Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 3 June 1951 — Page 17

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—Army Signal Corps Pohto.

KEEP YOUR EYE ON THE BALL—Gov. Schricker advises Miss Phyllis Adair, 943 E. 53d St., as she gefs a cue from Cpl. Meus Guillery at one of the tables in the new Ft. Harrison Service Club.

The Club opened this week-end.

It Happe By Earl Wilson

NEW YORK, June 2—I've just had talks with Jack Benny and Gloria De Haven about the television capital of the world . . . New York City. Miss DeHaven was of course the prettier of the interviewees, and wasn’t smoking a cigar. Jack leaned back in an orchestra seat during a: lull in his’ TV rehearsal. He thought aloud of the future time when he may no longer be on the radio. He meant, of course, that dis tant day when television sets outnumber radios and there's no radio audience . . . or salary.

» ” # “WHERE would you want to do your TV programs? I asked. This was a significant question. Hollywood wants to take TV away from N. Y. as it snatcred movies away. Gloria DeHaven “Ill try to split it up,” Jack said, “so I can do some of it here. I love New York ... and know something . , . I'd love to do a Broadway play. , “Every time I see some of these wonderful plays, I get hammy and want to act.” Jack has no cause to worry about his radio show, His program didn't take its usual mid-April drop this year. If it had, Jack might have considered more TV and less radio next year.

Bh JACK'S willingness to do TV shere, even though the coaxial cable soon reaches California, cheers those who hope to keep TV here. Miss De Haven has quite another problem. Her movie bosses at 20th Century-Fox won't let her do TV. : Some of the other glamourpusses are in the same fix. They're losing a chance at additional fame, audience, and, oh, yes . . . money ..., while Hollywood decides what to do.

Americana By Robert C. Ruark

NEW YORK, June 2—One of the serious defects of modern American womanhood, housewife division——and of American manhood, too—is that he and she have never learned to bargain, in the European sense. This hatred of the haggle, which our ancestors practiced well, has put us gore or less at the mercy of the price tag. We seem automatically to = accept the asking price for any- = thing as its own frue value, and this is not so, as the current price war in New York dem- ¥ onstrates. Most of us do not comparison-shop as frequently as we could. We walk in, flip the tag, take the article or not, and Jeave. This applies to everything from autos to onions. It also subjects us to arbitrary jumps in living costs. I have never underestimated the power of a woman, having been exposed to them for too many years, and I know the might they exercise economically. A nation of harried

=. housewives, all bargain-bent, might do some

amazing things to this high cost of you know what. ww: oe I AM a real bum at bargaining, myself, but I have watched the experts at it, and it has a surprising control on inflation. As practised by Europeans and Asiatics, bargaining becomes sport as well, and the non-bargainer is not respected. One of the reasons Americans are held in such high contempt abroad is that they will pay the asking price for anything, thereby depriving the seller of an hour’s entertainment. The purpose of the bargain is not to haggle objectipnably, but by dignified sales resistance, drive the price of what you seek down to a reas.onable level of profit for the selléer without seriously crippling the purse of the buyer. The important word in striking a bargain is “no.” In the tradition of David Harum, if the word “no” is repeated often enough in a’ commercial

