McCormick messenger. (McCormick, S.C.) 1902-current, September 30, 1937, Image 2
McCORMICK MESSENGER, McCORMICK, S. C.. THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 1937
News Review of Current Events
HITS NAZIISM IN AMERICA
Strong Words by Legion Commander . . . President
Refuses to Abandon Fight for Court Rejuvenation
American Legion Members From West Reach New York City by Air
plane for Their National Convention.
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SUMMARIZES THE WORLD’S WEEK
C Western Newspaper Union.
Legion Head Hits Naziism
E'OUR hundred thousand members
" of the American Legion and
their families and friends gathered
in New York for the annual conven
tion of the organiza
tion which opened
with a memorial
service for dead vet
erans. Parades,
sham battles and
plenty of fun-making
marked the proceed
ings, but the former
soldiers also gave
much time to se
rious business. Har
ry W. Colmer, retir
ing national com
mander, delivered a
notable report on his stewardship,
warning against dangers confront
ing the nation from within and with
out.
Colmer declared attempts to sub
jugate judiciary would destroy the
“checks and balances” in govern
ment; and he proposed that the
American Legion undertake an edu
cational program on the principles
set forth in the Constitution. He
asked each post to hold at least
one meeting this fall on the basic
law.
The commander’s warning against
perils from without led him to con
demn severely German propaganda
in the United States and the alleged
action of the German government
in fostering the organization of Nazi
groups and camps in this country.
This he called “a gratuitous insult
to our free institutions.”
Harry W.
Colmer
President on Constitution
A LL orators on the one hundred
fiftieth anniversary of the sign
ing of the Constitution were loud in
praise of that great document. Pres
ident Roosevelt, speaking from the
foot of the Washington monument,
Was emphatic in his expression of
admiration for and loyalty to the
basic law which his opponents have
accused him of trying to under
mine. But he called it a “layman’s
constitution” and a “lawyer’s con
tract.” He reiterated his asser
tions that the Constitution was in
tended by its makers to be a state
ment of objectives and not a rigid
document, and declared democratic
government in this country can do
all things which “commonsense peo
ple, seeing the picture as a whole,
have the right to expect.”
• “I believe that these things can
be done under the Constitution with
out the surrender of a single one
of the civil and religious liberties
it was intended to safeguard,” Mr.
Roosevelt continued, “and I am de
termined that under the Constitu
tion those things shall be done.”
Sharply condemning dictatorships
abroad, Mr. Roosevelt said there is
a crisis in American affairs that
threatens our democracy and that
if that democracy is to survive, it
must meet the demands of the peo
ple for economic and social secur
ity and improved standards of liv
ing. Plutocratic and proletarian dic
tatorships, said he, are equally dan
gerous.
That the President has not aban
doned his fight for “rejuvenation”
of the Supreme court was made
clear by the tenor of his address,
and it was expected that he would
continue that campaign on his trip
to the Pacific Coast, which he began
in a private car equipped with a
loud speaker. On his way to visit
his daughter in Seattle and on the
return trip he was to enter the
home states of several senators who
we’*?* active in opposition to the Su
preme court enlargement scheme.
Vandenberg's Battle Cry
••'117’ E HAVE just begun to fight”
»V was the battle cry adopted
by Senator Vandenberg of Michigan
in a speech at Bay City that was
taken as the opening of his campaign
for the Republican Presidential
nomination in 1940. He made it evi
dent that he hopes to be the stand
ard bearer for a coalition party, as
serting that a realignment of politi-i
cal parties is inevitable. Indeed,
he declared, this probably was the
one thing that could save our na
tional institutions. He was not sc
sure that the opposition to the Roose
velt policies would unite under a new
party name. Said he:
“There may be a realistic realign
ment which will bring like-thinking
patriots into common battle front,
whether they live north or south of
the Mason and Dixon line, whether
they live east or west of the Mis
sissippi.”
What Will Hughes Do?
EJECTIONS to the seating oi
Hugo Black as a justice of the
Supreme court on the constitutional
ground that the emoluments of the
office were raised while Black was
a senator brought Chief Justice
Hughes back to Washington before
his vacation was ended. Associate
Justice Brandeis also returned to
the capital and he and Hughes were
expected to confer on the matter
and to examine the objections. Just
what Mr. Hughes or any other mem
ber of the court could do was un
certain. Constitutional lawyers
agree that Black could not be de
nied his seat because he was a
member of the Ku Klux Klan, but
many of them thought the court, if
it decides to take jurisdiction, could
bar him on constitutional grounds.
