Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 24 June 1948 — Page 19

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IRKS gié weigh a little over two pounds.” uat's the information that irked me.

may have your new telephone directory. pid you know that the thing weighs “a little two pounds?” You don’t know how much, do you? Well, you will because I got irked. «Mr. Shumaker, just how much does your pew telephone directory weigh? And what do sou mean sir, giving out such incomplete information?” Ha. Just as I suspected. Leo W. Shumaker, division manager of Indiana Bell, looked a liftle qumfounded. He wasn’t sure how much. “Aren't you interested in knowing?”

4h, Real Information . . .

HE WASN'T sure, he said, and he hadn’t given subject much thought. “We're delivering 190000 directories to our customers this week,” Waid Mr. Shumaker, obviously trying to dodge sue. fe jos Now, 190,000 multiplied by two pounds and a little over makes what?” Mr. Shumaker did a little figuring with his pencil and said, “The total weight of the directories will be a little over 26 tons.” «Hotv much over?” I was sticking to my guns. “Can't we be more exact than that?” The division manager thought for a minute d then excused himself. I expected him to urn with a guard who would proceed to throw

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NO GUESSING—The 1948 telephone directory weighs 2.773 pounds on the nose. Leo W. Shumaker, Bell Telephone division manager, learned a lot more before he was through with the scales.

Boxoffice Bust

PHILADELPHIA, June 24—I have come down with a hard case of convention feet, which always induces a philosophical turn of mind. And it seems to me that so far this eonvention is a boxoffice bust, since both the silver-tongued oratory and the sinister doings in the smoke-filled room have been markedly absent. The American presidential convention—and an odd art form, to say the least—has been dedicated to a couple of special techniques for many a year. The first was originated by William Jennings Bryan in 1896. The boy orator of Nebraska, then a fairly obscure Congressman with slim hope for the vice presidency, even, turned up his Wurlitzer voice and began to weave a spell, Mr. Bryan made the famous “Cross of Gold” speech—and when he shut off his personal pipeorgan, he was a presidential nominee. Since that time, I doubt if even a lower-case candidate for sheriff has mounted a rostrum withcut thinking—nay, hoping, praying—that his

javalanche of gilded words would ricochet from a

secret chord in the audience, which would rise up as one and clamor for Doakes for President. The feat of spontaneous indorsement induced by oratory, has not been duplicated since ’'96, but the boys always try. Sen. Bricker, a big, frostyheaded, handsome man, was obviously making the play in his speech at the hall Wednesday night, but it sagged—as most of them sag, because of acoustics, radio, television, and lack of the kind of pipes to enthrall a man and strike him breathldss.

No More Great Speeches

THE GOOD, meaty, orotund speech is a stranger to the mechanics of modern public-ad-dress, and the gymnastics of a fine, corny armwaver are wasted on a crowd which is busy ogling the visiting Hollywoodians, the freaks, the cafesociety celebrities which infest a presidential convention. The meticulously organized demonstrations for the various candidates, where the delegates mill around, wobbling their signs, whistling, stomping, and performing a crazy conga to the thump-thump of a paid brass band—they don't stir the onlooker. . They convince him, maybe, that America is a

inside Indianapolis

By Ed Sovola

The Indianapolis

Times.

Mr. Shumaker returned alone with a stainless steel thing-a-ma-jig which turned out to be a, very precise scale. Very precise. Weighs stuff in’ thousandths. {

SECOND SECTION

THURSDAY, JUNE 24, 1948

PAGE 19

=rrmnee=s FL, Wayne, Land Of Three Rivers

He placed the 1944 directory on the scale. It was a tiny volume compared to the 1948 edition. “It weighs 1.510 pounds,” announced Mr. Stumaker with a flourish. “The 1945 directory weighs 2.012 pounds; 1946, 2.413; 1947, 2.661 and 1948, 2.773. Got that?” “Yes, sir.” Everything after that was special. In fact, I think Mr. Shumaker got into the spirit of the hunt because he began to smile as if he was getting a bang out of the research.

