Palacios Beacon (Palacios, Tex.), Vol. 33, No. 29, Ed. 1 Thursday, July 18, 1940 Page: 2 of 8
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PALACIOS BEACON, PALACIOS, TEXAS
mi Wt
WHO'S
NEWS
THIS
WEEK
WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS BY ROGER SHAW
F. D.'s Personality Dominates
1940 Democratic Convention;
No U. S. Troops for Europe
(EDITOR'S NOTE—When opinions arc expressed in these columns, thev
arc those of the news analyst and not necessarily of this newspaper.)
________ Released by Western Newspaper Union. _________
General
HUGH s.
Johnson
By LEMUEL F. PARTON
■(Consolidated Features—WNU Service.)
NEW YORK.—Howard Lindsay
needed makeup to play "Life
With Father," Dr. Charles Phillips
Cooper, managing editor of the New
r» „ „ _ York Evening
Or. C. P. Cooper Sun> around
Natural Lead for the turn of
'Life With Father'the , ""tury,
could have
walked right into the part without
taking off his hat. As he retires as
professor of journalism at Columbia
university, after more than 50 years
of practicing and teaching journal-
ism, he still commands affection and
respect from his one-time proteges,
an emotion somehow filial, and
somehow belonging in that nostal-
gic picture which the late Clarence
Day and Mr. Lindsay and Russell
Crouse have recreated for the stage.
They used to set the type for the
old Evening Sun in the local room.
Charles A. Dana ordered some lino-
type machines, found workmen de-
livering them to the World Instead,
got into a row about it and said to
the devil with the whole business,
or words to that effect. At any
rate this classic of newspapers for
many years thereafter kept clear of
all technological entanglements, in-
cluding typewriters.
Dr. Cooper's spoutir^; mus-
tache was electrified during the
ordeal of getting out the paper.
Reporters used to say it was like
sensitive antennae, catching im-
pulses out of the air. This was
the only way they could explain
his way of spotting a red-hot
news story in some bit of trivia,
moving across his desk. They
called him "The Human Sieve."
That was due to fiis trick of
sifting bugs, libel suits, and slop-
py writing out of a piece of copy
with a swift slash of his pencil.
When a reporter was beaten on a
story, or made a serious error, or
otherwise offended, Dr. Cooper
would clutch both sides of his desk,
lean back, close his eyes and howl.
And when one of the boys really I
put something over (it had to be
good) Dr. Cooper would croon and
cluck over him affectionately.
He was always yelling for
copy and the boys, if the story
■was hot, had to write it in short
takes. There was always a bliz-
zard of copy paper loose in the
city room. As press time came
near there were yells, bleats,
running foot-beats and a bed-
lam which could be heard all up
and down Park Row. Out of
all this came a paper as cool
and neatly fashioned as a daisy
in the meadow— human, subtle,
civilized and deftly done. The
noise, smells of ink, grease and
tobacco, and above all, Dr.
Cooper's rip-snorting energies
seemed to make a formula for
newspaper "oomph."
Dr. Cooper, short and stocky,
With his bright brown eyes alert and
narrowly focused behind his glasses,
joined the Sun staff as a reporter
in 1889, after a year with the Hart-
ford (Conn.) Post. He was with the
Sun 24 years as city editor, news
editor, assistant managing editor
and managing editor. He retired to
become a teacher of journalism in
1919,
Rounding 74, Dr. Cooper never [
moans over the good old days, and j
has no regrets for the passing of {
personalized journalism. He thinks j
newspapers of today are doing a j
better job than their predecessors.
Among his colleagues were Arthur
Brisbane, Richard Harding Davis,
Woodford Patterson, now secretary
of Cornell university, Nelson Lloyd,
O'Neill Sevier, George Cartaret,
Stephen French Whitman, Homer
St. Gaudens and a score of other
long-remembered names.
IT'S a long stretch from Gen. Adna I
R. Chafee's small-arm Indian- !
fighting equipment to Brig. Gen.
Adna R. Chafee's new mechanized
From ■Boots and ^the^n!
