Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 29 July 1951 — Page 19

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"Outside Indian

By Ed Sovola : CAMBRIDGE, England--“The world doesn't owe me anything. I only want what I earn.” A former flier in the RAF, who has the distinction of getting shot down in flames by an Amerfcan fighter pilot, was letting off steam, He thinks the Labor Government stinks, Richard Hill, a lean, intense man of 28, doesn't like the welfare state, The’ prestige England is losing worries him. He thinks private enterprise is being strangled to the detriment of the people. Dick puts crooked politicians ,/ on the same level as traitors , and believes they ought to be treated the same as traitors are in combat zones during war time. What I was hearing differed sharply with some ideas a Cambridge University: student dropped in my lap. The Labor Government, his sponsor through the university, could do no wrong. Of course, the lad hasn't worked for a living yet.

* > & RICHARD HILL at the present time is engaged in crop spraying. He flies a helicopter. He'll do anything as long as he can be off the ground. I told Dick about the Cambridge boy & met in a pub. Dick wasn’t surprised when I told him the kid didn't feel guilty about not working during his fourfmonth summer holiday. Dick just boiled over, “The sooner we stamp out those who think they can live off the government the better it will be for everybody,” Dick commented. “I hate to think I fought for guys like that and now have to pay taxes to buy him beer.” “Why didn't you take advantage of government grants for veterans and go to school for a few years?” ' Dick said he considered it when he was discharged in 1949 but decided against it. His first

Africana By Robert C. Ruark

CAMP MTO-WA-MBU, Tanganyika, July 28 Despite the occupational hazards of the country, such as scorpions in the shoes and snakes in the

bed, plus the added risk of encountering a love-

maddened rhino on the way to the wash tent, Africa is the place for me, Here the female of the human species still has no social | status whatsoever, no political importance, and no rights before the local law: She {is not called wife nor debutante. Manamouki, or she-thing, is her name. Her only function is to breed extensively, minister to the comfort of man, and work 18 hours a day in order that the master may loll about in comfort, drinking beer and soaking up the sun. Here wives are not a luxury, or a form of madness, but a vital necessity. The more wives, the more beer, because each wife is held responsible to provide the gruel-like mixture in vast quantities, at a hand’s béck. The more wives, the more kaffir corn, the more maize, the more work, the more kids. Kids, especially female kids, are important, because you can sell a fat young daughter for a nice price. Kids are social security.

° dd

I DO not indorse the sale of humans, even in holy matrimony, although I understand it is not much different from the way we barter for brides with pretty presents and pensions to the in-laws. But I am enchanted with a place that still regards man as an important fellow, to be coddled and cared for so that he may improve his mind with leisure .and prevent the poisons of fatigue from invading his frame. If a man is fond of his wife in most tribes, he makes her a present. The gift is long, thin, leather straps cut from eland hide. She coos. with delight, because these thongs will make it easier for her to carry the short ton of firewood she ig expected to gather every day. 2

It Happened Last Night

By Earl Wilson

NEW YORK, July 28—You've heard of summer opera ... summer theater ... summer dresses + . . Some girls are good and summer bad , .. “Summer These Days You're Gonn-n-n-a Miss Me, Hahneeee’—but do you know about summer television? I've dragged perspiringly through the simmerIng studios all summer, and in two words I can tell you the trouble: “The Heat.” Those studios are hotter'n a 1915 Maxwell,~ Faye Emerson, Robert Q. Lewis, Ed Sullivan, Amos 'n’ Andy, Dagmar and Jack E. Leonard, .. Herb Shriner and a few others are carrying on

through the summer, and deserve a bonus,

says I. They'll get one, too. Sure! Just like NBC will recommend CBS color,

eo + .

ONE SATURDAY night I was a guest on Robert Q. Lewis’ show. He is a summer replacement for Sam Levenson. Television lets down so much in summer, that generally there's a summer replacement for the summer replacement.

“We have a couple good jokes for you here in the script,” one of Bob's writers, Norm Barish, sald at rehearsal. “I'M going to get a laugh?” I exclaimed. Most eomedians love a laugh, as long as they get it. “Sure. You'll get one after this sentence . . . (he pointed to the script) “you pause and wait for the laugh, and then you'll get one after the next line... Two laughs for me seemed impossible. * 4 ¢

THEY WERE impossible, too, evidently — I dikn’'t get them. My first humorous sally struck that withered and gasping audience as being as mirthy as Campbell’s Funeral Parlor, “I must wait for the laugh,” I reminded myself. I waited till it was almost Sunday noon. The famous titter that usually runs through the audience didn’t even limp up on crutches. Then came the second hilarious gag—one I myself had cleverly inserted. It got the same roar of ennui. “I guess I didn't deliver those lines right,” I apologized after the show, in my’ bath of perspiration. “No, it was the audience,” they assured me. “It was so hot and washed out from the heat, it didn’t laugh at anything.” * » ¢