Harry's Girl Arrives There—

Londoners Smash Glass to

By ROBERT MUSEL

ned Last Night

Benny and De Haven Discuss TV Futures

“I CAME here to sing at the Versailles,” Miss DeHaven told me. “It would be a great chance to do a lot of TV, I'd done the Milton Berle show with the studio consent a month ago. “I had a chance to do the Lux dramatic show, the Jack Carter and Ken Murray shows, ‘Leave It to the Girls’ ..." Miss DeHaven’s shoulder’s sagged. “All killed by the studio.” The studio, in the latest Hollywood crackdown on TV, had decr2ed that she couldn't do TV under any circumstances. ? oe oe oe ALL HAD been going well for a while. There had seemed to be a relaxatior of the fight against TV in Hollywood. Red Skelton had been given TV rights in his new contract at Metro. The Broadway stage show houses which for a while had barred even the mention of the nasty word “television” had become friendlier and the Paramount Theater had even booked Dagmar, a creation of TV. Then one day somebody noticed that 1000 movie theaters had closed. CRASH. * * > MISS DEHAVEN is enthusiastic about doing television, and so, it seemed to me, was Jack Benny. “What's this about you wanting to retire and Mary not wanting you to?” I asked Jack. “It's the other way around,” Jack said. “Me retire! Mary'd like not to do any work at all any more, but not me. I can’t play that much golf.” oe oe oe TODAY'S BEST LAUGH: George Shearing hears that wrestlers are forming a union and inaugurating a ‘share-the welt program. oe BD WISH I'D SAID THAT: “Make your own cigaret lighter. Remove the tobacco.”—Morton Downey. §

Americans Should Go On a Bargain Hunt

transaction, the vendor is eventually led to make a proposition: “Well, what will you give?” Somewhere between the proposition and the final acceptance of terms lies the true worth of the commodity. lo I KNOW a White Russian princess who has long lived among us, but who still remembers the

The Indianapolis ’

| gatau?

—- - —

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OSS

SUNDAY, JUNE 3, 1951

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE JT WAS half-past 10. Bengt was coming down to be re- | 7 lieved at the swaying masthead. Then we all started. | We had heard voices clearly, out on the sea in the dark. ness - There it was again It was Polynesians talikng. We shouted into the black night with all the strength of our lungs. They shouted back, and—there was Knut's

voice among the rest! We were mad with excitement. Our tiredness had gone; the whole thundercloud had lifted. What did it matter if we drifted away from AnThere were other is-

lands in the sea. Now the nine balsa logs, so fond of travel, could drift where they liked, so long as all six of us were assembled on board again,

Three outrigger canoes emerged from the darkness, riding over the swell, and Knut was the first man to jump across to the dear old Kon-Tiki, followed by six brown men. There was little time for explanations; the natives must have presents and be off on their adventurous journey back to the island. Without seeing

light or land, and with hardly any stars, they had to find

their course by paddling against

wind and sea till they saw the light from the fire. We rewarded them amply with provisions,

| cigarets, and other gifts, and

each of them shook us heartily

| by the hand in a last farewell.

They were clearly anxious on

| ouf account; they pointed west- | ward, indicating that we were

| with the native leader on board.

heading toward dangerous reefs. The leader had tears in his eyes and kissed me tenderly on the chin, which made me thank Providence for my beard. Then they crept into the canoes, and We six comrades were left on the raft, together and alone.

» ” = KNUT HAD in good faith made for land in the dinghy

The native himself was. sitting | at the little oars and rowing | toward the opening in the reef, | when Knut to his surprise saw the light signals from the KonTiki asking him to come hack. He made signs to the rower to turn, but the native refused to obey. Then Knut took hold of the oars himself, but the native tore his hands away. and with the reef thundering round them it was no use starting a fight. They had bounded right in through the opening in the reef and gone on inside it, until they were lifted right up on to a

| solid coral block on the island

American Labor Is Not ‘Proletarian’

hard times of China and Burope when she fled |

tne Bolshies and was nearly penniless. She gave

the market people a rough workout. Polite, but !

firm. She bought a three-pound eel the other day for a dollar, instead of $1.50, merely by the exercise of firmness, and was proud of the discount.

When she goes to buy a collection of clothes, she insists on a markdown for the job lot. The saleswoman is always astonished, but the princess invariably gets her bargain. “I bought some frocks the other day,” the princess says proudly, “and when the salesgirl heard me ask for a discount, she nearly fainted. But I wound up saving $10 on the lot. There is not a day I do not save money by polite insistence on a true bargain. And a bargain i= only what things are actually worth.”

oe o> oe

Another lady I know who is stinkin’ rich ordered a cup of coffee in a cafe the other day and the check was 30 cents. She beefed to the cashier, He explained that coffee was ordinarily 15 cents a cup but since this was lunch her caffee-drinking cut into the serious iunch trade. Swishing her minks indignantly around her, this lady waited one-half hour on a lunchcounter stool for thr~ymanager to return. She got back her 13 ceats change—and IL think we need more of her sort.