Saddles' to 'Man son saga. The
The Gear Shifts' '"ther was
one of the
greatest Indian fighters in our his-
tory, battling the Kiowas and
Comanches along the 900-mile trail
to the Sierra Madre in New Mexico.
The son, schooled in the mounted
service, was a cavalryman like his
father, but in recent years has spe-
cialized in studies of mechanized
warfare.
His new armored divisions are
said to be similar in organization
to the German panzer units. Army
men say they fill a long-felt need
in the service. Brigadier General
Chafee was born at Junction City,
Kan., in 1884, and was graduated
from West Point in 190G, a few years
too late for the Spanish-American
and Philippine workouts, but he is
a veteran of our later military en-
gagements in Europe, holding the
Distinguished Service Medal and
lis regarded as a good organizer and
fighter —as "boots and saddles!"
changes to "man the gear-shifts!"
A
Right up to convention time, Franklin D. Roosevelt kept the country
guessing on third term plans. The Democratic National Convention,
meeting in Chicago, however, felt at all times the weight of the President's
personality. The sketch herewith is by the famous artist, Hclge Sahlin,
II GERMAN WAR:
Ships & Planes
Germany and England continued
to blast one another from the air,
with foolhardy gallantry. Germany
slowly seemed to be establishing
supremacy of numbers, although
her pilots were sometimes too
young, and not equal on the whole
to the veteran regulars who made
up a considerable portion of the
royal air force: the R. A. F.
In the Mediterranean sea, the
English and French and Italian
fleets continued to skirmish, off
North Africa, off West Africa, off
Greece. Some of the French ships
were surrendered to the British
navy, others were sunk or disabled.
Demobilized French flyers were
joining up again, this time to help
the Italian airmen bomb British
Gibraltar. There were naval clashes
between the Italian and British sea-
men, who already had eliminated
seven of the eight French capital
warships. The 43,000-ton "lie de
France"—that French luxury liner
so well known in America—was
seized by the British at Singapore,
England's No. 1 naval base in the
Far East, in the Malay peninsula.
The best French warship—35,000
tons—was knocked out by a British
motorboat, which artfully dropped a
depth bomb near the stern. The vic-
tim was the famous Richelieu.
NO U. S. TROOPS:
But Billions for Defense
Meanwhile, President Roosevelt
emphatically told congress we would
send no man to European wars, but
would only seek to defend the west-
ern hemisphere. Towards this end
he asked for billions of dollars. This
presidential statement to congress
tended to match the "peace" plank
in the Republican campaign plat-
form, and might have removed one
of the major issues from the 1940
race.
NAMES
in
the
news
Gen. Juan Almazan, Mexican pres-
idential candidate, praised the "suc-
cess" of the Mexican election, and
lauded its small loss of life. There
were only 50 killed.
John Dewey, philosopher and ed-
ucationalist, returned to teach at
Columbia university for the first
time in 10 years. He is 80 years
old, but addressed 1,000 students
with all his old steam.
Col. Brehon Somervell, WPA ad-
ministrator in New York, ripped out
four airport murals at Floyd Ben-
nett field in Brooklyn. It had taken
four years to paint the four. Obvi-
ously, said the rippers, they were
red communist propaganda, and so
indeed they appeared to be. A pio-
neer parachute jumper looked sus-
piciously like Stalin, although the
jumper really was Franz Reichelt,
an Austrian tailor. (He had been
killed, jumping from the French Eif-
fel tower, back in 1912.) Soviet red
stars and Spanish loyalist flyers
also appeared in the funniest nlaces.
YE CAMPAIGN:
Fur Flies High
Wendell Willkie appointed Con-
gressman Joe Martin' of Massachu-
setts as his campaign manager, and
then flew for Colorado on a vaca-
tion. En route, the Willkie airplane
stopped in Nebraska. Willkie wise-
cracked to the crowd like this:
"When I was out here three or four
weeks ago, they said I brought rain.
If you folks vote for me in Novem-
ber, we'll have the rain and the
sunshine of economic progress."
The folks thought that was just fine.
