PORT ORFORD, OREGON. POST
(Released by W estern N ew sp aper U näön.I
YOU ARK M O R I GAGED
FOR |538!
SECRETARY OF CO M M ERCE
Jesse Jones reports the income of
the American people for 1940 was
*74,000.000,000, including what was
paid by the government for relief
and farm subsidies.
That is just about what it would
take to pay what the federal gov.
ernment, which is us, owes. We are
in the red, including appropriations
that have been made but not yet
spent and including the obligations
of the several government corpora
tions for which the government is
responsible, something over *70,000,
000,000. To pay what we owe would
take all the income of all the Ameri
can people for the entire year of
1940, the highest income year since
1929.
Former President Herbert Hoover
told me some three years ago that
he believed the nation could carry
an indebtedness of close to 70 bil
lions before going broke and becom
ing the victim of extreme inflation.
If that is correct—and I believe
Herbert Hoover comes nearer know
ing than most men—we are on the
verge of bankruptcy and inflation.
Who is responsible?
The congress of the United States,
the men we elected as senators and
representatives.
No dollar can be taken out of the
national treasury until congress has
approved the expenditure. The Pres
ident cannot spend our money un
less congress has authorized the ex
penditure. The billions that have
been spent on foolish boondoggling
projects and for other things had to
have the consent of the men we
sent to Washington to represent us
in the senate and house of repre
sentatives.
That mortgage of more than $70,-
009,000,000 means some $538 00 for
each one of us to pay, or about
*2,090 for each family of five.
When the time comes for us again
to select senators and representa
tives, it behooves each of us to ex
amine the records of those asking
for our votes, and to turn thumbs
down on those who have put us In
the red to the extent of our entire
income for one year.
FO R TY-N IN TH STATE
SEN. W IL LIA M H. SMATHERS of
New Jersey proposes that we make
Cuba the forty-ninth state, but Cuba
very definitely does not want to be
either the forty-ninth or any other
state in the Union.
Out in the Pacific ocean, standing
as the outer guardian of our west
ern const. Is Hawaii, an American
territory that does want, and has
repeatedly asked, to be made the
forty-ninth state. In the last World
war, Hawaii produced a larger per
centage of volunteers for military
service than any one of the present
48 states. The islands were offered
to, and accepted by, the United
States under a promise of statehood.
If we are to have a forty-ninth star
in the flag, why should it not repre
sent Hawaii? Vernon Yap, a Chi
nese I know in the Islands, does not
feel that he will be an American un
til he can vote for a President.
•QUEEN BESS'
MRS BESS CROSS of Deering,
Alaska, has been paying her every-
Afth-year visit to the States. Sounds
prosaic, but to her sourdough friends
in and out of Alaska, and to the
fashionabl(/feminine apparel dealers
in New York, it is an event eagerly
awaited.
To every sourdough—miner, trap
per and those in other lines, to every
Eskimo, in fact, to all Alaska, Bess
Cross is known as "Queen of the
Arctic.” She went to Alaska as a
bride of ,16. Her first husband op
erated a trading post and she as
sisted him. When he died, Bess car
ried on, and expanded Today she
has a 1 irge string of such posts all
over the Alaskan wilds, and espe
cially along (he shores of the Arctic
ocean.
In Alaska. Bess wears a fur parka,
walrus-hide boots, sealskin trousers
as a matter of necessity, not from
choice. She is definitely feminine,
and about once every five years she
comes to the States, always travel
ing by plane.
She goes to New
York and indulges in a regular orgy
of clothes buying. She selects the
daintiest, most luxurious of feminine
apparel; lives in a fine suite at the
Waldorf; entertains lavishly for a
period of from two to three weeks,
and then flies back to her string of
Alaskan trading posts, to the white
men and Eskimos who love and re
spect her, and to whom she is al
ways "Queen Bess of the Arctic."
A G R E A T W INDOW DISPLAY
T H E R E IS A window display in
Wilmington. Del., which I look at
every time I visit that city. In it
there are always a considerable
number of things, each one of which
represents an addition to the com
fort and standard of living and an
increase in employment in America.
A ll of these things are the products
of an industrial laboratory operated
by private capital.
The mainte
nance of such laboratories means
continued prosperity In America.
