in Indianapolis, ayd that the last killing frost can be expected around April 20.

By Raymond Clapper

was indicated by what was said at a luncheon here this week commemorating the new treaties which end one hundred years of extra-territoriality in China. : Vice President Wallace said we were living for the day when there would be hundreds of airplanes on the mainland of China to strike at Japan. He said it’ would come, and that he hoped that in addition to words, planes and more planes soon would be going. to China. Standley K. Hornbeck, adviser to Secretary of State Hull, said we would get planes to China but that there must be patience.

United Nations Council Needed

UNTIL. THE TIME comes when. we can retake Burma and ‘open up a supply line to China to replace the fragile and inadequate air supply now going over the: dangerous mountain ranges from India, .there

won't be much progress in getting’ planes to China. We could get the planes in, but there must also be gasoline, spare engines, bombs and ammunition. ‘China has the airfields, within striking reach of Japan. ‘But they, like all of free China, wait for help from the arsenal here. Meantime we have done something to hearten the Chinese, during their long wait for help. by wiping out the hundred-year-cld extra-territoriality hated by China as feiters of western imperialism. That is one of the few actions taken to fulfill the post-war aims of the Atlantic shafier and the united nations, : It is unfortunate that we are not moving more energetically in that kind of political action to back up several million glittering words about treedom that have been uttered on the allied side. ~ A unifed nations council should have been created long ago. It could have taken charge of the North|

‘African affair and turned that demoralizing political

headache into an opportunity to show what the allied War aims mean in action, .

By Eleanor Roosevelt

ceeded across to the other platform, where I was to sponsor the barge. I looked with interest at.the workmen and women clustered around. Here were people learning a newold trade. Not all of them were from Maine. For “Do you remember, Mrs. Roosevelt, when I drove you in a cab from the Algonquin

‘hotel in New York City?”

Finally, the word came that the moment had ar-

rived and I smashed my bottle successfully, but not|’ bathed in its con-{hea

very gracefully, for I was:

BY Fruie Pyle |

IN ORGANIZATIONS

"not sweet, but ‘solid.

| that is.

be assumed that the neighbors are tolerant or sympathetic, or keep their win-

dows closed. : Mrs. John C. Smith’s rooming house at 2101 N. New Jersey st. is occupied by three members of the orchestra’s bass section, Gale - Bray, Mary Coleman and Jimmy Vrhel, who also plays trumpet. Mrs. Smith, whom the roomers affectionately call “Mom,” is a gem among landladies. After years of renting rooms to orchestra people, who tend to form trios and quartets wherever they congregate, she still feels a motherly affection for them.

Size Doesn't Count

THE BASS is the largest instrument in the orchestra and Miss Bray is the smallest member of the orchestra, which might make things difficult for Miss Bray, but it doesn’t. “It isn’t size that counts. in playing bass anyway,” she.said. “It’s a sense of humor.” Miss Bray came to the orchestra this year, lugging her bass viol all the way down from Chicago where she played with the Chicago Civic orchestra. She's from Highland Park, Ill. « She started out playing the piano, but when the Highland Park high school orchestra needed a bass player, it ‘was Miss. Bray who volunteered to .subdue the giant. She did. Miss Coleman is new this year, too. It used to be considered undignified for a woman to play bass, but not any more and women are filling up the bass, sections of symphony orchestras. Mr. Vrhel also comes from Chicago and the Civic orchestra there. His bull fiddle is considered a precious item and Miss Bray and Miss Coleman have a vast respect for it. It is a flatbacked Italian instrument with a somber look about if and a most melodious rumble. In view of the fact that Mr. Sevitzky, himself, is a bass player, the bass section comes in for close supervision. Now and then, during rehearsal, he fixes a stern gaze on the doghouse section which sends a ripple of uncer-. tainty through the personnel. For some reason, bassists tend

PAY-AS-60 ROLE

Congressmen’s Eyes Are on Ballot Box. as Plans Are Studied.

