Indianapolis Times, Indianapolis, Marion County, 3 September 1952 — Page 17

3 1082

Inge airs

Inside Indianapolis

- By Ed Sovola

VOTERS are registering at the rate of 200 per Gay. The basement of the Marion County Courthouse would make a good whistle-stop for Ike and Adlai, Registration Board Commissioners Mike Hanréhan (Republican), and Ira_Buttz (Democrat), vouch for the.above figure. It's on the up-and-up in more ways than one. 5 Just before the Republican National Convention, the average was 25 registrations a day. At the close of the convention more than 100 voters were in thumping the counter here daily. By the time the Democrats chose their “surprise” candidate, the average was 160 registrations. It's hard to say what another convention would .do. The two commissioners are bubbling about the 5080 new registrations. Service has been rendered to 8876 voters. Considering 5080 of the total are new, the election this November could be a hot one. ’ oe oo» <@ WITH THE good news, the commissioners had to throw in troubles, too. The big headache, they say, is the voter who sends in his change-of-ad-dress through the mail after he moves to a newly developed street or a rural address. Too often he fails to give the exact location. The commissioners urge that voters in this category indicate which side of the street they Hve on and mention the surrounding roads. Most important in establishing where voting privileges can be exercised, At midnight, Oct. 6, the registration board closes shop. Don't wait, do it now. Doors are open from 8 a. m. to 10 p. m. Nov. 5 is a poor day to gripe about the man who “got in,” especially if you didn't vote for the man you wanted “in.” > & 9 POETRY Will get you no Cadillac. Andy Hutchison, sales manager for Hoosier Cadillac received a check and this: “Drive a Cadillac and you drive the best . . . Four years I've waited to make the test ... Now ¢ patience. may be a virtue 'tis true . . . But how long must I wait? . .. It should be due .. . My car's a wreck now, I'm really blue . . . And worse, my wife's in the hospital, too . . . Walking is no fun, as you probably know . .. So gimme that ‘Cad’ and don’t be a Schmo.”

Jet=Leader Britain By William McGaffin

FARNBOROUGH, England, Sept. 3 (CDN)— There's an eerie swish of rushing wind and you hang on to your hat as a jet skims over, almost at _eye level, doing 700 miles an hour. You don’t get the rumbling thunder of the mighty jet engine, however, until the plane is well past. This is because it's flying on the verge of the speed of sound. Speed of sound varies from 760 miles an hour at sea level to 660 miles’ an hour 35,000 feet. This is the fastest flying ever done in public here—but it is “slow” for several of the jets on display this week at the annual show of the Society of British Aircraft Constructors. They are capable of even better.

* +

AT LEAST two test pilots intended to’ fly through the sound barrier on the first day of the week-long show. One was flying a new allweather night fighter made by DeHavilland—so new it hasn't got a name yet, only a number. It's called Type 110. The other pilot was flying a Hawker jet fighter.

They were compelled to hold 'em down however after the Supply Ministry bowed to complaints of neighbors in the vicinity of this experimental airfield and ruled out all busting of the barrier. 3; Residents were upset at the loud sonic bang the jets make when they do this, not only disturbing to ears but actuhlly damaging to property, they maintain. Thirty-five planes are on exhibit at what unSoubteary has become the world’s greatest air play. : "Among military planes seen in public for the first time are the Gloster Javelin, the “flying triangle” all-weather fighter, the twinboom De-

Goddess Is Richer By Keyes Beech

KILAUEA, Hawaii, Sept. 3—Kilauea volcano is about to sputter its last—for the time being at least-—after a spectacular two-month run that drew more than 300,000 visitors and did wonders for the tourist trade. As for Madame Pele, Hawaii's mythical volcano goddess, she is richer by several dozen golf balls, an uncounted number of nickels, dimes and quarters, great quantities of food and an unknown quantity of liquor including at least one pitcher of martinis. All these offerings have been tossed into Kilauea's fiery crater since it erupted shortly before midnight June 27 with a whistling sound like a broken steam pipe. “The haoles (whites) may not take Pele seriously, but the Hawaiians still do,” says Dr. Gordon MacDonald, resident volcanologist + who's watched over Kilauea like a proud parent since the eruption began. ; * ¢ ¢

“A NUMBER of Hawaiians have been up here to say their prayers and appease Pele,” he continues. “What Madame Pele likes most is tobacco and whisky. She also likes white silk handkerchiefs, food and leis. “It's difficult not to take some of the Pele stories seriously,” says Dr. MacDonald. “The most common Story you hear is that of Pele showing up on a lonely road to ask a ride of passing motorists. She appears as an old woman, “When the driver turns to ask where his passenger wants to go she is gone,” Dr. MacDonald ’ explains, adding that two sucH instances’ have actually been reported to police. _ “In her latest incarnation Madame Pele ha been described as a beautiful blonde.” y © (At this intelligence I cast a suspicious glance at my wife who is unquestionably blonde and probably beautiful.) ’ cp BB 3 ALTHOUGH KILAUEA has quieted down to a simmer, Dr. MacDonald believes the volcano’s past record suggests its crater may continue to be a live lava lake for some years to come. , KHauea has spewed up 54 million cubic| feet of lava since the current eruption began with a rush of gas from a newly opened crack that extended all the way across the crater floor. The present lava lake covers about 100 acres.

’

Voters Stirred up About’Something

Andy's reply, check enclosed: ( “Your letter and check arrived in the mail . .-.

‘Our attempt to answer in rhyme may fail ,, . We

appreciate your patient wait and will try to fill your order at an early date . .. All Cadillacs are ordered in advance . . . Immediate delivery is just a chance ... However, we will let you know and try to keep from being a Schmo.” Advance orders, in case you're interested, “are almost equal to production,” Andy says, cagily. Translation as I translate: Don’t write poetry for a '53, look in a lot about '63. ¢ & & RAILROADER STORY: When you spend two months touring Canada and Alaska, there's bound to be a thrill someplace, Bob Murphy and Joe Lawhorn, retired local Big Four coal burners, and Ralph Roepke, still burning coal for the Big Four, knocked around the north country on ship, in the air and even traveled by dogsled. They saw everything from canning faetories to the boiler room of an old stern-wheeler. Biggest thrill? Taking the controls of a narrow-gauge locomotive in the Yukon and rattling it from White Horse to Bennett. . ld FAIR SHAKES: Mr, and Mrs. Carl Dortch (Carl's the Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce tax rand dollar expert who is a thorn in every mayor's budget side) took a ferris wheel ride at the Fair for reasons known only to them. The third time around, the operator stopped the wheel. Mrs. Dortch eyed the man critically and asked: “Is that all we get?” Fifteen minutes later they were begging to get off. Gripe and ye shall receive, de : MR. AND MRS. CHARLES IRELAND, Sears and Block's, in that order, also went out to the Fair. Mrs. Ireland wanted Charles to win her a baby duck. Feorty cents later, which isn’t very long, the Irelands had a duck. Life at home hasn't been the same since. The duckling eats all the time, quacks when he should be sleeping, has taken over the tub and ... Wanna buy a duck? : ae de FAIR GAG: Unreliable sources have reported that a psychoanalyst was called to the swine barns. (Ready?) A barrow had a gilt complex,

Mass Production Lag Is Only Hitch

Havilland 110, and the swept-wing Supermarine Swift day fighter. BUT it isn’t all warplanes. Maiden appearances are also being made by British Overseas Airways’ new 100-seat airliner, the Bristol Britannia, and by a twin-engined, twin-propellor helicopter, the Bristol 173. 1 This Farnborough show certainly reflects the impressive advance the British aircraft industry has made in the past year. Among the achievements are: . Opening by British Overseas Airways of the world’s first jetliner service employing DeHavilland Comets. : First flights of the 140-ton Saro Princess flying boat, and the 100-seater Bristol Britannia airliner, powered by prop-jet engines. Double crossing of the Atlantic in eight hours by the English Electric Canberra jet bomber. First flights of the all-weather jet fighter, the triangle-shaped Gloster Javelin, and the four-jet, triangle-shaped bomber, Avro-Delta, dd ONE ADVANTAGE incidentally of these flying triangles—or deltas as they are called after the shape of the Greek letter-—is that they give more room for radar apparatus. This is very important especially in a fighter plane. . The British lead the world in thinking up new jet planes. Their greatest weakness, which they ig themselves, is in trying to mass produce em. Among the thousands of persons who will visit Farnborough this week are many potential customers from; America and 69 other countries. Orders they would place, if the British would assure them large-scale production with firm delivery dates, could help get this country out of economic woods it's been in ever since the war.

