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A mutual life insurance company HOME OFFICE: NEWARK. NEW JERSEY k Yields with every slep * Absorbs shocks, jars (oot-lresh AMERICAN Keeps you LTHE NO. 3 VOI-/. 43 egion MAGAZINEu.ciuvr SEPT. 1947
* Publication Division, Post Office Box 1055 Please notify the Circulation Department, your address Be sure to give your 1948 member- SanaJoHsflndiana, if you have changed massagic and your «U\ address. ship card number and both your new
Avenue, Chicago 1, SHOES western office • 333 North Michigan Iff™*** * \ork N. * . editorial and advertising One Park Avenue New 16, • Indiana executive and administrative offices Indianapolis o, CONTENTS
* Cover Photo By Ben DeBrocke Woodbury 9 Billion-Dollar Bargains By Clarence The story behind the war surplus sales Collins 12 Death in Deep Water (fiction) By Shad treasure Swede had his heart set on the sunken yacnt s The 14 The Mad Maestro of Football By Paul Gardner and sleeps football Frank Leahy, Notre Dames jamous coach, eats Brown 16 A Report from Hollywood By R. Wilson Some back-oj-screen stories jrom the fdm capital Beaty 20 Russian Fairy Tale By Col. John O. Debunking some familiar Soviet claims Keating 24 Do Something About It By John can do about community problems * Is Legionnaires, there's plenty we By R«y Holland 26 Hey! Get Out! , the farmer s side of it Sportsmen will get farther if they look at Al Peterson 28 Whatever Goes Up . . . By represents new problems Ex airmen are learning that civilian flying McDermott 30 Campus Caravans By William F. can take your home to college? Who wants a dormitory room when you
Postman Rings . „_ The ^ Wdson 37 for Legionnaires By CM. leadership by mad Thousands new members are training for Legion of 38 Hallowed Ground By Paul H. Griffith On Mission to Europe Our Immediate Past National Commander discusses the By Paul Andrews «« You'll get a double thrill in A Man's Tie Rack dead give-away to your character wearing keen looking Massagic The cravat is probably a Shoes. Their famous resilient DEPARTMENTS and exclusive Arch 48 air cushion Corner 4 Veterans with Ideas comfort. The Editors' Lift assure luxurious rts Variet.es 5b Sound Off! « SP° styling, and ex- * Distinguished Parting Shots 68 pert crafting of choicest leath- America's finest 3.V8 and copies returned ers make them Postmaster: Please send notices on form Meridian St., Indianapolis 6, Ind. comfort shoes. under labels form 3597 to 777 N. WEYENBERG SHOE MFG. CO. Milwaukee 1, Wisconsin The American Legion s»e° ^^^fSA^^^^fi, Legion. Copyright 1947 P"~' The Amencan . Act of Oct. 3. 1917. authorized ro^deTfor in lection 1103, W EYE X « E R G as second class matter jstrsfws3 * Chicago,s^r^^^i^III., j^erthe Act of March Post Office at Colflesh. . at the ^^79 { 93i ^ W * all. Id aho P - Dennisun, OhmjHarry Beno, T™ J«K> Pa. Roger Cole. Jason- UMSUiN M^Sin. Drexel Hill. ;
He won't change from shoes fo slippers -
because he's enjoying person living or dead is pure coincidence. Massagic Comfort
The American Legion Magazine /—
Where There's a Will There's a Way By Stanley Meyer Veterans returning from the war KREML minus an arm or a leg, and asking themselves if they can ever reach the goal they set before the war, can best aoes /ots more tAtrn &eej> answer this question for themselves after studying the records of a few others who suffered similar fates. First there is Jim Nichols, one time fairZroo^mg/zanc/some professional boxer. He lost his right arm in a railroad accident. But he * didn't quit. He took up golf and within THIS SPECIAL i 6 months was playing in the 80's. Be- fore long his score was down in the or 70's, and he is now an instructor in COMBINATION the P.G.A. rehabilitation program. Handsome, healthy-looking hair Then there is Gerald Juzek. A Jap a 'hygienic scalp.' mortar shell tore a hole the size of a needs So why be baseball in his left thigh, and doctors content with just any hair dressing told him he would never walk again. when you can enjoy the extra advan- But he was determined to go back to tages of Kreml. This highly special- baseball. What was the result? In ized hair tonic not only keeps hair spot the 1945 he won a regular on handsomely groomed but does lots Memphis pitching staff. more besides! And how about the accountant, who said he could have played better in the Texas open badminton tournament TO«fMMlS if he hadn't sprained his ankle? His OFFENSIVE mSflDOK name is Donald Kerr, and the sprained ankle was a serious handi- Kreml goes in for modern, cap. He lost his other leg when he 'natural-looking' hair grooming. It was eight years old. keeps hair in perfect order all day
Yet he took second place in his high gives it a rich, attractive lustre, too. school intramural track meet. At Tu- Yet Kreml never feels greasy, sticky lane University he was No. 1 man in or gummy. Kreml always makes hair the 125 pound boxing team. He can feel SO clean— the kind ladies like run 100 yards in 12 seconds, and he their men to have. once hopped 3 miles in an endurance race. He is an expert fencer, and he once won the southern rope climbing MM IS SOW championship and Indian club contest. IT BREAKS kW FALLS All on one leg! And no one can forget Pete Gray, If your hair is so dry it one-armed star of the St. Louis breaks and falls when Browns. It was a hard pull for Pete you comb it —Kreml actually helps to make the majors! But his record 'condition' it in that it leaves it with Memphis proves what can be feeling so much softer, more pliable. done. His last year there he batted It's simply great to lubricate a dry .333, hit 21 doubles, 9 triples and 5 scalp. At the same time it removes home runs—and was voted most valu- dandruff and leaves your able player in the Southern association. itchy loose to You won't remember this one but scalp feeling so alive. Change grandfather might. Hugh Dailey who Kreml today and get your money s pitched for Chicago in the '80s still worth. Remember — Kreml Han- holds the strikeout record for one Tonic does lots more than keep hair game, 19, and in 1884 he pitched a no- looking handsome. hitter. Hugh Dailey had only one arm! at Buy a bottle of Kreml ft |jj These are but a few who reached any drug counter. Ask for the top despite their physical condi- an application next time you tion. Of course they had the determi- visit your barber. nation it takes to make a champion. But then determination is only a sign A product of R. B. Semler, Inc. of a real man. Their records are mute testimony that a handicap isn't a handicap, unless we make it so. KREML Hair Tonic For Better roomedHair -a more Hygienic Scalp September, 1947 . ' A fl& got thot'something ext®
• • 'he's gotp^i
BH.I.IHX-IIOLLVi
Ben de brocke, who did the cover photo job this month, is already known to this maga- zine's readers through work he did for us dur- ing the war. The cover you see this month has
some interesting details behind it. When De Brocke had his 8 x 10 Deardorf flash camera all rigged, ready to shoot, news came that the baby supposed to show up for the picture had suddenly come down with measles. Frantic scooting about the neighborhood finally turned up Kathleen, the child you see on the cover. The broken dish was tough, too. Twelve dishes had to be broken, with cracks predetermined by glass-cutter, before one would break the way
De Brocke wanted it. About the kissing boy and girl, De Brocke says, "They didn't know each other at first. But then I told them, 'Well, you've known each other two minutes now, so go ahead and kiss!' They were a little cold in starting, but warmed up to their work quickly." meansfipe/\ppeal Ben likes to work with a long focus Graflex and a short focus speed Graphic. He says this gives almost a perfect combination for any No wonder he's making such an impression. He's got the kind of shot. His shutter-snapping has taken rugged masculine appearance of men who smoke pipes! him all over the world, even inside the Arctic Circle, and to China, Egypt, Norway and Hol- land, to name a few.
meansffincefilbert) In « Nutshell Clarence Woodbury's talents as a fact-finder It's Prince Albert for "something extra" in are once more brought brilliantly into play,
smoking joy. Rich tasting, cool . . . and easy on and as always matched by his development of the tongue. P. A. is specially treated to insure his theme, in Billion-Dollar Bargains, which against tongue bite! More pipes smoke Prince you will find on page 9. Mr. Woodbury's latest Albert than any other tobacco! job before this War Assets Administration story was the outstanding piece titled That V Insurance Muddle which we carried in our
June issue . . . Death in Deep Water (Page 12) GREAT FOR by Shad Collins, is a thrilling fiction piece CIGARETTES TOO.' you'll be talking about for a long time. Collins CRIMPO/rP.A.SPlA/S took up writing after 39 months in the Army, UP FAST AND NEAT... 20 of them in the Pacific. Before the war he SMOKES COOL had various jobs in many parts of the AND TASTY < odd nation, and was about to get a college degree
when he went into service. . . . The revealing The National Joy Smoke Ft. J. Reynolds Tobacco Co. Winston-Salem, N, C 4 The American Legion Magazine piece on Notre Dame football coach Frank ^ ^1 Leahy by Paul Gardner (The Mad Maestro of Football, page 14) is a profile of a fellow who f f f by common consent is coaching the collegiate national champions this fall. Incidentally, Leahy comes from Winner, South Dakota. Gardner is from Brooklyn, and his five-year-old son qual- ified for top honors in that daffy borough the other day by telling a woman, "I have bad news for you—the Dodgers lost today." Gard- ner has been doing sports articles for years and has written many radio shows . . . Col. John O. Beaty (Russian Fairy Tale, page 20) in addition to having done the grand job in military intelligence which we tell about in the blurb that accompanies his interesting article, is an English professor whose textbooks have been used in some 700 colleges. He has been at Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, with time out for his WW2 service, since 1919
. . . Al Peterson, Assistant Editor of your mag- azine, in Whatever Goes Up . . . (page 28) shows that wartime aviation service was only the beginning for a considerable number of men and women veterans who refused to be- lieve that opportunities in peacetime aviation were practically nil. The Women, Ah!
As you will see without too much trouble by consulting Sound Off! some more of our women readers return to the attack on May- nard Good Stoddard, who wrote Men Wanted for our June issue. You may remember that this was a not-too-serious plea for adoption by Americans of the institution known as the dowry under which girls make a payment of money or some other valuable commodity for the privilege of leading the American male to the altar. In July we carried an up-in-arm;
letter, but this was a mere curtain-raiser. Ap- parently Kipling knew what he was talking about when he said "the female of the species is more deadly than the male." We still think Mr. Stoddard really likes women, but if they refuse to forgive and forget maybe Frank Brandt's No. 96813 will move over and give Stoddard a chance to share the cool fragrance of a safe cell that has a pin-up gallery worth its weight in sawed-off shotguns.
