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About The frontier. (O'Neill City, Holt County, Neb.) 1880-1965 | View Entire Issue (July 4, 1935)
Byrd Weather Men Face Bitter Cold Theirs Most Difficult Job , With Expedition. Hollywood.—Down at the bottom of the world, where the winds howl all winter long at a temperature of 70 degrees below zero, members of the second Byrd Antarctic expedi tion spent 18 long months. And of all the difficult and dan gerous Jobs assigned to membera of the crew, the balloon man's long vigil amid those icy blasts, headed the list. Even the two cameramen who risked their lives to photograph ex citing incidents agree that their job did not compare with that of the meteorologist. The story of George Grlmlnger, sent with the expedition by the weather bureau In Washington, was told by John L. Herrmann and Carl O. Peterson, who brought 130.000 feet of film back from Little Amer ica. 400 Balloons Released. Day after day Grlmlnger mount ed the snow covered roof of the science building and kept a tel escope trained on balloons soaring into the atmosphere. More than 400 balloons were released by the meteorologist to determine wind ve locity and direction at various alti tudes. The neat little pile of record books cost Grlmlnger many a frost bitten cheek and finger. For hours at a time, exposed to the extreme cold, he kept his eye on the telescope. Be cause the lens must be adjusted con stantly, he could wear only silk gloves. These kept his fingers from freezing to the frigid metal, but they weren’t much protection from the cold. Grlmlnger relayed his readings through a telescope to fellow sci entists in the warm building below. Readings were made once a minute until the balloon was lost from sight In daylight, their course could be followed tip to 30,000 feet. Dur ing the long winter of endless night, little paper bags containing lighted candles were attached. Suffered From Frostbite. Grlmlnger wore a noseguard and other special equipment, but still he suffered continually from frost bite, the cameramen related. As a matter of fact, all of the 55 men under Admiral Richard Byrd, and the admiral himself, were frostbit ten at one time or another. Frequently the cameramen and others on trail trips would be caught in a blizzard, and parts of their bodies frozen bofore they could erect a shelter. A1 Wade of North Hollywood suffered the most severe case. He was eighteen pounds lighter when released from the hospital. Motion picture photography was difficult at any temperature below’ zero and almost Impossible at 40 degrees on down, the camernmen reported. Down to 40 degrees the film becomes brittle, and beyond that it continually breaks. The camera Itself freezes at low Dog Beggar Accepts Only Good Nickels Pauls Valley, Okla.—Plug nick els aren’t good enough for Jack, blueblood bird-dog owned by Ed gar Long, local hardware mer chant With the bird season over Jack, to earn a living, becomes a panhandler. He treads the streets of Pauls Valley with a paper sack dangling from his teeth begging merchants from door to door to drop In a nickel so he can buy meat. Shopkeepers try to dissuade the big English setter with pen nies, plugs and washers but he won’t accept them. The dona tion must he a nickel and It can not go Into his sack until he ex amines It. When Jack acquires a nickel he goes Immediately to a nearby meat market, enters the front door, approaches the meat case and points, true bird-dog fush Ion, to the meat he wants. Butchers have learned not to “short weight” the dog nor to sell him tough steaks. He de tects discrepancies as readily as does the average housewife and he refuses to trade with short weight artists. temperatures and the hand crank cannot be turned. The photographers developed a technique of their own to defeat the weather. Placing their cameras In ovens, they would prepare a scene for photographing, race for the cameras and grind them until they froze. Once Herrmann clambered up a 75 foot steel radio tower for a bird’s eye view of the camp. The scene over, he tried to descend, but dis covered his legs were frozen to a pair of steel supports. Another man climbed up and shook him loose. Another time on a tractor trip, he fell backwurd Into a 12-foot crevasse, but escaped with bruises. The cameramen and four others were bound for the admiral’s ad vance base to bring back supplies and equipment left by Byrd when be returned to Little America by plane. 125-Year-Old Church It Dissolved by Court Writ Lisbon, Ohio.—The 125-year-old Trinity Reformed church In Han over township, near here, was dis solved under an order Issued by Columbiana County Common Pleas Judge W. F. Lones. A 40-acre tract was divided. The synod was granted the church and Its site. The parsonage was awarded to the Central Theological seminary nnd the cemetery adjoin ing the church was assigned to the Trinity Reformed Church Cemetery association. The parish waB established In 1810 by Rev. John Stauzh, a Ger man Lutheran minister. He served as pastor until 1847. Find $10,000 Hidden in Iowa Corncrib Spring II111, Iowa.