Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 11 May 1943 — Page 11

BTN we

TUESDAY, MAY 11, 1943

ie Indianapo

lis Times

Hoosier Vagabond

(Continued from Page One)

center of a crowd, the only American among scores of German soldiers, and not have to feel afraid of them. Their 88's stood abandoned. In the fields dead Germans still lay on the grass. By the roadside scores of tanks and trucks still burned. Dumps flamed, and German command posts lay littered where they had tried to wreck as much as possible before surrendering. But all those were sideshows— the big show was the mass of men in strange uniform. lining roads, swamping farm yards, blackening fields, waiting for us to tell them where to go. High German officers were obviously down in the mouth over the tragic end of their campaign. We saw some tears. Officers wept over the ghastly death toll taken of their men during the last few

days. Officers were meticulously correct in their military behavior, but otherwise stand-offish and silent.

Not so the common soldiers. I mingled with them all day and sensed no sadness among them. Theirs was not the delight of the Italians, but rather an acceptance of defeat in a way well-fought—why-be-surly-about-it? They were friendly, very friendly. Being prisoners, it obviously paid them to be friendly; vet their friendliness seemed genuine. Just as when the French and Americans first met, the Germans started learning English words and teaching us German words.

The e Were Neither Boos Nor Cheers

BUT CIRCUMSTANCES didn't permit much communion between them and our troops. Those Amerfcans who came in direct contact with them gave necessary orders and herded them into trucks. All

other Americans just stared curiously as they passed. I saw very little fraternizsing with prisoners. I saw no acts of belligerence and heard neither boos nor cheers. But I did hear a hundred times: “This is the way it should be. Now we can go on from here.” German boys were as curious about us we were about them. Every time I stopped a crowd would form guickly. In almost every group was one who spoke English. In all honesty I can't say their bearing or personality was a bit difterent from that of a similar bunch of American prisoners. They gave us their cigarets and accepted ours, both for curiosity sake. They examined the jeep, and asked questions about our uniforms. If you passed one walking alone, usually he would smile and speak. One high American officer told me he found himself feeling sorry for them—until he remembered how they had killed so many of his men with their sneaking mines, how they had him pinned down a few days ago with bullets flying; then he hated them.

They Lounge by the Thousands

I AM ALWAYS a sucker for the guy who loses, but somehow it never occurred to me today to feel sorry for those prisoners. They didn't give you a feeling they needed any sorrowing over. They were loyal to their country and sorry they lost but, now it was over for them, they personally seemed glad to be out of it. Tonight they still lounge by thousands in fields along the roads. Our trucks and theirs, too, are not sufficient to haul them away. They will just have to wait their turn to be taken off to prison camps. No guards are necessary to keep them from running off into the darkness tonight. They have already done their running, and now they await our pleasure, rather humbly and with a curious eagerness to see what comes next for them.

Inside Indianapolis By Lowell Nussbaum

BILL HONEYCUTT of the Winslow Grain Co. is very proud of a recently acquired complete set of the Stars and Stripes, the world war I A. E. F. news paper. . . . Clark Springer, Dekalb county Republican chairman and well known here, can't qualify as a military expert. About 10 days ago he made a bet with Ralph Gates, state chairman, that the battle of Tunisia wouldn't be over until August. And now look at the headlines. . . We told you yesterday that Bill Dean, program director of WIRE had gone to Cincinnati and had gone to work for WLW. He did—a week ago Saturday. But vesterday he left Cincinnati and returned to his old job at WIRE. Says he's here to stay this time. . « Maj. John W. Jordan, a veteran of the other war who has been in the air corps the last 10 months, is home awaiting a medical discharge. He is a partner in Thomson & McKinnon and expects to return to work there about June 1.

Around the Town

ERNIE PYLE'S reference last Wednesday to Lt. Mickey Miller of Morgantown, temporarily sojourning in North Africa, thrilled Mrs. Roxie Wetzel, 2626 Napoleon st. Mrs. Wetzel is his aunt. She had just returned home from mailing him some chewing gum, films and candy when she picked up The Times and saw Ernie's reference to Mickey. Also interested was Madeline Pugh, who works at WIRE and who corresponds with the lieutenant. , . . Dr. Clarence Efroymson, the former Butler university economics professor now with the WPB in Washington, was home over the week-end visiting friends. He missed his train yesterday afternoon and had to postpone his return until today. .. . One of our readers called to comment that President Roosevelt, in his latest broadcast, dis-

Sweden ,

STOCKHOLM, May 11 (By Wireless).—Conditions here will be considerably eased by the action of Germany in agreeing to permit resumption of limited ship blockade.

movements under safe conduct through her Next will come discussions among Sweden, Britain and the United States as to what may move through our blockade intp Sweden. Twelve Swedish ships, all or partly loaded are ready to come in. They should begin arriving in about two weeks. They will be the first since early January. They are bringing fodder, cotton, rice, and oilcake, all badly needed. Incidentally. one ship is bringing raw American movie film, which has been the subject of much anxiety here. Swedish movie {interests are out of raw film. Germany offered to gupply them on condition that they show Nazi instead of American films. Now. Swedish movie interests can print up American films, including “The Doon Is Down,” because Swedish audiences go for fllied films, especially American, rather than for Nazi pictures. The hit plays, books and films are antiNazi, or strictly American—such as “Gone With the Wind.”