September, 1947 5 Got Any Money Coming? Writers must give name and address. men. But the younger ones aren't around Veterans Name withheld if requested. Address: here. The men still court the women. , . Sir: I am an adjudicator for the U.S. Sound Off, The American Legion Maga- Don't write a story if you don't know it all. Administration. In the course of my work I zine,One Park Avenue, New York 16,N.Y. Believe me, having a man around the house daily run acrose files where veterans have is a privilege. On the other hand, it is the money coming to them, but are not receiving responsibility of the household. . , . I in- am it on account of lack of proper address or what other people have. Feeling I could help, only 18 years old but by gosh I think I know formation as to whereabouts. In some cases I offered to transfer to the VA at the same more than you for how old you are. veterans have filed claims which have been salary. Oddly enough, I got an answer Mrs. J. K. adjudicated in their favor, then, in so far as in ten days. They'd be glad to have me and Pittston, Pa. the Administration is concerned, have disap- could offer me a CAF . . . which was half peared or moved away leaving no forwarding my present salary . , „ Mr. "Woodbury should address with the local postmaster. I venture have looked into the salary angle. I think it's Sir: What's going to happen to the Great American Institution, the Family, if men get to say there are many thousands if not millions amazing and in view of this I wonder that the so high hat that they're preening themselves of dollars awaiting veterans whose whereabouts Administration has done as well as it has. . the and holding out for a big dowry, or a girl with are unknown , . . J am sorry to say that Five will get you ten, Mr. Woodbury, that it'll routine of the VA for tracing these veterans be just as bad two years from now. a high salary, so they can take it easy? That kind of is going to be left alone by girls is very inadequate. I believe it would be E. H. Bateson man apropos for your magazine to publish a notice Los Angeles, Calif. like me. If it's anything I hate, it's a man who's
big for his pants. , . is the cause advising all veterans who have ever filed a too . What claim and are not receiving benefits to get in Why Sound Off? of all this feeling on the part of the male? Is offire of and it a reaction to the war? Have women of this touch with their regional VA Sir: I've been reading the gripes of vets in status of their claim. country put such emphasis on the man in uni- ascertain the present Sound Off! every chance I get. So I've been (Name withheld) form that he thinks that now in civvies he still saying to myself, "What good is it if vets send North Carolina has the glamor he had before? Well, just to in gripes to Sound Off! if they only get sym- put such thoughts out of your minds, men, pathy from other vets and no results from the only the silly, shallow girls are falling, or Kudos Legion?" . . Is the Legion magazine just ever fell, for that malarky. The gals that Sirs: Kudos to you on your fine article on the looking for material to fill its letters page? make the best wives and mothers can see VA Muddle. As a Veterans Administration Joseph Paone through you. We will go on strike, if necessary, Contact Representative I believe if all vet- Rochester, N. Y. to show you mere men that we're not kidding. would heed your advice there would be erans Katherine Shaw less confusion and consternation among both Sound Off! welcomes comments on any subject, Syracuse, N. Y. the VA and the veterans. Keep up the good and will print them if space permits. When work in trying to help us veterans get straight- "gripes" are legitimate, they are forwarded, . . . such absolute bilgewater I have never ened out. „ „ „ I am speaking from experience. immediately, to the person or agency that can read! . . . Let us hope that our marriages Since last October I have been paying pre- take responsible action. A sincere look at the continue to be based on tenderness as well as miums on my converted policy and out of a Legion's record of accomplishment will show legal tender. How about it, fellow Legion- clear sky last week I get a letter from the VA the Legion does get results that help many naires? lapsed since telling me my insurance has thousands of veterans. The Editors Emily Bowman, Ex-Wave last September. Lackawanna, N. Y. Harold Clark The Women Strike Baek McMin n ville, Oregon In June, Maynard Good Stoddard's satirical . , c the war has lowered our standards of Where's the Muddle? article, Men Wanted, put forth the idea that, morale considerably but not so low that you Sir: Just read That VA Insurance Muddle in because the ratio of men to women was now can buy love (at least not in the majority of June issue and am happy to report that I have light on the male side, ladies-in-waiting should cases). I doubt very much that any man has carried VA Insurance for the past 28 years give ivith the dowry to bribe men to marry. enough money to buy a bride if she is a self- and have two sons from WW2 who also carry Many of our readers thought it ivas funny. But respecting gal and is still old-fashioned enough to believe in love. Which, by the way, I am. it. T have never once had any trouble in women by the dozen have taken up arms in making payments, or receiving receipts, neither defense of their sex. Here are some gleanings: ... I will close with this bit of advice. Don't biceps vigorously, have my two sons. Even at the time the flex your too men, for you are liable to be surprised and instead of being Chicago office was organized they never missed ... a very decent man will not go for a girl's met with moans and sighs from the feminine a tick with notices, receipts, or canceled pocketbook, but for the girl herself and what gender, you'll get nothing but silence. checks. she is. Very seldom will you find the type of Gerry Graham H. L. Kl RTZWEIL girl that I am speaking of paying for a man. King City, Cal. Stevens Point, Wise. Christina Rockwell
Chicago, III. . . . this is a new era where girls have minds Here's the Muddle of their own. . . . We can get along very Centlemen: To the article That VA Insurance Sirs: The nerve you men have. Men around well without the opposite sex. Muddle. I say Amen. As for the situation get- Pennsylvania are not hard to get. Allow me to Helen Cohen ting any better, I say to Mr. Woodbury, "Ya give you a piece of my mind. First of all, we Maiden, Mass,
wanna bet?" . . . The statement that you just don't bribe men into marriage nor do we offer
had to be to work for the still them, as you call it, a warm VA dowry. You're full of . „ . Mr. Stoddard's proposal of the dowry as goes; that is, if it's possible to keep warm on malarky up to your neck. You talk about payment for that "hard-to-get" merchandise, such a salary. I'm a Civil Service employe dishing mutual love out the window. Have men, is only in line with what will inevitably making a pretty fair salary in another federal you ever been in love? What the hell do you happen as the shortage of men continues. In agency. I like my job and like working for know about love? From what I read in your fact, the Government will probably have to the U. S. Government, which after all is a article, you know nothing. . . . Maybe the exert some kind of price control, for inflation pretty good Government when you look at old bags around your way are hard up foi is bound to result as the women get more
The American Legion Magazine • September,, 1947 desperate. . . . History shows that there is a Brass lot to be said for power in numbers. Even Editor: A former 2nd Looie of some standing now the doubt is increasing as to which is the wishes to remind Guy Halferty that his "2nd weaker sex, and by the time the men are Looie" medical officers (July, p. 52) just never hopelessly outnumbered, it would be ridicu- happened. MD's start out as first lieutenants at lous to expect that they'd still have freedom of the lowest, Guy, never seconds. So brush up choice. . . . Singlehanded, men haven't a on the research for the jokes about the low chance, and will eventually have to go to the brass. highest bidder. As for the divorce rate, which E. B. Farco is also alarming, it will merely be a matter of Fargo, N. D. resale. Mary Love We stand corrected. The Editors St. Louis, Mo. Give the Man Air! To the Author: Wheaties Sir: I have just finished reading Look, No Motor! by Alexis Dawydoff in your July issue. .Sir: Mr. Stoddard's article on supply and It is one of the most interesting articles I have demand for men in June issue surely should ever read in your magazine. Could you inform earn him a case of wheaties for hitting a home me of the source of farther information on run. Give us more of him. Also enjoyed Hank sailplaning? Felsen's Massacree. Fred Turner W. B. Dale Grand Haven, Michigan Rock Rapids, loiva
Sir: I quite interested in. Wanted was . . . Look, No And Now, Women Motor! There was no indication that one could for a good hus- Sir: I see the girls are crazy obtain information on the subject (of sail- band. Well, I don't blame them any if they planing). Perhaps you can help me. good man. But are lonesome and want to get a I do a little flying once in a while but find willing to a dowry in order I see they are pay it too expensive for a college student. Thought to get married. Well, I am a bachelor. I am a perhaps gliders might prove the answer. farm. If there Spanish War vet. I live on my I would appreciate further information. can is any girl that likes it on a farm and Lester V. Slauter, Jr. plank down two or three thousand dollars I Adrian College, Michigan would be very glad to get married to one for two of us and is providing she can cook Sir: A group of us here in Portland are inter- the dishes as long as we healthy. I will wash ested in Mr. Dawydoff's article and want to die first she will get in live together. In case I start a glider club but don't know how to go dowry gift of ten thousand return for her a about it, and there don't seem to be any clubs I succeed in dollars on her investment. ... If nearby to help us. Could Mr. Dawydoff give us getting a bride I will invite the Editor down further advice? to a big chicken dinner. This will test the H. A. Spriggs
. expensive, I will admit bride out. . . Girls are Portland, Oregon that, but if they can be trained not to be so foolishly, it's fine to fancy and spend money To comrades Turner, Slauter, Spriggs and all be on a farm as we got lots of fat chicks. the other prospective human birds who wanted A. B. G. to know more about sailplaning we can think Geneseo, 111. of no better reference than Author Dawydoff, an old-time soarer, one of the editors of Air Cease Fire to Swab Deck! Trails magazine, and a partner in two soaring Sir: I would like to commend Don Stull on his schools. He and Steve Bennis run Gliding and article Sweep Down in August. It is absolutely Soaring Service, Inc., P.O. Box 54, Ellenville, true, for I was one of the men that had to New York. The Editors leave his gun to "sweep her down." I am sure the old crew of the "Hotel" Wasatch remem- Amputee Promoter Speaks bers how proud the "commander" was of his Sirs: Enjoyed reading the article (Service- beautiful, fighting ship. I would like to see mans Samaritan by C. C. Springfield) in the more articles on the quiddities of naval war- May issue concerning the good Samaritan deeds fare. KAYWOODIE of Andy Anderson. You see, I'm a double J. W. Rabern amputee myself, minus a leg and arm both on by the record Atlanta, Ga. bached the left side. I was discharged 16 months ago of 96 years from England General Hospital in Atlantic Wants No More Immigrants City. It's always good to read about thoughtful For smoking pleasure, comfort, style, balance and of the California people doing some good to others. . . . As for Sirs: Having been a member long performance, a KAYWOODIE Pipe war- myself, I'm trying to make it easier for others Senate during the debate on the passage of rants first-place consideration. KAYWOODIES like myself, and if luck and good fortune come the Japanese Alien Land Law, may I protest are the world's best smoking pipes, because of shall the present bill to admit aliens outside the my way, succeed in helping others. modern precision, and never-ending attention to Immigration Quotas? This matter is purely Pete Montesi, things a smoker needs. KAYWOODIES smoke economic. We have the world's highest wages. Dan bury, Connecticut cool and mild, with unequalled satisfaction. At dealers'. of imported That is why the Oriental as well as the Euro- Made briar, specially selected pean wants to crash our gates. It would be far A prewar amateur boxer himself, Montesi has and seasoned by us. KAY- better to send American leaders abroad to staged more than a dozen at his Danbury fights WOODIE Company, New economy. Meantime, let us retain Boxing Club. Last year, he promoted teach our a bout York and London. 630 standard. This is better than to let for an ex-Private with a fighting heart our wage and an Fifth Avenue, New York leg in what would become a flood that would artificial who knocked, out his healthy 20. Leaflet on request. especially if opponent. engulf our American wages, we heavyweight The one-legged boxer Copr. 1947 are to have widespread unemployment. ivas Tony Ross, Jr., described in the July issue DRINKLESS KAYWOODIE $3.50 Edwin E. Grant of this magazine in More Than a Comeback. SUPER-GRAIN $5. RELIEF-GRAIN $7.50, FLAME-GRAIN $10, San Francisco, Calif. The Editors SILHOUETTE $10, MEERSCHAUM-LINED $12.50 September, 1947 CONNOISSEUR $15, NINETY-FIVER $20, CENTENNIAL $25. You'll have the news before the flames are out!
Speed is a creed with newsmen. They flash Keeping these facilities in top condition
the news to you as fast as it happens. is the job of skilled telephone company technicians. The Bell System helps make that speed
possible. It provides the local, long distance They work 'round the clock and the ami radio-telephone, telegraph, teletypewriter calendar with the newsmen in order that you
and wire-photo facilities over which the news may have a "front-row seat" for the passing
is channeled to presses and microphones. parade of world events.
: BELL TELEPHONE SYSTEM ( A 1 THE AMERICAN I
Legion I MAGAZINE
Surplus Sale! in this Big
1 flerc * C businesfr - i of in bu ' control * p..,,,. in T ^.filing m^'""" i export loo •» 1»S , Plenty °« T « 5«),000. Office of ' com- * r ^"f.'ToU^D-C- , orillinai ., pli-rily l" total rcsav »• schedule ofilol'l<- Commerce, j. ltci lor ,ol* *e b«y 8 itcnW V Sa-cl«ck head tor tbe your ""•;<» Veterans bclo . in w belo ftti _and tbelW 00 can i«>P»* c.l far rm"Jl_~' i.l all tl.rec aays- ll-" your p . fir ,t Bvoo* M- e0 ,l,ougb nce£0TtH llUrl , 7 tpK««e aa,oi
Mahoga
Billion-Dollar Bargains
When Uncle Sam set up shop to sell the NOT long AGO, a World War II veteran whom I know world's greatest collection of merchandise, visited a disposal center of the War Assets Adminis- tration. I asked him if he had seen any bargains. veterans had the idea they were going "That depends on the way you look at it," he said. "I couldn't buy a jeep or a camera or a typewriter, but, oh to get a break. did, but more found Some many boy, if I had only been in the market for ten thousand pairs of WAC's panties or a gross of glass eyes, I could have got themselves squeezed out by Big Time a whale of a bargain. To get anything we really want out Operators who knew the angles of WAA, I guess we vets will have to wait for another war."
I felt that my friend was exaggerating the situation at By CLARENCE WOODBURY the time, but now I'm not so sure. Since then I have made an extensive study of the WAA operation for The American
9
Legion Magazine and have discovered there is a barrel of truth in what he said. From coast to coast, millions of ex-service men have not been able to obtain the bargains at Uncle Sam's big second-hand store which they were led to expect. In thousands of cases, they have received raw deals through the laxness, inefficiency or stupidity of WAA officials. In all too many instances, they have been rooked outright through criminal skulduggery.
Unlike the devil, the WAA is not all black. In fairness, it must be stated at the outset that almost 2,000,000 veterans have obtained or are obtaining good buys under the surplus disposal pro- gram. Since July 1946 to May 1947, 19.38 percent of all consumer goods (personal property) has been sold to veterans. More than 15,000 ex-GI's have set up business establishments with mer- chandise or equipment which they got cheap from the Government. The ugly aspects of the operation outbalance the rosy features, however, and the WAA picture as a whole is not a pretty one.
I have not jumped to this conclusion overnight. During my survey I visited many offices and disposal centers of the WAA where every kind of surplus was on sale from safety pins to marine tur- bines. I talked with enthusiastic officials and employees as well as disgusted ex- Ex-scrvice man Blaine Martin, of Reeders, Pa., was able to buy a surplus glider for $75. officials and ex-employees. I listened not He still has the glider; the lumber from the erates is going into the home he's building only to gripers but to satisfied custom- ers. In Washington, I interviewed some of the Congressmen and Senators who are slinging harpoons and dead cats at the WAA, but I also had a lengthy chat with Administrator, Robert M. Little- john, the salty Major General who is boss man of the whole set-up.
After sifting all the conflicting evi- dence which I gathered, I have formed the opinion that the WAA program has been muddled as far as veterans are concerned. Thanks to certain reforms which have been inaugurated recently by General Little john, there is reason to believe that ex-service men are now starting to get a better deal than in the past, but much of the harm already done in irreparable. WAA's shelves are still far from bare, but thousands of items which GI's wanted most are mighty scarce and are getting scarcer every day. To see just how the world's biggest junk business is functioning, let's look first at the operation as a whole. There probably had never been such a big grab-bag since the Huns and Vandals laid hands on the ancient Roman This 6-room house for ex-vet Grover Hay and his French war bride, of Stroudsburg. Pa., Empire. (Continued on page 63) is costing them $3000. One reason, more than 6000 feet of glider crate lumber for $75
"It does help to know where a thing
is if you've lost it," I said. "Now maybe
you'll tell me what the hell it is you
found?" When he told me, I didn't say
anything. I could see now why the Swede had been interested.
"How do you know what it is, though?" Swede asked. He was working
it around, trying to see if he could be- lieve the guy or not.
"You know what else it could be?" "Rocks," he said. "Kelp, maybe." "In that water?" Randy said scorn- fully. "You're talking like a man with his head in a bottle." "What made you so damn sure then?
That's what I want to know." "I got the position, didn't I?" "You couldn't find your way to Main
and Fourth at high noon," I said.
"I found it all right. I knew where she had to be. I know how the current runs out there beyond Lost Key, be-
tween the Key and the shoals east. I know where to go, that's all."