This can be characterized as the old New England hardheadedness in approach to trade, in which the purchaser has a simple but haughty pride in not being made a chump of. It simmers to an insistence on true value, and I would love to see it passed upward in the government. We could use a couple of bargains tbday, after years of price-tag economy on the grand scale,

See Maagie

train from Southampton

United Press Staff Correspondent LONDON, June 2-—Sightseers crowded Waterloo Railroad Station here tonight to greet Margaret Truman and in the crush smashed sheets of plate glass which. shattered only a few feet from the President's daughter.

Photographers lit ~up.-the-sta-.

tion with their flash bulbs as Miss Truman stepped off the boat where she arrived earlier today on. the liner America for a four-month holiday tour of Europe. The sightseers waved as Miss Truman, accompanied by U.S. Ambassador and Mrs. Walter S.

Several persons standing near {bring her around.

the car jumped clear as a pile

jof more than a dozen "sheets of

plate glass stacked against the

platform railings toopled over) |and crashed to the pavement. No

one was hurt. Several of the big glass sheets,

which has been pushed over by,

sightseers crowding the railings, smashed into bits only a few feet from Miss Truman's car. Miss Truman drove away With the Giffords to their residence,

where she will be a guest during |

her London stay,

On her-arrival at Southhamp- |

ton, she said she would break

Gifford, walked to a car at the her rule against singing ‘during ‘side of the platform. They had her European tour if King George just entered the car when some- and Queen Elizabeth asked her t

one uted, “Look out!”

sing for them, : a

oi a i i

But only the royal request could she insisted. She wouldn't sing even for the United States airmen when she! visits their camps in Britain, she! said. When the liner America docked | she held a press conference aboard ship in a nine-by-twelve sitting room. porters and photographers were on hand. When the atmosphere bgcame stifling, - Miss Pruman . disclosed that she learned the hard way how to work the air conditioning equipment. “I know how to turn it on,” Miss Truman told" a reporter as he turned. a ceiling screw with a

long handled bar. “I froze for vi cess.

days before I learned how to turn it off.” -. o rig

More than 30. re-!

itself. A crowd of natives caught hold of the dinghy and

dragged it high up on the shore, and Knut stood alone under the palm trees surrounded by a huge crowd of natives chatterng away in an unknown lingo. Brown, barelegged men, women, and children of all ages flocked around him and felt the material of his shirt and trousars. They themselves wore ragged old European clothes, but there were no white men on the island. .- * Knut got hold of some of the smartest fellows and made signs t» them that they should go out in the dinghy with him. Then a big fat man came waddling up who Knut presumed must be the chief, for he had an old uniform cap on his head and talked in a loud, authoritative voice. All made way fot him. = Knut explained both in Norwegian and in English that he needed men and must get back to the raft before we others drifted away. The chief beamed and understood nothing, and Knut, despite his most vehement protests, was pushed over to the village by the whole shouting crowd. 2 = =

THERE he was received by dogs and pigs and pretty South Sea girls who came along ca&rrying fresh fruit. It was clear that the natives were prepared to make Knut's stay as agreeable as possible, but Knut was not to be enticed; he thought sadly of the raft which was vanishing westward.