He tore the outer cover off the directory and he

weighed it. The cover tipped the scales at .076 pounds. Then he tore the book in half. The alphabetical listings weighed 1.431 pounds. and the classified section, 1.263 pounds. didn’t come out right. We lost .003 of a pound some place. We blamed the discrepancy to atmospheric conditions and proceeded. One page of listings weighed .0034 of a pound. One thing bothered me about the 1947 book and| I interrupted. Besides. Mr. Shumaker was having| trouble weighing half a page of listings. | “How come the 1947 directory weighs almost| | as much as the new one when the new one has| 71 more pages?” Mr. Shumaker did more weighing and calculating before he decided it was the dirt and| pencil marks on the old directory that made it weigh just .109 of a pound less than the bulkier, edition. Good enough. | The Smiths Weighed Most | MORE facts rolled off the scales For in-| stance, the Smiths weigh more than any other quantity name. The Smiths tipped the scales at .0085 of a pound. How did we arrive at that?| Simple. Mr. Shumaker merely cut out the pages| with Smith on them, cut the other names off the odd sheet and threw the works on the scale. The Johnsons were second, weighing a neat| .0051 of a pound; Browns, .0042; Jones, .0038, and] the Millers, .0034. The .0034 figure, you remember, | is the weight of one sheet. Anything less than] that just doesn’t matter, in my book. | We also changed the total tonnage from “a| little over 26 tons” to 26.815 tons. That makes more sense, doesn't it? I might as well throw in a couple incidental facts. Mr. Shumaker’s glasses weighed .061 of a pound; the scissors we were using weighed .465 and my shoes—surprised me—2.3526 pounds. Al-| most as much as a directory. And that takes care of your telephone directory. “I'll bet R. E. McLaughlin, he’s head of the directory department, will be surprised when I tell him about all this,” laughed Mr. Shumaker. I'll bet, too. |

By Robert C. Ruark ]

crazy wonderful place, if this sort of whoop-de-do| is necessary to the nomination of a candidate for | the history books. But it’s an essentially phony demonstration, and not comparable to the siren shrieks of the Woman in Red, or even the late-blooming home}

front agitation for Wendell Willkie. | The smoke-drenched room, ever since old Boise | Penrose engineered Warren Harding's election by | telephone bulletins to said room, has been a per-|

verse ideal of the machine politician. {

Speeches ‘Calfish or Mean’ | THERE has existed the fond thought that may-|

broad concept of “Clear everything with Sidney,” |

or the fancy footwork which chased Henry Wal-| Sd

lace out of the iast vice presidency.

As one calloused habitue of these circuses] points out, it is impossible to construct a real smoke-filled room in these effeminate days of the cigaret. You can't rightly fog up a room to a ‘truly sinister point unless you are stoking your- | self on cléar Havana cigars or Pittsburgh stogies.

Personally, I've failed. to observe a ringing note of either chicanery or inspiration- in this show. The speeches hdve+tbeen largely calfish or) mean, to date, with the possible exception of Herbert Hoover's. Mr. Hoover's plea to sublimate

politics to the safeguarding of civilization touched | a genuinely emotional key. | Tt was certainly sharply in contrast to the | fishwifery of Clare Luce’s attack on the Demo-| crats—and the dancing that has been performed on the grave of the New Deal. There are at least) a few people around who would prefer to see more

emphasis on future problems and less nose-thumb-, °

ing at what happened as far back as 1933. So far, though, the boys and girls have been | looking backward—and certainly not in a vocal] fashion to haul the customer out of the seat, with | his hat in the air and his belly full of butterflies.