And it’s no government Job.
WHO’S
NEWS
THIS
WEEK
By LEMUEL F. PARTON
(Consolidated F ea tu res— W N U S e rv ice.!
X T E W Y O R K —As Japan stakes
* ’ out Oceania for her own, Gen.
George Grunert, commanding the
Philippine department of the Amer-
G e n . G r u n e r t a f ‘c1
a,narm’’:
following his
Philippine* C alm ly usual proce-
c -» .
. .d u re o fre s o -
S « f. on th e £ .r f lutely sitting
on the lid. He tells the American
community there, organizing for de
fense, not to get steamed up and
warns against "spreading excite
ment or stirring up alarm .”
The general knows island soldier
ing, from whacking his way through
the jungle with a machete, which he
did as a private, to running the army
there, which he does as a general.
He is known as a soldier’s soldier,
never involved in politics or army
controversy, a skilled specialist in
m ilitary techniques, of which he has
been both a diligent student and
teacher in the arm y schools.
His home town is White Ha
ven, Pa., and he works hard to
make Manila seem like home,
in spite of threats, challenge and
tension in the Far East. He was
one of those small-town boys
who fell In step with the village
band music In 1898 and marched
off to the Spanish-American war
to the tune of "There’ll Be a Hot
Time in the Old Town Tonight,”
and kept right on marching, in
the Philippine campaign and
every other major and minor
excitement in which we were in
volved. He was on the Mexican
border in 1914, with the A.E.F.
In France and with the arm y of
occupation In Germany, gather
ing chevrons and medals on the
way up.
In between these exercises, he
was teaching military science at the
Shattuck school In Fairbanks, Minn.,
serving as instructor and later com
mander of the Army War college
and commanding the general staff
school at Fort Leavenworth, Kan.
Whatever we may think of our his
toric little crow-hops in the direc
tion of manifest destiny, they have
trained some good men if we ever
have manifest destiny thrust upon
us.
D EPORTS about many of the Nazi
leaders, including Herr Hitler,
consulting seers and astrologers,
carrying talismans and reading
It Seem* a Dual dream books
cam e over
Talittaan M ight here back in
the days when
D efeat the Nazi* many
of our
citizens thought they were nice peo
ple. and were amused by their little
human failings. Hence the dossier
on Gen. Friedrich Christiansen,
when he flew the Do-X to this coun
try nearly a decade ago, was not
Inspired by ill-will or propaganda
when it recorded his various devices
to exorcise the demons of ill-luck.
After the blitzkrieg, the general be
came runner-up for Dr. Seyss-
inquart, in the ball-and-chuin depart
ment in Holland, and just now, as
military commander for that area,
is dealing plenty of bad luck to the
natives.
He says he is "taking
steps." That meant executions a
few days ago.
When the Do-X landed here In
1931, one young woman report
er was quite lyrieal about the
"handsome and gallant com
mander, with his mlsehievous
blue eyrs, bushy brows, and
warm, ingratiating smile." He
told about his good-luck horse
shoe, nailed in the cabin of the
huge flying boat, and as neces
sary to its operation as a com
pass. It was an English horse
shoe which he had picked up on
the battlefield of Mons, In the
World war. Many times, it hac
saved him from disaster, hr
said, and he could expert trou
ble if he ever let it lose Ils shine,
and It doesn’t work well unless
he does the polishing.
His adventures with the horseshoe
led him to a great discovery. When
he was the squadron leader at Zee-
brugge, Germany's first naval act,
he was shot down by an English
plane. That day, he had received
a four-leaf clover, in a tetter from a
friend. When he was downed, he
knew what had happened. The pos
session of more than one talisman
by the same person spells trouble.
He put the four-leaf clover in a cigar
box weighted with iron and sank it.
There's no copyright on the
Idea If the Hollanders want to
slip a rabbit’s foot or a four-leaf
elover In his pocket when he
Isn't looking.
Ernst Udet, famous World war
ace and contriver of their parachute
attack, is as full of superstitions
as Frazer's golden bough. Flying a
plane for the first time, he carves
the initials of his best girl on the
back seat. He, and many other Ger
man fliers will not wear a pair of
gloves on a flight unless they have
been flown in another plane. It all
sounds a bit Jittery for super-men.
istoriceli
Anyway, It’s a Living!
