Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 12 April 1943 — Page 9

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MONDAY, APRIL 2, 1943

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Hoosier Vagabond

IN TUNISIA. —Down in Central Tunisia, in the Village of Feriana, there is a little country hotel where four or five of us correspondents used to drop in how and then for a day or two to sleep under a Yoof and eat some of Papa's meals. ‘ ent The .hotel is run by a French - family. Papa is. big and mustached and always wears a cap and a dirty apron, and always has. a burned-up cigaret in his mouth. He takes an instant like or dislike’ vc newcomers, and the ones he doesn’t like get short shrift. Mamma is plain and gray and sweet, and although she can't speak a word of English, paradoxically she can understand it. : .She never does a bit of the cooking; that is Papa’s job and privilege. She sits at the kitchen table and sews and knits: There are three boys in the vicinity of 15, all handsome and superior boys. Roget is our favorite, because. he studied English in his school and we can converse with him. The three boys serve the meals. They also act as chambermaids. Once when I was trying to write in the hotel, Roget came in to clean up. Immediately he called his two brothers, and they all stood in a circle for half an hour looking over my shoulder admiringly—not at the magic of. my wonderful words, but at how fast my fingers worked the keyboard.

Mamma’s Favorite Gets Jam

THE HOTEL HAD one very dirty toilet, and in the rooms were merely washbowls and kerosene lamps. French soldiers slept on straw in the little lobby. =" Jack Thompson of The Chicago Tribune found this place way back in November. Jack kept two rooms there all winter, and they

|" ¥_ THERES A CERTAIN tall, slender young man

(identity unknown to us) who entertains downtownbound motorists on N. Delaware st. regularly each morning. The guy rides one of those racing type bicycles with all the reckless abandon of “the daring 4 young man on the flying trapeze.” And he manages to keep up with autos all the way downtown, too, sometimes gets way ahead. of them. But the way he does it gives motorists gray hairs and cold chills. Swinging onto Delaware from Fall Creek pkwy., he zigzags through oncoming traffic until he gets onto his own side of: the street, then he sits back, clasps his ‘hands behind him and swings in and out of traffic at a rapid “clip, meanwhile casting an appraising eye over spectators to see ‘how his act is going over. When he comes to a red traffic signal, he blithely zips on through, often causing drivers on the cross street to jam on their brakes. That's the way he keeps up with the autos—cheating at the traffic signals. = It’s fun watching him and making mind bets as to whether he’ll make it “this time.”

Around the Town

THE COURT HOUSE long has had the reputation being one of the dirtiest, most untidy public build-

yd hereabouts. And it hasn't impsoved any re-

cently. County workers say the janitorial practice seems to be just to “give the dirt a lick and a promise.” But a little birdie-tells us there’s going to be a day of reckoning. It's likely to happen at the next county council meeting. . Some folks are saying that. the skids are being greased for Dr. Frank Jennings, superintendent at Sunnyside, to “pay him back for

r starting the food probe at the sanatorium.” We're " betting nothing happens. In the first place, we hap-

pen to know how the Sunnyside probe got started, and Dr. Jennings had nothing to do with it. . . . Jack Greig, former publicity man for the U. S. employment service, who left here a year ago to join the

Washington

WASHINGTON, April 12—Saturday’s dispatch was all wrong. I wrote that the White House had fixed everything up so that the press would have the usual access to the united nations food conference to be held next month at Hot Springs, Va. But it hasn't been fixed up -right. at all. Some people in the government thought it had: been arranged. They discovered later they were wrong. At this writing, President Roosevelt is still insisting that reporters be excluded from the hotel where the united nations conference is to be held. He will allow them to be admitted only at staged public sessions, perhaps Sra once at the opening and once at e closing. At other times, the hotel will be kept closed as a government reservation, exclusively for the official delegates at the united nations conference. No reporter can go into the hotel to talk to a