—For a while J. A. Cook didn’t know Just what to think. Could It be that the AAA was turning corn Into gold, after all? Called to administer the estate of a brother, Cook sold a corn crib full of com. While work men were loading It from the crib Into their wagon they sud denly stopped, rubbed their eyes, There, In the middle of the crib, was a pile of money. Ten thousand dollars they counted, In gold coin and bills. Cook’s brother had been known to be well-to-do, but not to the extent of being able to hide $10, 000. Liberty Statue to Have Birthday Party in 1936 Washington. — American citizens have been Invited by the national park service to participate next year in a program which will mark the fiftieth anniversary of the Statue of Liberty. The monument was unveiled on October 28, 1886. The nation shared In the ceremonies. The park service has requested that everyone Interested In the semi centennial celebration assist In lo cating and assembling poems and pictures of the statue which were published at the time France pre sented the memorial. It was pointed out that many of those pictures and Illustrated ac counts were “striking and artistic, lending themselves admirably to ef fective reproduction." Authors who wrote poems during the dedicatory period Included John Greenleaf Whittier, Ella Wheeler Wilcox, E. C. Stedman, Charles Bar hard, Esther Singleton, John J. Garnett, Sidney Herbert Pierson. Turks Find Way to Beat Polygamy Ban a__ 1 Women Taken Outside An kara on Work Contracts. Ankara, Turkey.—Polygamy and secret religious marriages are still problems which are worrying the Turkish republican government. Four years ago marrlnges were made civil ceremonies and monog amy for all future unions made the law. There la a “superintendent of marriages" In each municipality, CHAMOIS VOGUE By CIIEKIE NICHOLAS The Idea of wearing chamois hat and Jackets and various accessories of cliamola Is making a big appeal out In Hollywood colony where film beauties set the pace In high fash ion. Here we see Jean Harlow wearing a perfectly stunning suede jacket. Note how artfully It Is pan eled, thus Inducing an Interesting fitted line. The pockets are trlangu lar shaped which, together with big and couples who are physically “passed” for marriage come before him for their union. But habit keeps many of the Turkish population following the old ways. Now a clever trick where by this Is done has been discov ered. Men from Anatolia go to Istanbul and there find young women, espe cially pensioned war widows and orphans, and engage them on em ployment contracts for work In the provinces. These contracts are duly legalized by the public notary. When the women want to marry they ap proach the provincial cleric, exhibit their contract, saying that it is a civil marriage contract, and so the cleric, who does not understand the document, proceeds to unite them In mnrrlage according to religious rites. If they married civilly they would lose their pension. So they have Invented this way of tnklng in the clerics, who thus Innocently break the law In wedding them religiously when they have never been through a civil ceremony. The Ankara government is about to issue regulations forbidding pub lic notaries to legalize these em ployment contracts which are being abused in this way. As for polygamy, Turkish men still succeed In practicing it. From Thrace they cross over into Bul garia and there marry wives under the Koranic law and bring them back. In the same way the men of South Anatolia cross into the re gion of Alexandretta, where they are outside Turkish Jurisdiction, and there they provide themselves with more wives. This practice is also to be stopped by a law which will attach severe punishments to these subterfuges. ball buttons, lend a heap o’ chic. The jacket Is collarless so that it can be worn with a scnrf. Jean is carrying a soft shirred calfskin bag with barrel shape lock. Below in the picture Is an ensemble of chamois hat, gloves and Jacket which Gertrude Michael elects to wear with her navy blue dress which has polka dots and a huge ruffly jabot. Old Boat* to Sink in Land Sandusky, Ohio. — Boats which have outlived their usefulness on the Great Lakes and are In various decadent stages in slips along the Lake Erie waterfront here may be used for “filling in” in a reclamation project here. New and Old Depict Advance in Transportation Railroad week was marked in Chicago by the presence, side by side, of four of the crack new fast trains and a veteran of the railB. In the photograph, left to right, are the Burlington’s old 35, the Milwaukee road’s Hiawatha, the North Western’s 400, the Burlington's Zephyr and the Alton’s Abraham Llncola SEEN-'HEARD around tha National Capital S=BSBy CARTER FIELD KS-HS Washington.—Whether President Roosevelt's new tax program for big inheritance levies is put through at this session, or goes over until next year, there Is little doubt of Its eventual enactment. The answer to that is simple. It is Just that there are, and probably would be in almost any upset which might occur, enough votes in both houses of congress to impose high taxes on big fortunes. This fact Is realized now pretty well by holders of these same big fortunes, so the most important thing at the moment is what they will do to circumvent the effects, or soften the blows, that are certain to come. One of the most serious aspects affects such institutions as the Ford Motor company. There are many others, though ail of them are smaller, but the idea is the same in every case where a big business is owned almost exclusively by one small family. No one is authorized to say, of course, what Henry Ford will do, as he sees this thing coming. But the opinion of shrewd business men as to what he will be forced to do is Interesting. The problem would be what Edsel Ford