It's true that one-
half the world doesn’t
know how the other
half lives. Yes, in this
world there are some
very strange profes
sions, and this series
of photographs shows
you a few of them.
The surprising thing
is that the people en
gaged in these un
usual professions fail
to see anything at all
unusual about them.
luf ibtta Scoli WaÜoe*
I T TAKES no subtle expert to un-
1 derstand that in the majority of
cases that condition is one of the es
sential requirements in the making
of a champion. But there are many
arguments as to how one reaches
condition along the surest road.
"No, I haven’t any very revolu
tionary ideas about the training of
young athletes. I
ask them to be sen
sible and temperate
in their eating and
adopt regular hab
its for sleep and ex
ercise. U the aver
age youngster will
live a normal life,
eat wholesome foods
and be regular in
his every day hab-
its there isn’t going
Grantland Rice to be very much
wrong with him .”
The speaker was Dean B. Crom
well, famous track and Held coach
at the University of Southern Cali
fornia. Cromwell's teams have won
so many track championships that
the experts have almost quit trying
to keep track of them.
I found Dean Cromwell at historic
Bovard field on the Trojan campus,
the field which has sent six foot
ball teams to the Rose Bowl without
defeat, the field which has been the
proving ground for countless nation
al and Olympic champions of the
cinderpath, the field which has
turned out several prominent base-
ballers now performing in the ma
jor and minor leagues. M r. Crom
well is always there, no matter what
the season. Of course, Howard Jones
attends to the football and Sam Bar
ry bosses the baseballers but the
venerable Dean, now in his thirty-
second year at Troy, keeps a weath
er eye on all the athletes.
(Released by W estern N ew spaper U n ion .)
V ic tim s o f th e Code D u e llo
N T H E morning of March 20,
1820, two American naval offi
cers stood facing each other in a
grassy field near the town of Bla
densburg, Md., not far from Wash
ington, D. C. They had been ship
mates and friends once but now
there was something akin to hatred
in their eyes as they looked at each
other across the space of eight
yards that separated them.
Both men were well above six
feet in height. One was about 40
years old, slender and graceful. He
was Commodore Stephen Decatur,
one of the nation’s greatest heroes
because of his brilliant exploit in
burning the captured frigate Phila
delphia as she lay at anchor in the
harbor of Tripoli during the war
with the Barbary pirates. The oth
er was about 50 years old, broad-
shouldered, his hair a little gray at
the temples. He was Commodore
O
Not for the Roys
Cromwell believes the recent em
phasis on eastern indoor meets is
bad on the college runners. Says
it is all right for the A. A. U. and
the promoters who cut up the mount
ing gate receipts, but states that the
boys who are bearing down in Janu
ary and February on the boards are
put to too great a strain by having
to be in shape clear through the
summer tor outdoor competition.
"You ran bring your athletes to
a peak only two or three times dur
ing a season," continued the Dean,
"and these occasions must not be
too far apart.”
I asked Coach Cromwell what
world record he thought would be
broken next
"The high Jump,” he returned.
"And we may have Just the boy to
turn the trick. The record is now
8 feet 9% inches. Johnny Wilson, a
senior here at Southern California,
has done 6 feet 9% inches, and I
firmly believe he will hit 6-10 be
fore the 1941 season closes."
His Greatest Athletes
The (W-y ear-old Trojan mentor,
who looks and acta 26 years young
er, has turned out a long string of
champions, among them Charley
Paddock. Morton Kaer, Bud Houser.
Charley Borah. Lee Barnes, Earle
Meadows and many more.
He says Bud Houser, former
world's record holder in the discus
and Olympic champion in both this
event and the shot put, was the
greatest
competitor
he
ever
coached.
New York Novelette: M r. Pirolle
ran a good restaurant on West 45th
Street for a long time .
One of
his patrons a few years ago was a
young writer, who’d hang up a tab
for two or three months until he
peddled a piece—then he’d pay up
. .
"You won’t regret this," he
used to tell M r. Pirolle, “ some day
I'll make good and do you a good
turn"
The other day Pirolle
got a letter from the success
It told of a restaurant in Hollywood
that needed better management
The pay was big plus free rent in
a nice huge house for Pirolle and
his wife . .