ROBERT Q. himself was full of dash and spirit, yet I kept thinking how happy he must be here in

”"

apolls

At Labor Regime

love is flying and he thought he could do better by going to work. 3 For a year he trained Navy pilots to fly Mosquitoes. He was employed by a private concern. I didn’t understand why a private concern had the job. Why didn’t the military do its own training? ) e 9% DICK EXPLAINED that the government had a limited amount of money for the military. On paper the expenditures coincided with the budget. Beyond that private contracts were let and covered up in reports. Simple. It has to be done if England is to be prepared. When he had a chance to go with the cropdusting company, Dick signed on the dotted line. In a few weeks he will go to France. Later in the year he will spray cotton in the Sudan and the tsetse fiy in South Africa. Right up his alley this fiying and traveling. Dick's primary training for the RAF was in Canada. He visited New York City twice. His first visit lasted three days. The second time he extended a two-day pass to 14 days. He found New York agreed with him. > > D HE LAUGHS about being shot down by an American over Italy. At the time he was flying the English Beaufighter., His night-fighting sortie was interrupted by a nervous but highly-accurate American. “I understand the Americans gave the pilot a bloody time of it,” mused Dick, Dick doesn’t like the idea of cigarets costing 300 per cent more than they did before the war, He would like to get his hands on an automobile, something which is almost impossible over here. He told how a salesman figured a waiting list Dick wanted to get on for a little Morris car. Dick was told he could expect delivery in 115 years. He blames the situation over here on thg welfare state. Too many people getting something for nothing. He wants to earn his.

Afric. a Man's Land And Bob Is Pleased

If a wife misbehaves, her husband beats her up a little, and does not get hauled off to‘ court to explain why. If he doesn’t like her, if she's lazy and quarrelsome, he just kicks her out and tries to get his money back from her old man. If she persists in running away, her papa fis morally responsible to refund at least a portion of the fee. . SB ob THERE IS not too much complication in plural marriages. The girls generally have a hut of their own and a garden of their own. The husband calls around on each, separately, and attempts to divide his valuable time more or less equally. My friend, Kibiriti, the lion tracker from Ikoma, claims he splits his time between his four brides, but I think he's cheating. His last purchase is young and quite pretty, and I’ve a hunch he’s handing the elder ladies the brush. Apart from the members of my own safari, I've not seen half a dozen male Africans in the villages doing what might be termed work. The dames struggle by, laden with child and burdens, but papa squats on his hams and palavers with t.ie other stags, or leans on his spear and sleeps standing. One of the chief male occupations is sleeping, and the boys are very adept at it. He quits his nap for two main reasons—to eat or drink beer, after which he sleeps again.

OF COURSE, you cannot count hunting as work, but your bush boy is not too carried away by the idea of sport. He will tote his spear or his bow or his ancient blunderbuss more or less as a blind, so that he can at least say he’s hunting when a snooze is really what he has in mind. It is not terribly expensive to surround yourself with wives and luxury. In hard times a fat young maid is purchasable for as little as 15 shillings. Even with monetary inflation, a healthy, hard-working woman can be acquired in Tanganyika for four or five pounds. I tell you, this Africa is strictly a man’s country. I may set up shop here permanently, and if mama. is very good. I will buy her some of those carrying straps. She looks sort of silly lugging my trunk around on her head.

Television Studios Having Hot Time Now

this furnace while all his chums were out in the country in their nice cool patios. Faye Emerson handles her show as though oblivious of the heat—and since she's from San Diego and Texas, she may be. Yet a spy tells me that two minutes before the show opens with Faysie smiling charmingly, she is scowling about the heat just like anybody else might. Men on TV can take off a few clothes, but poor Faysie went as far as a girl could in the winter. “She can't take off anything she already hasn't,” asserted one fellow, who added, however, “I like it, I like it!” Comedian Jackie Gleason recognized the gituation on one of his shows on Dumont. “I'd like to ask all the men in the audience to wave their handkerchiefs and the women to wave their purses,” he implored gravely. WHEN SOME of them did, he said: “Fine! It gets kinda warm up here!” In the “simmertime,” budgets are cut, writers are dropped, musicians are let go, and sponsors

g0 on vacations to places where they can't see

television—thank goodness!

Stagehands stand outside stagedoors panting | Expedi- |

like dogs. Sometimes they disappear. tions usually find them at a bar.

“Wouldn't you say there is a great relaxing

in the summertime?” I asked Snag Werris, writer for Jackie Gleason. “There's a relaxing in the money department only,” he sald. “But ‘everybody goes out and levels—everybody gives a performance.”

