Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 19 March 1943 — Page 20

Hoosier Vagabond

ON THE NORTH AFRICAN DESERT—Most of the American fighting so far in North Africa has been

‘#'in the mountains, and Americans have seen little of E the real desert. But they will sooner or later, so I

: Jumped at the chance to go along on a sortie far info

the Sahara, just to .see what it would be like. . There were 15 of us in two big 10-wheeled trucks. We took our bedding rolls and enough rations for five days. The purpose of the trip was to salvage the parts from

some airplanes that had made.

i ‘crash landings in the desert. Our trip was to take us within. 20 miles of German outposts. We weren’t much afraid of being captured, but we were afraid of being strafed by German planes,

Americans Like the French

EA

¥

: gee the delight on their faces.

WE STARTED ONE morning and made a French : desert garrison at lunch time. We got out tins of © corned beef, sweet potatoes, peas, orange’ marmalade

% and hard tack. The French soldiers built a fire out

. of twigs between two rocks for us to heat water for

: tea. They cleared off a table in one of their barrack- -£ rooms for us-to eat on, and did every little thing for Z us they could,

For months I've been carrying around some cigars

: 1 got on the boat coming from England, waiting for a

. propitious moment to give them away. So when we ~ left I gave some to the French soldiers, and you could They all lit up right : away, and puffed and held the cigars off and looked

“= at them approvingly, as though they were diamonds.

: After we left, our soldiers kept talking about how ¥ pice the French were to us, and how they didn’t have = much but whatever they had they'd give the best to . us. The Americans like the French, and everywhere : you.go. on the desert the French are grand to - Americans. This French garrison gave us one of its Arab enHe was a picturesque figure,

: Msted men as a guide.

._ the fact that they kept insisting that everything in

SEEN AROUND TOWN: Three sailors “yoohooing” . at a haughty young blond on N. Illinois. . . . Red Cross flags flying from most of the downtown buildings. . . . The display of different types of hats in Strauss’ window. . . . The frequent convoys of army : trucks and jeeps through town, with police escort. . . . The “help wanted” signs which seem to be permanent fixtures in the windows of most restaurants. . . . The folks scurrying in all directions for busses on Monument circle, and the elderly woman, arms loaded with bundles, chasing a N. Meridian bus and shouting: “Oh, bus; oh, bus!” . . . The meat packer’s truck parked, unattended in front of the Apollo restaurant at 7:55 a. m. yesterday with one lone citizen star- . ing bug-eyed through the opened doors at half a

+ dozen quarters of beef in the truck. . .. City Coun-

cilman Otto Worley : strolling down Washington in front of Marott’s, wishing spring would hurry and get here, . . . Henry Behrens, also ankling down * Washington and wishing the war would end pretty n,

Watch That Salute

HOW’S YOUR flag etiquette? Mrs. B. N. Teepell, Americanism ‘chairman of the Broad Ripple Legion auxiliary, has noticed a lot of confusion lately at public meetings—some even saluting the flag with the old Nazi-like salute—arm extended. So she sent us

x & copy of the flag code as recently amended by con-

' gress. It provides “that during the ceremony of hoisting or lowering the flag, or when the flag is passing in a parade or in review, all persons present should face the flag, stand at attention, and salute. Those present in uniform should render the military salute. Wher NOT IN UNIFORM, men should remove the headdress with the right hand, holding it at the

. left shoulder, the hand being over the heart,” Men

without hats should salute in the same manner. Aliens should stand at attention. Women should salute by placing the right hand over the heart. Oh, yes, and

Washington

WASHINGTON, March 19.—When I find that Justice Owen Roberts of the supreme court thinks ‘it necessary that the United States take the lead in securing order in the world, that carries a good deal of weight with me, Justice Roberts can have no ax to grind. He is safe for life on the supreme court. What Justice Roberts says carries weight with me because I know he could be no crackpot, having been a conservative Republican, a corporation lawyer in Philadelphia, and because since Herbert Hoover appointed him to the supreme court, his life work has been the study and protection of the American constitution. I know—as everybody in Washington knows—that Justice Roberts 18 one man who is not inclined to gamble or play carelessly with American institutions.

