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\ ^ • h e McCORMICK MESSENGER, McCORMICK, S. C., THURSDAY, DECEMBER 25, 1941 WHO^ NEWS THIS WEEK By LEMUEL F. PARTON (Consolidated Features—WNU Service.) ?SJEW YORK—Admiral Claude C. Blbch, commander of the naval district at Hawaii, has been known as the ‘‘Jack Dempsey of the Navy” , because of U. S. Adm. Bloch London Town of Today Experienced Goal Keeper at Wicket his repeated and vehe ment insist ence on the tance of ‘‘beating the enemy to the punch.” He made a remark to that general effect when he was urging the thorough fortification of Guam, early last year. Things didn’t work out that way, with Japan letting loose the “punch,” behind diplomatic shadow boxing, but that couldn’t be charged up to the admiral. Any government adhering to the forms of interna tional law and order is at a disad vantage in the prevailing interna tional anarchy. But Washington can’t say that the ruddy, desk thumping old admiral, 42 years out * of Annapolis, didn’t give it ample warning. He has long been a vigor* ous advocate of widely based naval preparedness in the Pacific and readiness to strike at the first gong. He is a Kentuckian, as thor- oughly schooled in our high-seas ■ x workouts of the last few decades as any man in the navy, en tered in all of them and repeat edly decorated. He won the specially meritorious Medal of the Spanish - American War, when, as a young ensign in the Battle Of Santiago, he rescued Spaniards from Cervera’s burn ing ships. Hia other medals eame from the Philippine and Cuban campaigns, the Boxer re bellion and the World war, the last being the Victory medal, and with it went the Navy Cross, for running transports- through Hie blockaded section around France and England. He has been chief of the bureau of ordnance, a gunnery officer, com mander of many ships, a budget of ficer, judge advocate general, en gaged in training activities, and commandant of the Washington Navy yard. He became command er of the battle force, with the rank of admiral, in 1937. From 1928 to 1940, he was commander in chief of the U. S. fleet, and was assigned to command of the Hawaii district iii the latter years. He’s a naval officer’s officer, with a high repu tation for strategic and technical skiU. ^ 'T'HIS onlooker, meeting quite a few explorers in various parts of the world, has noted in them, .al- xnost invariably, a good sense of drama and No Showmanship an -instinct \t* Makeup of This for show- Woman Explorer Sgtfgfc I Boyd, * just now cited by the shington Bureau of Standards for scientific work on her last Arc- II expedition, is lacking . in these _ tributes. She rounds out 17 years df Arctic exploring with never a tple of a close brush with death, and never anybody drawing lots to see who would shoot himself when they were down to the last kilo of pem- mican. She does a lot to validate the strictly scientific assumptions of Arctic exploration and to disprove the tradition that women are gar rulous. When she popped off 29 polar bears in 1926, it was only by accident that the news leaked cut through other members of her ex pedition. Her log is never like that of Henry Hudson which spotted up a lot of mermaids and sea demons around Spitsbergen. She is back from her sixteenth trip up north on Capt. Bob Bart lett’s stout little schooner, the Effie Morrisey. For 17 years she has been commuting up to the icebergs every summer- farther north than any other white woman ever went. This writer frequently has seen the imposing old Victorian Boyd home in San Rafael, Calif., be hind tall privet hedges, whence eame the smart, comely young girl, to buck a frozen wilder ness, get decorations from two former governments, special unique recognition from the National Geographic society, and have “Louise Boyd Land” spot ted up on government maps, where the De Geer glacier used to be. Ship news reporters find her un communicative, coming and going, and her reports go through official scientific channels. En route to the Far North, she usually arrives in New York with a car, chauffeur and maid. She quietly sidetracks silly questions about whether she pow ders her nose in a gale. This writer was once in some re mote regions of the Darien country. Later interviewing a gabby explorer who had just returned frorp there, he conceived a distrust for ground and-lofty travelers’ tales which made Miss Boyd his favorite explorer. MM ■M mm- wm m •C:. C mm pH ■■■ MM ■:MM ill! M : - Vi m mm . M vm > <-• V- V « * A striking photograph of the city of London, looking toward St. Paul’s cathedral, which was damaged by Nazi bombs earlier in the war. The city has not been bombed for many months, and much of the debris has been cleared away, but there is still “plenty of room for im provement.” Navy Birds’ Roost' Aim*? wm $ mm £ m Bomb-Barricade in San Francisco »«««« mm m [&£- : v& 5 £> m ■ T#- ■M ■v-' I* fUmhi * Mm, mm Following almost nightly air raid alarms and blackouts of San Fran cisco since the start of the war, the Pacific Telephone and Telegraph com pany has installed a sandbag barricade across the front of their building. Workmen are shown here erecting the wall of sandbags, which will pro tect vital telephone equipment from possible enemy bombs. 'M A striking view of the U.S.S. Ranger, aircraft carrier of our navy, with a part of her brood of planes clustered on her flight deck. This photo appears in the U. S. naval aviation issue of Flying and Popular Aviation magazine. Explains New Draft m ^=r V M--. D Yl /// / \MI/ / Jar unto ua a ta barn, unto uh a aon ta giurtt: Anb tl|r gnumtmrnt afyall br upan bta Blfauibm Anb Ijtfl namr aljall br rallrb tuanbrrful, ramtarllar, tl|r migl|tg (Sab, % mrlaating fatl|rr, ll|r prinrr of prarr. -Jaaiab 9:fi Infants Under Year Old Enjoy Christmas Gifts, Baby Claims M ■ * ^ i American-Built Planes Over Malaya Wi mm 'smm . -j ■ I BkjSr r —Vsmkdk vX-X->'. . X-XvX-X ' ■ X.X;ivl;Jvi3.;X;X;-^x(f ;-;-;ix<ji;.;’x-X-!