delegate. They May Beg for a Crumb

MICHAEL J. McDERMOTT, the veteran current-

#

_jAnformation chief at the state departemnt, who has

“ably handled press arrangements for dozens of con-

‘ferences, will have charge of press contacts for the-

‘united nations food conference. " He has been instructed to set up his pressrelations office in the town at Hot Springs, and not in the conference hotel, so that he will be available at all times to reporters. x As reporters are not to be allowed inside the sacred eonference precincts, the conference press officer must park outside where the obnoxious gentlemen of the press may, in their newly assigned roles as ‘social lepers, beg for a crumb of official information. This is President Roosevelt's doing and it doesn’t do his judgment much credit. He is persisting in it in the face of the most vigorous objection from Elmer Davis, head of OWI, and I think from the state department people

themselves.

My Day

.. WASHINGTON, Sunday.—In spite of our long trip across the continent, I could not resist going to the theater Friday night in New York City. Mrs. Henry Morgenthau Jr. had been attending a bond meeting st the Brooklyn museum, which was apparently wo = highly successful. We both eni joyed seeing “Oklahoma,” with its

tuneful songs, charming settings,

dancing and excellent cast. I think it speaks well for the

‘play that I was not in the least

sleepy, in spite of the fact that I had been up 36 hours straight. As you doubtless know, berths in planes are out for the duration, so ong sleeps comfortably in a seat that’s tilted back according to one’s preference. : © Ifind it quite amusing to watch ng to make themselves comfortable emindec ‘of a dog who tries be rd

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By Ernie Pyle

were like a headquarters. Jack himself might not be

there one night a week, but if any other correspond-| ents’ blew in we'd just walk in and settle down as : though the rooms belonged to us.

Jack could do no wrong in Papa’s eyes. Papa was $0 prejudiced in Jack’s favor that he would never serve breakfast to. anybody else until Jack came down for his. : Papa just sort of tolerated me. He didn’t detest me as he did some of the others; it was just that I hardly existed in his eyes. But I was one of Mamma’s favorites. She always got out her private home-made confiture (in this case marvelous peach jam) for me when I ate alone with the family in the kitchen.

And Then the Germans Came

THE LITTLE HOTEL was a peaceful place for many weeks. ‘And then all of a sudden everything changed. The battle lines drew near. Within an hour one day the village was deluged with American troops. « Soldiers flowed in and out of the hotel like water. The Germans were coming nearer. A couple of us correspondents sped in from another front, packed a few things into our jeep, and Papa and Mamma and the boys stood waving at us as we dashed off again. The next thing we knew Feriana was gone. The end came suddenly, and Papa and Mamma and the boys had to get out in the middle of the night. Some of us saw them next day—nearly 30 miles away— trudging uphill behind a mule cart with a few of their things on it. ‘The German tide that washed over Feriana was brief, but the town ‘was shelled by both sides. Maybe Papa and Mamma and the boys will have things fixed up again by the time we get back there. No doubt the Germans cleaned out Papa’s meager wine cellar. I don’t care about that, but I hope they didn’t find Mamma's peach jam.

Inside Indianapolis By Lowell Nussbaum

South Bend Association of Commerce’s traffic safety section, reports South Bend has won first place in its population class in the national safety council’s traffic safety contest. Home town boy makes good, eh!

How to Garden

SEEN IN THE victory garden area near Marcy Village: A young married woman, wearing overalls and ‘with large pads on her knees. She was down on her knees working on the family garden while the husband lolled on the ground nearby, reading instructions to her from The Times’ garden book. That's our idea of the perfect method of gardening. . . . Noting city officials’ statement that the city loses money every time it makes a tin can salvage collection, Mrs. Harry F. Hergt, 5108 Guilford ave., offers a suggestion which would speed the collection and probably reduce its cost. The suggestion is that the tin cans all be placed on one side of the street, say the north side of east-west streets, and the west side of northsouth streets. To us, it sounds like a mighty good idea.