"That's where it is, then," Swede said, as if he were talking to himself. By SHAD COLLINS loaded up and stiff half the time and "That's a big patch of water," I said. trying to bum drinks when he was "Too big," Randy said. "Too big un- ILLUSTRATED BY AL MUENCHEN sober. That was why it looked funny, less you know where to go. You buy seeing him with the Swede, because the a drink on that, Swede?" Swede never bought drinks for anybody Swede nodded without looking at him Swede was in Manuel's when I got but himself. and Randy got up and headed for the there, sitting at a corner table talk- "You sure it's there?" Swede was bar. As soon as he got up I saw that ing to old Randy Hughes. Swede was asking. "You didn't get drunk and dream he was pretty drunk. my partner, a young guy with blond it up?" "What do you think?" Swede asked. hair and eyes as neutral as a couple of "Cripes, yes, I saw it," Randy rubbed "Could be," I said. "He's drunk as marbles. I guess you'd say he was a his hand along his whiskered jaw. "I a skunk, though. Maybe it's just another neutral guy all the way through, or ain't been drunk since before the storm," phony." seemed that way. He was a great man he said. "He was sober enough when he started for keeping his mouth shut, but he came "How'd you find it?" telling me. I had to buy him some to by that the hard way. He had done a "I was makin' a trip," Randy said. oil him up. You think we should try it?" stretch in the pen for something. He "I just run on it kind of by chance like, "I'd like to make a pile as well as did five, he said, so they must have comin' back. I made a little run down the next man. I don't believe in the end given him ten to twenty. He never said south," he said, turning to me confiden- of the rainbow any more. I think we what is was for or anything else about tially. "Nice little piece of change." better stick to the sponges." himself and probably wouldn't have Then, to Swede: "I spotted it on my "If he's all right, it'd be a lot more mentioned the bad time except he way back." than the sponges." The way he said it thought I'd hear it from somewhere else. "The patrol will pick up you and I knew he had made up his mind be- I didn't care about the record. He was that damn rust pot of yours some time," fore he asked me. a good worker and a good partner and I said. "And you're going to have a "If it's so good, why didn't he go that was as far as I was interested. hell of a time convincing them that the after it himself? Why did he come to It looked funny, him talking to Randy, seasick Chinaman you're carrying is us with it?" who was an old guy with an older boat, really your cousin." "He hasn't got anything to work it a rummy who did odd jobs and took "I don't mess with smuggling aliens," with. His boat's no good, and we got out a fishing party once in a while. I Randy said loftily. "Best goods comes about the only one left after the blow." guess Randy was a man once. He knows in small packages." So he had been "We better put him away some place the Keys like a man, and he had had bringing in hop. then. If he gets too much in him he'll to know ihem in the old days when he "All right," Swede said impatiently. be telling the whole town. The Portu- ran the liquor in from Cuba. When that "All I want to know is how you found guese outfit would like to get in on it." went out it was the end of things for her." "Cripes, yes. We better put him on the Randy. Maybe he still ran some stuff "Just like I said. Kind of by chance, Sally. We could run out tomorrow." in once in a while, but he wasn't trust- you might say. Of course, you'd have "We can look, anyway, I suppose. worthy any more; he was a gas hound, to know where to look." I don't think (Continued on page 59)
13 Mad Maestro of Football
It takes a genius—like Rockne— or a "fanatic*"—like Frank Leahy to win consistently, even at Notre Dame
By PAUL GARDNER weeks in Florida. But when somebody up at Fordham University when he challenged Leahy to a handball game was just another assistant. ILLUSTRATED BY ROBERT FRAN KEN BERG on his return to the school he practi- Leahy simply does not relax on his cally did flipflops in trying to tally. present job, even when he is away from Fkank Le^hY, Notre Dame football Some skeptics have said that Leahy is South Bend. Once he visited New York coach, has such a consuming passion a hypochondriac, that his back worsens with assistant coach Joe McArdle. They for football and for victory that it makes when his football team loses. It is nota- attended three movies in succession but him sick—literally sick. He works and ble, however, that he ended up in the Leahy could not bear any of them for worries so hard for Notre Dame that he Mayo Clinic again last season when he more than ten minutes. Finally, he per- frequently winds up as a patient at the boasted a national championship team. suaded McArdle to walk with him for Mayo Clinic. His lust for triumph is his own worst several hours to discuss a new forma- Leahy worries so desperately that physical enemy. tion. It rained all the way but Leahy, even his doctors cannot judge how well, When he doodles, it is a football dia- thrilled by the possibilities in the new or how badly, off he is. During the 1942 gram. When it is time to switch to nor- play, did not mind the weather. season when he introduced the T and mal recreations like radio or the movies, He likes movies—football mo\ its. two games were lost, the Notre Dame he wants football. It was always that that is. He often arises at five in the coach developed a spinal arthritis that way, but since he has been a head coach, morning to study films of his own and, incarcerated him at the Mayo Clinic. the situation has been even worse. rival teams in action. That early rising Eventually he was sent off on the first His lovely wife, Floss, says: is a habit that Leahy picked up from enforced vacation of his career—eight "The happiest years of our life were Clark Shaughnessy, one of the origi-
14 :
nators of the T„ Leahy picks up things Uie hearts of the aspirants of his teams. game of the series next November." (about football) from people (football "And," adds Leahy, "Rock would Red flags in front of bulls could not people) he admires. As might be sur- point out that there is very little differ- have induced a more vigorous workout. mised, he picked up plenty from his old ence between winning and losing, just a The memory of Army wins over Notre coach, Knute Rockne. little extra oomph. If you're going into Dame by 59 to 0 and 48 to 0 respec-
Both Leahy and Rockne spent time it, he'd say, you might as well win."' tively in 1944 and 1945 when Leahy together in the Mayo Clinic back in 1930 And that's how Leahy feels about it. was in the Navy, lingers on. The Irish when Leahy was a college student. Frank, Frank Leahy's spring and early fall are looking forward to that 1947 finale you see, was a Mayo Clinic boy even practice sessions are so strenuous that of the series. in the days when he was playing for he has quite a problem to get his squad Notre Dame this season, with Johnny Notre Dame. Leahy was recovering from to survive them. There is a song among Lujack and thirty veterans from the the knee injury that curtailed his play- Notre Dame players which goes, national championship team of 1946. ing career while Rockne convalesced "Come rain, come sleet, Leahy's men figures to be one of the most powerful from a more serious illness. They were must always meet." college elevens of all time, but you in the same room for several days. Last Spring it rained torrents at Car- could not gather that from the coach. Rockne declared afterwards that Leahy tiers Field. One of the players was dis- Sid Luckman, the noted Chicago Bears was potentially a super strategist. Leahy couraged as he waded in inches of mud. quarterback, was out at South Bend last spent his convalescence stealing Rockne's He remarked that maybe—er—what Spring to give the Notre* Dame signal- wisdom. His own over-all philosophy is, about recessing on a day like this? callers advanced instructions. After the in a sense, that of Rockne. "Men," announced Leahy, solemnly, impressive session he remarked to "Rock," he says, "believed in win- "This may be just the kind of field on Leahy ning. He always inculcated that idea in which you will play Army in the last "Honest, {Continued on page 56)
15 "Captain from Castile," a best seller of awhile back, hits the screen soon with Cesar Romero in the role of Cortez
A Report From Hollywood
By It. WILSON BROWN dling untrained domestic animals, $30 Mickey Mouse, thirty kinds of birds and for trained ones and $50 for wild ones. all marine life. The studios are objecting, saying the hiliroy in Hollywotni Maybe it's because they read Beware employes are the lice, mice, shrimp and of the Animals in this magazine tree-toads, which were hired from the It took a long lime for the industry to last month. Anyway, eighty Hollywood owners, not the union members. The get around to making Kilroy Was Here, animal trainers headed by Henry East, trainers, they said, just tagged along. but it finally came up with Jackie who handled Asia, the Thin Man dog, Furthermore, the industry executives Cooper, Navy vet, and Jackie Coogan, have organized themselves into a union. shudder at the thought of sitting across ex-Army glider pilot, in the top roles. Concerned about fleas—vicious fleas, the bargaining table from the seventy- It's the first post-war picture for both. that is—they demand that a doctor or nine forms of animal life enumerated in Incidentally, it looks as though Coogan registered nurse be on the set to care for the proposed contract—all wild animals, will make a go of his third marriage to flea bites. Tbey want double pay when all domestic animals except horses and dancer Ann McCormick. No. 1 was Betty their charges are working such "hazard- cows, all mammals, all amphibians in- Grable and No. 2 was Flower Parry. ous" jobs as handling polar bears on an cluding tadpoles and flying frogs, all The greatest post-war production of iceberg or fleas without gloves. And bugs including flies, fleas and cock- Cooper and his wife, June Horn, was
they want $20 a day minimum for han- roaches, all reptiles, all rodents except (Continued on page 19)
16 Going places
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Choice Blended Whiskies, 86.8 Proof. Calvert "Rescrve"-65% Grain Neutral Spirits . . . Calvert "Special" — Grain Neutral Spirits. Calvert Distillers Corporation, New York City (Continued from page 16)
Jackie, Jr., a potential star for 1972.
Page the Taxpayers
Who is it that thinks up ways of spending public money for these things? Fifteen Army Air Reservists from Lowry Field, Colorado, flew in four govern- ment planes to Hollywood to confer upon Virginia Mayo the title Star of the Air Reserve. In Hollywood they were entertained at the studio at the studio's expense, at Ciro's, at Ciro's ex- pense, and then, as a gesture of justify- ing the trip, flew on a coastwise training flight before returning to Lowry Field.
Best Sellers on Film Forever Amber, the red-hot book which has been toned down to a luke- warm production, but which promises to be out of the ordinary, with Linda Darnell in the title role. Captain from Castile, with ex-GIs Tyrone Power and Cesar Romero, which promises to be the first he-man type of thing of general appeal in a long time. And Tap Roots, from the pen of my favorite author, James Street, father of two Army vets, which will star Susan Havward and Van Heflin, will be in Technicolor, and con- cerns the period from 1858 through 1862. All of these should hit the screen this fall.
Another film to watch for is The Sena- tor Was Indiscreet—the story of an old line Senator from a key State, whose diary of his many years as a public servant complicates his presidential am-
bitions. William Powell is the star, which promises good comedy. lapels, they have gone into the bossing Taylor out of the youth movement. They You'll also find these when the frost end of the business. Hal will produce hope it will do the same for Mickey. is on the pumpkin : Rosalind Russell in and Gabriel will direct the dialogue for Ben Lyon, a star of some years ago, Mourning Becomes Electra and The Monogram's A Guy Named Joe Palooka. who served in the British forces during Velvet Touch. Laurence Olivier in Johnny Desmond, ex-Army, did the the war, is now the top talent scout for Cyrano de Bergerac. Shirley Temple in vocals for the late Glenn Miller's orches- 20th Century-Fox. So in Love. Dick Powell in Stations tra while it made the service rounds. As West, a story of an army post in the a civilian he grabbed a contract with The Silver Screen Turns Pink Civil War era. Alfred Hitchcock's mys- New York's Versailles Club, a recording Since the Red lovers would rather tery, Rope. Mortal Coil, with Charles deal with RCA-Victor, an engagement publicize their Cause than their con- Boyer and Joan Bennett. Veronica Lake at Hollywood's Ciro's, and now is in the tributions to it, there is worried specu- in There Goes Lona Henry. Tivo Worlds sweet position of being able to choose lation in the film capital as to the file full of Johnny Truro, with Bette Davis. among several movie offers. of bombshells compiled by Chairman Errol Flynn in Silver River. Walter Harold Russell, who lost two arms in J. Parnell Thomas, of the House Un- Pidgeon in // Winter Comes. the war and won two Oscars as a result American Activities Committee. You've Veterans to the Front of his work in The Best Years of Our read about the hearings, and the two- Robert Montgomery didn't want to be Lives, wants to follow a career in adver- fisted testimony offered by such anti- just an actor when he came home from tising and publicity and has been given commies as Adolphe Menjou, a World the Navy. So he branched out as a triple a desk and a place on the payroll of War 1 veteran, Rupert Hughes, Robert Leo McCarey, threat—actor, producer and director. Selznick Studios. Taylor, Richard Arlen, Ride the Pink Horse will be his next. Mickey Rooney has too long been a Jack Warner and Leila Rogers. Some Hal Chester and Gabriel Dell were a kid, a comic, a fancy-pants. So he is of the party-liners were actors and ac- couple of "Dead End" kids. Now grown being starred in Killer McCoy, a remake tresses in the millionaire bracket, but up and with ruptured ducks in their of The Croivd Roars, which took Robert screen writers (Continued on page 41) 19 Russian Fairy Tale Strange are the ways
of Soviet propaganda, but there's no denying its effectiveness. Consider
Russia's version of who won the war, treatment of minorities
and other tall stories B.vfc OL. JOHN O. BEATI
20 consideration, the part played by Russia in the war against Germany was defi- On March 12th of this year, before a joint session of the Senate and nitely less than that of Great Britain. Like Britain, but n a grander scale, the House of Representatives, President Truman spoke on "the gravity the United States wr.gcd v,7 ar on the the situation which confronts the world today" and recommended of ground, in the air, and on every ocean. American assistance to Greece and Turkey, which were and are tar- Our soldiers fought in Europe, in Africa, gets of infiltration and pressure. President Truman s speech empha- and in Asia, and on the islands of the sized the need for something which has been singularly absent from Pacific. Our sailors drove the enemy American writing and broadcasting during and after the recently from every ocean. We also waged, to a far greater degree than either Britain concluded ivar—namely, facts about Russia. The aim of this article is or Russia, the battle of supply. to turn the ivhite light truth onto certain matters which propagand- of Russia's five-day war against Japan ists have presented falsely to the American public. was simply the seizure of territory we had conquered by the defeat of Nippon. if It must not be forgotten that Russia did not even enter the Pacific war until the Japs had made several efforts to NO ACHIEVEMENT in history has been tator when Germany overran Norway, surrender and the atomic bomb had been so grossly exaggerated as Russia's Denmark, Holland, Belgium and France. dropped on Japanese soil. The Russian part in the war of 1939-1945. Despite France practically collapsed after six contribution to winning the war against the propaganda-colored statements of days of actual fighting and Britain thus Japan may thus be classed as exactly the United States leftist press, Russia's in effect carried on the war single- zero. Her troops in Manchuria did pin contribution to victory was much less handed against the Axis powers from down a number of Japanese divisions, than that of either Great Britain or the September 3, 1939 until June 22, 1941. but this fact had no strategic signifi- United States. Britain was in the war nearly two years cance, for Japan did not have the ships In the first place there is the colossal longer than Russia and fought on sev- to transport these troops to the islands fact that the war almost certainly would eral continents and on all the oceans. where war was being waged against not have taken place if Communist Rus- By contrast Russia fought an already America and consequently could not sia had not concluded a pact with Nazi stalemated Germany on a single front have committed them against us, Russia Germany in 1939. In the second place, on only one border. Russia engaged most or no Russia. It can thus be truly said Russia's help to Germany in the con- of Hitler's troops during the middle that the United States not only gave the quest of Poland in 1939 must in any phase of the war, but she was absent knockout blow to the European axis, evaluation of Russia's war effort be sub- for the first two years and her achieve- which had been made groggy by Britain tracted from her later fighting against ments were a poor second to America's as well as by Russia, but almost single- a Germany whose navy and air force in the closing phases. Unquestionably handed knocked out the empire of Ja- had already been beaten off by Britain. then, all factors of sea, air, land, sup- pan, the help she received coming from Russia was only an interested spec- ply and duration being given proper the British and the Australians.