After more curious experiences Knut got away and hurried down to the dinghy, surrounded by admirers of both sexes. His international speech and gesticulations eould no longer be misunderstood; they realized that he must and would return to the odd craft out in the night, which was in such a hurry that she had to go on at once. Then the natives tried a trick: they indicated by signs that the rest of us were coming ashore on the other side of the point. Knut was puzzied for a few minutes, but then loud voices were heard down on the beach, where women and children were tending the flickering fire. The three canoes had come back, and the men brought Knut the note. He was in a desperate situation. Here were instructions not to row out on the sea alone, and all the na-

THE

tives absolutely refused to go with him. There followed a high-pitched, noisy argument among all the natives, Those who had been out and seen the raft understood perfectly well that it was of little use to keep Knut back in the hope of getting the rest of us ashore, The end of it was that Knut's promises and threats in iuternational accents induced the crews of three canoes to ac-

company him out to sea in pursuit of the Kon-Tiki. They put out to sea in the tropical night with the dinghy dancing along in tow, while the natives stood motionless by the dying fire and watched their new blond friend disappear as quickly as he had come. Knut and his companions could see the faint light signals from the raft far out to sea

when the swell lifted the ca- .

noes. The long slim Polynesian canoes, stiffened by pointed side floats cut through the water like knives, but .it seemed an eternity to Knut before he felt the thick round logs of the KonTiki under his feet again,

We left the sail down and.

the oar inboard, and all six of us crept into the bamboo cabin and slept like boulders on the beach at Angatau. For three days we drifted aeross the sea without a sight of land. Rg ” » WE WERE drifting straight toward the ominous Takume and Raroia reefs, which together blocked up 40 to 50 miles of the sea ahead of us. We made desperate efforts to steer clear, to the north of these dangerous reefs, and things seemed to be going well till one night the watch came hurrying in and ‘called us all out.

U. S. A.: The Permanent Revolution—

EDITOR'S NOTE: This is the seventh installment of a series of articles from the book, “U. 8S. A.: The Permanent Revolution,” written by the editors of Fortuné Magazine in collaboration with Russell W. Davenport. The book, showing that since 1776 the American Revolution has steadily continued and is the only “permanent revolution” in world history, has just been published by Prentice-Hall.

CHAPTER SEVEN

AMERICAN labor is nqt *

“working-class conscious.” It is not “proletarian.” It does not believe in class war. Some parts of it are as wedded to rugged individualism as the National Association of Manufacturers. - Others want to “preform capitalism.” If there were a standard or typical labor view on this subject, it would probably come close to that of George W. Brooks of the tough pulp, sulfite, and -paper-mill workers (A° F. of L.). He says “la- - hor's objective of ‘making today befter than yesterday’ is predicted on its acceptance of capitalism.” Yet the American union is a militant union—more militant, perhaps. than its European counterparts. Not only can it point to steadier gains for its members in the form of wages and. benefits than any other labor movement; it has also been demanding for itself more and more managerial power within the business enterprise. Tt is capable of fighting for both its economic and its power demands with a ferocity

and- bitterness, -to say-nothing .

.of a vocabulary, that could

hardly be matched by any,

class-war union, The «American union has made the worker to an amazing degree a middle-class member of a middle-class soclety— in the plant, in the local com- . munity, in the economy. That | 1s the real measure of its suc-

u ee AP

The exis .at. the same time of Teal Moetility to enters

ag @

PACIFIC O

A NIGHTLY CHORE—Hanging the lantern on the mast.

ail

The wind had changed. We were heading straight for the Takume reef. It had begun to rain, and there was no visibility at all.. The reef could not be far off. In the middle of night we held a council of war. It was a question of saving our lives now. To get past on the north side was now hopeless; we must try to get through on the south side instead. We trimmed the sail, laid the oar over, and began a dangerous piece of salling with the uncertain north wind behind us. If the east wind came back befure we had passed the whole facade of the 50-mile-long reefs, we should be hurled in among the breakers, at their mercy. We agreed on all that should be done if shipwreck was imminent. We would stay on board the Kon-Tiki at all costs.

We laid the rubber raft loose on the deck and made fast to

BOOTED OUT—Delegates to the CIO national convention (Cleveland, 1949) cheer as they vote to ex-

pel the United Electrical Workers Union for following the Communist party line.

prise, ‘management, and the economic system .among the American workers is not only the measure of its failure. It is also the greatest danger to he Amercan labor movement and perhaps its greatest opportunity.