There was reason to believe this so
lution of the exceedingly unpleasant
matter would suit President Roose
velt. Should the President ask
Black to resign, the latter might re
fuse, and that would be most em
barrassing for Mr. Roosevelt.
—-K—
Eden Still Hopeful
NTHONY EDEN, British foreign
minister, hurried from Geneva
to attend a special cabinet meeting
to which he reported on develop
ments in the Medi
terranean situation
that is so threaten
ing to European
peace. He told of It
aly’s reiteration of
its demand for. par
ity in the “anti
piracy” patrol, and
it was believed both
he and Prime Min
ister Chamberlain
were hopeful that a
rupture could be
averted by a partial
yielding to Mussolini in this matter.
British public opinion was said to
be strongly against a complete con
cession.
Meanwhile events in the Mediter
ranean were not such as to bolster
Eden’s peaceful designs. The Brit
ish aircraft carrier Glorious report
ed it had been attacked by a sub
marine near Malta just as it ar
rived to take part in the patrol of
the sea. Also the admiralty an
nounced an unidentified airplane
dropped six bombs close to the de
stroyer Fearless. The British and
French fleets began their search for
“pirate” submarines,
Spain’s premier, Juan Negrin,
stood up before the League of Na
tions and fearlessly presented the
evidence of Italian and German in
tervention in the Spanish civil war,
demanding that the league take steps
to stop it. He called Mussolini and
Hitler “international highwaymen.”
French Foreign Minister Delbos
backed up Negrin’s demands in
words which were taken to mean
that if Italy sends substantial re
inforcements to Franco, Spanish
rebel leader, or perhaps if she even
refuses to withdraw her forces al
ready there, France would consider
her security menaced.
The assembly of the League of
Nations voted down the Spanish
government’s request for re-election
as a member of the league council.
Anthony
Eden
'in
oil
'JhJimkd ahcfot
Our National Bird.
L AS VEGAS, NEV. — Those
J folks back East who’re agi
tating to make the turkey our
national bird are late. Benja
min Franklin had the same no
tion 150 years ago.
Old Ben pointed out that the eagle
was a robber and a tyrant and was
the emblem of va-
r i o u s European
monarchies, where
as the turkey was
not only our largest
and gamest wild
bird, but a native of
America.
To be sure, young
turkeys aren’t so
smart. They love, to
get their feet wet so
they may die from
it. In dry sections,
young turkeys have
been known to jump down an arte
sian well 90 feet deep in order to
get their feet wet. But the adult
turkey is wise and wily, a noble
spectacle in the woods and popular
in a cooked state, owing to his mag
nificent bust development and his
capacity for holding stuffing or in-
‘sertion, and his superiority when
worked over into turkey hash.
But if we are going to make a
change in emblems, why not choose
the worm—the humble, dumb, un
resisting worm—as typical of most
of the present populace? It could
be a one-sided worm, too, which
would save costs in modeling, be
cause so many of us are the kinis
of worms that never turn.
Irvin S. Cobb
The Sucker Crop.
PARLIAMENT, next month, will
pass statutes to curb stock mar
ket tricksters, fly-by-night brokers,
and bucket shop operators who, it’s
estimated, are fleecing the British
public to the tune of $25,000,000 an
nually.
We’ve tried it and it doesn’t work.
As Barnum stated, a sucker is born
every minute —' and sometimes
twins. But the crooks who prey on
the sucker crop, like the Dionne
quintuplets, come along in batches.
That breed spawn close to shore and
the young all survive.
Thus is the rule of supply and de
mand balanced. In good times,
there are just enough suckers to go
around. In hard times, the suckers
grow scarce, but, when one comes
along, the crooks raffle him off and
the winner takes all.
Anyhow, legislation won’t save a
sucker from himself—at least not
in this country. He’ll break through
the law in order to prove he’s a
sucker in good standing in the suck
ers’ lodge.
By the way, brother-member, how
many degrees have you taken?
* * *
Restrained Statements.
A WAYFARER in Oklahoma, who
claimed to have starved him
self for forty-one days, on being
asked how he felt, replied that he
felt sort of hungry. Investigation
showed the stranger had been
cheating now and then to the ex
tent of a clandestine beef stew or a
surreptitious stack of wheats, but
wasn’t it a magnificently restrained
statement?
For underemphasis, I can think of
but a single instance to match it.
In my youth, we had a policeman in
our town with a nervous manner
ism of killing folks.
One night, I was passing Uncle
Tom Emery’s saloon and snack-
stand for colored only. A group of
subdued-looking customers fetched
out the limp remains of a dark per
son who had been bored thrice
through the heart.