Visits Baltic Fleet

MUCH is said about it, but oil is the big resumption of sea traffic. The Swedish navy is running low on reserves. I spent a day with the Swedish Baltic fleet, and learned that maneuvers and training are on an inadequate scale due to the necessity of conserving fuel for emergency. "Another tipoff on the real situation here is the fact that American journalists were allowed to visit restricted areas not before opened to any foreign

My Day

WASHINGTON. Monday. —Today is the 10th anniversary of -the very notorious day when Hitler, in Nazi Germany, ordered the burning of all books by such authors as Pearl Buck, Albert Einstein, Sigmund Freud, Ernest Hemingway, Selma Laegerlof, Sinclair Lewis, Thomas Mann, Stephen Vincent Benet and Sigrid Undset. In doing this, Hitler thought he would destroy the ideas that inspired these authors and that came to the world through their words. He succeeded in Germany, but in the world, he stimulated interest. Instead of making people pay less attention to what these authors had to say, it made many more people read them, who, perhaps, had never read them before. Their contributions to the thinking of the world are probably far greater than they would have been without Hitler's effort at suppression. In the democracies of the world, the passion for freedom of speech and of thcught is always accentuated when there is an effort anywhere to keep ideas away from people and to prevent them from making their own decisions. One of the best ways of enslaving & people is to keep from

NOT

agrees with Gilbert Forbes' “Spanish” pronunciation of Guadalcanal. The WFBM commentator pronounces it as though it were spelled “Guathalcanal.” The president doesn’t go for such an affectation, but calls it “Guadalcanal.” just as it's spelled.

Six Rainy Sundays THERE'S AN OLD saying that if it Easter Sunday, it will rain for six straight Sundays. It looks like there might be something to the saying. Anyway, it's rained the two Sundays thus far since Easter. . . . That “Luck of London” chain letter still is making the rounds. This makes the umpteenth one we've received, and we haven't had any bad luck (yet) for not sending them on. . . . Laura Marie Gray of Logansport writes that Indianapolis hasn't any copyright on that business of robins fighting window panes. Her sister has been having trouble with one of the silly birds and is trying out some of the remedies suggested by folks here. . . . For a touching picture of young love in springtime, take a glance toward the soldiers and sailors’ monument most any time when ‘it isn't raining.

The Inside Dope

rains on

ops, ones

to keep Dorsey, Vaughn Monroe and Beethoven “in the groove.” This is a result of a shortage in

virgin when music

came

A READER writes that he read our item Friday about the runaway horse that ‘ran east to Delaware and there quit its foolishness and returned to its normal gait.” This reader says he was there and saw what happened to make the horse “quit its foolishness.” Says he: “The horse ran the stop sign at Delaware st. and came to a sudden stop when it ran into an automobile going north on Delaware. That is how it returned to its normal gait. Ever since I read your article I have been aching to tell you how it happened. So I feel better now.” . . . The Gas Flame reports that Bernard Mulcahy, research engineer for the Gas company, is an amateur magician and will “do his tricks for you at the drop of a hat.”

By Raymond Clapper

correspondents. Accompanying us was the American naval attache, Cmdr. Walter Heiberg, who in three years had not been allowed to visit the area which guards the approaches to Stockholm. This is not being shown to Nazis or anybody else. We rode on new, spectacular motor torpedo boats, built here. They carry two torpedoes, also 20-milli-meter anti-aircraft guns. Sweden has built at least 16 and has more under construction. We saw part of the submarine fleet, which has at least 25, plus more under construction. Those are the two chief elements of Swedish naval strength. Her cruisers, or coast defense ships, carry four 11-inch guns; they are over age and of little practical use except as floating anti-aircraft carriers. But the submarines and motor torpedo boats are

down.

put on a drive. of the American Legion and dealers, an avalanche of old records came in. Reclaiming shellac from old records is now a major function in making new discs.

The

ones.