John Hamilton remained executive
director of the Republican national
committee, though he was retiring
as national chairman. Russell
Davenport was Willkie's personal
representative, and Oren Root kept
busy co-ordinating volunteer groups
and independent organizations. Ten
newspaper men, three photogra-
phers, and two telegraphists stuck to
Willkie, and to the airplane: a 21-
passenger DC-3.
At this point the Democrats had
become more and more chaotic, due
to lack of information about III term
plans. Farley had been to Hyde
Park, had learned the "truth," but
came back to New York saying that
it was all a secret. McNutt had in-
dicated that he knew about it, too,
but Mrs. Roosevelt had said she
didn't know a thing. Speculation
was rife up to the time the national
Democratic convention opened.
Willkie, of course, had been praying
for the III term (or so he said), in
order to beat it down. But he still
had not said anything extended, at
that point, about foreign affairs.
ARMY NOTE:
New York
Squadron A is the crack high-
society national guard cavalry out-
fit in New York city. It used to
wear snappy gray European hussar
uniforms. It plays polo, and likes
to talk horses, and has a fine 56-
year record. It turns out good rid-
ers, amid plenty of conviviality.
Then—a third of it got mechanized,
and received 19 armored cars, in-
stead of 97 horses.
The Seventh regiment is the crack
high-society national guard infantry
outfit in New York city. It used to
wear fancy gray "1812" uniforms,
with red stripes. It still does, on
parade. It is more than 130 years
old. Then—it turned into an anti-
aircraft outfit, attached to the coast
artillery, hardly the most aristocrat-
ic branch of the service.
WINGS 11 UP:
Soaring Aloft
The United States aviation corps
may soon get planes capable of
soaring 11 miles aloft. Thus, we can
bomb from 36,000 to 60,000 feet up in
the air, while effective anti-aircraft
fire is only good for 30,000 feet.
These flying fortresses are good for
300 miles per hour in the really
high altitudes, and it takes 40,000
parts to put one together. The U. S.
government, it was reported, may
order 1,000 of the super-ships.
#
Untied Fmiumb J WNKS«r*i<*
Washington, D. C.
MANPOWER PROBLEM
A group of 240 distinguished edu-
cators, clergymen, writers and busi-
ness leaders have just declared
against any "peacetime" conscrip-
tion. They say it is un-American,
totalitarian, un-democratic and that
it would disrupt business and in-
dustry.
They say that highly skilled men
needed for any new mechanized,
motorized war can be had by volun-
tary enlistment "under pay sched-
ules sufficiently attractive." This
protest springs from incomplete un-
derstanding of the principle of selec-
tive service.
• » •
There are three steps in the selec-
tive process—registration, classifica-
tion and induction. Only the last is
in any sense conscription. Regis-
tration is universal enrollment of
the manpower of the nation. Clas-
sification is an examination of them
all to see what are the special educa-
tion, skills and aptitudes of each
man, and which can be classified
for military or other service with
the least possible inconvenience to
himself, the greatest consideration
for his own wishes, the slightest dis-
turbance to our economic system—
industry, commerce, agriculture ed-
ucation—and, above all, domestic
relations and the dependency of
others.
Class 1-A, at the beginning at
least, should comprise all men who
could serve with none or the very
slightest impairment of any of these
standards. When that class is de-
termined, the order of their going
or "induction," is determined by a
national lottery or "drawing" al-
ready conducted in Washington cov-
ering all men registered. At this
point, and especially during peace,
or before the drain of war has cre-
ated any real manpower problem, a
provision used during the latter part
of the 1917-18 draft preserves all the
virtues of the volunteer system, with
none of its disruptive and sometimes
hateful consequences. We called it
"volunteering within call A-l."
• • •
Class A-l, in our present situa-
tion would contain many times the
number we need. It would be made
up of the most available men of this
nation—men who are best fitted for
service and who, in the balance of
responsibilities between national and
private obligations have the least of
the latter. Regardless of the ulti-
mate compulsion of their "order-
number," those who want to go first
should be permitted to volunteer.
The inducement of topping high
current civilian competitive rates of
pay for voluntary enlistment, won't
work. It carries a hint of the stig-
ma of the old mercenary armies—
which is worse than that of the old
"press-gang" conscript armies—and
it would make defensive costs pro-
hibitive. Major Eliot's recent sug-
gestion of a few extra dollars added
to $21 monthly base pay, wouldn't
induce the kind of men we need to
quit their jobs.