Pirolle sold his 45th
Street restaurant and is now bound
for Movietown, where most of his
old customers are anyway ,
In
cluding one who didn’t forget—
Preston Sturges.
Manhattan Murals: The lights on
the marquee of a newsreel theater:
“Crime Doesn’t Pay”— “Italians
Retreat” . . . The Peke in a Madi
son Avenue restaurant who gets
a daily saucer of orange juice for
breakfast
. The baseball argu
ments creeping into the Main Stem
conversations—a whiff of Spring .
The Sixth Avenue bookshops where
you can get Shakespeare for a
nickel . . . The meticulous manner
in which the pastries are arranged
in Lindy’s windows—like a Rockette
precision parade . . . Times Square
on a Saturday eve—resembling an
annex at Fort Dix.
P ictu re
P a ra d e
L e ft: U gh! We
should imagine that
there are better and
more pleasant ways
of testing soap than
tasting it. Yet Joseph
Strobl of Los Angeles
prefers this method.
Again, ugh! But it’s
a living!
Portrait of a Man
Playing the Typewriter:
A Few Angles
"We're very fortunate here in
Southern
California,”
continued
Coach Cromwell, “ in that the foods
grown so close at hand, plus the
fine sunshine, provide most of the
vitamins so necessary to good health
for growing youngsters. The boys
come from average homes where
for years they have been eating the
right kind of food.
" If a boy has been drinking tea or
coffee and he comes to me a healthy
youngster I ’m not going to tell him
to quit. If a boy has been a big
milk drinker and he's sound physi
cally I don’t change his diet even If
some coaches do claim that drink
ing milk is bad for the wind."
Coach Cromwell’s training orders
sound simple, but there happens to
be more than he reveals. He sets his
foot down hard on overwork, particu
larly in early season.
"Many years ago we had our in
ter-fraternity meets early each sea
son,” said the Dean. " I found that
the athletes who did exceptionally
well in these December meets gen
erally were beaten later in the year
by those who had been taking it
easy at the start.
Right then I
barred my best athletes from these
inter-fraternity meets.
And I ’ve
been doing it ever since. We just
coast along for six or eight weeks,
building up stamina and leading a
normal life. When the big tests
come in late spring and midsummer
I generally find my boys in pretty
good shape."
Cromwell’s rivals in the coaching
business will add a fervent "Amen"
to this statement. Ills Trojans have
won 9 of the 13 N. C. A. A. meets
In which they have competed, In
cluding the last 6 straight; taken
top honors in the I. C. 4-A. the last
7 times they entered; and whipped
Stanford In I I out of the last 12 dual
meets, to say nothing of bagging
several Pacific Coast conference
crowns.
Man About Town:
STEPHEN DECATUR
James Barron, who had been court-
martialed and suspended from the
service for five years because he
had surrendered the frigate Chesa
peake to the British man-of-war
Leopard just before the outbreak of
the W ar of 1812.
A trifling incident had caused
the first rift in their friendship.
Later Decatur was caustic in his
criticism of Barron’s conduct in the
Chesapeake-Leopard affair and in
an exchange of letters which fol
lowed made so many insulting state
ments that Barron eventually chal
lenged him to a duel.
So here they were on this March
morning meeting “on the field of
No wonder Wayne King's dreamy
music still is popular after all these
years; no brass, no earachers, no
blasts. Just music
. No quip
has been credited to so many “origi
nators” as the one about the hus
band’s postcard to his wife saying:
“Having Wonderful Tim e — Wish
You Were H E R !”
The March Reader's Digest re
minds the appeasers, via a former
attache in Berlin, that we couldn’t
do business with the Nazis, unless
we became Nazifled .
Quentin
Reynolds’ literary lace in Collier’s:
“Lisbon is a city under death, and’
her bright lights are really her fu
neral candles" . . . The Supreme
Court ruled that it was illegal to
imitate clothes styles . . . Bet that
decision scared the dickens outta a
lotta colyumists . . What the RAF
is holding back was neatly recorded
by Dorothy Thompson: “ If Britain
falls—the weight of the whole world
will be on the side of the Fascist
elements in the U. S.: Trade, weap
ons, propaganda, armies and fleets”
. . . We hope that makes it clear.