Jeeps and trucks by the thousand were given to .the Soviets by the/' U. S., but such aid is now discounted by the Kremlin
21 American goods worth billions helped the Soviets. This scene at a Caspian seaport was common when our ships docked
Like Russia's war effort, the war can factories were not bombed, but greatly by annexation of border areas, damage to the Soviet Union has been bombing is not the only way that prop- notably Esthonia, Latvia, Lithuania, and grossly exaggerated by the "Russia won erty is destroyed. By loss at sea, by parts of Finland, Poland, Germany, and the war" slogan of the horde of Com- lend-lease bounty, and by destruction Rumania. munist and fellow-traveler writers and on the battlefield, America's reserve of Friendly observers, men who know broadcasters in many countries. It is capital goods was probably as much and love Russia, have testified that con- true that about one-tenth of Russia, in- decreased as that of the Soviets. ditions in Moscow and in many other cluding some very productive areas, suf- The exact extent of Russian battle parts of the U.S.S.R. were actually bet- fered great damage from Hitler's armies. casualties will probably never be known. ter at the close of the war than ten Most of the damage, however, was suf- Since most of her fighting involved no years before. In other words, in spile fered by "Soviet Republics'' which are overseas operations it seems safe, how- of four years of war, Russia because of not a part of the heart of Russia. ever, to say that Russia's war birth-rate our generous lend-lease, including more No German soldier penetrated to the greatly exceeded that of Britain and than 1,000,000,000 pounds of meat, Ural area of the Russian Republic where America and that Russia's net popula- butter and other food in a single year,
Stalin's Magnitogorsk and other recent tion loss from the war was much the managed to improve her still low stand- heavy industry projects were developed. smallest of the three. The population of ard of living. At the end of the war the Two other factors favorable to Russia the Soviet Union was also increased Soviet breeding herds were practically must be considered in any comparative intact. The war damage to Russia can- estimate of war damage. Western Ger- not be assessed by people who are ig- many, for which Britain and America norant of pre-war Russia. It cannot be were responsible, was made into a wil- Here are the facts, without trim- assessed by limid or Russia-first mem- derness of rubble by strategic bombing. bers of United States missions who go mings, on what Russia actually Eastern Germany, which Russia now only where they are taken and have occupies, suffered no comparable ex- did in WW2, from a distin- been taken only where there is damage perience. to show. guished Texas educator whose We should not forget, moreover, that Russia was and is a strong power. Britain's cities suffered damage from five-year service in American Her vast spaces, characterized by winter bombing planes, and Britain neither at snows and spring thaws, are a great Military Intelligence gave him home not in the areas of Germany she defensive asset. Her resources and the extensive relatively un- total her occupies has the background for this article. number of people are alike bombed areas such as Russia has in formidable. Even so, Russia's strength Silesia and in the Ural region. Ameri- has been much exaggerated. In the war
22 her air force was no match for the Ger- than any claims of her armed strength. White Russian, Ukrainian, and Molda- man Luftwaffe even while Hitler's air These distortions of Russia's power vian republics are a chain of barriers arm had the Royal Air Force to contend during World War II and at present between the main Russian Republic and with. Russia's strength on the sea was represent Russia's tallest tale. However, Western Europe. In other words, Rus- and is negligible. Her industrial strength there are others, and they are carefully sia's supposed friendliness to minorities was built as a by-product of an indus- disseminated until they are accepted by turns out on! examination to be nothing trial age in the world rather than by many of our people as truth. One of more than the confinement of these mi- intelligent industrial policies. In spite these is the belief that the Soviet Union norities to specified areas where they of five-year plans and other much pub- is friendly to non-Russian races. A few will catch the brunt of any invasion and licized efforts the industrial strength of writers, including the distinguished from which they cannot at will emerge vast Russia was less in 1939 than thai Negro George S. Schuyler are, however, to foist their problems on the main Rus- of comparatively little Germany. More- aware of the true situation. Not count- sia Republic. over, this comparison is unusually apt, ing conquered territory of uncertain Another facet of Soviet propaganda because the two countries had the sim- status, Russia consists of sixteen Soviet is that Communism today is not what ilar phenomenon of first a collapse and Republics. One of these, the "Russian" it used to be, and poses no threat to then a reorganization on totalitarian republic is larger in area and in pop- other systems of government. Despite lines after the First World War. ulation than all the other fifteen com- the reports of certain prominent men In spite of fabulous gifts from Amer- bined. The fifteen little republics, as who spent a few weeks in the U.S.S.R., ica, which in some cases dangerously Mr. Schuyler points out, really repre- (but spoke no Russian, and saw only depleted our reserves, Russia's industrial sent Jim Crowism on a national scale. what they were shown) the principles strength remains inferior to ours. Her Each minority has its own so-called of Russian communism have not been army has no service of supply, as we "republic," but "reservation" would be changed. These principles have been understand the term. She could not, for a much more accurate word. The mi- set forth by many writers but were re- instance, transport and feed an overseas nority "republics" occupy the danger- stated officially and categorically in army. In the recent war her armies ous, devastated, or arid borderlands of Stalin's address to the 18th Party Con- fought nowhere except in one of the the Soviet Union to protect the master gress on March 10, 1939, the year the two great bread-baskets of the world race, the more than a hundred million war broke out. According to Stalin, who (Our Mississippi Valley is the other) people of the great Russian Republic. has never recanted in word or deed,
mmm
Stalin's center of heavy industry, Magnitogorsk, like many others in the Urals, was untouched J-y the Wehrmacht
and literally lived off the land. It is true The Kazakh, Turkmen, Tadzhik, and Communism is to be maintained through that we gave Russia more than ten Kirgiz republics are semi-arid barrier violence and violence is enjoined as a thousand trucks, but they were used for states north of Iran and Afghanistan and duty even when unnecessary. The pro- transporting war material (also largely between the Caspian Sea and the high gram is to be unceasingly continued given by us) rather than food. Surely mountains of West China. The Georgian, until all the world falls in blood purges there is no present reason for American Armenian, and Azerbaijan republics are under the hammer and sickle. The basic policy toward Russia to be shaped by buffer states protecting Russia in the goal of Stalinist communism is the liqui- fear. Russian infiltration into adjoining mountainous areas between the Black dation of the "capitalist democracies," countries and her subversion of Ameri- Sea and the Caspian Sea. The Karelo- Britain, and especially the United States. can officials are to be feared today rather Finnish, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, The history (Continued on page 49) 23 The kids won't go for craps if a good playground is available
Somebody Ought to Do Something About It
Here is a composite picture of THIS IS the STORY oi a town that started to come apart at the seams because the people who lived in it fell in
numerous communities, in many respects love with their easy chairs. It is also the story of what certain citizens did to hold the town together. not a pretty picture. is But retouching We"ll call the place Middletown. The name is unimportant.
You've known a dozen like it in Indiana or Illinois or possible, and the pattern can be found in Missouri or Iowa. It's what people mean when they talk the Legion's Americanism program, designed about a typical American town. Until about 10 or 15 years ago, Middletown was essen- "to stir the citizens off their stumps" tially a farm center, a placid, prosperous community of some 50,000. Today the population is 120.000 and there is smoke pouring from the stacks of more than 150 factories. By JOHN KEATING Middletown is still something of a farm center, but primarily it is a bustling, booming industrial city. None of the citizens paid much attention to the transition. 24 Many a Legion Post lias built up kids' morale by building a community pool
The people watched the factories in- the community was found wanting. ted them and escaped into the street crease and multiply and, when they came There were few playgrounds, fewer or- where they were met by a pair of police- too close, the old settlers sold their big ganized activities to attract the young- men whose patrol car happened to be houses on the north side at a nice profit sters' attention. So the kids roamed the cruising outside. The cops called on and moved to the suburbs. They didn't streets and hitched on the backs of them to halt, the kids answered wilh a see the slums that mushroomed around automobiles and raided fruit stands and, volley of revolver shots, one of which the factories which took their places. after a while, branched out into more hit a passerby. By the time the boy
No one bothered to remember that serious fields. bandits were caught, the casualty list the price of contentment, like the price The town as a whole didn't wake up had mounted to five. of freedom and democracy, is ceaseless to what was happening until it got hit Headlines blazoned the story of the vigilance. They watched the town grow squarely between the eyes. That was the battle throughout the state. For the first overcrowded and ignored the obvious day of .the running gun fight on Main time of its history, the town found itself facts that overcrowding breeds slums Street, in the heart of downtown. in the center of the spotlight. It dis- and slums breed crime. Kids whose The fight started when a gang of covered that it didn't look so good. parents couldn't afford to give them adolescents were caught in the act of Juvenile delinquency wasn't the only all the time and attention they needed holding up the Midland Trust Company. problem. While the solid citizens had were thrown on the community and The kids shot the bank guard who spot- been sitting {Continued on page 42)
Here's to the Boy Scouts, a grand institution! Legion Posts sponsor more than 2800 Scout troops
25 By RAY HOLLAND so tough. He didn't know who I was on land belonging to someone else. We and some of his talk had been pretty thrashed out the whole farmer-hunter
rough. When I was near enough to con- problem for that section of New York "TTEy! Get out of there! You heard verse with him quietly, my first words state and as far as we two were con-
XI me. Get off my laud before I have reassured him and brought back his cerned, we settled it. the law on you." belligerence. He contended that the law against This man was talking to me and he "I'm sorry if I was trespassing," 1 trespass is paramount. No one can deny wasn't fooling. He was carrying a club said and I introduced myself. this. If a man owns land he has the right and coming straight for me. It was the "You know damn well that you are to keep others off his property. How- opening day of the pheasant season in trespassing," he blustered. "I own this ever, the New York state law provides
New York state and I had just got a land and I pay taxes on it and I have that he must put up warnings in the good start. Here was the Landowner- the right to keep anyone off. When I form of posters at prescribed distances
Sportsman Relationship problem star- tell a man to get off I want him to get apart, so that hunters may know Avhere ing me right in the face. It was very off and get off quick before I have him shooting is forbidden. He doesn't have personal. arrested." to keep these signs intact, renew ing
I whistled my pointer to heel and He had something there, but I kept them when vandals pull them down. The started straight for this irate man. He on talking and he kept on talking. Fi- ideal law provides that the landowner kept yelling at me to get out, but the nally we sat down on a big rock in that check his property on a given date, prior closer I got to him the less noise he pasture and we filled a couple of pipes. to the opening of the season, and re- made and the slower he walked. Finally We discussed the problems that a land- place signs that are missing. Then, in he stopped and waited for me. He had owner has where the hunters use his case of a prosecution, all he has to do a club and I had a gun and he was land in pursuit of game, and we cussed is to furnish an affidavit that the signs probably wishing he hadn't been quite and discussed the boys who carry guns were there on the date specified by law.
26 Having signs printed and putting is a swell woodcock swale on the farm those woods looking for ruffed grouse them up, the farmer said, cost money that I knew nothing about until he told without any written or oral permission and he claimed that furthermore he me. Sometimes I leave game at his house from the owner. If land is properly didn't have time to do it and he was and sometimes I don't. Sometimes I posted no man should set foot on it not in favor of such a law. Now, he was don't have any to leave. without permission. If the owner has upholding one law with which he agreed The New York law is eminently fair posted his land because he wants to and disregarding another law which both to hunter and landowner for any hunt the game thereon, the chances are didn't suit him. That won't work in this state with large tracts of timberland or that the casual hunter will be refused country or any other. waste land. Often it is a long-drawn-out permission to hunt on the land. How- My farmer friend was a fair-minded process to locate the owners of such ever, if a man has posted his land for fellow and I had him stumped. tracts. I have known cases where farm- his own protection from unscrupulous "If I tell a man to get off my land ers couldn't tell you the ownership of hunters, the right approach will prob- he's got to get, posters or no posters," woodlands adjoining their farms. One ably give in return the permission to he blurted out. man told me: . hunt.