. . I

SUMMER TELEVISION will he a lot bigger next year. Because, with all they weak shows,

there is a great chance for a not-so-great show to |

stand out and build’ a great audience just because there is a chance to be seen. Plenty of geniuses who overlooked that before have been discovering it this summer. One of the TV stars who doesn’t appreciate the summer is 330-pound Jack E. Leonard. However, weighing that much; he doesn’t even appreciate the winters. “I'm ALWAYS perspirin’,” he says. “But don't get me wrong,” he says. overweight, I'm just overpopulated.” “> 2 0% TODAY'S BEST LAUGH: learned how to heat the heat. T-shirt.

“I'm not

Harvey 8tone He wears an ice

> * WISH I'D SAID THAT: Lynne Gilmore calls a psychiatrist's fee—mad money. That's Earl, brother.

Auto Insurance Goes Up Monday

Indiana motorists will have to)

Since the state is divided into/insurance rates was filed with the

pay new, higher automobile in- eight auto insurance territories, gtate Insurance Department by

surance rates tomorrow as the premiums will vary. According to result of an increase in the num- the State Insurance Department,

‘the National Bureau of Casualty

ber of auto accidents and higher here's how- much the average Insurers, Mutual Insurance Rat-

repair costs. :

policy holder in Indianapolis will ing Bureau, Hoosierland Rating Teen-agers and others under 25 have to pay for the popular “5 and Bureau and independent com-|

will have to pay an additional 10” coverage ($5000 for one per- panies.

$8.50 a year in the Indianapolis son and $10,000

area. Motorists over 25 will have one): ~~ to pay an additional $5.50. { 4) First notice of the 18 per cent Drivers

; The’

for more than) ; lsome time but state insurance ofNew |ficials refused to make the action Rate public. At the time,

Old Rate

46.00 effective date. not affect insurance

Ex-RAF Flier Hits

~The Indianapolis '

| settlers

{ names for more

{ pungent as the

| Co. of Indianapolis) | may doom this village and its

| comes from the | of its { animals flocked to it to lick the

Springs Hotel.

Approval had been granted for,

ie Mr, Vieh-|. increase in automobile liability Over 25 ........:.$27.50 $33.00 mann sald the new rates do not insurance rates was reported ex- Under 25 .......... 44.50 53.00/ become public knowledge until the Soatvely in the July 3 issue of Commercial ........ 39.00

~

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imes

SUNDAY, JULY 29, 1951

French Lick Springs

Paradise-- ‘Half A Mile

By TED KNAP Times Staff Writer

FRENCH LICK, Ind., July 28—0ne of the favorite stories here tells of a Ger-

man immigrant who rode his horse into this lush valley on a summer day about 1350 years ago. t The surrounding hills and verdant valley were undeniably beautiful, but the pioneer was accosted by a violent odor like “gunpowder mixed with spoiled

eggs.” “Drive on, John,” the German said to his son. “Hell's

not half a mile from this place.” Many times, no doubt, that traveler and his son wished they had ignored the smell and rémained to become pioneer of the valley. For this

cup of land in the hills has overflowed with gold. u » n

THE VALLEY became fahulous French Lick, most famous gpa in the nation, and attracted fat purses and imposing than a century. And the odor of gunpowder and bad eggs, not really as German described it, has been like roses to some 4000 people who settled and made their livelihood from: those sulphurous springs. In recent years, however, the German would have felt vindicated. French Lick has been far from heaven for the monied men who bought and tried to operate its resort hotels. This week in Federal Court in Indianapolis, another owner of

| French Lick Springs Hotel com-

plained of losing about $160,000

| this ‘year. And last year, said

Owner John B. Cabot, the internationally famous spa went “in the red” for some $130,000. Result: the Hotel has been placed in hands of a court-appointed trustee for rescue from debt's rough sea. If the trustee (Fidelity Trust fails, it

West Baden twin. During most of {its 200 years, this .settlement has depended on the spas for work, wages and sales.

u ” u

THE FERTILE LAND and

| abounding game first attracted

Indians, about 500 years ago. Early in the 18th Century French settlers established a

| trading post in the valley, and

it was from them that the town

{ derives half of its name,

The Lick in French Lick salty content earth, Deer and other tasty ground-—-and become tar-

gets for arrows.