TWENTY YEARS AGO it was easy to dismiss the peculiar characteristics of the American labor movenient as signs of the “immaturity” ’ of the American worker, . ~The tJ 8 at that tine; next to Japan, was the least unionized of the major industrial countries. Surely, so the argument ran, a bigger union movement in America would be As proletarian and as much dedicated to class war, as. much anti-capitalist and socialist, as the union movements of Europe. Today the U. 8. may well be the most unionized of the free countries. Practically all pro-

”

duction emplayees in “big” and

“middle” industry are organized. Union contracts determine wage rates everywhere in this country, in unorganized as well as in organized businesses, for clerical as well as for production employees. : This switch from an openshop to an organized economy took only 12 ~ years-— from 1933 to 1945. They were years of depression and war, of tension and upheaval. Yet today’s successful, strong, » and militant labor

— movement is ..as little “pro-

letarian” or “socialist” as the small and unsuccessful labor movement of twenty years ago. ; ‘The Communists still control a small but strategic sector of American labor and have scattered but dangerous beachheads elsewhere, notably in the Ford ‘local of the automgbile workers. ? ‘ But 20 or e

glaring contrast to to 10 years ago, the

Communists stay in control only by claiming to be “bona fide unionists” The mask is dropped only in the closed conventicles of the faithful.

#; a 4 DAVID DUBINSKY pointed out last May that the old radical, socialist, and idealist movements which formerly were the source of union leaders have been drying up? There are no Wobblies today, no Jewish Bund, no Italian anarchists, no Debs, no Mother Jones.

influence in American labor today it theory—spread by a growing number of labor priests and Jatholie labor schools and of - considerable importance in several CIO unions as well as in the bullding trades of the AFL. / This anti-proletarian charac

ter of American unionism is the .

key to its { a fo hd ee Ah

away, and when ‘it urne had ‘gone round into the east.” According to Erik's position we were already so far down that we now had some hope of steering clear of the southernmost point of the Raroia reef.

We would try to get round it

it and into shelter before going on to other reefs beyond it, : . -When night came, we had been 100 days at sea. : x x = op AT DAWN, just before six, Torstein came hurrying down from the masthead. He could See a whole line of small pale clad islands far ahead Before doing anything else we laid oar over to southward as far as we could. Sia What Torstein had seen mi be the small coral islands which lay strewn like pearls on a string behind the Raroia reef. A northward current must have caught us. 5 LT OHORROW = In the anxious hours which pass while the Kon-Tiki drifts 2

closer to the dangerous the crew prepares for a ships

wreck. Syndicate)

by t

DANGER AHEAD!—A coral reef with . witches' cauldron of rr] ing breakers bars the approach to Raroia Island.

§ ey 8 i

br 4 w

the method by which it may ex tend the achievement and avo the danger. 8

ny proletarian union } ment; with its class-war prof regards the community’ and its institutions as “instruments of oppression.” The American union movement, by. ¢:ntrast, accepts the community and its institutions. i In 1942 the CIO was { sented on 90 COUR iat nrograms; last year the number was 7000. . = ~ » THERE IS still plenty of resistance by “polite ot y" against accepting the union leader. . But the resistance is hardly more strenuous today than that always offered to the newcomer—for example, the resistance of the New York “society” of merchants and bank ers in the 1870’s and 1880's to} the nev. industrial magnates. There is a price for thes = achievements of democratic * unionism. The less class war, | the more group greed: A quiet | division’ of loot or assumption . of privilege at the expensu of less organized members of | society. Here is the peculiar danger posed by American la- | bor to a free and mobile sochoty: the danger of social | Shrombosis, of union feudalsm. ’ a i

Yet, the pressure for exclu~ sive kinds of job security usually comes from the men and’ is often resisted by union lead-:

ers.

It is, In part, an instincti assertion of the property righ!

—#M—there is apy tdeological

is Catholic union .

wy Property right in a certain! ob... T} in retation was even Thi iam Justification, of the sitdown strikes of 1937. The. blame, if blame there be, lies not at the door of unioni but in the technical conflict be~ tween machine modes of pros