Old

Records for scrap come to RCA from all parts of the country every

. So Caruso and “K-K-K-Katie” are taking a beating

Shellac is what makes the music stick to the disc. When manufacturers’ supply of shellac. which comes from the secretion of a bug found in India, to a fraction of the amount needed, it be-

ing the shellac from worn-out records or cutting production ‘way

Drive Brings 'Em in

England, where trade circles report that Britons soon may have to turn in their old phonograph records before they can buy new

only 40 per cent of the demand for new records now are trying to buy 10,000,000 old records.

an industry-wide slogan here, too.

‘Old-Timers’ Reclaimed

THE DISCS MAKING up your new Beethoven symphony album may consist in part of shellac from a medley of old favorites like “There's Yes, Yes in Your Eyes”

day, Here workmen unload a freight car of old records. By RICHARD LEWIS AT THE INDIANAPOLIS plant of RCA-Victor on

LaSalle st. they not only make phonograph records, they break them.

They break almost as many as they make. In the scheme of wartime record production, it develyou've got to break old records in order to make new

the “Echo Galli-Cureci,

service reproducing Song” by Amelita with a flute obbligato. In the record-busting department of RCA last week, they were scrapping some real old-timers, a little reluctantly, it seemed, for there in the piles of dusty discs doomed to destruction were some classics of another age. Maybe you don’t remember “Foolish Child,” recorded by an outfit known as the Benson orchestra of Chicago nearly 40 years ago. It was there. ” ” ”

Cylinders Useless

SO WAS A PONDEROUS wheel labeled “What Constitufes an Unlawful Trust'—By William Howard Taft. In addition to the discs, the scrap collection had netted some rare old-time cylinders like those used on business dictaphones. Constructed of soft wax, these contain no shellac and are useless, but boys in the plant keep them around for sentimental reasons. Two of the most revered cylinder recordings are “Hearts and Flowers” by the Venetian instrumental quartet and a little number called “The Traveling Salesman.” It seemed almost a sacrilege to break up “What Constitutes an Unlawful Trust,” which won first prize at the Buffalo, St. Louis and Portland exposition, but the dise was thick and had a goodly diameter, and so the boys banged it down on the edge of the metal cart and threw in the pieces

shellac during a period the demand for recorded has reached a new high.

the OPA limited the

a question of either extract-

” ” ”

THE RECORD companies Through the aid

situation is duplicated in

Retailers who can supply

records for new has become

» ”

(Paul Whiteman, 1908) and among lighter subjects like “Fer“Uncle Josh’s Hustlin’ Bee.” dinand the. Bull’ and “Come, Or part of your new Dorsey re- Josephine, in My Flying Macording might once have done chine.”

useful to protect Sweden against water invasion, as the natural barriers of the archipelago form a natural defense.

Oil Is Badly Needed

OIL, HOWEVER, is essential, and none is obtainable except from America. Our government has been cautious about releasing oil. It is not a question of tankers, as Sweden has her own, but of the advisability of such a policy. Our war department strongly questions the advisability. The U. S. state department takes rather a milder view. Every day I gather new evidence of Swedish friendliness for the United States. We would not have been shown such restricted military activities as they have opened to us, unless that friendship were genuine. Sweden must have some oil to keep her military establishment going. The question, however, is whether we would want any considerable accummulation of stores here. Because, while the Swedes might resist with everything they have, they would hardly last very long if the Nazis went all out against them. But nothing of that kind seems imminent. .

By Eleanor Roosevelt

thus make it impossible for them to understand what is going on in the world as a whole.

In the case of Germany, however, the people have always had the tools of learning. They have been a highly educated nation. Hitler had to use other methods, and he chose to go back to the practices of medieval days and burn the books whose philosophies were opposed to his. He knew that if these thoughts reached the people, they might stir up unrest and opposition to his own regime. The second way of enslaving a people is to suppress the sources of information, not only by burning books, but by controlling all the other ways in which ideas are transmitted. Hitler used all of these methods and gained his ends within Germany for a time. In the end, and that end seems to be drawing closer every day, the people whom Hitler has enslaved will have to come in contact again with ‘the world of free expression and thought, then Hitler will have to face the judgment of his own people. To me this is one of the hopeful elements in an otherwise difficult situation. If the German people had accepted Hitler as a free people, with access to

2 WOMEN ARE HELD AFTER RAIL CRASH

Two

injured, their automobile was struck by a New York Central train at the Ken-

donors. tucky ave. crossing of the Belt rail- D fot th road last night. (ors so far this month—

failure

and failure to heed a crossing

signal.

Marie Clegg. 40. of 1641 Haugh place, was charged with intoxication. She received cuts and broken ribs and was taken to City hospital.