could do if his father died sud denly and the government demand ed, for example, in both estate and inheritance taxes, say SO per cent. How could the cash be provided with which to pay this tax? Obvi ously by doing what Henry Ford has fought against all his life, and fought against successfully, by re fusing to have securities of his com pany sold through Wall Street. If, for Instance, in view of the certainty of heavy inheritance taxes, Ford should decide not to have such a terrific problem put up to Edsel, some day, for immediate decision— perhaps at a most inopportune time —the thing to do would be to sell to the public shares of his stock, or bonds in his company. Simple Solution If the stock and bonds were on the market, had a recognized value, and were being constantly traded In, the problem would be comparative ly simple. Enough securities could be sold to pay the taxes. This would not entirely eliminate the possibil ity thnt there would have to be a great sacrifice of values. The public would know that these stocks and bonds must be sold In a very short time, nnd the probability is that the price would decline to far be low normal. It would be strictly a buyers’ market. This sort of thing has been illus trated time and again in smaller enterprises. In fair-sized cities, say of around half a million people, it often develops that everybody “in the know’’ realizes a large block of some local stock must be sold. Al ways the price declines in advance, and the person who must do the selling for one reason or another nets far less than the actual value of his securities. In fact, one of the reasons many investment bankers have always ad vised clients to deal only In securi ties listed on the New York Stock exchange has been that—merely be cause of its bigness—there was less of that sort of thing possible than in the case of securities in smaller enterprises, where the Interest in buying was confined to a small ter ritory. But In the real big cases, such as Ford would be. New York would become just ns bad as many of the smaller communities are now for small enterprises. Wall Street Knew President Roosevelt’s recommen dation of high inheritance taxes was made directly against the ad vice of nearly all his congressional advisers. Within two hours after he had told newspaper correspondents that there just might be a message to congress during the day, though he declined to say what It would be about, Senator Pat Harrison, chair man of the senate finance commit tee, and Chairman Doughton of the house ways and means committee, denied to reporters any knowledge of a move by the White House to obtain higher income taxes nnd in heritance taxes. Which would seem to prove that the two chairmen mentioned, heads respectively of the committees in house and senate which would han dle the legislation desired by the President, still hoped until the mes sage actually nrrived that they had dissuaded the President. But, what is really of great In terest to newspaper men in partic ular and the public in general, the tip on which these two chairmen were questioned came directly from Wall Street. In fact, smart brokers operating on the New York Stock exchange knew almost the precise pattern of the President’s tax plan at the very moment the President was declining to take newspaper men into his con fidence as to what his message would be about There have been many leaks of information in Washington. There have been evidences again and again that speculators on Wall Street had advance information as to what the administration would do. There Is nothing new about this. There have been many investiga tions, one of the most interesting of which, and incidentally one of the most typical, being the famous “leak Investigation’’ by the house rules committee back In Woodrow Wilson’s administration. On that occasion news that the President would make a move to obtain peace in Europe—this was in the late fall of 191(5—before the United States got Into the war— was known In Wall Street, and occa sioned a terrific crash in the stocks of companies manufacturing muni tions for the allies. Thomas W. Law son of Boston, of frenzied finance fame, charged that certain people had made millions on advance in formation. Bernard M. Baruch was put on the stand, and admitted mak ing half a million the day the news broke, though he convinced the committee that he acted on news from London, not Washington. Pinned on Reporters But the point Is that at the end of that Investigation some live or six newspaper men were pilloried as the real source of the leak. Some of them lost their jobs. Some were Just reprimanded. All were in dis grace. The whole thing was con strued as a terrific reflection on newspaper ethics. Everybody In Washington knew there had been a reul leak—that the telegrams sent by the newspa per men thus besmirched were just an alibi—In short that Thomas W. Lawson In essential was right. But this administration, having watched the Lawson and other leak investigations, in taking no chances. This was evidenced by the fact that at 11:00 a. m., on June 19, the President would not admit what his message that afternoon would be about. Yet hours before the stock mar ket closed this writer and several others were working desperately to confirm tips from Wall Street re porters In their organizations that the President was about to pro pose high inheritance taxes and big advances on the higher brackets on income taxes! Relief