A principal deterrent to voluntary
enlistment is that the term is long
and rigid. It should be one year or
for duration of the emergency.
Few men want to mortgage away
three years of their lives in this rap-
idly changing world on any ground
except patriotism.
We seem to be galloping in all di-
rections on this manpower problem.
Under the federal bureau of educa-
tion and WPA we have begun train-
ing men as mechanics who have
assumed no obligation to serve. Un-
der the volunteer plan, we are en-
listing men regardless of their me-
chanical training. The whole effort
is hit-or-miss and haywire. If the
true principles of selective service
could be expertly applied on the ba-
sis of experience, we would have the
most fair, flexible, efficient man-
power system in the world.
• • •
RUBBER AND TIN
Some of its esteemed contempo-
raries do not agree with this col-
umn's rebuttal of the constant
claims that we are dependent on the
British and Dutch East Indies for
rubber and tin and that it was only
the concurrence of England that has
enabled us to maintain the Monroe
Doctrine.
Nobody has contested the facts
that we could make better rubber
than we buy or, that by using
conservation, substitution and Boliv-
ian tin, we could get by without East
Indian tin. But it is said that it
would be inconvenient, take a
long time and cost too much.
I challenge all of this. As to rub-
ber, the fact is that if we, who use
55 per cent of all the world's rubber,
turned to mass production on that
vast tonnage, it would cost no more
than the present price—which is
low.
Quite apart from all this, long ago
it was reported by the President's
own national resources committee
that for less than the price of two
battleships, we could lay in enough
East Indian tin and rubber to make
us independent of foreign sources
for the reasonably expected duration
of any war. This administration
didn't do it. It seems to have some
strange reluctance to take Uncle
Sam's whiskers out of that revolving
wringer in the Far East. Instead
of buying vital tin and rubber, it
bought billions of dollars worth. of
useless silver and unnecessary gold.
Kathleen Norris Says:
•/
Good Medicine for Foreign-Born Isms
(Bell Syndicate—WNU Service.)
2
*
GMmANO
fi/CE
Lively arguments will trail themselves right out of the dining room and
continue over the dish pan, but that's exactly what you want. Drill them all in
Americanism.
By KATHLEEN NORRIS
PERHAPS you are one of
the mothers—the many,
many mothers! — who
are vaguely worried today
for fear that a "fifth column"
is forming, or is already
formed, in America, and that
Nazism and Fascism and
Communism are about to
break out in our midst.
"Fifth column," you know,
is one of the phrases coined
in the late Spanish war. It
means those enemies within
our own ranks, those quiet
forces that operate under-
ground, winning converts and
gaining strength that is some-
day to be used against Amer-
ica.
How strong these elements are, in
our country, I don't know, and I
don't suppose anyone else does.
When I was young it was the So-
cialists who were appealing to the
restless and rising generation. But
they never put a candidate into of-
fice; they never formed anything
like a formidable party. And so
much more violent, radical and un-
natural are the isms of today that
much that the Socialists advocate
has come to seem to us quite prac-
ticable.
America Has Progressed.
For although we never adopted a
; socialist platform, our ideals have
changed. Working hours and wage
scales and living conditions have all
undergone changes. Time doesn't
bring about ALL that the reformers
want, but it does much, and to read
Henry George's great land value
classic "Progress and Poverty" to-
day is to realize that the world
really HAS grown better—at least
in America, since 1878.
•If fear for Americanism, our' in-"
stitutions and ideals, our Constitu-
tion and our Bill of Rights, really
haunts you, there is a simple thing
that you can do to check, combat
and eventually destroy the last shred
of anti-American activity in our
midst.
For these foreign doctrines,
brought here by the disaffected from
other lands, reach our rising genera-
tion first. In other words they reach
your children and mine. And those
children, like the children of every
generation, are looking about the
world critically, wondering why so
many things are stupidly done,
wrongly done; why there is so much
preventable poverty and idleness
and suffering and sin. When strange
panaceas are presented to them they
accept them gladly, neither able nor
anxious to criticize them too keenly.