"You're sure right about that," I an- "Most of that mountain is owned by Don't think for a minute that the swered, "and I'm going just as soon as a trust or something. My wife used to farmer doesn't have a lot to put up with we finish our talk." have the name of a lawyer that was here from the hunting public. This is espe-
I didn't go. Instead I finished my hunt once. He wanted to see what it was cially true if his farm is close to a big and killed two nice cock pheasants, one worth, said the heirs might sell it. city where the boys come out in droves. of which I left at the farmhouse. This Everybody cuts wood off it." The hardest element to control in man's land is posted today, but I have Certainly if the boys are all helping farmer-sportsman relationship will al- hunted there for years. I leave my car themselves to a little firewood, hunters ways be the rowdy, roughneck hunter. in the farm yard. We are friends. There should be permitted to wander through Such fellows {Continued on page 39) 27 This patient will be flown by ex-B-24 pilot-president of vet-owned company, will be tended by former army nurse
Whatever Goes Up...
By AL PETERSON There's a new brand of pioneer in America. is the inspired fresh memories of Air vets who have flown after gold He young man, by battles won in the clouds, who is now making sharp inroads in that wide hhie yonder are finding into this planet's least explored territory—the vast air space above us. costs and competition as tough to Thousands of army and navy Joes, suddenly made air- overcome as the law of gravity minded by war, didn't stand a chance of making money with established airlines. Too many applicants for too few jobs. Others wanted independence. Using war savings and various loans, many war-spawned aviators launched their own flying businesses, a risk-filled venture calling for as much resourcefulness and guts as any flak-happy mission
ever did. And it looks like the sky's the limit.
Trained for combat, fourteen Sky Devils now jump for cash Ex-GIs are today flying a lively variety of new-type mis- 28 One-time private Callinicos (at left, in duck) owns busy seapla sions with almost anything that goes up. Facelifted multi- engine Douglas transports, all breeds of surplus army and navy trainers, float planes, fat patrol blimps, gliders, low-power "personal" planes, ducks, helicopters, and converted P-51 Mustangs. Using craft ranging from quarter-million dollar DC-4s (army C-54) to honorably discharged BT-17s costing next to nothing, the vet busi- nessman is out for any and all jobs—hauling Jersey cows and bobby pins, professoring flying schools, snufhng fires via parachute, playing angel to invalids, writing with smoke in the sky, to name a few. Mushrooming in every State of the Union, eager-to-please vet-owned out- fits are going all out to prove they can do a surprising number of things better, faster, and cheaper by air. But these assorted ex-warriors are rediscovering an age-old truth—that running your own business is always a gamble. To be your own boss in the air is doubly hazardous. A year after Hiroshima nearly 3000 inde- pendent air services had sprung up from nowhere. Many Heinsohn and Retz (above*) st;>r»ed ai»- service «i|h one itl!>ne, vets, dreaming of roaring motors (Continued on page 50) a thin purse; now have 8 planes, hangar, 60 GI students 29 This is no college fraternity house, but there's plenty of fraternal spirit in this trailer home
Upwards of 10,000 veterans of World War II are back in camp again. This time they're dealing in books instead Campus Caravans of bullets, are taking their training in classrooms instead of on drill grounds, and are living in trailers instead of bar- racks. Many of those snappy trailers which pass They are the largest "division" of the "army" of 100,000 veterans—the total including their families—whom the hous- ing shortage has led to live in "homes on wheels." They form you on the road are ending up at colleges. a large segment of the total trailer coach population of America—between 300,000 and 400,000 people now dwell- latest estimate of the Trailer Here's how they are making it possible for ing in trailers, according to the Coach Manufacturers' Association, with headquarters in Chicago. thousands of veterans to get a college education Most of the student veterans living in trailer coaches are set up a la family style, with the comforts—and chores—of home. Along with their exposure to chemistry, engineering and the whatnot of the modern university curriculum, they WILLIAM F. By McDERMOTT are getting an effective dose of domesticity. They are also fathering a substantial crop of babies—what with their youngsters being reared right on the campus, they figure
30 Item number one on the day's agenda at Indiana's VToodlawn Skillful use of space makes these homes on wheels seem surpris- Camp Trailer Park is the pilgrimage to the community showers ingly large inside, and designers have gone all-out with gadgets
At the University of Wisconsin several units originally built for Many veterans living in perambulating houses while attending war workers were consolidated to construct this nursery school college plan to use them later on, either as homes or for vacations
there ought to be a record-breaking number of potential professors among the offspring! The housing shortage and the GI Bill of Rights account for the mushrooming of trailer camps at 100 of the univer- sities and colleges—mostly the larger schools—of the country. College dormitories and fraternity houses, along with pri- vate residential quarters, threatened to burst at the seams with the post-war rush for the halls of learning, exclusive of the flood of students made possible by the government sub- sidy. When the latter came, something had to be done.
At first, it looked like sleeping in the park and studying under a tree for the boys back from the front. There didn't seem to be a roof anywhere for a veteran, let alone housing for Mamie and little Junior. But the American fighting men, who wouldn't take defeat from Germans or Japanese, weren't going to be licked by a mere lack of bunks. What about those thousands of trailers which housed war workers during hostilities, but were now standing empty? It didn't take long for the gents of government at Washing- The last word in de luxe trailers is this sleek double-decker. It's a ton to see the light, nor the university fathers to catch on. one-story job while cruising; a flick of a switch elevates the top
31 Guinevere Smith, whose veteran husband, Bill, is attending University of Tennessee, spruces up their trailer home on. A tieup was made, with a token with 95 trailers, and the second is Ran- They're trouble shooters—in case an oil payment legalizing the leasing of the dall Park, named after the Civil War heater threatens to blow up or there's houses on wheels to the college authori- training camp which stood on the s .me any other sort of emergency. Their main ties. Soon whole trailer camps or parks site, with 91. The third is University chore has been to keep stadium crowds were established on campuses through- Cabin Camp, where 45 GFs and their from overflowing the camp, particularly out the nation. families live in privately owned trailers. those taking a short cut to or from Today, from the Atlantic to the Pa- In the shadow of the great football sporting events. The tramp-tramp-tramp cific, and from Canada to the Gulf, you stadium, Monroe Park occupies what on the board walks aroused the camp will find on or near campuses these President Edwin B. Fred of the Uni- infantry out of its sleep, and baby "transportable villages," made up large- versity of Wisconsin in an appreciative howls during nap time stirred the ly of wartime trailers owned by the wisecrack called the state's "most fertile mothers to get the constables into action. government, yet with a grow ing number five acres." And such it seems to be, for Trailerites of the three parks unite in of privately-owned trailers, spanking in it is overflowing with juveniles, includ- conducting a large grocery store. It's a appearance and modern to the last de- ing two sets of twins. In one banner cash-and-carry co-operative, with an gree. Their owners are either veterans Aveek last spring five babies were born initial membership fee of $12.50 for who had a flair for saving their hard- to Monroe Parkers. each member, and doing $5,000 busi- earned cash while in service, who used The trailer residents govern them- ness a month. It gives part-time em- severance pay or bonus money for a selves. Each park has its mayor, chosen ployment to eight veterans, enabling down payment, or who finagl d neatly after an election campaign with all the them to earn enough,- plus government done-up job out of an appreciative trimmings. The job is an honorary one, subsistence, to support their families. parent. and the term of office is one semester. Ninety percent of the trailerites buy These "trailer towns" are substantial Jim Stanbaugh, of Ashland, Kentucky, their food here. Any profits are plowed communities, well supervisod and con- an Army Air Corps veteran with four back into the business or the benefits ducted, where health standards are high, years in the Pacific theater behind him. shared by the veterans' families. The the residents are happy, and where the is one of the three mayors—one for store is well-stocked, is kept immacu- environment is the best, according to each Park—having won out against a late, and the clerks are courtesy incar- university authorities, for educational field of six candidates. He is aided by nate. The manager, elected by the preparation. Domestic duties — and five councilmen, representing the five students, is 25-year-old Roy Boettcher, privileges—seem to step up the scholas- wards of the park. His main job is to an Air Force veteran, who was shot tic ambitions of veterans. They're right serve as contact man between the uni- down in Italy but escaped. He divides at the top on grades. versity and the trailer residents. his time between the store, studying, and Let's look in on the University of Wis- "It's good training," said "Mayor trying to keep up with his nine-month- consin scene, where three university- Jim." "Work goes along with the honor, old daughter. sponsored parks accommodate 231 trail- but it's worth it because it is helping The cost of living holds its punches ers, housing 600 people, including 220 me overcome shyness." —at least a trifle—in college trailer liv- veterans and their wives, and 140 chil- Each park has six "constables," with ing. The smaller trailers at Wisconsin dren. A few trailers are given over to the power tc make arrests, but they've rent for $25 r. month, while the larger bachelors. The largest is Monroe Park, had no work to do along that line. ones—mostly of the expansible type 32 —
One of the country's largest trailer camps is the one shown here at the University of Indiana used for housing the larger families of There's a semi-monthly dance at the the expansible type were joined by an war workers—rent for $32.50. In each recreation center, with music by the ingenious arrangement so that a huge, case, electricity for lighting and cook- radio or jukebox. A night out to the open room 25x45 feet was formed. It is ing, and oil for heating, are included movie is an occasional treat. Once a like a large lounge, equipped with di- in the rent. The larger trailers have the semester the veterans go "all out" for a vans and easy chairs, floor lamps and equivalent of an additional small room. big dance in the Students' Union build- writing tables, radios and reading racks.
There is no running water so the vet- ing, with a hired orchestra and all the Pictures hang on the walls and attrac- erans tote it in buckets. Central toilet trimmings. Also there is diversion in tive drapes, made by the trailerites, are and laundry units are adequate and are fixing up the trailers, maintaining tiny at the windows. Around the walls are kept scrupulously clean. flower beds about the steps—-there's a ping-pong tables, sewing machines, card
It costs about $150 a month for a spirited contest each spring and sum- tables, and miscellaneous equipment family with one or two children to get mer for the best flower garden—and in all supplied by the Red Cross. Here the along. Government subsidy takes care of growing vegetables on free plots fur- Trailer Park Mothers' Club meets for tuition, books and the like. For two the nished by local authorities. sewing and child care instruction—and GI subsistence is $90 a month, plus $10 As for baby-sitting—well, there's no visiting, of course! —with a bit of recre- for each child. Thus three get $100 a expense there. "I'll watch yours if you'll ation and a bite to eat afterward. Here month, needing $50 more. Wives work watch mine" works so well that most also the Red Cross conducts courses in as part-time stenographers, cashiers, any couple can get a night off during home nursing and pre-natal care. telephone operators, clerks, bookkeep- the week and not have to rob the fam- The recreation center is a busy place ers, and beauty operators, while hus- ily exchequer. And whenever a baby is night and day, and hums with all sorts bands average about $25 a month each born, the community spirit goes into of spontaneous as well as planned af- taking care of lawns, doing janitor action. There's a shower if the young fairs. Some couple may throw a little work, and serving as clerks, watchmen, mother lacks any of the necessities, par- party because a veteran has got an all-A tutors and waiters. If there's a baby, ticularly diapers and baby clothes. grade card, or there may be a shindig the wife cares for Junior during the Cribs and high chairs are passed around in celebration of a newly-discovered day, and Daddy takes over for the eve- as needed. birthday, or a festivity because a watch- ning while Mother works at her extra Madison, where the university is lo- man or a waitress has won a raise. It's job. He studies in between gurgles and cated, provides visiting nurse service all in the neighborly fashion, a sort of yowls. They get up early to do their free, so any mother can have her baby's cross between the country town spirit laundry, ironing and housework. condition checked at any time. There is and the jollity of the fraternity or soror- As to amusement, the average trailer a fine nursery school, equipped by the ity house. family spends $1.50 a week and finds Red Cross and staffed by the University, What about trailer life? Let's talk its fun in various ways. Many husbands which gives free care to tots of 2^ to 5 for a minute with pretty, energetic and and wives belong to the trailer park years of age. The public health nurse intelligent Mrs. Pauline Durkee, whose bowling league, which has 16 teams. visits the school and inspects the chil- husband is studying to become an elec- There are outdoor sports, particularly dren every morning. trical engineer. She's 28, and she and softball, and occasionally they take in a The recreation center is a unique Bob were married quite a bit before university baseball or football game. structure tailored out of trailers. Five of ihe war. They {Continued on page 45)
33 " BUY* A COMPLETE PACKAGE WHEN
A Furnished Home of Your Very Own!
Be the first to know the joy of own- ing an Elcar Sun Coach. This revo-
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Give your family the refinements of scriptive literature and a custom built mobile home with a name of your local dealer. Duo Terra Cruiser. No other produc- tion model offers you the same out- the dot standing combination of top quality 51295 features for living comfort, beauty
Small in size, 19 l/2 feet overall length, and permanence. See this luxury but tremendous in value. Sleeps four trailer at your dealer's or write persons, Sealy sofa bed. 4 wardrobes. 3-burner plate cook stove, 50 lb. ca- Dept. D-13 for illustrated \|EE5^\ pacity ice box; built-in dinette table. Reliable Streamlite Craftsman- booklet. ship throughout. The DOT is an un- beatable value at this low price.