During the Indian Wars, some 130 years ago, the surrounding hills hecame a strong

fort for the white settlers. And

at one time, attempts were | made to manufacture salt from this earth, but they never | paid off. When the saline land was

| placed on the market, Dr. William A. Bowles became the first jowner of the richest country-

side in Indiana. He also became the first owner of a hotel here, and it was the predecessor of the. now floundering French Lick

HOOSIER HISTORY can

| hardly boast a character more

fabulous than William A. Bowles. As a man, he was many

WILLIAM A. BOWLES— Doctor, preacher, colonel—and traitor. He founded French Lick Springs Hotel in 1840.

things in one -— physician, preacher, politician, statesman, warrior, lover and, finally, traitor. Bowles was the Greek classic picture of a man. A fellowtownsman who dabbled in history, A. J. Rhodes, described him as being '‘6 feet, 2 inches and over 200 pounds, large and

very handsome.” Despite his obvious physical strength, Bowles possessed “a voice

sweet and soft”—which may account for his three marriages and two divorces. Mr. Rhodes, obviously impressed with the man who doctored him in childhood, called Bowles ‘one of nature's noblemen.” He was regarded as the leading physician in southern Indiana, curing many persons after other doctors failed. His bedside manner, adorned by pleasant smile, self-confidence and magnetic personality, “was a thing to behold. ” on ” BUT ALL was not smooth in the ways of Dr. Bowles, As a young man, he became a preacher in the Baptist church. Because he sued some brethren for bills they owed him as a doctor, Preacher Bowles was expelled. He was later embraced, but due to a quarrel over doctrine, was ousted again. Bowles died out of the church. In 1846, Bowles was made captain of a company in the 2d Indiana Regiment. He was promoted to colonel and led the Regiment into the Mexican War. All went well for troops and commander until the battle of Buena Vista, when they were routed. Col. Bowles and some men fell in with a Mississippi regiment commanded by Jef» ferson Davis. = » o WHEN DAVIS reported that the Hoosier Regiment, except for its colonel and a few others, had .“fled ingloriously,” the Indiana soldiers shouted their anger at Bowles. They charged he had ordered their flight. This caused a permanent breach between Bowles and his

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A PUTT FOR PLUTO — Picturesque view shows 5th green on lower golf course. The other, called Hill course, is one of sportiest in country. Other sports: Tennis, skeet, bowling and gymnastics.

troops, but it brought a lasting friendship with the Mississipian. It also brought the downfall of Bowles. When Davis became president of the Southern Confederacy, Col. Bowles became head of the Knights of the Golden Circle, a pro-Reb subversive group. The Knights had been organized in Shoals, Ind. As a result, Col.-Dr.-Rev. Bowles was arrested for treason and. sentenced to hang. At the request of Gov. Morton, President Lincoln commuted the sentence to life imprisonment and then pardoned him after the Civil War ended. After being released from the Ohio penitentiary, Bowles returned to his French Lick Springs Hotel, | n on ” BOWLES had bought the land in 1832, and erected the Hotel about eight years later. The three-story: frame structure, about 90 feet long, was of pearchitecture, Oldtimers recall it was ‘the ugliest and

¥

PAGE

rom Hell’

FREE DRINK—This is Pluto Fountain, near hotel. There are two others on 2000-acre hotel grounds.

most unsightly building ever constructed in the valley.” He operated it, successfully, for 33 years until his death in 1873, Even more spectacular was the success of his French Lick

pills. They were regarded as good for anything that ails you, A nephew of the doctor,

i.

ORIGINAL HOTEL—Proud swains pose with bowlers and walking sticks, and ladies wear dresses past ankles in this historic picture on

veranda of old hotel.

Photo was taken about 1885, ¢

Louis Bowles, lives in nearby Paoli. French Lick Springs was involved in its first court . action in 1880, when Bowles’ : heirs were ordered to sell to' H. E. Wells and J. M. Andrews, They ran it for seven years, were succeeded by a corporation. ' » v o THE SECOND major phase of the spa's history begins in 1901 with | its purchase by Thomas Taggart. And it was under his regime that French Lick had its heydey. Tom Taggart was

Hotel = .

a power

in Indiana. Besides his wealth, he controlled the Democratic Party in the State and was elected to the U.S. Senate, Under him, it became the gathering place of political

bigwigs. as it is still, occasions ally, today. “Life” at French Lick picked up under Tom Taggart. During his first 10 years, the Hotel gained notriety as a wide-open

gambling establishment, fre= quently raided and finally ordered to ‘clean up” by Gov, Hanly. Thus, with the recent crackdown by Gov. Schricker causing removal of slot ma«

chines, the hotel's history has completed another cycle,

In those davs, crackdowns didn't last too long, and soon French Lick heard the whirl

of roulette, rattle of chips and click of telegraphed race results

” o ” STATE ACTION wasn't the

only blow against profitable” gambling. In 1906, Chicago hoodlums demanded ““protec-

toin” payments from the resort owners in French Lick and West Baden. When Mr. Tags gart and others ignored the demands, thugs dynamited the veranda at French Lick Monts Carlo: and blasted the gaming room at West Baden Springs Hotel. 3 It was under Tom Taggark and his. men; who later took: over, that the Hotel reached its peak of eminence, particularly under Teddy Roosevelt ands World War I days. They en larged the building four tim to its prasent capacity of abo 630 rooms. and added n other facilities. They installed a special sidet ing for railroad cars, where of one Kentucky Derby week-end 93 private cars lined up an an extra track was laid t