S n u th r r n O regon N e w s R e v i e w . T h u r s d a y , J u n e - 10, 1 9 4 8 Washington D ig est; Diary Doesn't Have to Tell Earth-Shaking Occurrences By BAIKHAGE Actes A nalyst a n d C o m m fn ln lo r WASHINGTON.—The nation, and particularly the nation’s capital, where we are highly national and international-con­ scious, is suffering as never before from the result of memories, good and bad. The Roosevelt epoch produced a rash of remi­ niscences—200 books about FDR, 32 of them ju st since his death. Currently we have with us the Churchill war memoirs, as they are called, although when I was young and read “The Memoirs of Sherlock Holmes,” 1 thought a memoir was something printed after a man's death. Of course Sherlock came buck, so I suppose that legitimize.« the termi­ nology. Winston Churchill was a great diary-keeper, as was his fellow- countryman, Samuel Pepys, whose stuff was so hot that the British government still hasn't released all ot it. Frank­ lin R o o s e v e l t n e v e r kept a diary. His sec- r e t a r y oi the treasury m a d e up for this lack. Henry Morgen- thau assembled 900 volumes of about 350 pages each, totaling about 80 million words. The task must have kept three stenographers a day working in relays. He had the diaries bound, some said at government expense, although I daresay he paid for it in the end. His was a lazy method. He didn't have to depend on his memory. He had a dictograph in his office, and every word spaken in the supposed sanctity of his chamber in the treasury overlooking the wide sweep of lawn and park that flows down to the Potomac, was duly tran­ scribed. When the news of this epic achievement became public a terrible howl resulted and some of the volumes were returned to the government archives, What a man' I wonder if diary-keepers are normal. I would hate to admit to a psychologist that 1 have kept a diary for years, even decades. I still keep one. I don't know how long ago 1 started, but I still have one slim, green volume, dated 1904, in my possession. The year 1904— that was just 15 years after another entry, not in my diary, but in my father’s (diary-keeping is congeni­ tal) which stated ''fine boy arrived 5 p. m .” I may say the "fine” is the natural exaggeration of a proud parent who didn’t know w'hat he was in for. At any rate, if diary-keeping is used against me; I have two outs —hardly anything, even of mild in­ terest, is or will be recorded on the faded pages of my journals, and secondly, because I write such a vile hand that I can decipher only a few lines here and there myself. My mother should have most of the blame for my bad handwriting, just as she is to blame for the fact that I can write at all. She was herself a writer and, unique as it was in those good old days, she possessed a typewriter, a stubby little affair, affectionately known as “the Blick.” Of course it was quite improper to expose a child of pre-school age to a typewriter. It was not my mother’s fault. Back in the ’90s, some of us weren’t vaccinat­ ed for anything but smallpox. I was too young to understand that at the time, and since typewriters were as rare as porcelain bath­ tubs in a city of 20,000, who could guess their evil influence? I sup­ pose I oughtn't to accuse my par­ ents because I became thorough­ ly inured to the use of the type­ writer long before I could balance a pencil, and this fact did my handwriting no good. At that time what was called "Spencerian” still was taught in the schools of New York state, but very few mastered it even without the curlicues and shading of earlier days. And just as I was getting so I could make the wobbly "M’s” and the terrible "q's” , along came a new Pharoah to my scholastic Egypt and introduced the "verti­ cal system .” That was probably where my uneducation really began I unlearned the Spencerian all right, but I was never able to go vertical. Nothing Im portant Is Ever Entered But to get back to diary-keeping, at least my diary-keeping. The illegibility of the entries in my diaries isn’t really as important as the unimportance of their contents. Let me illustrate from one with a worn leather cover which I have at hand. It is dated 1914, a good year for a diary, but a bad diary for the world. The record of war days should have been chronicled dramatically as the beginning of the end of an epoch, an epoch which breathed its last in the midst of another war. But did my record do that? Let’s look at June 29, 1914. I Do we find the entry: ‘‘YESTER- ‘ D A Y ARCHDUKE FERDINAND WAS ASSASSINATED AT SARAJE VO?” We do not. We find this: Juin 29. Lundi S. Pierre, S. Paul Bought Berlitx Greek Rustem Bey (The book was purchased in Paris, where the year’s record began. The entry was made in Washington.) While the ancient throne of Haps- burg was receiving the blood bath that was to sweep a half dozen rulers into oblivion I was buying a Berlitz