By THOMAS L. STOKES Times Special Writer

WASHINGTON, Feb. 10.—Political calculations are entering more and more visibly into consideration of the Ruml “pay-as-you-go” tax plan by the house ways and means committee.

ing heavily on the argument that it would unduly benefit large’ taxpayers. This is on the theory that large

money for the tax on 1942 incomes,

tax-free the big fellows will be getting a bonus. The cue for this argument was given by Randolph Paul, general counsel of the treasury, and it is being capitalized by opponents of the plan, particularly labor groups. Millions Might Escape Consequently, from the trend of inquiries by committee members, the emphasis of the majority now seems directed toward a plan which would catch these big taxpayers on at least a sizabfe part of their 1942(y taxes, and at the same’ time get sbmething from the small taxpaySo the small taxpayer, too, would be caught in this solution, though most of the plans thus far sub-|

mitted would not cost him very heavily. In fact at least: one of

Robert Doughton (D. N..C) would|' entirely relieve many millions of taxpayers from obligation on: ost]

rates applicable to 1942. These|

+ a perfect pitch instrument.

POLITICS PLAYS |

Opponents of the plan are lean-|§

taxpayers already have laid aside}

and that if:1942 incomes are made}

1942 incomes, by making the 1941]

SYMPHONY ORCHESTRATII' By RICHARD LEWIS

“devoted to the pling of!

classical musie, the string bass is played with a bow. There is a generation of American youth which seems to be

- growing up with the impression that a bass is something

. you slap. Actually, this overgrown fiddle makes Jusie, a

Ask the neighbors in the 2100 Block of N. New Jersey. st. Three bass viols live on the corner. On a clear day, when the bassists. are practicing, it ‘might sound a little as if someone is having coal delivered, to. the uninitiated,

However, there is no Soeoid of complaints $0 it mist’

to keep time with their heads; probably because “they use both feet to stand on. They never wrestle a bass, it’s too big. They co-gperate with it. y |

Rite of Rehearsals

THERE IS A TENDENCY to consider the symphony orchestra as something that blooms around concert night to fade away until the next concert night: But the real existence of an orchestra is in its rehearsals which, to the layman, are curious affairs. Despite the shirt-sleeve appearance, rehearsals are as ritualistic as a Hopl snake dance, except that the ritual isn’t intended to. make rain. Fabien = Sevitzky maintains the centuries-old traditions -meticulously. ‘The rehearsals are two and one-half hours long. They wind up suddenly enough, but they open in a manner that would make a musician out of the 18th century feel somewhat at home. The folks just don’t rush dn and start to practice, with stragglers wandering in late. As a matter of fact, nobody is late. It doesn’t pay. Tardy players can be fined a quarter on up. . All -players are required to be in their seats, all worldly affairs settled for the time being, five minutes before the starting bell.

They get there about 15 min-

utes before time. The music is passed ampund under the supervision of Arthur Deming, flutist, who is personnel manager and who has more worries by actual count than anyone connected with the organization. Then follows a general warming up, a spatter of conversation and the weird harmonics of instruments being adjusted. It sounds ‘like a 200 before feeding time. Three minutes before the starting bell, the oboist sounds his A. There is a theory about this. The oboe is supposed to be But the fact that an oboe is used to _establish the A, the vibrational foundation for all the music to come, is largely psychological. That A from the oboe nags at you until you conform. You can

* "hear it long afterward, like the

argument you didn’t win.

. The annual Y. M. C. A. membership drive opens at 6 p. m. Friday

2

53

Gale Bray, isny Vhrel and Mary Coleman, bassists . . . an evening’s musicale at thelr rooming ho

sounds as though someone is delivering coal . , . unless you have an ear for music. = * |

TWO ‘MINUTES to go. The concert master, ‘Fritz Siegel, walks in, tunes up his fiddle and procedes to draw his bow across the A string. This is a final check. The A has been established, firmly and officially: Everyone makes the final, delicate adjustment in the next two minutes and when all is ready, a ‘bell rings upstairs in the dress‘ing room of the maestro. . It isthe signal that all is clear for rehearsal, all present and accounted for. If the maestro dared to make his appearance before that bell, they’d probably throw him out. Presently, Mr. Sevitzky makes his entrance from the wings and walks in saying, “Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.”

y to Open Member Drive

with a dinner at the Central “Y.”° Mrs, Marie McGrath, “Y”. employes, holds up one of the signs to be used in the campaign.

Name Division

Team Captains for Campaign

Clayton O. Mogg, chairman of

the membership committee of the

Y. M. C. A, today named division

leaders and team captains who will participate in the organization’s|. membership drive. opens Friday night with a dinner at the Central “Y.”

The campaign

About 200° men will be active in|

recruiting members in the drive with the goal set at 1400 members.

mi that sponsored by Chairman hs SompelEn WH, end Feb. 23 with

a “victory dinner.” : Mr. Mogg will be in charge of

Leaders and

Hopper and C. 0. ‘Thornberry, captains, BOYS Robert. Sellers, division leader; Jesse, Pritchett. and Wayne Burdge, captains, si BRANCH George division leader; John Blankenship, ‘Joe ;O’Nan, .C. E. Leichty and L. BE. Halll captains, :

iSO Mercer,

' NORTH * 'BRANCH-—Roy = Sahm,

division Jeader; Guy L. Boyd, Jack Dorfman, Eugene: Brown, Ted: Jenkins, | Urban - Simonton, William I Cousen Chis Sosy Burr,

“Good morning,” the orchestra mumbles and the concert master bows. All this and not a soul in the Murat but the working musi-

cians and ‘a couple of janitors

mopping the floor.

Mounting the podium, Mr. Sevitzky scratches his ear. This is not dictated by rite or custom. He just wanted to scratch his ear, so he did. Then he makes any announce- - ments of general interest or conyeys messages which he paraphrases: in his owt, inimitable style: —— If thers is news of the death of an ‘orchestra member in the serv-

ice, the entire orchestra observes

a period of silence.

If someone in the orchestra has Just got married or had a child,

COUNTY SURVEY

T0 LIST MALES)

But No One Seems to Know What Use Is Made of $8000 Project.

‘Marion county will have to. spend between $6000 and $8000 this year to carry out provisions of an anti-

quated 1865 law that many term as

“silly.” The law provides that township assessors every six years shall enumerate all male residents of the county over 21 years of age and turn in their lists to the county auditor, who in furn must certify them to the, state ‘auditor. - Just. what the state auditor does with them nobody seems to know— except that the lists of male citizens are filed ‘and reported to the legislature as prescribed by the law.

Dates to Civil War Apparently . the law was passed

right after the civil war in order to

compute the basis for changing the boundaries of ‘congressional districts according to the number of voters. But adoption of the constitutional amendment giving women the right to vote in 1920 nullifies the pur-

pose of the enumeration specified | for males only, according to.Vie-|

tor Jose Jr. county attorney. ; Assessors Meet “I see :no purpose being served

by the enumeration of male yoters

now,” he said. - : Ed Brennan, former chief’ examiner of the state board of accounts, said several ‘attempts had been made: to get the law repealed,

Nevertheless, the - township as-| sessors assembled in ‘the county|} auditor’s ‘office yesterday and re-| their ‘equipment and in-|} struction to start the work that}

the entire orchestra, under MR Sevitzky’s direction, - plays. a grea C major chord. | sound of joy. | : If someone ha pens to have 8 birthday, the orchestra plays

For instance, a rehbuisal opens today, the chord ‘will boom forth to salute the great Polish pianist,

“*Artur* Rubinstein, who comes rehearse with e orchestra for

his concert at

urat tomorrow night. | :

Next: Orchest what they think of Sevitzky.

American Trucks

By Science Service WASHINGTON, Feb. 10—The German high command in North Africa” has bestowed the hi possible _complime nt on- Ameri= can-made trucks, it is disclosed in the new issue jot the Military, Engineer. vA A bulletin found on a captured Nazi officer in Libya gave orders that captured British trucks were

“to be used for all reconnaisance

work. in : the desert, instead German or Iialian trucks, because “the German trucks stick in the sand too often.” The writer, Lieut,

Col. Alfred Campbell, adds: “Most

of the ‘British’ trucks operating in Libya are of American origin.” German and Italian truck m ufacturers, Col. Campbell s tend to build big units with pe erful: engines, trusting ‘to she horsepower. to bull their through. This, of ‘course,’ them ' into = difficulties whenever the ‘going gets soft; they are more adapted to work in san

“terrain than elephants are.

Light and’ medium Ameri

“built trucks, on the other han

take to sandy country like Arabs’’ own camels. They d fry to buck their way thr

the sand—they go. over it.

FUGITIVE. SOLDIER. SLA CAMP POLK, La., Feb. 10°

—The Camp Polk relath office Seon ed | a

terday. ‘while trying to escape.

ao

HOLD EVERYTHING but nothing ever was done about it. hs :

I —

must be completed by Sept. 1, “un-| nN

| der penalty of ve law” Si