High Finance

. J. B. LANAGAN, of the Nik-O-Lok Co. decided recently to help solve the food situation, so he acquired 20 hens and one rooster and gave them to his 11-year-old son, Jack. Jack takes care of the feeding and collects the eggs. The weekly “take” is all the way from 63 to 110 eggs. He keeps books on costs and is building up a nice customer list. The other day, while going over his profits, Jack asked his father: “Dad, does that rooster lay any of these eggs?” Told that the rooster didn't, the young, business man in“Well, why don’t we get rid of him and get another hen?” . . . The war savings staff was busy last week with the ‘April war financing program, trying to raise 34 million dollars in the county. And while receiving reports of a million dollars pledged here and a million dollars there, Louis Carow Jr., publicity man, interrupted Howard Tooley, special events manager, to ask: “Say, Howard, how about lending me two bits for lunch?” Sounds like Amos 'm’ Andy, doesn’t it!

‘By Raymond Clapper

I should be amazed if as practical a man as| Sumner Welles would at heart be for any such

arrangement as this. OWI people are convinced the scheme will break down after a few days. From the first they said it was a terrible mistake. Of course, you know what will happen, just as Elmer Davis, Mike McDermott, Secretary Welles and everybody else knows. The British representatives will get their word to their Reuters man, who will be hanging around across the street from the hotel. . The Dutch will get their word to their man, who will also be hanging around. across the street—unless the police drive him away because he wears a beard and looks like a suspicious foreigner. The Americans probably will get all the help that Mike McDermott can give them, but he obviously is going to be under wraps and so is every American delegate at the conference. They, above all others, cannot be sneaking out of the conference hotel to give any information to American newspaper reporters waiting on the curbstone in the village,

F. D. R. Liked Casablanca Method

THIS IS NOT a military conference. There is no reason for secrecy at all—not a single reason ‘that any official can offer honestly, except that Mr. Roosevelt wants it, and he wants it because he found it so much more pleasant at Casablanca not to have newspaper reporters around. We newspaper workers are not, perhaps, the most likeable people in the world. We may not have the social graces that Groton and Harvard could have given us had we all been rich men’s sons. We don’t ask to ‘sit at the table socially with these public servants. We can buy our own food. ; . But we do try to learn and understand what is going on. All that can be said in our behalf is that we are hired to try as best we can to keep the American people informed about their government. At least we are still assuming it is our govern-ment-—the government that people are paying taxes to finance, buying bonds to support, and for which their sons are dying in tropical jungles and dirty Africs. :

By Eleanor Roosevelt

a way of getting his head down on the arm of the seat, but he finally gave it up as impossible, for the seat was too narrow. Yesterday we left New York City by train quite early and did what we thought was a good job of catching up on’ the mail, but I surmised plenty had been held up for us in Washington. I was right, In the afternoon, I went to a tea given by the Democratic women’s national council. There was a discussion, during which some of the government workers and I talked about conditions of government work in the District of Columbia. In the evening, the president gave his second congressional party, at which I was allowed to receive the guests, but was then dismissed, since only members of congress are allowed, neither their wives nor husbands being included. = This may sound like a sad tale and you may picture a lonely figure with nothing to do, sitting upstairs waiting for the paity to be over, but I assure you

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War Compels the Old Gentleman to Intrude On Mama's Department

Washington is calling the turn today for the American house-

wife.

Daily—almost hourly—decisions are reached and orders issued

which control what she can wear and how it will look, what foods she can buy, what utensils she can use in the kitchen, what kind of furniture she can purchase, whether she can ride to the store, how and when she can get deliveries of the things she purchases, and a host of other activities that intimately affect her and her family. ‘ To find out how all these things come to happen, Miss Maxine

Garrison has been spending days decisions.

with the officials who make the,

This is the first of a series telling how all this complex regulation :

of everyday life is brought about.