The cure for this situation, which
is actually worrying America very
much, was suggested to me a few
days ago by a fine old American
woman who has raised sons, taken
an active part in the hundred civic
and social activities, and who served
America as one of California's rep-
resentatives in congress for many
years. I see no reason to conceal
her name: Florence Kahn.
Study the Constitution.
Mrs. Kahn and I were talking
about the recent awakening—or be-
ginning of awakening, of American
women to a sense of civic responsi-
bility and civic power, and I told
her that many of our groups in the
National Legion of the Mothers of
Amer^ta were taking their first in-
terest in the Constitution, and had
formed clubs to study it.
"I wish," she said, "that they'd
go a little deeper than that. I wish
they'd take the matter right into
their homes, read the Constitution
aloud at the dinner table, discuss it,
get the children to discuss it, and
keep it up—Keep it up—keep it up!
Until," she finished, "every grow-
ing American girl and boy woul^
Grantland Rice
realize the simple truth, that there
is no reform, no desirable change,
to benefit humanity and right
wrongs, to control privilege and ex-
tend opportunity, that they can't ac-
complish right here in their own
country, under their own flag."
If our worrying parents, alarmed
at the half-baked red doctrine that
so many of our college students
seem to be imbibing today, would
take this simple suggestion to heart,
we should soon see not only the
decline of anti-American influence,
but the healthy growth of new Amer-
ican movements that might bring
our country back once more to the
standards of the great Fathers of
the Constitution.
Revive Dinnertime Discussions.
It has often occurred to me that
it is a pity that the old fashion of
good talk at dinner-time has gone
out. Judging from old American
books and biography and letters it
was a pretty usual custom a hun-
dred years ago. It may do the
whole family good to have you re-
vive it.
The father or man of the house-
hold may greet this idea with a
groan.
"Darling, I'm dead tonight. Do
we have to have politics at the ta-
ble?" he may plead. But persist
anyway. The best system is quietly
to produce the book that is to be
read; handing it from one to an-
other, and keeping steadily to a 10-
minute program, night after night.
Of course it will presently run to
far more than 10 minutes, and lively
arguments will trail themselves
right out of the dining room and con-
tinue over the dishpan, but that's
exactly what you want. Drill them
all in Americanism until there re-
mains no question as to the potenti-
alities of their own Constitution that
they need leave unanswered. Don't
warn anyone of what you are doing,
for both husband and children have
a deep-rooted objection to.being edu-
cated, but make your dinner-table a
little political forum for a few
months, and you'll find that they
want to keep it up longer than
you do.
It is a great tragedy that with a
governmental system as flexible and
as inspired as ours; with a begin-
ning only 165 years ago that star-
tled the whole world with its ideals
of universal suffrage, equality and
humanity, we should let our chil-
dren grow up with the idea that we
are just about a's reactionary, as
filled with class distinctions and so-
cial injustices as are the old nations
of Europe. It is styrely no fault of
America's founders (that we know so
little of our own country's ideals,
and use so imperfelctly those that
we do know.
History's Greatest') Experiment.
Truly, injustices I and suffering
have long had a foothold here. We
have slums, we hjave unemploy-
ment, we have crimje. But we also
have, as an excuse,\ the largest in-
ternational population that the world
has ever seen; we tire making his-
tory's greatest experiment in the
amalgamation of racfes, and inciden-
tally succeeding at if.
It is inevitable tht^t to the top of
our great melting-pot scum shall
arise. The laws of ! all the Euro-
pean countries are ttor from being
the same; it is for liis to reconcile
them.
America must teaclh us the lesson
that Europe never has learned, that
all these may live togiethcr in peace.
Meanwhile, if that hrit-headed revo-
lutionary boy of youils can be made
to read the Declaration of Independ-
ence, the Constitution, the Bill of
Rights, and if you atik him temper-
ately and sympathelfjJcally what he
and his new red friclids want from
their country that isj( not obtainable
under these franchises, you will be
taking a great step tp reduce all our
little scattered diserise spots of for-
eign isms to our (jjne great ism:
Americanism.
AS A rule we can usually check on
this date just where the leaders
belong and who should dominate the
remainder of the campaign. It
doesn't happen to work in that di-
rection this passing year of 1940.
When we have Max Baer and Tony
Galento fighting to see which entry
will be tossed in
against Joe Louis,
you get a general
idea of the heavy-
weight matter.
Which means that
Joe Louis is still the
main standout, al-
most the only stand-
out in sport today.
This goes for all
sports.
A year ago the
Yankees were again
running away with
the American league pennant. But
not this season.
Back in April Blmelech was
picked as another wonder horse. He
still tops the three-year-olds, but he
isn't any wonder horse. Two de-
feats, including the Kentucky Derby,
have cut into his laurel collection.
With Challedon under repairs,
with Kayak sick, there have been
no top handicap horses. One wins,
and then another. Again no stand-
outs.
Some three-year-old, maybe Bim-
elech, will have to hurry to save
the crop.
The golfers have been in the same
fix. Byron Nelson failed in his 1940
defense of the title as Lawson Little
moved in. With the confidence de-
veloped from this victory Little may
set another smoking pace, such as
he put through in the amateur divi-
sion. But he is in a much tougher
league now. Anyway, the ex-ama-
teur star has a great chance to be-
come one of the outstanding figures
of golf.
He has a tough title to defend
when you must beat off 1,100 chal-
lengers in place of one or two.
This, in a way, is all the better
for building up public interest.
Yanks Now on Short End
Take up the difference shown in
the American league race. A year
ago we had only the Yankees—prac-
tically losing the rest of the league.
Now we have four ball clubs with a
chance, and the Yankees have only
an outside chance. Rated 1 to 3 when
the season opened, they are far
from being favorites with the race
about half run. This has trebled in-
terest in Cleveland, Detroit and Bos-
ton, as well as other cities.
A race, to the mob, is always more
interesting than a runaway.
Bill McKechnie's Reds represent
the most consistent combination in
baseball for 1939
and 1940. They
were leading the
league a year ago,
and they are still
the team to beat
for 1940.
They have more
opposition this
season than they
faced last sum-
mer. But they are
still the most con-
sistent ball club
at the half-mile
post. They have the better pitch-
ing, day in and day out, to call upon.
Tennis Crop Blighted
Amateur tennis had little left when
Don Budge retired. With Wimble-
don and the Davis Cup eliminated,
tennis had to take one on the point
of the chin.
Bill McKechnie
The game is still looking for some
personality—such as McLoughlin,
Bill Johnston, Bill Tilden, Ellsworth
Vines or Budge. There is no such
party around at this writing. So far
the crop is colorless.
In baseball, the slump of DiMag-
gio, Dickey and others has been
offset by such pitching stars as
Bob Feller and Buck Newsom.
There is only a slight chancc that
any home-run hitter will reach the
50 mark. Feller has the best chance
to pick up 30 victories and he may
reach this highly desirable spot.
Bob Feller might easily be base-
ball's standout for the present year
—a star pitcher hooked up with a
leading ball club.
But when you sum up the list the
one outstander—the lone eagle in the
sporting eyrie—is still Joe Louis.
He is champion of the champs.
And this goes for all the sporting
fields we know today, horse or man,
or man or horse. Not only as a
fighter but in the way he has con-
ducted himself, Louis is practically
all alone.
Only a big upheaval through the
remainder of 1940 can change this
rating or ranking.
Buck Newsom Rides Again
No one can say that Louis Norman
("Buck") Newsom hasn't seen his
share of baseball scenery. In the
last 12 years Buck has played with
at least 12 different teams in six or
seven leagues, and here he is today
burning up the American with a
varied assortment of wares.
Buck was born in Hartsville, S.
C., 32 years ago. He had to wander
a long time to reach his peak.
His first and tallest upward lunge
took place two years ago when he
won 20 ball games for the Browns,
y
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Dismukes, Mrs. J. W. Palacios Beacon (Palacios, Tex.), Vol. 33, No. 29, Ed. 1 Thursday, July 18, 1940, newspaper, July 18, 1940; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth411667/m1/2/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Palacios Library.