the Most Critical Hour Since 1940

WE DON'T KNOW what the senate will permit this country to do toward joining with other nations. _ The senate is trying to make up its mind. That makes this the most critical hour since we waited in 1940 to . know if Britain would stand, or whether we would

&

"have to face the whole Nazi world alone,

.Sc-I offer Justice Roberts as a witness. Will the senators give some weight to his views before they take the irreparable step. of refusing to permit America to join other nations? =. In Philadelphia the other night, a united nations

meeting was held. Justice Roberts presided. What

he had to say was not reported. Justice Roberts began by saying that the most important thing before the American people today was the form of the post-war settlement, and that the

ay Day

WASHINGTON, Thursday.—I wonder whether you - agree with the statement I made yesterday, that we Trinh overcome difficulties unless we recognize them. In talking to some Russians once, I was struck by

their country was perfect. It seemed to me, at the time, as rather childish and adolescent, but forgivable in a young country trying a new experiment. In us, a mature democracy, it would seem to me unforgivable to deny the existence of unpleasant facts. A certain gentleman in congress seems to have forgotten that groups of sharecroppers attracted the attention of the whole country not so very long ago, because their living conditions were as bad as . This genlieman thinks it odd that a

By Ernie Pyle

rather handsome in his white turban, blue sash and khaki smock. He carriéd a long knife and a longbarreled rifle. He spoke no English whatever, and no French that we could understand. He said “wah” to everything we asked him. He knew the way all right, but the communication system between him and us needed some improvement. All we ever got out’of him was “wah.” We finally nicknamed him “Wah,” and before the trip was over we were all saying “wah” when we meant

: ‘yes. »

An Oasis Really a Village

WHAT WE SAW of the Sahara wasn't exactly like what we see in the movies, but that’s maybe because we didn’t go far enough into it. The Sahara, you know, is moré than 1000 miles wide, and we were into it no more than 200 miles. We saw nothing more drastic than what you'll find in the more remote parts of our Southwest, Certainly it was beautiful. At one point it was so utterly flat and bare that you could have landed anywhere and said, “This is an airport.” At other places it had dry river beds, very wide,| their bottoms strewn with rocks. This surprised us, for what is a river doing on a desert? Again the country would be rolling, and covered with a scrublike vegetation. Parts of it were so exactly like the valley around Palm Springs that it made you homesick. At long intervals we would come to what is known locally as an oasis. I used to think an oasis was three palm trees with a ragged guy crawling toward them, his parched tongue hanging out. But in this part of the desert an oasis is a village or a city. It doesn’t have three palm trees; it has tens of thousands of them, forests of them, which make their owners rich from the bounteous crop of dates. It has big adobe buildings like the Indian pueblos, ahd narrow streets and irrigation ditches, and hundreds of children running around. It is a big community, and getting to an oasis is like getting to Reno after Death Valley.

(More Tomorrow)

section 2 of public law No. 623, approved by congress June 22, 1942, states: “It is the universal custom to display the flag only from sunrise to sunset on buildings and on stationary flagstaffs in the open. However, the flag may be displayed at night upon special occasions when it is desired to produce a patriotic effect.” And “the flag should not be displayed on days when the weather is inclement.”

Just Rambling

DIZZY DOINGS: The guys who yank the streetcar stop button and ring for dear life for fear the Illinois streetcar operator won't stop at Washington st. . . + And also the guy who stands on a “bus stop” corner and looks expectantly at a bus until it stops; then looks away embarrassedly and wonders why it stopped. . . . Rumor has it that the new state merit board is not going to consider any applicant for the directorship who is from out of the state. . . . Add signs of spring: The mournful notes of a pair of ‘turtle doves . . . spring flowers popping up through the soil . . , and proud mothers perambulating their babies down the street on nice afternoons for all the neighbors to admire and chuck under the chin. . « . By the way, isn’t it fun to get reacquainted the first nice days with all the neighbors you haven't seen or talked to since they put away their lawnmowers last fall?