Write for full color, 8-page folder on all Streamlite models and ELCAR £a*e6&%&4 name of your nearest Streamlite mil) nuni dealer COACH CORP. PRODUCT OF ELCAR ' PRODUCT OF DUO COACH CORP. Laminated Masonite or laminated plastic exteriors, brakes; and Federal, State ^ 831 S. Wabash Ave., Chicago 5 and local taxes not included in price. \ fff^ti. 831 S. Wabash Ave., Chicago 5 'THE TRAILER HOME WITH A SUN PORCH CHICAGO STREAMLITE CORPORATION 17TH STREET AT PRINCETON ». ILL MONARCH OF THE HIGHWAY DIPT. A I. N. W CORNER CHICAGO
Cornet j Hi
With a VENTILATING ATTIC
MEMBER Before you buy any trailer, cheek the advantages and a HEATED FLOOR . of the Slope-Away roof—exclusive on Stewart V^TSB^ Coaches. Two popular sizes. Low first cost, low Priced moderately. Liberty Coaches are with- IT'S A ^"^SK/ upkeep. Write Dept. ALfor literature. in the reach of every family. In honest quality, Liberty Coaches coach comPRtiY are unsurpassed. CTCIAIADT In summer, the constant expulsion of air from lb IfMn I BRisTOL-inoiRnn VAGABOND! either end of the six-inch double-insu- lated attic stimulates circulation and keeps the interior many degrees cooler than
The fullest satisfaction . . . the outside temperatures. In winter, used air greatest comfort and joy of living floats slowly upwards into the attic and out the louvres. are best assured in the soundly On cold days, heat from the furnace circulates tie si gned and constructed through the hollow floor, up registers, I agabond. and into the interior, and the floor and living space in each room remain uni- II hen you have Keen it You'll formly comfortable. know whyfolks all over the world TAKE THE FIRST STEP TOWARDS FREEDOM. MAIL
lottk to \ agahond fur the great- THE COUPON TODAY I est value. COACHES liberty Coach Company, Inc. Syracuse, Indiano I) rite fur brochure of full color -fim&Ucck OitttiaaidUut li&deA Value Please have the Libert/ dealer in my vicinity get i pictures . . . and the name of touch with me. your dealer. HOWARD INDUSTRIES, INC. Name Saginaw Michigan Vagabond Coach Manufacturing ( '.o. Address Box 10, New Hudson. Michigan
City and State , . , ! YOU BUY YOUR SMALL HOME For Information Write T. CM. A. Manufacturers Listed Ce/ow INDIAN TRAILERS
A HOME, completely furnished, ready fo move Intft TRAILER . . . RIGHT NOWf Frigidaire, Simmons Beds, Circulating Hot Air Heat, Bottled Gas Cooking Stove, Automatic Electric Hot Water Heater — ev- erything you need for reol living comfort, at a price you can afford to pay) BUY INDIAN Today's Best Buy I 0 I FACTOR? In Carefree Living
Before you invest in any sort of STREAMLITE Master Craftsmen, housing, investigate the new Zim- builders of America's finest trailer mer Trailer with all its many coaches, have designed and built the features designed for your com-
newest trailer coach sensation . . . fort, safety and convenience. THE SUN. The price is amazing, but Sleeping accommodations for six! so is the quality of construction A full-size trailer built to give you a The Zimmer Trailer is ideal for beautiful home you'll enjoy for many either permanent or mobile hous- happy years. ing and has a high trade-in value! There's a Zimmer dealer near WRITE FOR ILLUSTRATED LITERATURE Write for full color, 8-page folder you. See him today! with name and address of YOUR nearest Dealer on all Streamlite models and DEALERS: Your territory may still be open. Write, wire or phone name of your nearest Streamlite for full details. dealer.
1 laminated Masonite or laminated plostic exteriors, brakes; and Federal, State MDinn ond local taxes not included in price. BOAT AND TRAILER CO. TRAILER CORPORATION 25645 GRAND RIVER AVENUE H- l. hahtholoMew. Fmiiinu Please address Dept. L 63RD ST. S INDIANA AVE.. CHICAGO 37. ILLINOIS. TEL: ENGIe»ood 6644 CHICAGO STREAMLITE CORPORATION DETROIT 19, MICHIGAN
DEPT. A I N W CORNER 37TH STREET AT PRINCETON ' CHICAGO ». Ill jaJRONWOOD FOR EVERY KIND OF TRAILER LIVING
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HOME-LIFE LIKE THIS IS PREFERRED BY PEOPLE YOU'D LIKE TO KNOW
Increasing thousands of men and women in all
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Write today for illustrated booklet on modern The Albert Applebys find life at beautiful Woodland Trailer Park, trailer coaches and the advantages you can Cincinnati, ideal for themselves and baby Judy. "We wish we had made the move long ago," they say. Mr. Appleby is athletic coach at enjoy in trailer life. Address Dept. 909. a Cincinnati high school.
TCMA PROMOTES TRAILER PARK IMPROVEMENT
Helping to establish good new parks park experts retained by the Associ- and improve present parks, is the ob- ation to advise anyone who plans to jective of an extensive, continuous build or improve a trailer park. As a TCMA promotional program. first step, send for the new TCMA book, "Planning a Profitable Trailer A PROFITABLE BUSINESS! Park." It contains a wealth of valu- Individuals, posts, and communities in- able information. Address Trailer terested in this growing, profitable busi- Parks Dept., TCMA, Civic Opera ness can obtain the guidance of trailer Building, Chicago 6, Illinois.
"When we moved from our house into a trailer coach, we found that this hind of life — at a park like Jones Trailer Haven, Indianapolis-— is ideal for us," say Mr. and Mrs. Joseph Maloof. parents of two grown sons. Mr. Maloof is a wholesale meat distributor.
TRAILER COACH ANUFACTURERS ASSN. V>si
DEPT. 909, CIVIC OPERA BLDG. • CHICAGO 6, ILLINOIS C °*Ch BE SURE TO GET ONE OF THESE MAKES... AMERICA'S LEADING TRAILER COACHES
ADAMS • GLIDER • AMERICAN • COLUMBIA • CONTINENTAL • CONWAY • DREXLER • DUO • ELCAR • GENERAL
I ER- • HOOS RAMBLER • HOWARD • INDIAN • IRONWOOD • LA SALLE • LIBERTY • LIGHTHOUSE • LUXOR • MAIN LINE MODERN NATIONAL • NEW MOON • OWOSSO • PALACE • PAN AMERICAN • PLATT • PRAIRIE SCHOONER • ROYCRAFT • SCHULT • SPORTSMAN STEWART • STREAMLITE • TRAVELITE • TRAVELO • TROTWOOD • UNIVERSAL • VAGABOND * WALCO • WHITLEY • ZIMMER The Postman
Within twelve months
The American Legion Extension
Institute will have trained hy mail 22,000 potential leaders
By C. M. WILSON Chief, Momhershtp tmtl Po»t Activities Section
NEARLY A YEAR AGO The American Legion College was started, with the object of assuring that the rising generation of Legionnaires would know enough about their own organization to qualify for leadership. The College was he'd in Indianapolis and proved inade- quate, to the extent in that less than a hundred students could be accommo- dated in any term. To meet the demand for training in Legion policies, methods and internal machinery The American Legion Extension Institute was founded and last February began its first corre- spondence course in Legion structure. The course attracted over 7,000 pupils, the equivalent of a good sized university student body, and wound up its final lesson in July. Meanwhile the demand for instruction continued unabated, so in August the second Extension course got under way, this time with an esti- results of the first Extension course: Post No. 602 had its group study classes mated 15,000 corresponding students. In a letter received from the group in the homes of several members en- Within a twelve-month period these two study leader, L. T. Kendrick, of the rolled, and the group study leader, extension courses will have trained ap- Lindley DeGarmo Post No. 70 of Coco- E. B. Hershberger, assigned discussion proximately 22.000 Legionnaires on the nut Grove, Florida, he stated that they leaders for each of the classes. workings of their organization. held weekly group study classes and Leyden-Chiles-Wickersham Post No. A post-graduate session of the College that the younger members of the organi- 1 of Denver, Colorado had the largest limited to outstanding graduates of the zation took such a vital interest that their enrollment of any single Post in the first Extension Institute will be held at the numerous questions prevented their get- term of the Extension Institute. A total National Headquarters, Indianapolis, ting in more than two or three chapters of 104 Legionnaires from that Post re- from October 5th to 11th. Attendance of each lesson in any one meeting, and ceived the lessons each month. The Post at this session will be open to seventy that the demand from the younger was the first, in accordance with infor- high graders of the Institute who com- members was always keyed to the one mation we received, actually to get under pleted the course and took the final ex- thought, "When are we going to meet way with a group-study plan. They held aminations. again?" their group-study classes once each Those Legionnaires who missed the Francis S. Tennent, an enrollee of month and invited outstanding Legion- opportunity of enrolling in the first two Huntington, West Virginia, Post No. 16, naires to lead the discussion in the fields courses will have to await a third course tells of the plan developed in his Post in which they have served. For Lesson for which plans are not yet definite. Post for group study, which has resulted in a Number Four, which deals entirely with Commanders should have the earliest quiz contest at each one of their regular Rehabilitation, they had as their leader information on it in the late fall or early Post meetings—the quiz based upon the Paul G. Armstrong of Chicago, Illinois, winter. study for that particular month. National Vice-Chairman of the Legion s The following items indicate the In Los Angeles, California, Uptown Rehabilitation Committee. THE END
37 n Hallowed Ground
BY PAUL H. GRIFFITH American sacrifice, the sites of many Some of us will be able to make spe- battles in Italy, the landing cial Immediate Past National Commander, in south- trips away from any ordinary ern France and the pro- travel routes, Jbe American Legion northward to see our occupation gress of our forces thence to join the forces at work, to see the camps of
When you receive this issue of your liberating forces from Normandy, and displaced persons, to learn at first magazine, five hundred members of fighting ground in Belgium, the hand something of problems which The American Legion will be in Eur- Netherlands and eastward to the are reflected in our American aid to ope. These citizen-veterans will be at- Rhine. other people, of immigration ques- tending to serious business abroad. While commemorating the victory, tions, of reconstruction difficulties in Had travel conditions permitted, the our mission will also honor those who a war-torn continent. 1947 pilgrimage of Legionnaires to the fell. The permanent American ceme- We shall visit Great Britain, France, battlefields, cemeteries, and friendly teries overseas, where many of our Belgium, The Netherlands, Switzer- capitals of Europe might have dupli- honored dead will rest in immortal land and Italy. Our comrades of two cated the 1927 visit of 20,000 veter- glory, are talcing their places beside wars in England will welcome us and ans to Paris for our national conven- the American cemeteries of World discuss with us many questions trou- tion, or the post-convention tour of War I. To the perpetual care and bling our two peoples today. Our trip 1937. Under existing limitations the decoration of these graves The Amer- has been planned with assurance that National Executive Committee au- ican Legion has a commitment which in each country to be visited the per- thorized a mission of 500 representa- it has long honored, and long will sonal observation and understanding
tive members, designated by the De- honor. We shall visit these cemeter- of an American Legion mission is partments in proportion to member- ies—hallowed ground to all Ameri- greatly desired and should be highly ship, except for a few selected by the cans. The endowment funds to sup- profitable in advancing international National Commander for special port their upkeep are ample, and will understanding. duties. be kept so. The National Executive Commit- Numerous proposals led to this Our mission this September will tee asked me, as immediate Past Na-
mission, including an invitation from give attention to the cemetery care, tional Commander when this trip is the government of France. In that and to the reverent return of many made, to act as leader of our Legion
country our mission will visit and of our dead to the United States visit abroad. I have accepted that dedicate the "Road of Liberty" across where relatives have chosen that step duty with the knowledge that many northern France, being the route of in sacred memory. We shall also study experienced and capable Legionnaire victory of General Patton's army the question of the permanent me- citizens will make up the mission and from St. Mere L'Eglise to Bastogne. morials abroad, a subject of attention devote their abilities and experiences
From September 12 to 21 it is pro- by our Government through the War to the tasks involved. It is my pro- posed to visit the battlefields along Memorials Commission of which our found hope that this tour of duty, this 1,320 kilometers of triumphant Honorary Past National Command- while as pleasant as circumstances
American conquest in arms, in com- er, General John J. Pershing, is permit, will be primarily a task of pany with our French hosts. The de- chairman. devotion to every act and study by tailed plans of this dedication of the We shall have other duties in Eur- which our American Legion may con- victory and the liberation are numer- ope, including a study of our na- tribute to the welfare of our own and ous. Our Legion mission will visit tional position respecting the making other countries and to the making
other scenes of American glory and of world peace and its maintenance. and maintenance of a just peace.
\* *
38 HEY! GET OUT! Adver acmenl (Continued from page 27) break down fences, leave gates open, tramp across cultivated fields and show no re- spect for the property they are on or the From where I sit man who owns it. If a farmer calls to them they trust their legs to get away. The worst element goes even farther. They do not he-itate to shoot a chicken it/ Joe Marsh or a turkey and a calf isn't safe if they think they can get away with it. The law- abiding sportsman must carry the onus left by such men and because of their actions he is often forbidden to hunt on excellent game areas where otherwise he would be welcome. If all men who hunted would put them- "Not Responsible selves in the place of the landowner and try to see his side of the picture and conform to it, there would be little or no For Wife's Debts" farmer-sportsman problem. No farmer wants a gun banging away close to his house. He doesn't want a young orchard A young man came rushing out of all chewed up with bird shot. Certainly he doesn't feel happy about guns going breath into the Clarion office the other off close to his herd of milk cows and day and wanted me to print an ad— sending them racing to the other end of the pasture. "right quick" —saying that he won't Some farmers claim that they own the be responsible for his wife's debts from game on their land. They contend that they feed it and that therefore it belongs now on, as he's leaving her for good to them. This is not true. There is another immediately. law dating way back to colonial days and upheld time after time which takes care I allowed as how the forms were of this. I once heard a United States Dis- trict Judge quote in court: "Since time all closed up, and it was just simply immemorial title of the game has the too late to take his ad. So he says: been in the state, not in its sovereign right but held in trust for the people therein." "All right, Monday then" — and we In other words there can be no private both agreed on Monday. ownership of wild game until that game has been reduced to possession. When a Of course, the forms weren't closed. man shoots a quail or a rabbit he owns it, but not until. Prior to the time a bird But I had kind of an inkling of what or mammal is shot it belongs to the state. might happen. Then Sunday he In the case of migratory game birds the state means the federal government. The phones me, and says, kind of sheep- title to the wild game landowner has no ishly: "You can forget that ad. Me on his land. It may have been raised on and the missus have everything all patched up. And we're having a friendly glass of beer, right now."