Volcano Nearing Its Last Sputier

Dr. MacDonald estimates that the eruption is at least 25 miles deep into the earth’s surface. Since nobody is going down to check on it, this estimate is likely to remain undisputed. Nobody has been down into the crater since 1928, when a frustrat- . local lover slew his girl friend, tossed her body into the crater and jumped in after her. A search party went down to bring out the bodies.

Dishing .the Dirt By Marguerite Smith

Q—How should peonies be taken care of? I planted five plants. They came up only about 1 foot from the ground and had no flowers. I have them on the north side of the house and planted about 5 inches deep. Did I plant them too deep or not deep enough? Or not in the right place? Bridgeport. A—Too deep. Also wrong place. Also, I suspect, poor soil. Peonies do their best in full sun, Two inches is standard planting depth. And

“it’s wiser to plant too shallow rather than too

deep. The fact that the plants grew so little plus

Read Marguerite Smith's Garden Column in The Sunday Times

the usual condition of soil next to a house foundation makes me think you'd better do consideréble. soil improvement before you reset these plants. So try this, Move your peonies either this month or next. If you don’t have a plentiful water supply for soil soaking, wait until we have a good “planting rain.” Then when ground has dried off to a crumbly workable state dig as big holes for each plant as your back will allow. Use plenty of bone meal in each hole. Be sure to mix it in well, even into the subsoil. Use some . chemical fertilizer in the soil, too, if you want to do it up really well, Bulb fertilizer is good for peonies. You'll have to get this at a garden store. Then use good topsoil to fill in around the roots. If you do all this you'll have better luck: next year. And who says we aren't supposed to learn from our mistakes?

after winding up two

"BACK TO CIVVIES—The all-Indiana 87th Troop Carrier Wi g i back in civian fe is vee two weeks of Air Reserve training with the a

ve big review at the Atterbu

+ Air Force Base. -Three C-46 Commandos took part in the Air Force Reserve Day review, oh

rove Po SAT

, ‘the

Indianapolis Times =

skillet of bacon.

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1957

EAT, PLAY AND REST—

Here And There At The

CHOW HOUNDS-—When it's time for breakfast, then eat. That's the advice of (left to right) Theodore Amsler, Rensselaer; Jim Baxter, Remington, and Edward Ness, Columbia City, as they pass the coffee pot. and stoke up the fire under a

STUDY IN ART—AIl kinds of remarks could be made about the row of posteriors decorating the

top of the photo exhibit in the Women's Building at the State Fair, but the visitors viewing the exe sole-weary souls easing their aching arches above them,

hibit don't seem to nofice

COWGIRL—Cynthig Kay Allanson, 22 months, 410 E. 20th St., dreams of the wide, open spaces as her paint pony jogs around

a small circle at the State Fair.

1 7 . SECRET FILES OF THE FBl—.

BIG NICKEL—Maybe open-sided buses such as the "Big Nickel" at the State Fair would be the answer to Indianapolis Railways’ financial problems. Anyhow, Fair visitors get a big kick out of the open-buses that tote them around the Fairgrounds.

A NURSE IN THE HOUSE—Miss Marilyn Weber, senior in | demonstrates

the Indiana University Tra

State Fair

PAGE 17

1.) Ga PE 5 28

AG A SAT ho

with dolls how nurse's uniforms have progressed in the U. S.

PANORAMA—To give you a small idea of the crowds, here's how things look between the Coliseum (left) and the rear of the grandstand to the track. The thousands of people crushing along | the street and around the lunch counters below aren't aware of the spectators viewing them from | atop the grandstand.