WASHINGTON, April 12.—I'll take a small wager that little more than a year ago, you—if you're that average American woman we hear so much about—paid but scant attention to news stories with ‘a Washington dateline. They were apt to be what is called “heavy” and you were apt not to be greatly interested. It doesn’t take a crystal-gazer to venture that today

things are different. You pounce on the news from the national capital, because you've learned that ‘it may very well change your menu for tonight's

dinner. ; Like myself, you've probably often grown confused trying to figure the connection between a new governmental ruling and the job of fighting a war. : When they told you at the dairy store that you'd have to take half ice or sherbet and half ice cream, instead of all ice cream, you racked your brains trying to decide just how that could help win the war. When your favorite clerk said that she couldn't show you any three-piece suits, but that you could have a matching suit and top coat at separate prices, you may have exclaimed with quiet bitterness, “What are they doing down in Washington? Making rules just for the fun of making them?” - And well do you remember your husband’s ire at finding that he could no longer have trousers with cuffs. ” ” ”

We Must Be Shown

“ARE THEY CRAZY?” he shouted. “The material's right

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Don’t

What, no cuffs? . , . worry too much, mister.

there on the trousers when you buy ’em. They have to be cut to the right Iength,.and the cuff comes out of what they cut off. Now that material will just be thrown away, and nobody can tell me that that’s going to save wool for uniforms. It isn’t even the same wool that uniforms are made of.” ;

Having said his say, he tramped

off in his cuffless trousers to earn the money out of which he would pay an enormously increased income tax without a complaint— well, with no more than a slight involuntary groan. The point is that the fuss you and I and our neighbors make from time to time does not mark ‘us as unpatriotic slackers. We're perfectly well aware that there's a war on, and we're equally aware that winning it must of necessity change our lives considerably and take away many of the niceties to which we've become accustomed. But we Americans are an independent, not to say a stubborn, people. We like to know why a change is necessary, and we don't like to get even the faintest suspicion that we're being pushed around. Well, my musing on these points brought me here to Washington, to the fountainhead of all the changes, the source of the rulings which by now have mounted into astronomical figures.. I wanted to find out the whys, and something of the build-up to the multitudinous decisions.

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Official Views Clash

TO THAT end, I've tramped miles (and that’s an understatement, not an exaggeration) of governmental corridors. I've visited officials in imposing new government buildings, modern as the next world’s fair, and I've found others in makeshift offices in what was once (my guess would be about 1860) a splendiferous hotel but is now a lost-looking, ramshackle old building with an open cage elevator that breaks down every five minutes. I've found some officials’ concerned mainly with the welfare of the citizens, all their efforts bent toward seeing that that welfare is not neglected, whatever the stringencies. I've found others with their minds intent first of all on war production, and openly impatient with what they consider the selfishness and short-sighted-ness of civilians. I've spent half an hour trying to reach an official on the nightmarish inter-office telephone system here (devised, I am convinced, to put Alexander Graham Bell in permanent disgrace.) Then, ‘in desperation, I've defied all the local conventions and gone down the two flights to his office in the same building (it’s supposed to take hours to reach

Uncle Sam moves right in fo

can drive her car.

an official on the phone, days to make an appointment, and weeks, even months, to see him). Once I got there, it was no more than two minutes before we were chatting away cozily.

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Reason for Confusion

THESE ARE just minute glimpses of the turbulent hodgepodge that is wartime Washington. The whole scene makes you wonder not that there is so much confusion, but that there is not more. Almost overnight, we became a nation at war. Citizens came to Washington by the thousands— industrialists, theorists, business-

More simple dresses! , . . Uncle Sam removes frills.