Plan in Peril The $1,100 per man limitation which President Roosevelt has Im posed on the work-relief program, as far as the selection of projects Is concerned, not only promises to force a general blow-up In the whole scheme, but to make a lot of trouble, politically and other wise. For Instance, the big water proj ect for central California, for the San Joaquin and Sacramento riv ers. Recently Senators Johnson and McAdoo called on the President. They urged him to lift the $1,100 ban on this project. The President Insisted that he had only $4,000,000, 000, and that this $4,000,000,000 must provide work for three and one-half million men. Hence each project must put a man to work for every $1,100 spent. The senators urged the President to consider that purchases of mate rials, machinery, etc., would provide work far in excess of the Jobs ac tually provided on the site of the project. But the President was un moved. Later on, however, he had a qualm, and wrote Public Works Ad ministrator Ickes, inquiring whether the $1,100 would actually ban the project, and suggesting a restudy of the whole situation to determine this point. Ickes himself would not “fudge” on the figures. But he gave some of his subordinates a chance to juggle them. At last accounts the assistants declined to pull the chestnuts out of the fire. They made lengthy reports calling attention to the value of the project, and to the tremendous amount of employment It would pro vide indirectly. Curious Paradox Which brings lip a rather curious paradox In the mental processes of the President and some of his ad visers—particularly Harry Hopkins. (It must be remembered in this connection that Ickes himself has no sympathy for this policy—he ap proves this particular California project, and is keen for providing employment Indirectly.) The country has been divided for relief work purposes into some three hundred odd districts. Ap parently the administration is try ing to conduct them as though they were water-tight compartments. The number of unemployed in each has been surveyed, and the idea is to provide sufficient employment In each to take care of that situation. This policy does not take Into account the fact that a district which happens to be big In steel manufacturing would not need work relief If enough work relief projects requiring steel should be approved. In that case the unemployed men in the steel district would have jobs automatically provided for them— Jobs paying much better than work relief—giving them the opportunity to spend more money, and thus pro vide jobs for still others, etc. All of which Is in strange con trast to the President’s bitter com plaint against the Supreme court decision in the NKA case. For he talked of the country’s being rele gated to the horse and buggy days and harped on the point that with increasing speed of communication and transportation, nothing could happen In Maine that would not affect Oregon. CoDrrUrht—WND Servlc*. ditotmhituj Jcfumhtv Big Task for a Cameroun Hairdresser. Prepared by National Geographic Society, Washington, D. C.—WNU Service. OUMBAN, mandate of Came roun, Africa, Is astonishing. The city stands upon a hill and Is surrounded by an elaborate system of ancient trench fortifica tions dating from the years of the Fulah raiders. The trees, which have been planted along every street, give It a wooded effect whol ly absent among the neighboring grass meadows. One has an Im mediate Impress on of order, pros perity, civilization. Many of the houses of Foum ban are of sun-dried brick and are roofed with native tiles or grass thatch. The compound fences are neatly constructed. The market, made of brick and tile, Is modern In type and perfectly clean. At the center of the town Is an Imposing three-story structure set in the midst of elaborate gardens. It is the palace of Njoya, sultan of the Bamoum and overlord of Foumban. Everything—order, bricks, and garden—is Indigenous. Foum ban existed when the white man was no more than a myth. Even now outside Influences have touched it only slightly. The sultan and the majority of his people are Mohammedans. In accordance with the curious rule that people of the African deserts and prairies readily adopted Mo hammedanism, and that the people of the African forests almost in variably did not, the Bamoum scarcely recall a time when their life was not strongly Influenced by the Arabic belief. In the center of the town, facing the sultan’s palace, is the mosque, a frame building of strongly Moor ish type, even to the vertical stripes of red and white paint. Here, every Friday, the elite of the Bamoum gather. Subchiefs Are a Proud Lot. The many n’gi, or subchiefs, of the tribe, some of whom exert far more real power than the sultan himself, come in from their dis tricts, bringing with them a string of dependents. They make a strik ing picture. Nearly all aristocrats of the Cameroun plateau ride horse back and dress in immense flowing robes covered with bright embroid ery. Some swathe their heads in white or blue turbans; others wear the characteristic floppy straw hat of the Fulah cattle herders. All have an air of faintly contemptu ous majesty. They, the rulers, they fondly think, are the pure-blood conquer ors from the North, and therefore the superiors of the indigenous peo ples with whom they have merged. As a matter of fact, little trace of the Arab strain remains, cer tainly so far south as Foumban. The Bamoum, except