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About The frontier. (O'Neill City, Holt County, Neb.) 1880-1965 | View Entire Issue (July 28, 1938)
| MISSISSIPPI INDUSTRY The smith still plies his trade In Mississippi. How Machinery Is Transforming This Once Agricultural State Prepared by National Geofraphlc Society, Washington, D. C.-WNU Service. MACHINES are com ing to agricultural Mississippi. After a morning tour of in dustrial Jackson you scrape from your shoe soles layers of cottonseed oil, pungent creosote, and clayey benton ite, all caked hard with dried mud from a petroleum well being dug by special ap propriation of the state leg islature. Twice dally the red and silver streamline Rebel train flashes through the state—past ox teams plodding along sunken roads, new myriad-windowed garment fac tories, Negroes driving ramshackle buckboards—and glides beneath air planes that are heading into the capital's spacious, four-way airport. Over in Natchez girls in lavender hoop-skirt gowns trimmed with rare old lace sidle into automobiles to drive annual pilgrimage-week visi tors to ante-bellum homes straight from the pages of "So Red the Rose.’* Up the Delta a sprlghUy gentle man of elghty-two years calls his chauffeur to take you in his car to a log cabin still standing on the plantation of 6,000 acres of cotton, corn, pecans, and hay. He and his uncle built the cabin only 65 years ago, after they had cleared the land and floated the timbers in from the surrounding forest and the chim ney brick from the river dock 10 miles distant. This epic from covered wagon to limousine in one man’s lifetime is a clue to why Mississippians call their state ‘‘the last frontier.” Jackson Is Spacious and Busy. Busy, modern Jackson illustrates the transformation. This city is no upstart; it has been the state capital since 1822. Stately homes with wis teria growing over columned por ticoes and with crape myrtle on the lawns line wide avenues. Barber shops still are spacious forums of political argument where a southern colonel may doff his broad-brimmed hat in courtly salu tation without toppling over a coat rack. Rooms in hotels, office build ings, and homes knew not the builder who estimates costs in cubic feet From sidewalks beneath rusty tin roofs you look across the street toward shop fronts with onyxlike tiles, burnished metal, and neon lights. One tall office building with cu bistic floors and chromium elevator doors rises knife-edged to carve an otherwise gracious skyline just op posite a colonial-type home now painted green and occupied by the Salvation Army. As recently as 1920 century-old Jackson still had only 22,817 people; by 1930 it counted more than twice that number; in 1937 a local census estimated nearly 60,000, a rate of growth rivaling that of Los Angeles. The citizens disclaim any boom. The increase, they assert with rea son, is the normal result of several obvious causes. une impetus was the discovery only seven years ago of natural gas which now flows from nearly 100 wells in the city limits, much of it into pipe lines that radiate all over the state and reach even into Louisiana and Florida. Another change was putting through high-power transmission lines—the state had none until 1925 —and the consequent encourage ment of factories in Jackson as well as in many other places. Roads and Cottonseed Oil. Mo*1 important factor, perhaps, la the road-building program which gives centrally-situated Jackson an ever-wider wingspread as a shop ping point, and controverts the old taunt that “Mississippi has three big cities: Mobile, New Orleans, and Memphis." Early among Jackson's indus tries, naturally enough, were cotton seedoil mills. In the musty archives of the squat old state capitol are ante-bellum laws which prohibited gin owners from polluting streams with cotton seed or dumping it inside town and city limits. No need for enforcing such laws now, when for every 500-pound bale of cotton the planter may sell an average of 900 pounds of seed for about $18. All around Jackson's “hoop skirts,” as someone aptly called the outlying industrial belt, tall, circu lar warehouses with conical metal tops rise like the oasthouses of Kent’s hop-growing districts. Each seed house stores 5,000 tons or so of cottonseed which awaits the mechanical alchemy that will con vert its parts into horse collars, salad dressing, blotting paper, cheese crackers, house roofing, and an amazing variety of other products. Should you be listening to a re cording of Lawrence Tibbett’s voice or Guy Lombardo’s orchestra, you will be indebted to the velvety cot tonseed for ingredients in the phono graph record. The seeds pour first Into huge machines which whirl, shake, screen, and pull out all the dirt and foreign particles. The clean seed goes to delinters where the lint fiber is removed and collected to help make felt, absorbent cotton, mat tresses, and even underwear. The kernels, or meats, emerge from a steam-jacketed cooker into hydraulic presses which squeeze out the oil that will be used to pack