‘men, stenographers, growers, merchédndisers—to make that transformation stick. ? When war came we suddenly found ourselves in the same fix as. the family that has discovered it can’t meet the mortgage on the house. To keep from losing the old homestead, it has to economize —everybody from mother and father right down to the baby. Uncle Sam found himself with ‘such a mortgage. The mortgage was war, and the cost of not meeting it on time was losing our

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the kitchen. Washington has become the “Woman’s mews” town, for the duration at least, and Uncle Sam tells Mrs. Average Mann what canned goods’ to buy, what her stockings will be made of, the. amount of wool in her skirts, the amount of elastic in her girdle and how far she

home and all it stands for. We're a wealthy nation, but the price is stiff. To meet it, everybody from the retired millionaire to the fresh-faced high school girl has had to pare down. And it’s made a changed man of Uncle Sam. Time was when he was a typical family man. He ran his part of the house, and he let mamma run hers. \ s 2 8 2

He Was Easy Going Then

HE DIDN'T PAY much attention to the kitchen so long as the meal was served on time. He didn’t grumble too much about the fancy salad with the whipped cream and maraschino cherry on top— she'd seen the recipe in a magazine, and it looked so pretty in the picture—if. he got his thick steak . or Yankee pot roast the way he liked them. He tried not to laugh at MamJna’s hats, and he didn’t complain about them unless. the bill was too stiff. He thought she and the girls made a terrific fuss about the matter of an inch in skirt length, but they seemed to enjoy it, and he wasn’t going to stick his nose in. After all, there was plenty of material around for them to have fun with their: all-im=-portant fashions.

If mother complained that her .

old refrigerator was too small, he told her to get a new one. If she said the living room furniture was dowdy, he said maybe they could manage some new stuff next year. When the girls first spoke of wanting to go to work, he protested—he was a bit old-fashioned in spots, and ‘“woman’s place is in the home” was a favorite homily with him—but he admitted later that it didn’t seem to hurt the girls to be earning their own money. That was Uncle Sam-—remem-ber? A “good provider,” and usually a generous one.

BUT SUDDENLY, willy-nilly, he had to stick his nose into mamma's department. It turned out that if the family had to cut down, that was where most of the cutting down would have to be done. That was when Uncle Sam, statesman, became a housewife. He doffed his high hat, rolled up his sleeves, and went into the kitchen. He took stock of the pantry shelves, and poked around in the garbage pail. He counted the clothes in the wardrobe, and noted their extravagance. He inspected the washing machine and the refrigerator, and decided they'd last a while longer,

Watch that hat. . . . Even Ma's chapeau is under control.

He learned to manipulate the dressmaker’s shears, the butcher's cleaver, the dietitian’s chart, the spinning wheel and all the other implements which affect, immediately or eventually, household life, Remember some of the difficulties you had learning to keep house when you were a bride? Then imagine Uncle Sam's predicament when he suddenly had to become housewife for 134,000,~ 000 people!

(Next—Trouser Cuffs and Skirt Lengths)

DE GAULLE, GIRAUD NEARER AGREEMENT

LONDON, April 12 (U. P.).—Gen. Charles de Gaulle and Gen. Henri Honore Giraud have agreed on the principle that a single central provisional French authority must be created to administer the French empire now and French territory proper as fast as it is freed, it was understood last night. However, the question of naming the actual leader of such a regime and the composition of the provisional government has not been decided, informants said. Gen. de Gaulle’s Fighting French national committee met for nearly three hours yesterday listening to a detailed report by Gen. Georges Catroux, liaison officer; on the agreements he had reached with Giraud at Algiers. Usually. well-informed sources expressed belief that considerable progress had been made toward ul-

timate agreement between Giraud and Gen. de Gaulle.

“ROMMEL” IS A RABBIT

WITH ALLIED FORCES AT FONDOUK, April 10 (Delayed) (U. P.).~—Members of an American command unit operating on this front have adopted a wild African hare and named it: “Rommel” because it became very tame in a few days.