Leaving for Canada

DR. A. C. CORCORAN, assistant director of the Lilly clinic at City hospital, leaves Sunday for New York, and then for Montreal, Canada, which is near his home town—Waterloo. He’s going to make a speech in Montreal. , . . You'd think state police cars would set an example in the campaign to get motorists to place the new 1943 auto license tabs so they do not obstruct the 1942 plates. But one of our agents reports seeing a state police car parked on Delaware— about 13th—with the new tab right across the middle of the old number. The number was state-owned car 203. . . . The Butler forum has been suspended because of transportation difficulties, etc., but Dr. M. O. Ross, Butler president, wants to reopen the forum and make it a permanent feature of the school after the war.

By Raymond Clapper

leaders of the country necessarily must have the backing of a fairly unanimous public opinion or they would not feel a mandate to organize the peace. Justice Roberts asked a number of questions of the audience, which he said the American people must answer for themselves, such as: Could any order, peace, security, economic well- : being or liberty exist without law, and if not, how should the law be formulated? Could any such law be formulated except by the representatives of the various peoples represented in the new supra-national government?

Matter Rests With the Senate

JUSTICE ROBERTS said there were two essentials to the organization of a world order. First, that the American people must lay aside all partisanship. Second, that in seeking unity on a plan there must be some give and take. Each person must decide for himself what was fundamental, and be willing to yield on details that really were non-essential. Straws show the wind blowing toward action. John D. Rockefeller Jr. and John Foster Dulles are this week initiating a movement by the Federal Council of Churches in behalf of the same general ends to which Justice Roberts points. The Woman's Home Companion reports a panel poll showing 92 per cent of American women in favor of a permanent world congress, and of those, 95 per cent would give the world congress power to enforce its decisions. Actually, however, the answer rests with the senate. Can senators refuse. to pass the Ball-Burton-Hatch-Hill resolution, or some similar statement favoring American collaboration? Is the senate going to turn America’s back to the world again? : I don’t believe the senators will do it knowingly. They won't if the people of this country make it clear that this time they, like Justice Roberts, want a joint effort made to avoid a third world war, -

By Eleanor Roosevelt

only three people on this committee, would also like to have it recorded that there are a few others members of this committee—among them Bishop Edward L. Parsons, Governor Saltonstall of Massachusetts, Raymond Gram Swing and William Allen White. Perhaps this: gentleman in congress would like to hear the stories that some of these sharecroppers tell, not just the poor Negroes, but some of his own white people. I hardly think he would approve of these conditions. x Since they exist, I think we had better set ourselves to correcting them. That is the mature way to approach all undesirable situations. Of course, if he approves of them, then I can well understand that he does not wish to have them mentioned. Hitler's propagandists can make far greater use of things that are wrong and which we do not try to correct, than they can when we try to improve

conditions. This member of congress is evidently not}

reading some of the things which the German propagandists have said about situations which have ocSop! In wis couniiy, 8% Joask.Jie Seales wo meBtion

V—Tokyo

Terrorists

By MICHAEL SAYERS and ALBERT E. KAHN THE CITY OF LOS ANGELES, together with its war

industries, is dependent on a

means of, an aqueduct system.

water supply reaching it by Sabotage of this system

would effectively cripple the chief city of the West coast.

On June 29, 1934, H. A.

Norman, the chief engineer

and general manager of the Los Angeles bureau of water works and supply received a polite request from the Japanese consulate for information’ about the Los Angeles

water supply system.