TRE

PHILADELPHIA, June 24—Chocolate ice cream sodas will flow from every drinking fountain. Smiling cops will hand” out neckties and, or, black silk panties to every jaywalker. And no sooner will a taxpayer come down with a hangover before the Secretary of Interior is hoving over him with restoratives. If the Republicans win the election, that is—and run the country like they have their convention. Boy! The Rock Candy Mountain never was like this conclave of the GOP. Food and drink and haberdashery, all free. Corn cob pipes, chewing gum and headache powders on the house. Whisky ditto, and strong black coffee. Free ice to put in free orange juice, or to place tenderly on heads made feverish by free beer. Fre rides in busses de luxe, super duper Fords, and long black limousines. Free fans, peanuts, balloons, cheese sandwiches, cookies, ice tea and soda pop. Free matches to’ light free cigarets. Free rumba bands, fashion shows, and songs by Gladys Swarthout. In all my convention going I've never seen anything like this. A delegate can’t walk out of his hotel without being offered something free, Such as a e for his feet, a night in a Turkish bath, or a cheese sandwich.

This generosity is plain‘ delightful. Some of

It comes from kindly Philadephians, some from Manufacturers seeking to advertise their wares, Some from home state patriots publicizing their Products—and some from candidates wooing delegates,

Everybody Can Have a Necktie

YOU'VE READ about Tom Dewey's door Prizes of - lingerie, perfume, and silver -cigaret lighters, but not everybody gets those. You've 80t to be lucky. . > But anybody can fill up on cheese, 1000 pounds Which was shipped in here by the proud cheeseMakers of Monroe, Wis.

Anybody can have a necktie, red or blue, of

Free—For Nothing By Frederick C. Othman

standard $1 quality and decorated with portraits of either Mr. Dewey, or Bob Taft. This is a good deal. Keep your coat buttoned and the pictures don't show. { Mr. Dewey’s also passing out the pipes. Dozens of little men are circulating among the crowds, begging 'em to accept packages of cigarets from,

their manufacturer. | On every bureau top in every hotel room is a §

bottle of headache tablets with the compliments of their maker. Newspapers are slipped under every bedroom door. Books, mostly about what, a great guy is Dwight Green of Illinois, are) in every mail box. : ‘

The Story of Florida's Tragedy

THE Pennsylvania Railroad is passing out beer, pretzels, cream cheese, cookies and coffee in| a vast lounge dedicated to the working press. | (This includes Othman, of course, and I wish you hadn’t asked.) ’ One floor beneath the convention hal are the silvery machines which manufacture to order ice cubes with holes in ‘em. The holes, for rea-|

sons the ice men gladly will explain, are sup-| posed to make the cubes colder than ordinary. Nearby is a lovely lady in a red satin gown| of senorith type. She is a professional orange! juice squeezer from sunny California. at hand a solid carload of the best'navel oranges from the same locality. her free vitamins, except maybe the delegates from Florida. These gentlemen, poor devils, suffered a tragedy. It was their idea to pour orange juice for the Republicans. When the machinery eventually was set up, they discovered to their dismay that the Florida crop was so short they couldn't get any oranges. The nagement asked California if it would care to take over the operation. Would it! Just don’t worry me about my waistline; I'll go on a diet later, when I have to pay for my food.

The totals| ie

GATEWAY TO THE WEST — Thus did George Washington describe the area that was to become Ft. Wayne, Ind. Just prior to the American Revolution, and for years after the great war, the confluence of the Maumee, St. Mary's and St. Joseph rivers were of great strategic importance. This site was the subject of the latest Hoosier Historical Institute under the direction of Ross Lockridge, noted Indiana University historian. On the ground where the group gathered along the banks of the St. Joseph, once stood-an Indian village. It was here that the Fst blood was spilled in Pontiac's Conspiracy in 1763. The fort's English captain was killed in ambush and the garrison surrendered.

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DEATH RODE WITH THEM — This bronze tablet marks for

(Picture-Story by Victor Peterson)

ONCE RED WITH BLOOD — Today the banks of the Maumee River are lined with fishermen seeking the carp that thrive in the muddy water. However, on Oct. 22, 1790, an American torce, dispatched by ° Congress to erect a fort in the area, met humiliating defeat at the hands of Chief Little Turtle and his Miami braves. The Indians hid in the undergrowth along the banks and mowed down the whites with murderous fire as they attempted to cross at Harmar's ford.