From where I sit, if you give folks plenty of time enough to think things over, those hasty quarrels that come so often from misunderstanding will soon give way to tolerance and com- mon sense.
"And then I started to phone to say I'd ." be detained at the bowling alley. . . AMERICAN LEGION MAGAZINE
September, 1947 39 Copyright, 19J/.7, United States Brewers Foundation Iiis neighbor's farm or. in t lie case of woodcock, hatched a thousand miles away. The farmer who claims he feeds the game birds, in his own heart knows that they eat for the most part shattered grain and weed seed and that their feed doesn't cost him a cent. Years ago I had charge of enforcing federal game laws in several western states. An indignation meeting was held in a small town because all shoot- ing of ducks and geese had been forbid- den, when the birds were migrating north. It was my job to attend the meeting and
-i nit he the angry.
It was late February. The afternoon before the meeting some of the boys drove me out into the country and showed me several thousand wild geese feeding on a big field of winter wheat. They inti- mated that the farmer who owned this field was going to take me over the jumps. Most of those who attended the meeting that night were farmers—many farmers are hunters. No sooner had the meeting got under way than the owner of that wheat field got to his feet and angrily told me that if I didn't get those geese serves where pheasants are raised under chickens. off his land he'd shoot or poison the whole propagation permits from the state. Men A rancher down in Texas with a pasture flock. can shoot at such places for so much a full of cattle about ready to ship doesn't "That ain't all," he added. "I'm goin' day or so much a bird. That is fine, but want any guns going off to scare them to send a bill to the government for the just as soon as a charge per head is and start them running. He wouldn't ad- wheat they have already eaten." made for shooting wild game the law will mire to see those steers lose a couple of
This brought a murmur of approval have something to say about it. It is against pounds apiece. At the price of beef today, and it looked as though I had a hard job t he law to sell game in all states. that would run into folding money. Yet ahead. That afternoon I had noticed some Furthermore, the men who run such my New York farmer friend might call cattle grazing in the same field on the preserves are gamebreedei>. not farmers. to me when I am starting down toward same winter wheat, so I asked: A man to succeed in this very specialized his pheasant swail: "Are those your cattle in that field with line of endeavor must have a leaning that "Got a brand new calf over in the cor- the geese?" way. You can't make a game farmer out ner of the pasture. Don't let your dogs get He allowed that they were. of a wheat grower or cattle raiser. It isn't too close to the old lady or you'll come up
"Don't they damage your wheat?" in the wood in most cases and if it were a dog missing."
"Haw." lie answered. "They help it. the returns would #ot be large enough to Conditions that exist in the small-grain
They crop it off short and that makes it pay for the time expended. fields of Iowa or Illinois can't be compared stool better." In the South great tracts of quail lands with these of Western Kansas or Montana. "That's fine," I said. "That is exactly are leased by men or groups of men for Highly productive farms with houses fairly what the geese are doing. They are grazers. shooting purposes. So much per acre is close together have nothing in common
They are cropping the wheat so it will paid the landowner for the privilege of with the semi-desert areas of our mountain stool better and if you are not awfully shooting over his land. This settles the states. Every section has its own particular careful, you are going to get a bill from farmer-sportsman problem in some areas. phase of the farmer-hunter question. the government for their services which In others, it does not. In some places it After all. it is the hoodlum element that will increase your yield!" creates a hotbed of ill feeling and poach- makes life hard for the landowner and
I'll admit that wasn't a proper argument. ing. This is more a sportsman-sportsman hunter alike. One morning a friend and I He wasn't going to bill the government fuss, but the farmer may come in for his drove into the barnyard of a farmer friend and the government wasn't going to bill share of the blame. The quail hunters on where we hunted ruffed grouse. As we got him. But it got a laugh from the other farm- the outside are often not happy when the out of the car he came running from the ers and relieved the tension. From then best of the quail country is closed to house.
of • on things went smoothly and most of the them. Some them get pretty bitter and "I'm sure glad you fellows came." ! boys felt happy. You couldn't ever satisfy act accordingly, to the detriment of every- called before he reached us. "There is all the hunters or all the farmers. one. someone shooting up above the old orchard. About every so often some man or group No one plan to improve relations be- I went up there and a big fellow wha of men comes forth with a fine idea to tween hunter and farmer will ever work. spoke broken English told me to go back to settle all farmer-sportsman differences. Conditions are different in each locality. the house and stay there or he'd blow my Make game a crop! Take care of the It is impossible to compare conditions in head off. He meant it! My phone's out of game on the farm and sell your shooting the East with those in the West. A farmer order and my boy has the car." rights! You can't sell game legally, but may offer you free board and lodging in The man I was hunting with was a you can sell the rights and privileges of South Dakota to shoot off some of the Special Game Protector in the State of shooting that game and make more money |ihea»ants which are so numerous that he New York and he volunteered at once: than you are making with your poultry. can't raise any garden truck, while a "We'll go get him. Where is he now?" Thus is opened up a new source of rev- farmer in New Jersey might want to shoot "Don't do it!" pleaded the farmer wl o enue for the farmer. you if you bothered a certain old cock was shaking like he had the palsey. "Go It won't work. There are shooting pre- pheasant that comes up and eats with his get help. Get the sheriff! That man will
40 * The American legion Magazine • September, 1947 kill you if you go up there. Please don't burst through the cover right before us. go. He'll kill you." "You're under arrest; so no funny busi- Just then we heard a beagle hound give ness." tongue up on the hillside, followed by a He was a tough looking customer and shot. As both of us had had considerable plenty big. First he looked at my shotgun experience in law enforcement, we struck and then at my friend's gun, the muzzle of out toward the old orchard which ran down which was hovering very close to his mid- the hill to a big woods swamp. When we riff—and he laid his gun down. For a reached a point about even with where the fellow who was threatening to kill some- shot had been fired, a friendly little beagle body a few minutes before, he was the more accuracy came up to me and I took my belt and meekest man I ever saw. Unfortunately, tied her to a tree. Then we sat down to this little episode just about ruined a without winding wait and it wasn't long until our man was morning's grouse hunt, but we had done a calling his dog. favor for our farmer friend and for the This was working out fine. I answered entire bird-hunting fraternity. right away and told the fellow that his dog If every hunter would act like a gentle- was down by the swamp and there seemed man and conduct himself as though the to be something the matter with it. That land on which he was hunting were his own brought him down the hill in a hurry. It land there would be mighty little to wran- would be a pretty low-lived man who gle over. There wouldn't be any sports- wouldn't come if his dog was in trouble. man-landowner problem anywhere if, in My friend and I separated some thirty feet addition, all farmers would conduct them- and waited. selves in a gentlemanly manner. A couple "Lay your gun on the ground, muzzle of gentlemen can always get along without pointing behind you!" I told him when he quarrelling. the end REPORT FROM HOLLYWOOD
(Continued from page 19) in a Greenville, Texas, radio store. The Marines turned him down as being too the got biggest blast, being charged with short and too thin. The Army took him putting un-American lines here and there and he made it to Casablanca, Messina, in scripts in a subtle sort of way. Inciden- Salerno, Mt. Rotundo and Naples. Soon he tally, while the hearings were in progress, wound up with the Congressional Medal a bunch of teen-age squirts calling them- of Honor, the Distinguished Service Cross, selves American Youth for Democracy several Silver Stars, the Bronze Star, some picketed the hearings. This is the outfit Purple Hearts and the Croix de Guerre which to used be known as the Young In fact, he ran up seventeen medals. In so CROTO* AQUAMATIC League. Communist doing he grew from private to second lieutenant. When it was all over he went Vet of the Month back to Texas, got his baby sisters and Several ex-GIs who were not actors brother out of Bole's Orphan Home and always on time because don't before the war are getting picture breaks. bought a house for them and his sister. You're you Right now it looks as though Audie wind your watch! Your Croton Aqua- Murphy is the man of the month. He's Bookkeeping Department matic keeps itself wound by the ordinary under contract to Cagney Productions and Joan Crawford has been signed by motions of your wrist. It can't run down, It time — will star in William Faulkner's Two Sol- Warner Bros, for two pictures a year for cant overwind. keeps better 0 diers, to be followed by The Stray Lamb seven years at $500,000 per year. That 13.5% better time than famous hand- and A Lion Is in the Streets. makes her wound watches. A wonderful idea for a tops for the income tax. — Audie, just 22, is the second of seven Exports of motion picture equipment wonderful gift or for yourself. children of a Kingston, Texas, family. for the first quarter of 1947 amounted to AQUAMATIC SHEDS WATER LIKE A DUCK! Before the war he was a $15-a-week clerk $7,202,161. the END Handsome, serviceable — the Aquamatic is certified waterproof, before it goes to your jeweler, by United States Testing Co. Inc. Just make sure only your Croton dealer opens, closes and services your watch. Odier features — dust-proof, shock-resistant, the dial's easy to read in the dark, the glass crystal can't shatter! Made only by Croton — famous since 1878. Only $57.50, tax included.
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'Leaving town, Ed? * 3 Aquamatics were tested against the average of 9 famous watche9 wound by band, in a 30-day wearing AMERICAN LEGION MAGAZINE test by a leading laboratory. Aquamatic proved 13.5% more accurate! Write for free booklet. Croton Watcn Co.. Inc. 4S West 48th Street. N. Y. 19. September, 1947 41 © 1917 Cl'Utmi Watch Co.. Inc., New York YOU CAN DO SOMETHING up at Legion Hall the following Wednes- suggested a town track meet and, before ABOUT IT day. There was a priest named Murray, a he knew it, plans had been drawn up for minister named Sloane, a rabbi named a Junior Olympics. Two junior baseball (Continued from page 25) Bernstein, and a banker named Bain- leagues of 12 teams apiece were organized. back smugly, a variety of evils had taken bridge. In all, about two dozen of Middle- Two months after the campaign which firm root. There was the housing shortage, town's most important people were pres- Middletown had dubbed "the Joe Hill for example. Middletowners had been in- ent, representatives of the Botary Club, program" got under way, the Daily Star clined to shrug that off as strictly a big- the Lions, Elks, Knights of Columbus and drew back to look over the results. What city problem. Now, they found a smolder- other civic organizations. At the end of it saw was sensational. In the month be- ing core of resentment among the veterans half an hour, they had formed themselves fore the campaign began, 175 minors had of World War II who had returned from into a Community Council and by the end been arrested for various felonies and the battlefields to find themselves shut of the meeting, three hours later, they misdemeanors. In the campaign's second out of town, with no place to live and had drawn up a tentative campaign. month, only 14 juveniles were arrested.
nobody doing very much about it. Their first step was aimed at getting At the same time that Joe Hill was lead- The good burghers were surprised to the kids off the street corners and their ing the drive on juvenile delinquency, a rind that they weren't taking very good other dingy, night-time hangouts. Council lawyer named Stephen McGrane took up care of the sick, either. They were shocked members called on the proprietors of the cudgels against another of Middle- to learn that people died each week be- every establishment in which kids might town's civic sores: the question of veter- cause there were not nearly enough ambu- come into contact with shady, older char- ans' housing. McGrane got involved with idnces, that the hospital system was anti- acters. Most of the owners willingly agreed the housing problem in a rather round- quated and too small. to co-operate in closing their doors to about fashion. It was the rising divorce Finding out these things, the citizens minors. When they didn't, a mention of rate that got him started. grew worried. They shook their heads in police action and a monitory visit from The lawyer noticed a striking similarity dismay and muttered. "Somebody ought the cop on the beat got them moving. Then in the stories told him by the ever-increas- to do something about it," they said. the Council leased a number of empty ing procession of discontented husbands Some citizens did better than that. Some stores which they cleaned out, painted and and wives who filed through his office. The of them said, "I ought to do something fitted up as club rooms. overwhelming majority of the estranged about it." That was what Joe Hill said. couples had never had a home of their Joe had been worried about the town for Parole board statistics showed that in own. The conviction grew in him that many the past couple of years. He had seen the neighborhoods where Boy Scout troops or of these people would never have come groups of kids with pale faces and too-old, other boys clubs were active, the juvenile to the point of divorce if in-laws, over- too-knowing eyes hanging around places delinquency rate was much lower than in crowding and lack of privacy hadn't pre- like the Idle Hour Bar & Grill and Cotton sections which lacked such organizations. vented them from having a normal mar-
Brown's Pool Boom. So, Middletown Post No. 1, which already ried life. There was no doubt about it. he The day after the Main Street gun bat- sponsored one Boy Scout troop in its own told himself, the divorce problem and the tle he began his campaign to do some- neighborhood, volunteered to back an- housing shortage were closely connected. thing about juvenile delinquency. The first other one on the north side. Other posts "The way I see it," he told the members thing he did wr as to call on a man named followed their lead. A dozen new troops of his Legion post in the suburb of Wide Jim Talbot, a city parole officer who had were organized. Valley, "we have a chance to kill two been in Joe's outfit back in the first World The ball was rolling. Joe Hill's post got nasty birds with one stone. And it's a job War and was now adjutant of Joe's Legion together with the Elks and the 4-H club we have to do ourselves. The federal and post. They talked their way through a to run a mammoth Youth Fair and another state governments are too far away from long pair of hours, looking at the problem post started to raise funds for the erec- the scene. With them, we're just part of a ' from every angle. It was a problem for tion of a recreation center and swimming much bigger problem and we've got to the whole community, they decided. pool as the city's Living War Memorial take our place in line. A select group of invited guests showed to the dead of World War II. One boy "Why can't we underwrite a building project of our own," he continued, "one aimed at filling this town's particular
need. If we give it everything we've got, I'm convinced we can have places for most of Middletown's DPs before the summer's over." The wives of the Wide Valley legion- naires grew wrinkles in their foreheads that night, as the meeting wore on for hours past its usual closing time. When they finished, the members selected a com- mittee of two bankers, to arrange for neces- sary capital, a building contractor and the owner of a lumber yard, for obvious rea- sons, and lawyer McGrane to tie up any legal loose ends.