Nets $250,000 With Bad Checks

By ANDREW TULLY Seripps-Howard Staff Writer

ASHINGTON, Sept. 3 —From Lancaster, Pa., to San Francisco, shopkeepers all over the country breathed a. virtually simultaneous sigh of relief last May when' a polite little man was sentenced to from three to nine year8 in the penitentiary in federal district court here. Temporarily, at least, the businessmen of the nation were to be spared the chagrin of waking up in the morning and discovering that the man

they had cashed a check for the day before was not an Assistant Secretary of State but .one Frederick Emerson Peters. At the time of his arrest by FBI agents in a Washington hotel lobby, Peters was one of the nation’s most wanted fugitives—and he had well earned this dubious distinction. For Peters was the mass production expert of confidence men -~perhaps the world's pion bad check passer.

Spi a Tm +

cham-

For 45 years—from 1807 to 1952 Peters’ vocation,and avocation had been the passing of bad checks. During that period, running a veritable mobile supermarket of ‘phony bank drafts, he had cashed an estimated 28,000 of them with a profit to himsélf of well over $250,000. ” » ” THIS BREATH - TAKINGLY wholesale indulgence in check

writing was the product of an operational routine from which Peters never deviated. Peters rarely took a victim for more thin $10, preferring a big turnover and a small return on each tramsaction to the more grandiose — and riskier-meth-ods, let us accompany him on a typical business day. Carefully dressed in a quiet gray suit and pearl fedora, Peters made his first call at a book shob on Seventh Ave. in New York City. With a courtly flourish, he introduced

" himself as Commander Freder-

ick E. Pierson, and said he was with the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Peters took plenty of time to browse, from time to time chuckling over a passage In a

book that pleased him. Ultimately, he picked out $46 worth of literature and asked that the books be held for him until he came by later in the day. He “paid” for the books with a check for $50, receiving $4 In cash. Then, before leaving, he invited the proprietor to have lunch with him aboard his ship at the Navy Yard. 5 ” ”

PETERS’ NEXT stop — still

as “Commander” Pierson--was at an antique shop in New York. He bought a number of items, costing a total of $95, wrote a check for $100 and pocketed a $5 bill. He went a little higher on his next stop it seems he was soothed by

the genteel’ atmosphere in these marts of nostalgia. There he made purchases

totaling $92, and a passed a check for $100. In a South Norwalk, Conn. music store, he bought a portable phonograph and som2 records and paid the $91.50 bill with an-

other $100 check. Then, moving to Waterbury, Conn. he

bought $88 worth of china and clit glass for a $100 check in one place, and $91.50 worth of

oil paintings for a $100 check in a second. Thus, when Peters called it a day, he had a gross profit of more than $50, less train fare. But this was enough. As he later explained, he had never been greedy-—all he wanted was enough money to live on. There was, also, always a certain class about Peters’ operations. To his victims, he was ever a distinguished personality, a man of polish and gentility. For a long time, early in his career, he posed as Franklin D. Roosevelt, Assistant Secretary of the Navy. 8 n o n "HE SIGNED other checks in the names of Philip Wylie, the author, the director of the Congressional Library, a professor of Vassar College and as various assistant Cabinet secretarjes and government officials. And he “bought” hundreds of books he told book shop proprietors were for his friend, 4n author named Booth Tarkington: Most people with whom Peters did business liked him. They were warmed by his air of cul. ture, “his courtly mafiners and his apparent good taste in ob-

jects d'art. And in at least one instance, Peters earned the { gratitude of a victim, ! This was the result of a call} Peters paid on an instrument) company in Rochester, N. Y., pus- | ing as the “Administrative Secru-{ tary” in the office of the Under; Secretary of Agriculture, The de-] partment, he explained, was about | to purchase a large quantity ot | rain gauges, and could he see what | Ahe company had to offer. i

” = ” A COMPANY official hurriedly trotted in samples of the company’s product. Peters examined them carefully, emitting expert like grunts, and occasionally clos ing his eyes as if in deep loncentration. “I think you can do business with us, sir,” said Peters finally. “If you will alter the design of your gauge in this manner.” He pointed out the changes he wanted made and the official was des lighted. Peters had suggested a real improvement. , That change is still a part of the company’s rain gauge, but

treasurer has about given up hope }

of getting back that $60 Peters

passed a check for before leaving

“for Washington. oy