sardines, make butter substitutes, soap, and cooking oils. The cakes remaining in the powerful hydraulic presses are removed and broken up to feed cattle and rejuvenate the soil. “Hot Cakes” Wrapped in Hair. Negroes, stripped to the waist, deftly handle the literal “hot cakes,” wrapping them for the presses into mats made of human hair from China, which best with stands the high temperatures. The odor from the presses is like that of hot buttered toast. At lunch time you see the workers dip their bread into the dripping oil, and eat the oil-spread slices with evident relish. Enter a bathroom of an ocean liner and you encounter Mississip pi composition board; stroll along Atlantic City's boardwalk or go aboard some British man-of-war and your feet tread the state's yel low-pine planks; contract a cold in London, Australia or Argentina and your prescription is apt to contain pine oil extracted from Mississippi stumps; buy gasoline as you tour Italy or Japan and it may have been bleached by a distinctive product, bentonite, from the state some people call provincial. A plant at Jackson hauls in each week some 800 tons of bentonite, mined in SVnith county. The soft, porous clay, sleek as an alligator's belly, product of ash from volcanic eruptions of bygone geologic times, is dumped from car to conveyor belt, mixed into a slurry, and treat ed with acids. You must climb a high platform to see the giant drum, covered with fine cloth, which draws the water content through a screen as it re volves. permitting the residue cake to be scraped from the outside. A glass-bottle works at Jackson best illustrates Mississippi as a customer of many states and for eign lands. New Bottles From Old Ones Tons of old bottles from every where are piled high in the yard to be carried on moving belts to crush ers. then to be mixed with sand from Arkansas, salt cake from Chile, lime from Ohio, barium from Missouri, feldspar from Colorado, arsenic from Montana, and sele nium from Canada, to make enough bottles every day to supply one for each white family in the state. You can look, but not too long, through colored glasses into fur naces where these products and others from huge bins are melted by natural-gas flames at 2,700 de grees Fahrenheit. Seventy tons of raw materials are shoveled out of the bins for each day s production of about a quarter million bottles. Out they go, in car load lots, toward their ultimate des tinations on drugstore shelves, cos metic counters, nocturnal milk wag ons. liquor cabinets and beauty parlor tables. WHO’S NEWS THIS WEEK I- I By LEMUEL F. PARTON NEW YORK —The British lion has been taking kicks from all comers lately, but it stiffened up and began looking a lot more her _ aldic when the an rarliament cient bin of right8 Shows Spunk seemed to be in In Army Row fri"5ed- 11 was no rubber-stamp par liament which reacted angrily to the army’s summary action against young Duncan Sandys, conservative member, who had revealed undue knowledge of air defense secrets. The government was embarrassed and backed up considerably. The swift parliamentary kick back was an instance of the latent staying power of the British demo cratic tradition, as the representa tive body rattled the bones of its late and great libertarians in telling the executive where it got off. The row overflows into impor tant political by-ways, as the tall, handsome, loose-geared Mr. Sandys Is both a son-in-law and political ally of Winston Churchill who is pot-shotting the government just now in a po litical no-man’s land. There is a threat of conservative defection to the side of the still am bitious and powerful Mr. Churchill, with labor and liberal recruits, and, according to close observers of Brit ish politics, some important new alignments may result. Mr. Sandys, thirty years old, is still just a rookie in this league, In Politics tended to start anything in partic ular. He is, however, an energetic and capable young politician and there are those who say he may be another Anthony Eden in a few years. Running for parliament in 1935, he was assailed by the come ly young Mrs. John Bailey who was leading the fight for the opposi tion. She is a daughter of Winston Churchill. He won the election in s rock and-sock battle and then, in the chivalrous Eton and Oxford tra dition which is his background, he married Mrs. Bailey. She, incidentally, Is a granddaughter of the Jennie Jerome of New York who became Mrs. Ran dolph Churchill and the mother of Winston Churchill. Jennie Jerome’s father was one of the fighting editors of the New York Times In the 1860s. Mr. Sandys, studious and some what ministerial, was with the dip lomatic service until 1933. He is a second lieutenant in the London anti-aircraft force, a son of the late Capt. George Sandys. • • » /GREECE never had any luck in trying tp get the Elgin marbles back from England. Judging from this precedent, American aviators Wr'.rwUl PI_- have a lonK flght vv right Plane ahead ^ ^mg tQ Sought by bring back from U. S. Flyers the Kensington Science museum in London the Wright