The chancellor at the Japanese con-

sulate, K. Kagayama, wrote: — “If you have any books or pamphlets covering the water system of this city, we shall appreciate it very much if you will kindly forward us copies of same. We would like to have information that will explain every point of the system, including reservoirs, quantity of water supply, number of consumers, filtering, purifying, pipe

pressure, kinds of pipes used, office organization,

number of employees, etc.” As soon as he received this letter, Mr. Norman consulted the U. S. department of justice and military authorities. Kagayama got no information from Mr. Norman. . . . u % 8

Not to Be Put Off

BUT THE Japanese were not to be so easily put off. There was already one Japanese-American on the payroll of the Los Angeles department of water and power. Soon after Kagayama’s request for information had been turned down, 12 more Japanese-Ameri-cans were placed on the department’s payroll, ~ According to subsequent congressional investigation, Kiyoshi P. Okura, a Japanese-American who for some time was chief examiner of -the Los Angeles civil service commission, helped place them there. . . . One night in Los Angeles, a few years ago, there was a street fight. When the police arrived, they found a wounded Japanese lying in the gutter. - He had been stabbed in the stomach. The police arrested another Japanese on suspicion that he was the assailant. It turned out that both men were members of the Black Dragon, a secret Japanese terrorist society which, in addition to its functions in Asia, carried on espionage-sabotage work in the United States. In the locked bedroom ;of Bui= chiri Abo, the man charged with the street stabbing, the Los Angeles police found a short-wave radio set, expertly-drawn maps of Hawaii’s fortifications—and. the complete plans of the Los Angeles water supply system.

Black Dragon’s Claws

THE GERMAN and Japanese intelligence services began an intimate collaboration shortly after Hitler came to power. In 1934, Col. Walther Nicolai sent his Section IIIB aide, Maj. Eugene Ott, to Tokyo. Maj. Gen. Ott helped the Japanese to reorganize their

SCOUTS LAUDED BY GOVERNOR

Training Factor in Holding Down Crime, He Says At Ft. Wayne.

FT. WAYNE, Ind., March i9- (U. P.) —Governor Schricker last night paid tribute to the Boy Scout movement as a factor in holding juvenile delinquencies to a minimum, Governor Schricker, speaking at the annual appreciation dinner of the Anthony Wayne Boy Scout council ‘which was attended by 250 from Indiana’s nine northern counties, said a survey completed at the 20 state institutions which deal with

“human wreckage” had shown some :

startling figures, Of the 175,000 boys under 16 years of age arrested for juvenile delinquency in Indiana last year, ' the governor said, not one. boy was found who was a Scouf ‘or had been interested in the scoufing movement at any time, »

Cites Low Cost

“Scouting costs about $5 a year per boy,” Governor Schricker said, “but it costs up to $600 a year to keep a boy in a state institution.” The cost of education always is ess than the cost of destruction or cerrection, he said. “As an example,” the governor pointed out, “the battleship Indiana, a machine of destruction, cost $60,000,000 . while the combined costs of Indiana and Jurdue universities was less than 30, 000,000.”

Boosts Rural Scouting

Wheeler McMillan, director of rural scouting, in an address on the same program, said he suggested that scouting should help farmers out of their manpower program. “1 commend. he said, “that during® the summer, Scouts should be taken‘ out of cities and placed on farms to help with farm labor.” He also suggested that the pro-

gram to interest rural youths a}

scouting be because

espionage and sabotage activities in Asia and the Americas. Ott, who later became the German ambassador to Tokyo, took a special interest in the work of the powerful Society of the Black Dragon, which by 1936 was virtually in control of the Japanese government and high command. = An emissary of the Black Dragon Society came to Los Angeles in 1937. Working out of the Japanese consulate, this man, whose name was Tadaaiki Iizuka, organized the Japanese military servicemen’s league and the Imperial Comradeship league. Both of these organizations were controlled by the Black Dragon, and served as scHools of espionage and sabotage. They operated chiefly among the Japanese-American communities on the West coast and in Hawaii. In the years before Pearl Harbor, potential Japanese saboteurs moved in by droves to take up residence and carry on business in’ the immediate vicinity of important United States military establishments, oil storage tanks, oil wells, harbors and forts in California. On the strategic Terminal island at the entrance to Los Angeles harbor, 3000 Japanese were living. After Dec. 7, when FBI agents made a series of raids on these Japanese communities, they uncovered caches of guns, ammuni=tion, explosives, maps, charts, highpower cameras, signaling devices, short-wave radios. Following the Nazi pattern, the Japanese consulates in American cities had been converted at .an early date into centers of espion-age-sabotage activity. The consulates on the West coast were in constant communication with the innumerable Japanese “fishing” fleets which infested the United States Pacific waters.