Phim

THE ORIGIN OF FT. WAYNE —The cannon stands on the

memory the defeat of the Americans at Harmar's ford. It was at the insistence of Washington, before being elected president, that Congress send a force to consolidate the Ft. Wayne area. The English still menaced the country with a string of forts to the north and the Miami Indians preyed far south on the pioneers in Kentucky. Washington wanted to make the land secure from both dangers. The inscription is being read by (left to right) Miss Ruth Zinn and Mrs. Herbert Keller, both of Culver.

ground which once was the very center of the fort erected by Gen. "Mad" Anthony Wayne. Wayne's expedition was the second sent out by Washington as President. The first ended in disaster when the soldiers were massacred near Portland. Washington selected Wayne to lead the force because of his exceptional record as a Revolutionary general. In strategy. councils, he always had but one answer to plans of to stand or. to retreat. It was, “I'd fight, sir." He built the fort in 1794.

sne has Eqyir Ticket Price Remains Same Everybody's patronizing |

LAND OF THREE RIVERS — This is the confluence of the waterways held so important to the infant nation's security and westward expansion. The St. Joseph flows in from the left, St. Mary's from the right. They join at the bridge to form the Maumee. On the ridge to the right, back of the trees, Wayne built the fort which bore his name. Chief Little Turtle was deposed by his tribe when he refused to fight with*Wayne who was known as the "Chief Who Never Sleeps.” His successor sought war and the Indians were routed at the battle of Fallen Timbers. The victory established American supremacy in the wilderness area.

ncn PRCT ‘Paul Whiteman Hurt WILLIAMSTOWN, N. J., June 24 (UP)-—Orchestra Leader Paul —— {Whiteman was treated at LakeFleet Sets Tour land General Hospital last night HONOLULU, June 24 (UP)— for cuts on the knees and right Pacific Fleet headquarters an- hand received when his car nounced today that three U. 8. crashed into a pole near here. naval vessels would tour the Mr. Whiteman told police he was in of Malaya, Ceylon, India en route from Atlantic City to an akistan in August on a Philadelphia when something | 1 . ! hind sale July 12. They sald goo4will mission. They are the went wrong with his steering e' ducats would be available cruiser Toledo and the destroyers wheel and the car swerved off {through extension agents, banks, Chevalier and Higbee. ithe road,

The Indiana state fair board today announced that tickets for the 1948 edition of the Hoosier fair would be 60 cents, as they were last year. ¥ Fair board officials said that a quarter of a million tickets at {35 cents each would be put on ad-

the Indiana Farm Bureau and other agricultural organizations.

HAPPY HUNTING GROUND — The final resting place of Chief Little Turtle is in the back yard of a

private residence occupied by Mr. and Mrs. James | Barfell and family. The great Indian leader worked |

earnestly for peace the last 17 years of his life and is considered one of the first prohibitionists. He fought to keep ''fire water" from the lips of his people. For

all his efforts, he was honored by Washington and other

presidents. ” = » t . =» Next Week-End Tour The next Hoosier Historical Institute will be: SATURDAY, JUNE 26 10:00 A. M.—Indiana Room, Gary Public Library. 1:30 P. M.—Administration building, Carnegie-Illinois Steel Corp. Illustrated lecture. 2g 2:30 P. M.— Escorted tour of plant, 7:30 P. M.—Marquette Park. Site recitals:

Octave Chanute. Campfire, SUNDAY, JUNE 27

Father Marquette;

10:00 A. M.- Optional motor tour of Lake County indv:trial die-

trict. 1:30 P. M.— Dunes State Park. Petite Fort; Joseph Bailly Homestead; The Marriage Tree, City West.

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