brothers' air plane of the historical Kitty Hawk crow-hop of December 17, 1903. Such will be the endeavor of the newly formed association of men with wings. They will appeal to Orville Wright, who let the plane go to Eng land in 1928, after the Smithsonian institution had tagged the Samuel P. Langley plane as "the first ma chine capable of flight carrying a man." There is as yet no word from Mr. Wright, who lives and works somewhat aloofly in his office and laboratory at Dayton, Ohio. That twelve-second flight put him in the history books, brought him a string of honorary degrees and gathered more medals than his plane could lift, but all this was marred by the misunderstanding about who flew first. He had been trained In science at Earlham college when he and his brother made their plane in a bicycle shop. He continued his studies in aerodynamics and his lat er contribution was the stabilizing system which has made modern avi ation possible. Wilbur Wright died i of typhoid fever in 1912. • • • OTIFF-NECKED, hard-boiled Gen ^ eral Alexander von Falkenhaus en, German sparring partner and coach for the Chinese generals until r. • u/-ii recently, stirs ex Lhina Will citement in Shang Win, Says hai by predicting Strategist Chinese victory. He says, "I feel sure that China is gaining a final victory and that Japan will fail in both war and peace.” The general and all others of the German military mission to China are homeward bound, suddenly re called by their government, al though their contract, with $12,000 a year for General von Falkenhaus eu, was to have run until 1940. O Consolidated News Features. WNU Service. ♦ I i H|_ _■ around the NATIONAL CAPITAL By Carter Field ^ WASHINGTON.-There are likely to be some more surprises as de velopments mature in the “purge” of Democratic senators and repre sentatives who are not 100 per cent supporters of the New Deal legisla tive program. Indiana furnished the first really big one, after Iowa had furnished the first upset, but there is just no telling what some of the consequences are going to be. For example, the old Alexandria district in Virginia, represented by Howard Worth Smith, who has vot ed rather independently, sympathiz ing with the economic and political views of Senator Carter Glass and Senator Harry Flood Byrd of his state, rather than with those of President Roosevelt. Moreover, Smith is a banker, and hence al most branded as “reactionary” in New Deal eyes. So the “Secret Six” picked young William E. Dodd Jr., son of the man Roosevelt appointed ambassador to Germany, as a likely challenger to carry the New Deal banner from Alexandria down to Fauquier, and around and about in the district. But the surprise of this particular fight came when the Young Demo cratic clubs of the congressional district had a meeting in Alexan dria. No trouble was anticipated. Joseph B. Keenan, assistant attor ney general, and regarded as the only really politically minded per son in the Brain Trust, was to be the orator of the occasion. Some of the young enthusiasts in the clubs did not bother to be tact ful. In the first place they ignored Mr. Dodd, who was waiting around in case he should be called on for a speech. Then some of them fig ured they did not want Keenan praising Dodd or hitting Smith at their meeting, so they just met him, as he was en route to the meeting, and told him he needn’t come ’round. He went back to Washing ton, but it was hardly a nice way to treat him, to say the least, for he had already written a speechl They Liked Byrd Senator Byrd, who is just as ob jectionable, if not more so, to the New Deal than Representative Smith, appeared during the session and was asked by reporters if he were going to speak. He said not, that he had merely come to award a prize. This was to a lady who had gotten more members for the Young Democratic clubs than any one else. But with Keenan "mysteriously” missing, there was a space on the program, so Senator Byrd wound up by talking. Apparently he did not know that Keenan’s invitation to speak had been cancelled, unof ficially, at the eleventh hour, but he spoke on "tolerance” in the primary campaign, and the need for “har mony ” The Young Democrats seemed to enjoy it. In fact some of them said afterwards that it was one of the best speeches Senator Byrd ever made. Fortunately for “harmony” in the rest of Virginia, Senator Byrd is not up for re-election this year. But there is no “harmony” where Smith and Dodd are concerned. The congressman refused to sit on the same platform with his adversary fit a recent meeting in Manassas, and referred to him as an “up start.” Which rather surprised diplo matic Washington. The frock-coated gentry had not thought any one would call the son of an ambassa dor, and a very well-to-do ambassa dor at that, an “upstart.” But the Old Dominion has its own rules about that sort of thing. At any rate after the Young Democrats had concluded with diplomacy, they made plans for a steamboat excur sion on the Potomac! New Dealers Worry Underneath the surface there is a great