It took four months from that date to finish the first unit of the development they called Memorial Gardens. The com- mittee expects that the whole project will be completed in another six months. When
it's finished, it'll be quite a place. There will be a dozen five-family apartment "For heaven s sake, Gerald, it's only a newsreel! houses, a pair of playgrounds, community AMERICAN LEGION MAGAZINE garages and a small, shopping center. The
42 September, 1947 niost expensive apartment in t he place, a six-room affair, will cost only $65 a month, including heat and garage rent. Steve McGrane's Wide Valley chums had a hand in solving the hospital and ambulance shortage, to, although the man who got that program rolling was a mem- ber of a post on the other side of town. He was a doctor named Fred Snidekens. Snidekins had come back from four years of watching men die on battlefields in France and Germany and had been shocked and disgusted to find that there were men dying just as needlessly in Mid- dletown, in the heart of the peaceful
United States. In Europe, it had been bombs and bullets that killed men. That had been horrible but you came to con- dition yourself to horror in war. Here men were dying because of their city's neglect and that was even more horrible. The doctor's indignation boiled over the night a man with an inflamed appen- dix died an agonizing death in his apart- ment after waiting three hours for an ambulance. Snidekens roared like a bull when he found out about it. His first thought was to haul the ambulance driver to the police station and charge him with murder, but he soon learned that it wasn't the driver's fault. There just weren't enough ambulances to meet the demand. Snidekens took his findings to a num- ber of people. He told the Hospitals Board about it and the Health Commissioner. He wrote a letter to the Mayor. He fold the men of his Middletown Heights Legion post about it, too. "A brand new ambulance costs about $7,000," he told the legionnaires. "That's probably more money than this post can raise at a moment's notice. But if all the Station Scene, 1957. Find the man who is getting posts in the city get together, I'll bet we PUZZLE: a steady income from U. S. Savings Bonds. He was smart enough to start buying, back in 1947.
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"Of course, he started in very young." AMERICAN LEGION MAGAZINE Contributed by this magazine in co-operation with the Magazine Publishers of America as a public service. September, 1947 43 can collect enough for two or three am- bulances."
It took three days to collect the money for the first machine. It took three months to get delivery. By that time, there was money on hand to buy two more. The ambulance campaign automatically aroused interest in the housing situation. There is no new hospital in Middletown yet. But ground was broken two months
ago and, according to the contractor, it should be ready for use within a year. The town fathers haven't decided what to call it but, if they follow the people's senti- ments, the new building is going to be christened Middletown Heights Legion Memorial Hospital or, perhaps, the Snide- kens Hospital. Things in general are looking up in Middletown. Tom Shefley, who's on the copy desk of the Star, summed up the situation for most people when he said. "There wasn't anything wrong with our town that a little live citizenship couldn't cure. It just needed somebody to stir the citizens off their stumps." Middletown isn't Minneapolis or Kansas City or St. Louis. It isn't any one par- Killing Time ticular city. But every one of the projects undertaken by fictitious Middletown legion- By Earl Mazo naires like Joe Hill and Steve McGrane have been carried out in real life by actual Legionnaires in Middletowns all over For weeks before the Russian- The "market places" were some- America. American linkup in mid-Germany in thing to see. Americans who had noth- Community councils to curb juvenile April, 1945, propaganda experts on ing to sell stood by to see the flourish both sides feverishly went about the with which Red soldiers dug into their delinquency have been formed by post=; job of "orienting" their respective ever present money satchels. The in Iowa, Texas, New York and other charges. The Russians, obviously, were purchases were always followed by a states. 2400 Boy Scout troops are spon- instructed to keep tight-lipped and not proud, boisterous routine in which the sored by Legion posts. Last year, more to trust their American allies too "great buys" were handed 'round for than 800.000 boys played in American much. The Americans were told to fellow Russians to inspect and com- Legion Junior Baseball leagues. The Na- take their Red Army counterparts to ment upon. tional Oratorical Contest attracted 160,- their bosoms, to be friendly, courteous, In Vienna one afternoon a GI pro- 000 high school students and more than kind and so forth. duced a Big Ben alarm clock, and a 16.000 medals were awarded to school But when the linkup came off and Russian sergeant grabbed it—for a the first GI learned that the first Rus- mere $800. With the great prize to his children excelling in the qualities that sians craved watches and would pay ear the sergeant ambled through the make good citizens. The Boys' States and plenty for them, all else went by the park lane smiling broadly and letting the new Boys' Forum on National Govern- boards. out a blood-curdling scream of joy ment gave junior citizens a chance to see Watches immediately became the every time a fellow Russian stopped at first-hand how their governments work. medium of understanding between to see, hear and comment. The fictitious-but-real Middletown hous- east and west. Language barriers, nor- The clock was tremendous, and its ing project is being paralleled all over mal reserve, Russian suspicion—all every resounding tick added to the the country. And the number of towns were forgotten when Americans pro- prestige of the Russian sergeant. Russians pro- whose hospitals were built as the result duced their watches and When a group of Red officers added duced their wads of occupation mon- their compliments, the sergeant's ob- of Legion activity would fill the page. Most ey. Everyone tried, but no one fully vious joy bubbled up all over his face recently, posts in Waukeegan, 111.. Sault explained the Red soldier's craze for and it seemed he would burst with Fte. Marie, Mich., Crawfordsville, In.l . timepieces. The American soldier's pride and happiness. and dozens of other towns have constructed craze for money needed no explana- Then something happened. With- or are planning hospitals as their com- tion. out warning, the clock began to ring. munity's Living War Memorial. Loud-ticking, big-faced watches with Startled, the sergeant's joy changed The programs vary with the times and red and white sweep-second hands to terror. Viciously, he threw his prize the community. In the West Virginia coal brought up to $1,000. Smaller time- to the ground, whipped his subma- less noise not country, almost every Legion post has a pieces which made were chine gun from his shoulder, and so much in demand, but even they riddled the ringing alarm clock until trained rescue team to aid in cave-ins. ex- never sold for less than $500. In the it was a shambles. plosions and other mine disasters. In the first month of joint occupation in Ber- Then slowly, sadly, he reslung the Mississippi River valley, the emphasis is lin, about 30.000 American officers and gun on his back and walked away on flood control units. GIs. issued less than' $1,000,000 in an from the scene of his short-lived tri- It's all part of what the Legion calls army pay, sent home more than $4,- umph like a father leaving the grave- its Americanism program, a program de- 000,000 in money orders. side of a favorite child. signed "to stir the citizens off their stumps" to make their community, state and nation a better place in which to live, the end
44 * The American legion Magazine • September, 1947 CAMPUS CARAVANS ington, Indiana, where the state university is located, and we discover about 7.000 (Continued from page 33) veterans on the campus, more than the have two healthy, attractive youngsters, average total enrollment in the immediate Barbara Jane, 8, and Margaret Jean, 9 pre-war years. A trailer park was set up months. Pauline clerks in the grocery store, as one means of alleviating the housing sponsors Red Cross activities, and serves shortage for veterans. At first it had only as social chairman for Monroe Park. She's 20 trailers, but the number soon grew to on her toes as mother, neighbor and com- 300. The portable campus village was munity resident. named Woodlawn Court and became the "It's nice and it's tough," she said. "At fastest growing community in the state. times we feel cramped for space, then we Now it has upwards of 400 trailers, hous- remember we have privacy, our own life ing about 375 veterans and their wives, together, and the best of neighbors. The and 200 children. boys are all veterans, all are ambitious At Indiana the fact was turned up that and are determined to get ahead. Their the laundries and washrooms in veterans' Thousands of War Veter- ans have solved their wives are the best of sports, willing to trailer camps are real "social centers." housing problems by pur- sacrifice and to put up with hardship, and As wives work over the tubs or washing chasing Glider Trailers. You have never known the to help one another out. In fact, we're all machines, they exchange the latest news comfort of mobile living until you have owned a one big family. We don't know what it about births or impending arrivals, the Glider. The living room, means to hear of bickering or family accidents and antics involving the junior kitchen and bedroom of every Glider Trailer has quarrels. population of the village, the latest in been designed with an eye "It's a chore to have to carry water for child care, cooking, their husbands' grades toward comfortable liv- ing. When you own a everything, and to have to go across the and jobs, and latest in soap operas and Glider, you own the finest park for laundry, bath and toilet facilities, movies, and the trends in styles. Husbands of homes. Don't look for our best ads on the bill- also to have all these things on a com- while shaving have their own exchanges boards along the high- ways you will find them traveling on the highways. munal basis, but at the same time it's good of information and gossip. A question- — Be sure fo see all the new Gliders at the an- discipline. It keeps us from becoming naire revealed that a major part of the nual Trailer Show at Philadelphia, November softies, and makes us remember that our trailer residents get across a lot of their 8th thru 15th. forefathers had to go without conveniences visiting during ablutions. All our dealers have for your conven- ience a very liberal time payment plan. we consider indispensable, and thought The Hoosiers go for music in a big way, nothing of it. the Woodlawn Court mixed chorus being "This trailer life more than ever makes rated one of the best on the whole In- me want to have a home of our own for diana University campus. And, of course, GLIDER TRAILER CO. a steady diet but keeping a trailer to go lullaby singing has become a fine art, with — 1824 W. KINZIE ST., CHICAGO, ILL. vacationing with the kids. I think their practice carried on daily in most of the trailer experiences are going to make a lot trailers. of veterans want homes of their own. With- Woodlawn Court has a fine community FAMAZiNl out question they give the boys and their lounge, which is the recreational and so- • Here's your chance to > New start a fine, solid, profit- families a real taste of home life. Even the cial center. Also there is a play nursery able business right among
1 J I t wf vour 1 lends and neighbor •iny flower garden about a trailer awakens where the wife of a veteran, an expert on Z- I I tm IV Tie up with the LEADER in the direct - to - wearer the desire to have larger gardens and the child care, looks after youngsters while CLJ^^C shoe industry, established 3nvC 43 years. Just rush nost- attractive home that fits into the picture." mothers do their shopping, indulge in a J card NOW for FREE SAMPLE J OUTFIT, Free I0-Second Air Let's take a little trailer tour and see little diversion, or go to work or class. i"^ Cushion Demonstrator. Free Automatic Selling I'lan. Learn what can find. drop how you can start making we We down to Bloom- A survey of the trailer park residents money very FIRST DAY with over 2011 fast-selling Feature Style and Comfort shoes. MASON SHOE MFG. CO. Dept. M-739, Chippewa Falls. Wis. SHORTHAND in Weeks at Home
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I B.W. Cooke, Dir., COYNE ELECTRICAL SCHOOL 1 500 S. Paulina, Chicago 12, III., Dept. 67-14H I Send FREE BOOK and full details on course I checked. ELECTRICITY RADIO I What's blueprints?' I NAME AMERICAN LEGION MAGAZINE ADDRESS CITY STATE September, 1947 45 during the last school year revealed some criminologist. Elaine, his wife, a trained ried men, back from war and fresh in interesting facts. Among the wives were medical technician, carries on her work marriage, getting the discipline of do- several foreign brides. In England, George in a Bloomington physician's office. Don mesticity under cramped conditions, and Adams of Indianapolis found Gladys, the served in India and on Tinian. Jerry An- trying to carry on with studies, father- girl who was to be his wife. The widow drews, of Evansville, Indiana, who was hood, community obligations, and part- of a Royal Air Force flyer who was killed an air force crew chief in Italy, is study- time employment, get along in their early in the war, she has a 7-year-old son. ing to become a dentist. His pretty wife, courses? Can one study successfully, when George and Gladys and the boy were Sue, helps keep the home fires burning Junior is climbing on his neck, and maybe happily ensconced in a Woodlawn Court by working extra hours in a nearby girls' Junior Miss is squawking in her crib six trailer. In another lived the Ralph E. apparel shop. feet distant, while Mamma is away at her Snyders of Michigan. Snyder while in the The age of veterans in Woodlawn Court job? European theater met a pretty little trailer park runs higher than the average Well, scholastic records of the Univer- French-Spanish girl and married her. She of other veterans on the campus, because sity of Wisconsin and the University of loves Ralph and trailer life. many of the latter are unmarried and are Indiana verify reports from other col- Other couples in the trailer town vet- in their early twenties. Trailer veterans lege trailer parks across the nation that erans' group at Indiana University are are mostly in the high twenties. The oldest the married Vets with all their handicaps typical of those now taking advantage of recorded by the questionnaire was 40, —perhaps "inspirations" is the better the GI educational provisions. Mr. and hi? wife 39. Neither had been to college. word—have the highest scholastic ratings Mrs. Don Cressey of Minnesota are on One 30-year-old, with an intense desire of all the students! A special ceremony their way to a professional career. He is to be a physician, revealed he had just in the spring at Eastern Washington Col- working for his Master's Degree in so- started on a nine-year educational grind. lege of Education at Cheney, Washington, ciology and expects to become a research Now about scholarship. