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About The Omaha morning bee. (Omaha [Neb.]) 1922-1927 | View Entire Issue (Dec. 19, 1924)
- Fliers View Live Volcanoes Over 9 i Islands of Japan 40^ ' " lr. Two of Historic Planes Are t Almost Lost in Storm; Smith Sleeps Through * Banquet. «> f - ■;.f r Told by LOWELL THOMAS, uj "When we flew across the Pa rifle and landed at Paramushlru It seemed as though we aud ' denly had descended from the clouds Into a new world. Of course, there Isn’t much differ ence between the Islands off the coast of Alaska and the islands near Siberia." says Lieut. Leigh Wade. "Both are away up north, at the edge of Bering sea. Both are as barren as islands can be. And both are the home of howling blizzards. "Just the same, we were mighty ,1 \ tickled to have Alaska, the Aleutian !V Islands, and the Pacific ocean behind ' \ig. The presence of the Japanese de stboyers with their smart looking llt 3j^ tie sailors partly may explain our £ feeling that we were in a new world. ** The long names around which we had difficulty twisting our tongues helped, loo. Rolls With Ship. { ’ "The gale that blew the first night £> we were at Paramushlru was a stem winder, with a storm howling and n high sea running. The officers in sisted on giving us their bunks, and 4 n the one I occupied must hayj been a little wider than usual. At any late, there was nothing I could brace, myself against. 7. "When the ship rolled, I rolled with - it. My recollection Is that the ship never stopped rolling. The cabin was J; full of trunks, shoes, .and all sorts of things that kept slamming back and -{' forth from one end to the other. On 3r«; one side was a bookcase. Once, when Jv the destroyer gave a lurch, the books -/ all tumbled out on top of me. I got ^up and put them back carefully, ijj^ "A moment later, however, there r-; was another lurch, and Webster’s un 0.'1 abridged dictionary hit me on the Jaw ’7‘t and nearly broke It. Robert Service’s novel, ‘The Roughneck,’ nearly " cracked my collar bo’ne. Mark Twain’s < ’Innocents Abroad! plumped on my • stomach. Harry Franck’s ’A Vaga . bond Journey Around the World’ { cracked me on the shlna, while a llt -.tle volume of Shakespeare’s ’Much r Ado About Nothing’ nearly put out /on* eye. Just as I reached up to TS switch on the light, Irvin Cobb’s ■*> ’Roughing It De Luxe’ caught me In ;r_ the ear. ' - "Never In my life have I been so Intimately in touch with literature as that night! jr Almost Ixise Two Planes. "The sea remained rough ail Fun ‘day. It was not until late In the after J,;tinon that Jack and Hank could even { get out to the planes to look them • rover. But It was most fortunate that '-ithey reached them when they did. be cause as far as the Boston and New •v Orleans were concerned the world {'flight nearly ended right there. The J .gale had blown them back and forth {{until two of the mooring bridles had 1'been almost sawed away. The Boston “'•was hanging by one strand, and In a i few minutes the last strand would . have been chafed through. "That night we all went over to .l^one of the Japanese destroyers to a “.party given In our honor, but at 2 m. Monday morning we. took lan «l)terns and rowed out to the planes, ntil then the sea had been too rough V for us to service tip. At 7:10 we took 5>,..ff for Hltoknppu, and made the ‘{^coldest flight of the entire trip since ,' leaving Seattle—colder than any IVvhfr* along the Alaskan coast. ,i"We kept plunging in and out of •• snow squalls and hopping over one Japanese Island after another, each ■} a bit more forest clad than the last. , Climate From Alaska to Cuba. J, We were amazed to discover that • {there are more than 4,000 islands be longing to the empire of Japan, ex ij^tendlng oil the way from the latitude • of Alaska to the latitude of Cuba. ^*They are inhabited by' more than 66, ^000.000, but as we flew above the ^.Islands and looked dowb on mountain VVanges, active volcanoes, and prlme **-*val forests we realized how true was Jr the remark the captain of the Ford V had made that only a small portion ' 'of them were or rould be populated. L "After the desolate stretches of country we had been flying over up Jv’to this time It was mighty nice to at Tyeast look down and see villages and jfjdiumfln beings occasionally. We also • passed over herds of sea lions sun ' nltyt themselves on rocks or awim r ming about. Half way down to Yet , nrofu we pasaed over Shlmurfhiru, .'Truppu, and Innumerable smaller f'islHnds. But even more Interesting £ than the herda of sea lions and vll • *lages were the volcanoes we passed Allntll we started on thla trip we never J* realized that there were ao manv ac ,‘tlve volcannea in the whole world as ' {there are over here In Japan. There £ are over 100 rones at. present, extinct, | but which look as though they might .{'explode any time, and about 13 that /jetill are on fire. A Where Quakers Are Commonplace. 