-XySx-^X-I->X-X-.'-X-X ' - X ‘'l-^+t-X-X-X ''- . . ^X-. X- .' » X’; . mm mm M: ... Gen. Lewis B. Hershey, selective service director, who says the draft is to take only men 21—35 now, and the 18 to 64 registration is for pre paredness. Spies Convicted fiii v-:. mm --V.- xx- mm “Of course we.babies can enjoy Christmas gifts* . mmM-m Here we see American-built fighting planes sweeping over the dense Malayan jungle in the Singapore area. These war craft are now serving with the British Royal Air force, and giving battle to invading Japanese forces in this strategic area. The ships are Brewster Buffaloes and they are giving a good account of themselves. War News Comes to Little Tokyo Sraffl Wrnmmm m iitfell This sign in Japanese is on display outside a newspaper office in Los Angeles’ Japanese colony, which is known as “Little Tokyo.” 'Only a scattering of persons were on the streets in Little Tokyo as residents of that section read this news of the war’s beginning. After reading the message they went quietly home. xssss Several of the 14 men found guilty of conspiring to avoid registering as Nazi agents and guilty of delivering military information to Germany are shown filing from the Brooklyn, N. Y., federal court, under guard, after a “guilty” verdict was ren dered. Farewell Kiss Dear World: Of course, I’m disgusted. You’d feel this way too if folks said you were too dumb to enjoy Christmas. They say that we babies less than a year old don’t need presents be cause we can’t appreciate them anyway. The idea! A lot of other babies are also com plaining about this attitude. Why, we can talk better English than most grown-ups. “Dud iddy biddy baby want pretty rattle-wattle? Daddikens will pick it up from the floorsie-worsie for oo.” Phoey ! If I couldn’t talk better than this I’d keep still. And then they have the audacity to assume that babies under one year are too young to enjoy Christmas. Last month we conducted a poll among babies 12 months of age or younger, asking them if they con sidered themselves capable of en joying Christmas. Exactly 987 of the 1,000 babies questioned replied emphatically in the affirmative. The 13 who voted “no” are going to be a year old before Christmas and felt they would have a better chance of get ting presents from relatives if their younger cousins were left out. But that’s a purely selfish motive and doesn’t affect the unanimity of the poll. Now that you have had indisput able proof that babies enjoy Christ mas, don’t rush out to buy us an electric train or bicycle. After all, we act our age even though we know better. There are several points you should keep in mind while looking through the toy department: We want toys that will attract our at tention, and they must be cleaned easily. We babies have a bad habit of putting things in our mouths, so if the toy is too small, we might swallow it. Don’t worry, though. We’ll get over the habit. Colored bakelite disks on a chain make one of the nicest and least expensive gifts for babies. We can have a lot of fun playing with those white, yellow, red and green disks.- And they’re real easy to keep clean, too. ' Other children want only toys they can play with, but we babies can appreciate the more practical gifts such as cribs, playpens and jumper-swings. They are virtual necessities to us and make our lives much more pleasant. Clothing also makes excellent gifts. A few of the many articles we would be glad to receive include shirts, night gowns, dresses, romp ers, shoes, stockings and bonnets. One of the most practical and welcome gifts for any baby would be an automobile seat. These can be attached to the seat of any auto mobile and permit babies to see out, but prevent them from falling out. Babies must be able to sit up , before using them, but all babies learn to sit up before they are very old. And we enjoy looking out of the window of the car as much as you do. It’s no fun just looking at the inside of the car when we’re going some place. How would you like it? Another practical gift would be a life-insurance policy that will ma ture in about 18 years and provide funds for a college education. Or, savings account can be opened in baby’s name for as little as $1—but you don’t have to make it that small We babies can’t get Christmas presents for our parents and other grownups, but we certainly would if we could. Just wait a couple of years and see if we don’t. Signed, Disgusted **Youth” Early Puritans Forbid ‘Crime’ of Celebrating Christmas A U. S. sailor, summoned to re turn to his post following the attack on Hawaii, kisses his girl good-by at Penn station, New York. It may be a long time between kisses. Celebrating Christmas was a crime to the early Puritans in Mas sachusetts. The practice was looked down upon with so much disfavor that anyone observing the date was fined five shillings. On May 11, 1659, the general court in Boston passed a law against Christmas cel ebrations which said: “It is therefore ordered by this court and the authority thereof that whomsoever shall be found observ ing any such day as Christmas or the like, either by forebearing la bor, feasting, or any other way, upon such account as aforesaid, ev ery such person so offending shall pay for every such offense five shill ings as a fine to the county.” Fair Warning “Listen, chillun” said Uncle Eben, “don’t eat yohsefs into a state of mind whar you’s wishin’ for a doctor harder dan you did for Santy Claus.”