“Uncle Tom,” I inquired of the
proprietor, “isn’t that Monkey
John?”
“Sho’ is suh.”
“How did it happen?” I asked.
“Well, suh,” said Uncle Tom, “It
seem like he musta antagonized Mr.
Buck Evitts.”
• • •
Smoked Glasses for Snakes.
/"AN THE way here, I attended
this year’s snake dance. The
snake dance has become indeed a
strange sight—for the snakes. If
the tourists don’t modify their ward
robes by next year, I expect to see
the snakes wearing smoked glasses.
Veteran snakes that have taken
part during past seasons are show
ing signs of the strain. The bull
snakes still hiss—as who could
blame them?—but the rattlers no
longer rattle freely, evidently fear
ing it might be mistaken for ap
plause.
The commissioner of Indian af
fairs wants the Navajoes to grow
fewer goats. The Navajoes are balk
ing. Goat hair is a profitable crop;
goat meat makes good eating—for
an aborigine stomach, anyhow—and
goat smell is agreeable for Navajo
noses. It seems to neutralize some
of the other perfumes noticed dur
ing shopping hour in a reservation
trading post.
IRVIN S. COBB.
©—WNU Servio*.
ADVENTURERS* CLUB
HEADLINES FROM THE LIVES
OF PEOPLE LIKE YOURSELFI
“The Vapor of Death"
By FLOYD GIBBONS
Famous Headline Hunter
H ello everybody:
Philip J. Cavanagh of New York City is today’s Distin
guished Adventurer, and Phil says that adventuring taught him
something that he had never even thought of before. “Life,” he
says, “is always hanging on a thread.”
Well, sir, when you come to think of it, that statement is just as true
as it can be. You never know when you’re going to step off the curb right
into the path of a fast-moving automobile, and you never know when
you’re going to step out of the precincts of your humdrum, everyday
life into the territory presided over by an ornery old gal named Old Lady
Adventure. You don’t think about it all the time—but it’s there just the
same.
But life banging on a thread has no terrors for Phil. He re
members the time when Death hung in the air—without any
thread or anything else to keep it from coming down on himself
and the crew of swell fellows he worked with. That was on the
twenty-third of December, 1908, when Phil, a foreman of pipe
layers for the United Gas Improvement company, was in Bay
Shore, N. Y., helping to install additional plant equipment in the
local gas works.
There were five other men in his crew and their job was almost
completed. The only thing left to be done was to break open the main
gas line and cut in the conduits that they had laid during the past weeks.
Before the job started Phil made an inspection of all the valves to see
that they were properly closed and that no gas was going through the
main conduit where his men were getting ready to “open up.”
He Was Sure the Valves Were All Closed.
The valves were all shut tight. Phil would have been ready to swear
to that. He gave the signal to his men to go to work, and then he went
out in the plant’s yard to see to the hot lead that they’d be using to close
up with. As he went back to the sub-cellar where the main line was lo
cated he smelled gas coming up from below. That wasn’t unusual.
There was always some smell of gas around a newly opened line. But
at the same time Phil noticed that the cellar was ominously quiet.
Something had gone wrong!
In two seconds, Phil was through that trap door, and in an
other two seconds he was down in the sub-cellar. His fears were
confirmed. On the ground around the newly made opening lay
his crew, draped in all sorts of positions—and out cold.
Somehow or other Phil got those men out of there. The plant en
gineer helped him, and so did a couple of men who were passing by th*
plant. They dragged them out onto the snow-covered ground and there
Phil left them in the care of the engineer. He would have liked to stay
out there in the fresh, clean air himself, but for him the adventure was
just beginning. Somewhere in the plant, gas was still escaping. He had
to find the leak before it welled up out of the sub-cellar and got into the
rest of the plant.
One Spark and All Would Be Over.
Inside the plant Phil headed for that row of valves again. The
trouble must be there. It couldn’t be anywhere else. “I tried each one
of those valves,” he says, “but they were all turned as far as they would
go. In desperation I tried them again and again. I believed I tried them
all at least a hundred times, and as far as I could see each one of them
was closed tight.
“Yet, the gas was pouring out. Pouring out so fast that I could see
the gauge of the storage tank dropping lower and lower. I prayed
fervently that the firemen who were attending to the two boilers would
not have occasion to open the fire doors. For by this time the gas was
up in the main part of the plant, and if one spark of flame got to it we would
all be blown to atoms.
And in the meantime, Phil was swallowing a lot of gas. He
was groggy, and getting groggier with every minute as he moved
from one valve to another trying to find which one was letting
loose the flow that was poisoning the air he breathed.