Marie Stricker, 40, of 852 Virginia ave, was charged with being intoxicated, driving while intoxicated,

An RCA.Victor record, right, in its embryo stage. 4 Here the record shown between the two

steel

stock is

matrix plates which have ! been placed in the press. Once § the press is § closed, it takes less than a min. ute of pressure

to make the disc.

OUR

Mary Hodges, RCA record press operator, with the record as it comes out.

FROM THIS POINT, the broken records are wheeled to the maw of the grinding machine whose conveyor belt totes them up to a grinding chamber. They are ground, then pulverized into a fine black powder. A centrifuge blows out the label paper.

The powdered scrap is then mixed with virgin materials, including precious shellac, which resembles dried chips of pitch or resin, fine sienna clay found in southern Indiana and another clay which is by-product waste of gunpowder manufacture.

: | By Ernie Pyle RCA Breaks Old Records To Make New Ones —Discs From Attic Provide Much-Needed Shellac

This gunpowder clay won't exactly explode, but it has some pe~ culiar properties. The favorite joke of the plant “chefs” who mix the ingredients by a formula so secret they mention its existence in a hushed whisper is to lure the visitor into playing with the steel clay scoop which looks like an ordinary kitchen flour scoop.

» ” »

Get Electric Shock

FIRST YOU PICK it up and drop it, blade down, into the barrel of flour-like gunpowder clay. Touch it again and see what you get. On contact with the metal handle, you receive an electric shock like the kind you can induce by shuffling your feet across a thick carpet on a cold day and touching a metal light switch. After it's thixed, shellac, serap, clay and lamp-black, the blended compound goes into a contraption known as a Banbury mixer which looks somewhat like a miniature blast furnace. This converts the mix into a black, plastic mass. The black stuff looks like asphalt and might do to fill chuckholes. It oozes into a rolling machine which presses the goo into rectangular biscuits. Each biscuit becomes a record when pressed onto the master mold in the record press. When the steaming press opens, behold, you have one complete phonograph record, with labels pasted on. Excess mix is scraped off the disc by the quick-fingered women who operate the presses and the record slides into its fold~ er, ready for the needle. Sometimes it's easy to forget that the basis of this complex process is the old records in the attics of America. They keep the industry going.

Your Blood Is Needed

May quota for Red Oross Blood Plasma Center — 5800

women, one of whom was faced charges today after

Monday's quota—200. Monday's donors—122. 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.

to have a driver's license

POLAND TO BE FREE AGAIN, HALIFAX SAYS

CHICAGO, May 11 (U. P)— Lord Halifax, British ambassador, sald yesterday that England did not go back on her promise to Poland in 1939 “and we are not going back on it now,” and added that “we can hope for no secure or settled peace until Poland has been reborn.” “The time will surely come,” the ambassador told the Association of Commerce, “when Poland will again take her rightful place among

is not merely an act of justice we owe to Poland. It is a duty we owe to the cause of peace. For more than 100 years Poland was off the map. They were uneasy years for eastern Europe. And we can hope for no secure or settled peace until Poland has been reborn.” Halifax blamed Nazi propaganda for the rift between Poland and Russia, adding “you will not expect me to speak of that now in detail when earnest efforts are being made, with full support of the British government and the government of the United States, to restore friendly relations between

the free nations of the world. That

these two great allies.”

the thought and expression of the rest of the world,

S. Arms French . . .

a huge open air assembly line in North Africa, Gen. Henri

and freedom of expression at home, we would face, Honore Girand inspects U. S. trucks just delivered for wse of Fighting a nation of Hitlers. Now we may hope that we shall, French troops. In formally accepting the American war equipment from

thought and expression may make great changes in

n-¢

face an enslaved nation, where access to freedom of Gen. Dwight Eisenhower, the French civil and military commander-

this rearmament ’ 8

quipment Assembled . . .

A giant crane hoists some of the thousands of tons of equipment sent to waiting French soldiers by the U. S. A French native soldier rolls a huge tire to an outdoor assembly line where workmen do a continuous job of assembling trucks, jeeps and other vehicles before

3 |

POLICE ARREST 10 ON GAMING CHARGE

For the second time in two days, police late yesterday visited a railroad workers’ rest quarters at 760 S. Emerson ave. and arrested 10 men in two poker games on gaming charges. Eight others were arrested there on the same charges Sunday, but were discharged in Municipal court yesterday on grounds that. the room is on private property and that police had no search warrant,

TR —

4" DAY COMMITTEE EARLY ON THE JOB

SAN FRANCISCO (U, P.).—~The chamber of commerce claims the distinction for San Francisco of being the first city in the United States to begin preparing an appropriate celebration for “victory day.” It has appointed a committee to prepare fitting ceremonies for that occasion.

HOLD EVERYTHING

A re BO A