deal of apprehension among New Dealers about the question of providing a refuge for German and Austrian refugees. Nearly ev erybody advising the White House, as well as those waiting to see, will admit privately that the whole ques tion is dynamite. Anybody touch ing it is likely to get hurt, no mat ter which way he moves, and no one can see any political profit in it, on either side. To start off with, there is the whole immigration policy. The country has been rather strongly committed to holding immigration down to as close a minimum as possible. Naturally there are some people interested, and important be cause of their close touch with the situation, especially in its earlier I stages, who had an idea of keeping up the American standards, so to speak. They wanted to let in the best, and have America absorb only | the cream of the offerings. Another important segment of the majority of all the people which undoubtedly favored immigration restriction had an entirely different viewpoint, though not differing nec essarily with the first group named. This second group wanted a period of time, before any further immi (ration, during which the foreign*' born and second generation as well could really be assimilated, and turned into real Americans. They wanted the melting pot to have a chance to work before there was any further foreign dilution. But politically the group favoring immigration restriction that was the most important was organized labor. Its object was purely selfish, of course. Our Latin Neighbors Most of our Latin neighbors have taken a position which seems to pre clude their figuring in any big asy lum project. Their attitude is that; they will welcome immigrants with capital, on the theory that they would help develop the South and Central American countries, and would not threaten to become a drain on the treasuries of the coun tries offering asylum through fail ure to earn a livelihood. As in most international confer ences, the function that involves risk of financial loss and has no chance of financial profit is always cheerfully assigned by the other nations to Uncle Sam. This case is no exception. On the other side, however, liter ally hundreds of thousands of those politically oppressed who are seek ing to get out of Germany and Austria—with every indication that Italy is about to be added to the list—have relatives in the United States who would be willing to do a great deal to help them. Long before the oppression be came so severe under Hitler, in fact ever since the present immi gration laws were put into effect, the pressure on the state depart ment, and the labor department, which handles immigration, has been terrific by very important and frequently very wealthy persons in this country who were willing to spend a good deal of money to get their European relatives into the United States. Will Press for Reform Confident that the country as a whole must now be convinced of what he has always known—that his program is not wrecking either the capitalistic system or the economic soundness of the country. President Roosevelt will press on for reform. The “proof’’ that his policies are not hurting the expectation of prof its—the heart of the capitalistic system—is seen by the President in the recent sharp advance in stock prices on the New York exchange. Surely, he reasons, people would not be bidding up the prices of stocks in the big corporations if they were not sure the Roosevelt policies were going to prevent those corporations making any profits! Not that the President is satisfied with his present achievements. Proud of them—yes. Content with them—no. Only by a very large measure of additional reform, he believes, can real prosperity be at tained. More particularly, only by more reform can prosperity, as his distinguished predecessor, Theodore Roosevelt, said in his campaign speeches of 1912, be “passed around.” Uplifting the downtrodden in the, South is, Roosevelt insists. No. 1 on the agenda. Raising of the pay of WPA workers in the South was the first step. Softening of any intended wage differentials under the new wages and hours regulation law is the second. New chapters will fol low soon in a movement on a broad front to bring the whole wage scale of the South up to northern standards. Roosevelt particularly abhors the movement of plants in order to ex ploit labor, and has the South in mind as one of the worst examples of this type of keeping down so large a percentage of the people in his famous one-third who are under nourished, underclothed and poorly housed. End Discriminations In this determination to lift up the South the President is particularly interested in ending discriminations, especially economic discrimina tions, against the Negro. Well-paid Negro labor is just as essen-, tial a part of the market for auto mobiles, refrigerators and other in dustrial products, he believes, as any other type of consumer. To just the extent that Negroes are' held to the underprivileged class, to just that extent will the common prosperity of the