He could have saved himself by leaving his job and getting out in
the air—but no such thought ever entered his head. Other lives were in
danger, and any minute now the gas might get into the boilers and let •
loose a terrible blast of flame. He stuck to his post, still trying one valve
after the other, until finally he dropped to the floor.
Desperate Battle to Remain Conscious.
As Phil fell, he reached one hand out instinctively and curled it
around a valve stem. Phil doesn’t know why he did that, except that it
was comforting to have something to cling to and it gave him some small
sense of protection. The hand slid down the valve stem to the floor, and
as it did, one finger struck on something—the head of a nail!
Dazed as he was, Phil’s mind told him that the nailhead shouldn’t
be there. With a struggle he opened his eyes—and saw what was caus
ing all the trouble. The nailhead lay between the floor and the bottom
of the valve-stem, keeping it from going all the way down—making the
valve seem closed when it was really part way open.
The next few minutes saw a strange battle—the battle of a
mind to keep consciousness while faltering bands opened the
valve, brushed that nailhead away, and closed the valve again.
Phil did that—and then he passed out.
The cutting-in job was finished when Phil finally came to again. His
men, brought back to consciousness, had gone right to work and com
pleted the job, for gas lines have to be kept in service no matter what
happens. But there might have been no gas at all in the town of Bay
Shore that day if Phil hadn’t given the world a fine example of good,
old-fashioned sticking to the job.
©—WNU Service.
The Word “Starboard”
The word “starboard” appears to
have come down Vrom the earliest
Anglo-Saxons, who called that side
of their Viking ships from which
the steering oar protruded the
“steorboard,” which became cor
rupted to “starboard” or even the
“sta’b’d” of the tar. Naturally
enough, according to a writer in the
Chicago Tribune, the opposite of
the ship, which was brought in
contact with the jetty or wharf when
loading for fear of breaking the
steor or rudder, became the lading
board, laddebord, or larboard, later
changed to port because of the dan
ger of confusing larboard and star
board when hearing was difficult
during a storm. The full rigged ship
is seemingly a tangle of ropes, ev
ery one of which is called mar
tingale, stay, sheet, line, painter—
stnvthincr but a rope.
Visible Stars
There are not many more than
6,000 stars that are visible to ordi
nary eyes under the best of visibil
ity conditions. Half of these stars
are always below the horizon. That
would leave about 3,000 visible at
one time were it not for the fact
that the fainter stars disappear
when close to the horizon, because
their light cannot penetrate the
thick layers of mist-laden atmos
phere there. The number of stars
visible to the naked eye in the clear
est and darkest skies is between
2,000 and 2,500. Haze, moonlight or
the glare of the street lamps may
reduce this number by half or more.
A field glass brings out more than
50,000, while a telescope of two
inches aperture raises the number
to hundreds of thousands. As the
power of the telescope increases
the star count leaps forward.
End’s the Same
Jenny (angrily)—You cannot
say I ran after you, anyway.
Jack—No, I can’t say that. The
trap doesn’t run after the mouse,
but it gathers it in just the same.”
Nucleus
Architect—Now, if you’ll give
me a general idea of the kind of
house you need . . .
Client—I want something to go
with a door-knocker my wife
brought home from Oxford.
An antique collector has left
over four hundred clocks in his
will. Someone is going to have a
busy time winding up the estate.
Second Thought
He had just moved into his new
house, and was painting “No
hawkers or canvassers” on his
front gate.
When he had finished he stepped
back to admire his efforts, and a
thought struck him. Dipping his
brush into the paint again, he add
ed the words: “Except with sam
ples.”
LIGHTS OUT
Bobby Bug—Say Miss Sweet let
me escort you through that long
black tunnel..
For those planning a motor tour,
it Is best to get a large road map.
This will tell you everything you
want to know, except how to fold
it up again.
Undisguised Praise
“John, you don’t care for nw as
much as you used to. You al
ways used to give me the larger
helpings; now you take them for
yourself.”
“Darling, you cook much better
now.”
Seeing’s Believing
Father—What are jrou doing,
Freddie?
Freddie—^Nothing, father.
Father (sternly)—There is no
such thing as nothing!
Freddie—Oh, yes, there is.
Close your eyes and you’ll see it.
Marked Down
“There’s a price on your head.”
“Why? Have I done wrong?”
“You’ve forgotten to take the
price ticket off your new hat.”
What She Said
“Iceland,” said the teacher, “is
about as large as Siam.”
“Iceland,” wrote Willie after
wards, “is about as big as teach
er.” •
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