These “fishing” fleets, equipped with powerful engines, short-wave radios and intricate sounding devices, were officered by agents of the Japanese naval intelligence, and were used for gathering data helpful for sabotage and for possible future military invasion of United States territory. £7 A constant stream of informamation was fed into the offices of the Japanese army and naval in-

Boy Reader Knows Planes—

Symbol ic, of the close surveillance of ‘the Us S. West coast by Japanese ‘agents during. the years before

outbreak of war is this Nipponese naval officer scanning the shore line.

Actually, Japanese “fishing

fleets” kept in constant communication with espionage-sabatage agents in western cities by short-wave

radio.

telligence by Japanese export and import companies in the United States. These companies accumulated information on the ‘location of essential supplies of war materials and prepared detailed * reports helpful to saboteurs, 3 2 a = Obtain Navy Secrets THE JAPANESE ' intelligence had long recognized the necessity of hiring non-Japanese agents for underground work in the United States. This was made clear enough to Americans by newspaper headlines in 1936. On July 2, 1936, Harry T. Thompson, a former yeoman of the United States navy, was tried and found guilty of having sold United States naval secrets to a Japanese agent. Thompson was sentenced 0 15 years imprisonment, On July 14, 1936, Lieut. Comm. John Som¢r Farnsworth was arrested on charges of selling confidential United States navy documents to the Japanese einbassy in Washington. Farngworth was sentenced to from four to 12 years in the penitentiary. There were a number of similar cases. There was the case of the Japanese-American, Torichi Kono, who for 18 years had been secretary and valet to Charles Chaplin. Kono worked with Comniander Itaru Tatibana, an agent of the Japanese naval intelligence who was posing as a student at the University of California. During the early part of 1941, Kono and Tatibana enlisted the services of a former yeoman of the United States navy. They financed this ex-yeoman on two trips to Pearl Harbor, where he secured for them certain informa-

Trips Up Times, NEA, OWI

When the accompanying picture appeared in The Times of Feb. 12, the type beneath it read: “Flight of navy Grumman tforpedo bombers begins peeling off for a dive attack on a target somewhere beneath the clouds.” Possibly that was correct enough for some readers but not for Frank E. Little Jr. of R. R. 14, Box 144. Frank. took juvenile stationery in hand and wrote: “Dear Editor— “The planes on Page 28, Section 2 of The Times, Friday, Feb. 12. “The pictures of which were said to be Grumman torpedo

bombers. But are not Grumman

torpedo bombers, but are navy Douglas ‘Dauntless’ SBD dive bombers. Yours truly, | “FRANK E. LITTLE, JR., “R. R. 14, ‘Box 144, Indianapolis.”

Frankie called the turn on everyone, formation, We asked the Newspaper Enterprise association, the picture and feature services, which distributed the: pitture.

The NEA asked the OWL Yep, OWI itself was in error, admitted y

it, and NEA wrote Frank: “Congratulations on your expert plane spott You were correct in ident ving the planes as Douglas Dauntless dive bom=bers in the picture that appeared in The Indianapolis Times Feb. 12. “The office of war information which originally issued ‘the picture with the incorrect identification as Grumman bombers has

informed us that they are actu-

tention.” Young Americans know planes!

POST BURNS MORTGAGE

The mortgage on the MaddenNottingham post, American Legion, home at 11300 W. 30th st., was

burned at a dinner and celebration entertain its new members at

held recently. Julian (Dick) bog

including the office of war in=-

Those planes up’ there, peeling off for a dive attack on the :nemy

‘are of the Douglas Dauntless type: for calling the error to our at- re

formation previously said. And all parties concerned stand corrected by a little American who. knows his sky warfare.

0. E s. TO FETE MEMBERS Indianapolis chapter, 0. E. S, will

3pm

. Lieut. Commander Itaru Tatibana of the imperial Japanese navy . . . posed as a student of the University of California while working as an agent of the Japangse: naval intelligence.

tion concerning the U. 8S. S. Penn~ sylvania and other important war vessels. The plot was exposed on June 10, 1941, when federal agents : arrested the spies. In spite of such setbacks, Tokyo secured enough information from its spies in the United States to prepare, just before Pearl Harbor, 4 200-page handbook filled with photographs and technical details about the United States navy. Among ‘other things, the handbook contained a large map showing the location of all major United States airfields and bases, including those recently acquired

(MAPS PLAN FOR

DURABLE PEACE

| Church - Council's 6 - Point

Program Follows 2-Year Study.

NEW YORK, March 19 (U. P.).— A program for a “just and durable peace,” formulated by a commission

| instituted by. the Federal Council

‘of ‘Churches of Christ in America, was presented yesterday at a lunch-

Jeon attended by a representative

group of citizens. The commission, under the chairmanship of John Foster Dulles, was appointed two years ago to study

| the problem, Its basic formula was

presented - at the luncheon in the following “statement of political propositions. 2: 1. The peace must provide the political framework for a continuing collaboration ‘of ;the United Nations

and, in due course, of neutral and]

enemy nations. 2. The peace must make provision for bringing within the scope of interndtional agreement those economic and financial acts 'of hational. governments which have

| widespread international repercus-

sions. on ‘The peace must make provision organization ‘to adapt the Be structure of the world to changing underlying conditions. 4. The peace must proclaim the goal of autonomy for subject peoples and it must establish international organization to assure and to supervise the realization of that end.

Need Military Control

8. The peace must establish pro-|

cedures for controlling military

‘trom ‘Great Britain. This handbook was distributed to Japanese agents in the ‘United States. Congressional investigations later ‘described it as: “the answer to. a saboteur’s dream.”

” =

- Evacuation Is Blow * THE ‘JAPANESE SPIES and saboteurs, firmly entrenched in Japanese-American communities on the West coast, received a major setback on Feb. 20,°1942. On that date President Roosevelt issued an executive order authorizing the- army to: evacuate any_one, alien or citizen, from military areas. A mass evacuation of Jap= ‘anese and Japanese-Americans was undertaken throughout the entire West coast area. After the mass evacuation, Tokyo was forced to rely almost entirely on her non-Japanese

~ agents to ‘carry out espionage-

sabotage assignments in: the United States. While Tokyo could count, on the use of the vast Nazi underground machine, nevertheless certain specific tasks could be accomplished only by trusted Jap-anese-employed and Japanesetrained agegits. :. The largest group of these was composed of certain White Russian Fascists. The American leader. of the Japanese-controlled White Russian Fascists was Anastase Andreivitch Vonsiatsky of Thompson, Conn. Certain details of this man’s. spectacular career as master spy and saboteur in three continents are worth recording at some length. J NE X T— “Millionaire Fascist Spy.” [=

(Copyright, 1942, by Harper & Broth ers; diotributed by "United Feature Syndi~ cate, Inc.)

Battles 'Ghost' Of Rex Tugwell

WASHINGTON, March 19 (U. P.).—A new. congressional - subcommittee today turned to the task of chasing ‘the ghost of Rexford Tugwell’ out of the farm security administration. : Chairman Harold Cooley (D. N. C.), stressed ‘that his committee— authorized yesterday by the house—would ‘seek to preserve the good works’ of FSA. But the other works, would be given the works, he indicated. Specifically, he said, the committee hoped to put an end to FSA “communistic” farm settlement projects. : FSA discouraged private ownership of land in it’s farm cooperative projects, Cooley said, “in direct violation of the expressed will of congress and of American principles.” “The ghost of Reford Guy Tugwell is still running FSA,” he said. “The agency. is continuing the objectionable policies of his nefarious resettlement adntinistra'REBEKAHS TO DRILL ' Fidelity Rebekah lodge 227 will have a business meeting and drill practice at 7:30 p. m. Monday. in its hall

HOLD EVERYTHING