GIRAUD VETOES VICHY ACT

ORAN, Algeria, April 12 (U. P) — Ninety-two municipal councils in been

Scout Troop 83 to Help OCD ‘With Mobile First Aid Unit

A first aid, steel mobile unit has been completed for Boy Scout troop 83 and is registered with the Emergency Medical Service of civilian defense. :

The unit is completely equipped with traction splints, stretchers, bandages, .compresses, guaze, snake bite kit and other medical supplies. For disaster work it is equipped with water container, kerosene lanterns, ropes, axes, sledge hammer, shovel, blankets and cots. .Having tents and cooking utensil as well; the troop can camp near a disaster area for some time. The mobile unit will be kept at Trimble’s Corner, New York and Meridian sts., which has been designated as a casualty station for civilian defense zone 2. . All members of the First Aid team of the troop as well as Arthur F. G. Gemmer, troop committeeman, to whose car the mobile unit will be attached, hold Red Cross certificates in first aid. Team members are William Ritchey, Robert D. Mosier, Donald Gardner, Robert Cunningham, Sam Johnson, Eugene Smith ana Albert Ritchey. The following scouts will help the team: Angelo Auda, Willis Brinson, Riley Chilton, William

William Green, Lyle Frost, Joseph) Saba, Camillus Bondy, George Saba, |

James Pappas, Efthemus Pappas, Richard Bigelow, Leonard Donn Gaynor, Richard Finney, Guy Schofield and George Thayer. ‘The first aid unit was donated to the troop by Josiah K. Lilly, Charles

making a grade of 91.8 per cent on the first four first aid problems and receiving a class “A” classification. Charles Emmnions Jr. is scoutmaster of the troop which meets in St. Paul's Episcopal church and is sponsored by Hayward-Barcus Post 55, American ‘Legion. i Members of the troop committee who will furnish transportation are: Delbert O. Wilmeth, chairman; Paul F. - Catterson, .secretary;: Howard Sutherland, Earl S. Biddinger, W. Stanley Hague, Claude McLean, Frank Y, Hardy, John Smead and Donald Ingram, commander of Hay ward Barcus Post 55. ‘ HOLD EVERYTHING we.

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J. Lynn, Delamar McWorkman, John | {Z==

S: Wright, the Empire Life & Acci-

dent Insurance Co., Bryan, Inc., and | ; > i tH

NAZI TRENCHES NEAR KHARKOV CAPTURED

MOSCOW, April 12 (U, P.).—Russian troops, breaking a lull in the fighting north of Kharkov, seized a string of enemy trenches in a surprise night attack in the Belgorod area and killed 100 Germans, the Soviets announced today. Below Kharkov, the Red army repulsed renewed enemy attempts to breach the Soviet lines south of Balakleya. Soviet artillery destroyed 11 enemy trucks and three pillboxes, the communique said. The Germans hurled nearly 3000 infantryment and 15 tanks against this same sector yesterday. The initial assault dislodged the Russians from their advance positions; but a ‘Soviet counter-attack forced a German retreat, killed 300 of the enemy. On the Smolensk front, Russian scouts occupied . a fortified height south of Bely after wiping out the garrison ‘in hand-to-hand fighting.

‘LADIES OF SONG’ ON ROTARY CARD

“Ladies of Song,” with a program

|which will be given “as a relief

from war talks,” will be the attractions: at the Rotary club meeting at the Claypool hotel at 12:15 p. m.

production and features classical and lighter numbers by Delia Marshall, Bernice Fowler, Pauline Dohrn and Helen Jones, vocalists, and Grace Prince, pianist,

LIST AUSSIE CASUALTIES - MELBOURNE, April 12 (U. P.).— Army Minister F. M. Forde revealed yesterday that Australian casualties

Your Blood Is Needed

April quota for Red Cross Blood Plasma Center — 5400 donors. : Donors so far this month— 1084. Saturday's quota—200, Saturday's donors—108. You can help meet the quota by calling LI-1441 for an appointment or going to the center, second floor, Chamber of Commerce building, N. Meridian st.

POSTOFFICE PROUD

An honor roll in the south corridor of the Indianapolis main post« office is the most revered spot in the building. : pr Records: of the

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FIRST AIDERS MEET

First Aiders in district 290 wil meet at 7:30 p. m, Wednesday af the Y. W. C.- A. George Meno, district chairman, will be in charge.