for unusual stature and the occasional appear ance of an isolated straight-fea tured type, are distinctly negroid. The n’gi, when they come to town, are followed, according to their rank, by greater or less entourages. Several male members of his fami ly usually accompany the n’gi, also mounted. The horses are richly caparisoned in red and green leath er. The men carry elaborate spears, with shafts of hardwood and tips of silver or native fcroiize. Behind comes an inconspicuous rabble of wives, usually well-laden with pro duce for sale at the week-end mar ket, and several depressed-looking burros, not quite as heavily laden as the women. While the ceremony at the mosque is in session the women and burros sit respectfully about outside. When the men come out, Foumban stirs with unaccustomed activity, an activity which continues until the country people stray away home late the following day. Markets Are Picturesque. All sorts of produce are spread out in the market. There are leath er boots, scabbards, and decorated harness; superb pieces of Bamoum embroidery; rolls of homespun cot ton cloth; carved wooden household articles of every description. Hardly less picturesque is the food market. First of all, there are thousands of ears of fine Indian corn. It grows everywhere on the plateau. More special delicacies range all the way from roasted ter mites’ eggs to crocodile steaks, things of considerably less Interest to a white traveler. More than a thousand people at tend the market. The sounds, sights, and smells of vigorous native trad ing give an Impression of thriving, continuing African life such as on© scarcely senses among the less de veloped forest types, particularly among the dreary, half-invalid crea tures of the jungle of southern Cameroun. The favorable climate, the mixture of types, and, abov© all, the remoteness of the corrup tive Influence of white civiliza tion clearly show their effect. By Sunday morning the peasants have for the most part gone away, their produce sold or favorably ex changed. The aristocrats, however, remain. At the slightest provocation they will arrange a parade, a sham war, anything to vary the monotony of Isolated tribal life. One Sunday noon recently a trav eler learned that word went forth that a “play” had been arranged. The eight whites then In Foumban, only three of whom resided there permanently, sat with Sultan Njoya In chairs at one end of the town square. The riders, musicians, sing ers, standard-bearers, and buffoons made ready at the other. The “play,” running true to the type of Innumerable similar dis plays that take place In the larger towns of the high prairie, began with an orderly procession of all the unmounted men. Drums, fifes, horns of many kinds, and stringed Instruments came in the first rank, playing warlike refrains. Before them danced, somersaulted, and grimaced several clowns, royal jesters attached to the sultan’s court in much the same position held by the court jesters of medi eval Europe. Standard-bearers and a rabble of singers brought up the rear. The end of the square reached, the marchers formed irregular lines at either side, and, spears and stand ards lifted, shouted greeting to the horsemen who followed. Charge of the Horsemen. The square of Foumban is nar row and a little more than 200 yards long. It was midafternoon of a golden tropical summer. The vividly green trees that skirted the plaza and the bright red earth pe culiar to the Foumban district made a perfect setting. The horsemen numbered more than 100, and each was gowned in flowing robes em broidered in every imaginable bright color. All carried either spears or long flintlock rifles. There was a great shout, and from the distance the spurred horses bore down upon the specta tors at full gallop. The dust, the flashing spears, the wild cries, and the blazing colors made a thrilling sight. In another instant the small, help less group of whites were cold with terror, for the charge neither turned nor abated. There was no time to move. When less than six feet away, each man shouted, stood up in his stirrups, and reined in. Every horse rose up on Its hind legs, fore feet kicking, pirouetted, and the line swept away at the right angle. The cruel Hausa bit, an iron circle that rings the horse’s tongue and holds in its upper side a sharp prong that gouges the animal’s flesh when the rein is pulled, had proved its effec tiveness. Sultan and His Museum. One of the most unusual things in Foumban is the museum of Sul tan Njoya. But Njoya, a magnifi cent, six-foot, black chieftain, with the smile of a nice baby, Is an un usual man. He is himself, for one thing, the inventor of one of the only two written alphabets known to have been produced in negro \ Africa—a phonetic alphabet which 1 apparently has nothing in common with any other on the earth. The museum occupies a long room at the top of the palace. It contains a collection of carving, bronzes, spears, beadwork, brass jewelry, embroideries, and textiles for which the curator of any ethno logical museum would give an arm. Njoya has gathered the things be cause he admires them and because he takes pride in every tradition ^ of his people. In other words, civ ilization has not penetrated with its teaching that all things not man ufactured in Europe are therefore contemptible. It must be added that the French government resident at Foumban, M. Quer, devotedly and charmingly upholds Njoya in his point of view.