3* "IVe also were laboring under the S .delusion that the reeent great earth ^.quake, which nearly wiped out Toklo .'and Yokohama, was a rare occur -;"renre But to our astonishment we Jearned that there had been 13,750 of {..them recorded during the last 13 ,‘years, or approximately three *nd ' lone-half ahocka dally. £, "In fact, during our ahort atny Mr. • Vulcan's battering average was fully ' 1,000 per cent, and we were shocked I / more than three times per day—nor .am I referring to the Japanese bath ing customs either. /♦ "On L’nlshlru Island we flew over '/.■n nMlve volcano, and n village that we were told afterwards hail been de ^•seated for many years. Then, after r' .dlvlng down for a close view of the r perpendicular cliffs of the mountain ‘«bu» Island of Ketol, we looked down ftylnto the smoking craler of a volcano |j,cn Fhlmushlru, and a half hour later rt+if,w clouds of atrum coming from l«o I ?&*•** Route Fliers Used to Span Pacific vk //jgj tmSEt rj^c X v ^ ~ ' ofjaMH) * <• Map shows route followed by Intrepid world fliers on the Jumps which took them across the Pacific ocean by air for the first time in history. The island of Parainushir was the first Japanese outpost visited by the fliers. cones on the little Island of Rebunt sirboi, “Only one large Island, Uruppa, now remained between us and Yeto rt'fu, where we were to land. Uruppa, lhcldentally, possesses two more mountains where Vulcan is busy at his forge. The island Is utterly de serted, excepting during the fishing season, when the primitive folk from nearby islands come here to fish in the bays facing the Sea of Okhotsk. Five Volcanoes on Island. “Y’etorof,u, one of the largest is lands of the Kurile group, Is 110 miles long, from two to 20 miles wide, and lias five steaming volcanoes, one of which has been In violent eruption quite recently. Arrangements'' had been made for us to come down and refuel on the shore of a lake just a mile inland from Illtokappu bay, on the Pacific ocean side of Yetorofu. “As we passed over the hay, which is just a little over half way down the island, we saw the American and Japanese destroyers waiting for us. On the shore of tihe lake were several hundred school children who had walked 27 miles to see us arrive. That is, they had walked nine miles to the lake and home again on three successive days, expecting each day to see us fly down from Pararnushiru. They were from the town of Fure betsu, the capital of Yetorofu. “It was easy enough for us to tell that they were school kiddies, be cause the government insists that they wear uniforms. Children Shew Respect. “The little boys have black caps and kimonos, while the little girls wear the trousers and carry parasols. As we walked past them they sucked In their breath with a whistling sound as a mark of respect, and put out their hands to touch our flying suits Just as the Hindus In India reverently touch the sacred cow. “One of the teachers, bespectacled and wearing a dark gray gown, clat tered up to us on his wooden sandals and in response to our questions told us many interesting things about the schools of Japan. He said that, much the same as in America, all children are obliged to attend school until they are 14. He also said that there are more than 30,000 schoole, at tended by nearly 10,000,000 children. "On# thing that impressed us was the sturdiness of those 200 youngsters who had trudged 27 miles on their wooden shoes to see us descend from the clouds and land on their island. Keep Physically fit. “The teacher told us that nil of them go through rigorous exercises every day and that the boys nre not only taught to fence with swords, to swim like seals, and to master Jiu Jitsu, but that they are put through courses in military drill before they even enter high school. “When we asked him what sub jects the children studied he named over the usual things that we are taught in America, and then added that English is the most puzzling to them because we of America have such a quaint custom of writing backwards from left to right, while they do it the way it should be done and write and read from right to left! “They also think we are dumbbells oecause be take off our hats anil keep on our siloes when we enter a house. It isn't your hat that's dirty, its your shoes, say these spotlessly clean little people. Fall Asleep at Dinner. “We were completely Worn out as a result of having slept only an hour nr so the previous night when the Japanese naval folks had given the party for us at Kashlwaliara bay. The SSO-mtle flight we had made through the cold upper air had kept us awake and alert, hut now we were all in, and that night several of us fell asleep at dinner. The boya aaid they caught me sound asleep with a fork load of peas suspended In mid air. "One advantage we had on this aerial trip around the world was that a considerable part of the time we were completely off the beaten track. As on our trip down the Kurile Isl ands, for Instance, we were seeing a region that the tourists never see and that few explorers from the western world know anything about. Nor did we just see the countries from the air. Owing to climatic condition* we spent just about as long in most places as the average traveler does who visits foreign lands by sea and by train. Stronger. But Lost Islands. "Among other things too numerous to mention we discovered tlint tip here In the northernmost part of the Jap anese empire, live a race of people, a mere remnant now, who once ruled over all of what now is Japan. They are utterly different from the ruling race of the islands today. Their eyes are not set aslant. They are brown instead of yellow. And they are far stronger physically than the Japan ese whom the rest of the world know. "They are shaggy, primitive men v.hA wear clothes made out of the bark of trees. The ‘hairy men of Japan' is what they are commonly called by the few outsiders who ever come this far north. Alnn« is the name by which they, are known to the other Inhabitants of Japan. "These hairy men are great hunters like tlie hairy Kssau, and they crawl into' the dens of grizzly bears and kill them In hand to hand combat with knives. In fact, according to the myths of this ancient race they are the aboriginal people of Japan and are descended from a beautiful prin cess and a grizzly bear. "Some people seem to think that they look like a mixture of Mongol and European. We saw a few of them and could see why thU theory has arisen. "They live in primitive huts and are no more civilized than the Eskimos of Siberia and northern Alaska. "Only about 18,000 of them still survive, and a large proportion of these live along Volcano bay on the Island of Yezo, although there are a few of them sprinkled up and down the Kurites. The men have long hair which they cut off st the shoulders. Their beards and mustaches are ex ceedingly long also, ind give them a patriarchal appearance. The common solution consists of stroking the beard. "The women of this hairy race are unable to raise s growth on their faces, so they do the next best thing and tatocf mustaches on their upper lips. Circled World by Map First. "Next morning. May 20, we rolled out of our blinks aboard the de stroyer at Hitokappu, before dawn. It was just 3:30 a. m. when we eat down to breakfast In the ward room. We then walked Inland to the lake where the cruisers were moored, got the planes ready .and hoped to fly oft south before sunrise. We were anxi ous to get on, because we knew that lands of mystery, romance, and ad venture lay ahead of us. "We had had just about enough of the Arctic for a while and wanted to fly on to the exotic lands of the lotus eaters, of which Erik Nelson, our much traveled sea rover, had told tjs so much as we sat around the sheet Iron stove in the cannery at Chlgnik, Alaska, where each night we circumnavigated the world two or three times by map." Read the next story of the thrilling round-the-world lllglit in The Omaha Rea tomorrow. tOSTEOPATHY ia an efficient curative ._SYSTEM Both Agriculture and Roads Harmed by Gooding’s Bill Builds Up Seaboards at Ex pense of Middle West; Propagandists Use Canal as Excuse. ARTICLE VI. By WILL M. MAUPIN. Because middlewestern shippers and the railroads are resisting the Gooding amend ment to Section 4 of the inter state commerce act, subtle propaganda is being used to convince the people that the railroads are conspiring to close the Panama canal to freight traffic, and use it sole ly as a part of the national defense. Just how false this propaganda is has been set out in three preceding articles. How the interior industries of the United States are being discriminated against under present freight rate condi tions will be explained in this article. In this case the cause of the industrial and agricul tural west and the cause of fhe railroads are identical. Both are discriminated against, and unjustly so. The protest they voice is met by the propaganda for the At lantic coast industries and vessel owners that there is a railroad conspiracy against the canal. Take Ine ease of the water earrler. It Is free to come and go as It pleases or as its interests Impel. It ran dis continue service the minute it finds It unprofitable, or when it finds a chanco to sell its service at a higher price In another direction. Ths was Illustrated during the war, when It almost completely abandoned the canal service to take up the more profitable overseas service. It Is not under the jurisdiction of the Inter state Commerce commission as to rates, nor under the jurisdiction of any boarfl as to wage rates. The sea man’s act provide* certain humane working conditions, but vessel own ers may employ whomsoever it pleases at wages which they are free to set without government supervision. The service can change lte channel* of trade from day to day. It Is not ob ligated to serve any particular ship per or any particular community. It Is protected against the competition of foreign owned vessels between coastal points, thus having s mono poly of coastwise shipping. Its only regulations, other than Its own de cisions, are those Imposed in the mat ter of regulations as to the us* of ports and rules of navigation. In contradistinction to this, th* railroads have their freight rates fixed by th* commission. Their rates of wages are fixed by the federal labor i. ' ’ ' n JOHN HENRICKSON The Jeweler Established 1882 DIAMONDS. SILVERWARE, CHIME CLOCKS, WATCHES Op«n Evening* Until Cfcrlatma* Walk Two Block* and Buy for L**c N. E. Cor. I6th and Capitol Cuticura Should Be In Every Home Dally um of Cuttaira Soap keepa tha poree active and the akin cleat and healthy, while the Ointment heala plmplee end other Irrltatione. Cuticura Talcum la a delicately mad* Ice ted entiaeptic powder of pleeeln* fragrance. SSHggilgl ■Sl-T-.tr.aa fradaew Are *«*»“«■] board. Their money is not Invested in ships which nmy change thei: channels of trade from day to day, but le invested in fixed property which must be maintained and operated. They may not decrease operation am: service st their own will, but cniv by and with the consent of a commission whose members have no financial in terest In the property. They may not extend their lines to serve additional territory without permission, and then under restrictions and regulations and they always face .the difficulty of securing credit in the matter of ob tatnlng new money for capital in veatmenta. Their relations with ship pers and to the communities through which they run is closer and more vital than ever can be the case with water carriers. And. lastly, they must continue to operate their prop ertles anh serve' the public, whether it be done at a profit or at a loss. The water carriers may change their rates at will and without notice; the railroads cannot. The water car rier* may discriminate ae between shippers and as between communities they serve without fear of the law. The railroads are properly prohibited from doing those things. It is In this wise that the rail car riers suffer and the water carrlere profit. The former are regulated and controlled and their rates fixed. The latter are neither regulated nor con trolled and their rates are of their own setting. Once more, for emphasis, protests against this discrimination are met by the charge of propagandists for Atlantic coast shippers and vessel owners that a conspiracy is afoot to close the Panama canal. As for that charge. It may be stated as a self-evident truth that the Panama canal could be filled in with out seriously disturbing business con ditions, but abandoning the railroads of the country would mean chaos. The Panama canal has cost the government to date J469.000.000, and in only one year of its existence has it earned operating expenses and has never earned an amount sufficient to meet interest on outstanding bonds or a sinking fund for their retirement. The entire country bears this burden of outlay of principal and Interest. Only a comparatively email section, however, enjoys the benefits of the lower rates It afford*. The traffic through tlie canal ha* already nearly approached its carrying capacity. If It Increases much more It will have to be enlarged. This will be at a great additional cost to the people for the benefit of a comparative few. The question is not: Shall the Pana ma canal be closed? To intimate that such Is the desire of anybody Is to convict the one making the Intima tion of either Ignorance or a desire to deceive. The question, stated In concise terms. Is this: Shall the two sea hoards' activities be coddled and built up at the expense of the In terior by unjust discriminations In favor of the users of the Panama canal, or shall an effort be made to so equalize rates between user* of the canal and user* of rail trans portation as to equalize the burden of charges borne by the users of both? Present renditions discriminate In favor of water carriers and const In dustries. and against interior Indus tries. These conditions may be reme died in either one of two ways, or by a combination of the two. Water car riers may be placed under the juris diction of the Interstate Commerce commission and their rates for trans portation fixed by it, while the fed ral labor board fixe* the wages they shall pay, so that an equitable balance may be maintained between rail car rying charges and water carrying charges. Canal tolls may be Increased so that the returns will pay mainte nance, interest on the bonds and pro vide a sinking fund, these tolls to be sufficient to maintain a balance just alike to the rail and water carriers and to the whole people. Or the pres ent section 4 of the interstate com merce act may be left as it is and the railroads permitted to make lower long haul rates to preserve their share of transcontinental traffic and thus be saved the necessity of Increasing rates between Interior points. All of this action to be taken, of course, under the jurisdiction and by permission of the interstate commerce commission upon proper showing. What it means to the middle west if the Goodmg amendment is adopt ed will be discussed In the succeeding article of this series. FISCHER PIANOS ¥ Mickel Brothers have long desired to be the rep resentatives of the famous Fischer line of Grand and Upright Pianos. At last that desire has been accomplished, and we take pride in announcing to our friends and patrons that the home of this won derful line of musical instruments is right here at loth and Harney. Everybody wants a Baby Grand and sooner or later every family buys one. To those who have not yet made their decision, let us say, that the Fischer Baby Grand, at its price, is the greatest piano of all makes sold at anywhere near the price of it. We could go on saying many fine things about the Fischer, but we would prefer that you satisfy your self of its qualities. Come in ami see it; hear it and admire its beautiful case and finish. We know, if you do this, the Fischer will need no boosting from us; it will sell itself. Remember, Mickel's Is the Xmas Store. A Hundred Gifts to Choose From. Grand $860 Upright $550 MICKEL’S IBth and Harnoy Phone AT loafic 4361 Grand Island Fire Origin Is Mystery Investigation Fails to Con firm Theory of Spontane ous Combustion. Grand Island. Dec. 18.—Deputy State Fire Warden Butcher and In vestigator Harry Itequartte. complet ed late Wednesday an investigation of the recent $500,000 fire here, with out determining definitely whether the theory advanced by men working on the pile that there was spontaneous combustion of the sugar was to be accepted or rejected. It was learned, however, that some sugar men deny the declarations that sugar could not of Itself start to burn. Deputy Butcher had been advised that Mr. Wietzer, formerly in charge of a Colorado plant which had a simi lar fire, believed that fire to have been caused by spontaneous combus tion, but it is asserted by others that the Colorado fire was due to a coin bination of man and the cigaret. Further Information, it appears, will be awaited by the state department before th»re is any classification of this fire. Deputy Butcher declared that with the equipment it had, the Grand Island fire department had certainly done a wonderful lilt of work In sav ing the Koehler hotel with an entire section of its roof and a part of the upper floor ablaze, lie suggested that the local department should have a truck equipped with a pump. At the meeting of the city council last evening it was decided to seek some changes by way of special bills to enable the city to purchase such equipment. Bevies made for this and street purposes are now fully tip to the limit allowed by the charter* for cltie* of this class City Attorney Prince likewise urged the importance of the city formulating and adopting its own charter. \ Itichard Ooehrlng, sr., heaviest ih- 1 dividual loser by the fire, announced that he will not rebuild the whole-^^ sale house destroyed. Mr. GoehrlfW*^ was one of the stockholders of the Grand Island National hank whidh closed a year ago In order to liquidate the bank dollar for dollar and reor ganize. He placed a loan of $25,000 on the wholesale buildings and the In surance will no more than cover this loan and clean off the debris,. As he is 70 years old, he announces that he will place the property on the mar ket, Instead of undertaking new ob ligations. But one of many For the youngster on your list—a Brownie Gift Box. . It’s the whole picture making "shootin’ match —No. 2 Brownie camera, film, album, paste, portrait attachment, booklets — all for $5.00. _ . There’s fun beginning Christmas morning and that’s the kind of a gift you want to make. Brownie Gift Box is but ^ one among many worth* whileChristm?shintsyoull i find at this store, f Eastman Kodak Co. (The Robert Dempster Co.) 1813 Fernem St. Branch Stara J 308 South 15th St. M - Use a Club— ' ! on Old-Man > Put-it-off t OLDAfan Put-it-off is trying to rob you. When lie urges you to put . off joining the “(iet-Ahead-iSav- ^ ing Club” he might as weB be taking cash from your pockets. For. if you keep putting it off, you will not join ( at all, and then you won’t hare that ;1 extra cash next December. It takes only a minute and a coin to join. Choose Yout Club: One t ear t 25c Fren-Deposlt Class .$ 12.50 I Mr Ften-Deposit (lass .«. 25.00 J #1 Ften-DepiisU ( lass . 50.00 I #2 FTen-Deposit Class . 106,00 I $3 Ften-Deposit Class .15M# I Fids #5 Fsen-Deposit Class . 250.00 J Interest $75*0 Fsen-ileposii Class. 375.00 \ 11 All . $10 Ften-Deposit Class . 5oo.oo Fin mi nis f •e Derrenslng Class . 63.75 / Are 5e lnereaslng-ani|.Derrea*inc I lass 325»o I Made lor Inereasine.and.Deereasing Class 65.00 V Promptly 2nr Inereaslng-and-deereasing I ls»s 130.00 1 2r InereasIng-and-Deereasing ( lass 13.00 | 2r Decreasing ( las*. I le Decreasing ( las*. 12.75 J 1c lnerea*ing Class. 12.75 / Yob may pmy aa far la adsaace aa yoa wlak. Th« ISat rada rarly la aril December. Kaay ta Start—Kaar ta Flalahl It takes only a minute and a coin to join. Your Book Is Waiting—Today! The Omaha National Bank ^ Thru Daily Sleeper ‘ to ST. LOUIS 4 by way of Kansas City I.v Omaha .. ljjp.B. \r. Kansas City.$10 p. m. I.v. Kansas C ity.. 9 JO p. m. ■\r. St. Louis.. 6:55 a. m 1 Tining Csr for Oinner. Ticket* sad Reacrvaltoa* at I’moe Statma ar— I 11 y Ticket Othoe ; 111 S. ^oternth Straei I Ouutu. Nebraska * AT iant.c I I k % j THE SCENIC RESTFUL ROUTE \ \ to m ■I