FISHDERMIST . . . That's what Mrs. Charles Parker of Santa
Catalina Island, Calif., calls herself. With hammer, nails, paint
and stuffing, she mounts the big ones that didn’t get away.
3
One of the constructive things
ASCAP should do is stop those or
chestra leaders, such as the one
who sticks his moniker on lovely
Cuban melodies obscure composers
create.
JAMES BARRON
Wonder how much truth there is
to that buzz about Hitler and Goer-
ing being miffed with each other?
. . . Goering, the legend has it, is
in the doghouse because of his fail
ure in the skies over Britain
. ,
And that it’s no secret in Vienna
that his frau entered a loge at a
theater and was booed until she de
parted . . . Supposed to be "in
side stuff” swapped in State Dep’t
corridors.
Samuel Wardlaw, special in
vestigator for Los Angeles public
library, keeps down book muti
lation by observing main read
ing room with binortdars.
Miss Billie Lam pie of Los An
geles, only woman in America
who makes a living as eye spe
cialist for birds and animals.
Here she is fitting eyes to a dove.
Wonder what’s become of Sam
Goldwyn's threat of several months
ago to wipe out double features? . . .
And that promise to fire members
of the “ ism” groups off the relief
payrolls? . . Or the predictions of
dramatic critics that plays without
scenery "were here to stay"? . . .
The height of something or other is
that radio trio who flung a lawsuit
against a movie firm for using
"their” billing:
“Tom, Dick and
H arry.” Hmf!
honor.” Their friend, Commodore
Richard Bainbridge, was to give the
words of command— "F ire— o n e -
two—three." Neither man was to
Are before the word “one” or after
"three.”
"Gentlemen, to your places.”
"Take a im !” Decatur leveled his
pistol at Barron's waistline and his
adversary pointed his weapon at De
catur's hip.
"F ire —one . . . ”
The reports of the two pistols
sounded as one and both men
dropped to the ground.
They brought a carriage to bear
Decatur back to Washington. There
was no such vehicle ready for Bar
ron and Decatur insisted that his op
ponent be taken with him. But there
wasn't room for both. As they lift
ed the young officer into the car
riage, Barron called to him, "God
bless you, Decatur.”
"Farewell, farewell. Barron!" he
replied as the carriage rolled away.
That was the last time he ever
heard Decatur’s voice for the gallant
young officer, after suffering intense
agony all day, died that night. B ar
ron recovered from his wound and
lived to be 83 years old, the last
of his generation in the navy.
Two magaiines that attracted
considerable attention before start
ing (only to flop) were Ken and
Stage . . . Verne Marshall was lam
basted out of the public eye by a bar
rage of word-bullets .
Every
knock is a boost, huh? .
. Notice
how many of the opposition, to
everything the Administration at
tempts to do, do so because they
personally hate Roosevelt? .
One day the history books will take
care of them all—but they won't
have the crimson faces. Their de
scendants will carry the burden of
shame . . . Bob Quillen's comfort
ing thought: A success is a guy
who accumulates enough to leave
his widow rich when he works him
self to death.
A Cloud on His Name.
"James Barron, who had for years
been ’Barron of the Cheapeake' now
bore the odium of having killed the
nation’s most popular hero," writes
W illiam Oliver Stevens In the chap
ter, "The Two Commodores” in his
book "Pistols at Ten Paces" (pub
lished recently by the Houghton M if
flin company) upon which this ac
count of the famoua duel is based.
"To this day the cloud still hangs
over his name. He Is still ’The Man
Who Killed Decatur.’ "
It cost one fellow a pretty penny
to discover the origin of the phrase:
"What’s the point?" . . . Usually
cracked when a bore tells a point
less quip . . . It is dice-house lingo
—when a gambler forgets the num
ber the shooter is trying to make
. .
Jan Valtin’s book, "Out of the
Night,” is so thrilling his detractors
are trying to make you believe It
isn’t true . . . Of all the so-wotty
arguments! . . . I can't feel sorry
tor people who lose *260.000 in jewels
to robbers, as happened to that rich
woman.
WOODEN POULTRY FARMER . . . San Francisco’s Frank
Mackay makes his living by raising wooden ducks for decoys.
'3