textbook for the purpose of studying some foreign language —I have no idea which one except that it was one I never learned. Rustem Bey, I remember was the Turkish ambassador whom I had to interview. In all justice, it may not be en­ tirely the fault of my diary-mak­ ing that I didn't record the assas­ sination of the archduke. Nobody in America took the tragedy very seriously. At that time few Amer­ icans expected much else from Europe's royal families but as­ sassinations or less respectable peccadillos. I ought to have know’n better than that since 1 had been helping cover the French foreign office for the two years preceding. But I had been drenched with war talk over there and had shaken it off when I returned. Europe almost imme­ diately shrank into a dreamy do­ main of picture-book memory with no connection whatever with my work-a-day world. Later on. to be sure, there is evi­ dence that I, on second thought, felt I hadn't done my diary justice insofar as Ferdinand was con­ cerned. But I always was feeling that way about my diary and never doing anything about it. This, as I said, keeps my diaries from having the slightest value other than to exude a somewhat conscious-stricken odor and re­ mind me that the good young days were no better than those bad old ones insofar as my habits and con­ duct were concerned, for an honest diary certainly has to be well edit­ ed to conceal one’s true character. You note in its pages some high resolve or noble undertaking which was more important to you at the moment of recording than the open­ ing of the Panama canal or the re­ sult of a presidential election. In a short year you read it over and are utterly unable to recall the slightest thing about the events chronicled. Sometimes my old diaries, even though they record no event of great historical significance, sound quite timely. For example on Oc­ tober 3, 1914: F1* Ï Ï ML«® HOUSE Healthy Plants Needed Veterans Lose Again VETERANS GOT To Assure Good Crop W AR OTHER KICK In the Sturdy Growth Hinges On Well-Fertilized Soil Healthy plants, like healthy hu­ mans, are better fitted to fight off insect and disease attacks than are undernourished ones. Enemies have a tougher time getting under the guard of well fed plants. Such plants have stronger root system s and hardier, better developed growth above ground. They can stand on their "feet” and defend themselves. Whether your crops are well fed or undernourished depends on the con­ dition of your soil. If your soil is loose, mellow, high in organic m at­ ter, of good tilth and carries plenty of plant food, it can give your crops a body-building diet. If your soil is worn down by overcropping and failure to put back plant nutrients and organic matter, it cannot sup­ port healthy, sturdy crop growth. Any farmer can build his soil’s fertility and crop producing ability by good management methods. He can get bigger crop yields per acre through use of fertilizer carrying nitrogen, phosphate and potash as needed. He can build soil structure by growing deep-rooted legumes such as alfalfa or sweet clover in the rotation. Roots of the legumes will open tight soil and let air and water in. Plowed under, the legumes will add to the soil’s organic m at­ ter supply. Crops following in the rotation will have more “elbow room” to seek water and nutrients deep down in the soil. The organic m atter supply can be further in­ creased by returning manure and crop aftermath to* the soil. Farm Meat Dollar tobacco 51«, « 7 * Cotun wool. etc. fruits ♦nuts Jvu&it of data US. D«pt of Agriculture About a third of the American farm ers’ cash income last year cam e from the sale of meat ani­ m als. Meat packers paid out al­ most 10 billion dollars for live­ stock. From their total cash in­ come, livestock producers paid out large amounts for stock, feed, help and increased operating costs. "Not much doing. I don’t seem to be able to save my money.” . . . October 8: “The Belgian secretary appears, we consume quantities of beer and tells me his life story — a bore, but business." Legumes, Grasses and (just the weary routine of the hard-working reporter) Cereals Used for Silage Fortunately my space is running The term grass silage now in­ out. Nothing is more interesting cludes all ensiled crops except corn to write or read about than oneself. and the sorgos and is different from Nothing is less interesting to anyone them in that special precautions else. But I wish to prove my point, must be taken upon ensiling for the namely, that no matter how impor- I best preservation. tant diary-keeping may have been Grass silage may be made suc­ for the Churchills, the Marco Polos cessfully from many crops: Leg­ or the Plutarchs, and perhaps umes, such as alfalfa, clovers, soy­ therefore as harmful as Important, beans, lespedeza and peas; cereals, mine was neither. such as oats, .wheat, rye and barley; And I marvel