entire country be held back. The President is determined, for this continuance of his reform pro gram, to have a “liberal’* congress. Professions of not being informed as to certain state situations in volving senators and representa tives who are regarded by the Co hen-Corcoran group as reactionary will deceive no one concerned. The President is tremendously interest ed and remarkably well informed as to every one of these situations. In New York the President will be forced to accept Governor Herbert H. Lehman for senator. There it is a question of recognizing that half a loaf is better than no bread. The President found out there was not a chance to defeat Lehman in the Democratic convention, there being no primaries for United States senators or governor in New York. But for outright “Tories,” such as Millard E. Tydings, in Maryland, and Walter George, in Georgia, there will be no compromises, es pecially as the President knows there is no chance of a Republican senator from Georgia, and does not think there is much risk of a Repub lican senator from Maryland. C Bell Syndicate.—WNU Service. Nervousness And Ulcers By DR. JAMES W. BARTON © Bell Syndicate.—WNU Service. A BUSINESS MAN found himself becoming very irritable about the office— nothing was right. When driving his car, every other driver was at fault. He no ticed also that about two hours after he ate a meal he> had a pain in the stomach which was relieved only when he took some baking soda, drank some milk or ate some food. When he consulted his physician and gave him the above history the physician toad him he thought it was a stomach ulcer, which the X-ray proved was correct. The physician or dered a soft diet and prescribed alkaline medicines, which gave relief; he told the patient, how ever, mat mere were likely two Dr. Barton tilings causing the ulcer, one of which was his own high-strung, nervous disposition and the other some in fection—likely the teeth. An X-ray of the teeth showed the roots of two teeth so badly infected that they had to be removed. Causes Symptoms of Ulcer. Rest, soft food, removal of in fected teeth, brought about the cure at this time, but his physician told him that if he didn’t learn to con trol himself, to take things a little more easily, to relax more, any lit tle infection in his system, added to his tense disposition, would like ly "grow” another ulcer. However, this nervous, tense dis position, even when no infection is present, can cause symptoms close ly resembling ulcer of the stomach. I have spoken before of the patient whose symptoms closely resembled ulcer, but X-ray showed that, while no ulcer was present, the rhythm or regularity of the stomch move ments (churning the food) was greatly upset in that the move ments would occur in rapid succes sion for a few minutes, then stop al together for a time, perhaps be come regular and normal, and then occur rapidly and irregularly again. A straight questioning by the physi cian revealed the fact that the pa tient was trying to handle a diffi cult domestic problem. When this problem was solved or settled, the symptoms disappeared entirely. Pain in the Forehead. When pain occurs in the forehead there is always the question as to its exact cause. If the pain is anywhere near or above the eye, it is naturally blamed on the eye and many will visit their oculist or optometrist with a request to have their eyes tested. And in a number of these cases the trouble is really due to eye strain. The pain in these cases is usually directly above the eye and even with or below the eye brow. However, indigestion and gas pressure can cause pain just above the eye but it is usually just above the eyebrow. Another common pain in the fore head above and between the eyes is due to inflammation of the sinus (frontal), a cavity or hollow space in the lower part of the forehead. This hollow space is connected with the nose and forms with the other sinuses, the “sounding box” for the voice. The lining of this hollow space or cavity is covered with tiny cells which manufacture a fluid which flows down into the nose. When these cells get inflamed they, of course, manufacture much more juice, just as do other cells when they are irritated. It is the juice from this frontal or the other si nuses that we blow from the nose when we have a "head cold.” When this irritation or inflamma tion becomes severe we speak of it as sinusitis, among the symptoms of which is this severe headache in the forehead due to pressure of the fluid in the bony space. This headache is worse in the morning because there is not as good “drainage” when we are lying down as when standing up. There is thus some relief from this headache during the day; whereas in headache'due to eyestrain the pain is not so severe in the morning after the night’s rest, but becomes more severe as the eyes are used or strained dur ing the day. First Mention of Sugar Cane Perhaps the first authoritative mention of sugar cane is in the rec ords of the expedition of Alexander the Great down the Indus river in 325 B. C. Nearchus, an admiral in this expedition, mentions honey bearing reeds and Dioscorides, who lived during the time of Nero, wrote: "There is a sort of hard honey which is called saccharum (sugar) found upon canes in India. It is briny like salt and brittle be tween the teeth, but of sweet taste withaL" The Red Geranium By DOROTHY PIPER © McClure Newspaper Syndicate. WNU Service. r\FFICER BANGS had traced the contraband goods as far as Freetown. From there on he was stumped. Without success he had interviewed all sus C LI A p T picious characters ^■ in the village and ^ U q v carefully searched 3 H 1C I their premises. Still, _ _ __ Officer Bangs knew 9 T R | the "stuff” had been landed in Freetown, so he could not well give up the chase. "Get a soap-box, Tim,” he or dered his deputy, jocosely but with determination, “and when the mov ies let out next Tuesday night, stand out in the square and offer a reward for any information that will lead to the arrest and conviction of these law-breakers. This rum-run ning has got to be stopped!” Most of the movie patrons who listened to the deputy’s jerky little speech regarded it as an amusing incident—a humorous bit of comedy from real life after the rather har rowing melodrama they had just witnessed on the screen. Among those who took the offer of reward seriously was the impoverished Wid ow Ward. Before retiring that night, Mrs. Ward made a mental list of the people of her acquaintance who might be guilty of liquor smuggling. Many of these folks she had known for years, and there was not one upon whom she could cast suspicion. "If there is a guilty one in town, it must be a newcomer,” she reflected thoughtfully. "The folks in Free town are all good, law-abiding citi zens. I wonder if it could possibly be that girl who moved in across the street last month? She is such a young and pretty creature, I hate to think of her as being underhand ed. But the papers say that lady crooks are getting more common every day, and the pretty ones are the most daring.” Then, one day, Mrs. Ward made what she considered a startling dis covery. Trembling with excitement, she hastened to headquarters and cautiously divulged her information to Officer Bangs. "I’ve found your rum-runner, Mr. Bangs,” she announced breathless ly. "It’s the girl who lives opposite me! Every afternoon, at three o’clock, she puts a red geranium in the window to indicate that the coast is clear. This afternoon three men watched the window until they saw the plant, then they went in, without knocking, Mr. Bangs!” Fifteen minutes later a delegation composed of Mrs. Ward, Officer Bangs and his deputy, and two of the town idlers (who were looking for excitement), burst unceremoni ously into Marjorie Harland’s kitch en. They found three young men seated at a table and Marjorie was serving them with sandwiches and tea. "Young lady, said Mr. Bangs, displaying his badge,, "you are un der arrest. Who are these men you are entertaining?” "Why, my husband and broth ers,” answered the astonished girl. "But I don’t understand you.” "You will directly,” continued the officer. "Is it true that you put a plant in your window every after noon—as a signal?” Marjorie laughed, and glanced nervously toward the front of the house. "Yes, a red geranium,” she said, lowering her voice. “You.see. I live with my aunt, who is a man hater and won’t allow a man in the house. I have recently been married, and am afraid that when Auntie hears of it she will disin herit me. I don’t care about losing the money; it’s what will happen to her when I leave that worries me. She positively refuses to hire a com panion. Auntie takes a nap every afternoon at three, and then I signal to my husband and brothers, and we discuss her welfare and try to make arrangements for my future.” Suddenly, a winsome old lady, her hungry eyes denoting a life of dis illusion and sorrow, appeared in the doorway. “Don’t you worry about your old auntie, honey," she chirped. “I’ve heard your conver sation, and everything's going to be all right—money and all! If there’s one thing I admire in a person it’s spunk, and you have it, Margie.” “And now,” she added with con siderable fire for one of her age. "now, you busybodies, get out of my house and give us a chance to at tend to our own affairs in peace!” Mrs. Ward managed to stay after the others had gone. Her eyes were misty and she was sorely ashamed. “I am to blame for all that hap pened,” she said brokenly. “I needed the money so much, and I was too hasty and thoughtless, I guess, and I judged you too quick ly. Won’t you please forgive me? I am terribly sorry.” It was Marjorie’s aunt who an swered her. “You needn’t be sor ry,” she said kindly, “because you have really done us all a great serv ice. You have brought Marjorie and her husband together, and you have also made a selfish, unreason able old woman see things in a new light! And, furthermore, I’ll need someone to care for me after Mar gie goes, and if you would like to come over, you need never worry about money again. Is it a bar gain?"