that any news­ grasses, such as timothy, Sudan man, press or radio, who lives grass, canary grass, brome grass in the midst of alarms, who "was and orchard grass, and mixtures of there” when most things hap­ these crops. pened and told all in breathless detail via the copy-desk or micro­ phone to millions of wide-eyed readers or listeners would ever think of writing It down after­ ward. Note for instance a recent diary entry for June 5, 1947, which a The illustration by Purdue univer­ brittle clipping of even date de­ sity shows method of dumping silage clares not only vibrantly but with that saves In labor and quality. perfect inexactitude “may go down in history as the day of the begin­ ning of the real peace after World Activated Charcoal Used War II.” (Lest you have forgotten, that was the day Secretary of State To Prevent 2,4-D Harm Crop plants can be protected from George C. Marshall proposed at Harvard university a new approach harm by 2,4-D used for killing to European rehabilitation which weeds by pre-planting treatment later became the Marshall plan, with powdered activated charcoal. then E.R.P. and finally the eco­ The treatment Is of especial value nomic cooperation administration.) for crops that are set out as young plants already rooted. This Is done Note my diary for that date: by dusting the roots with the ac­ “A meeting of the Association tivated charcoal powder before of Radio News Analysts. Kalten- planting, greatly reducing loss caus­ born to dinner.” ed by 2,4-D. AN- punta the other day when 23 vice presi­ dents of steel companies vetoed the allocation of 60.000 tons of steel for prefabricated housing. This means that veteran cooperatives, formed to finance prefabricated housing developments, will have to fold up or go in for the more ex­ pensive conventional houses, which most veterans can’t afford. The 23 steel vice-presidents are members of a so-called steel prod­ ucts advisory committee to Com­ merce Secretary Charles Sawyer which passes on volunteer steel al­ locations under a law passed by congress last year. However, the committee functions more like a little "supreme court" in determin­ ing who can buy steel. Also, it does more dictating than advising, apparently, for the com­ merce department had okayed the 60,000-ton allocation, a third of what the prefab Industry requested for new low-cost homes. The steel mogul» pointed out that prefabricated houses require four times as much steel as con­ ventional homes built of wood, brick, et cetera. This explanation, however, is small comfort to war veterans and others who cannot afford conventional dwellings. American Veterans committee has made a vigorous protest to con­ gress about the steel magnates' ac­ tion. Psychological Warfare QUESTION: Is the periodic use of yeast helpful or detrimental to a septic tank? What effect will the use of drain cleaners have on a sep­ tic tank? Is there any specially de­ signed product on the market to keep septic tanks In better working order? ANSWER: Small quantities of a drain cleaner can be safely used, but large quantities will stop bac­ terial action. In such cases, a large volumn of water should be run Into the tank to carry off the chemicals. Bacterial action can then be re­ started by dissolving six cakes of yeast in lukewarm water In a wash­ basin and flushing it Into the tank. QUESTION: There Is a little crack directly over my sink where It forms a Joint with the plaster wall. The white plaster used for filling the crack always comes out. What can be done? ANSWER: Before the war It was possible to get a neat, flexible metal moulding that waa made for a crack such as yours, or to cover the crack at the top of a bathtub. If you can­ not find any of this, fill 'the crack with a light-colored cuulking com­ pound. Thia resembles putty, but never becomes hard or brittle. Af­ ter forcing it into tlie crack, run your finger along ttie surface to smooth It, and after a few days, touch It up with enamel to match the wall. QUESTION: Is there any way to remove the discoloration on my new plasterwork caused by rain soaking through the sheathing and insula­ tion? ANSWER: Stains on the plaster from the rain have gone all the way through and cannot be removed. After the plaster has dried out you can paint the walls. The alterna­ tive is to cut out the stained part of the plaster and replaster. B uild T his S e t o f L aw n F u rn itu re Y o u rself. If In need of lawn furniture, build It yourself and save money. Full Size patterns are available that simplify building the matching chairs and settee illustrated above. A smaller size chair, suitable for children two to eight years of age, can also be constructed from a pat­ tern. Youngsters will be happy to Join the family circle If they have a chair they can call their own. Nothing seems to be quite so Im­ portant to the young ones as having things "Just like Dad’s”. (V.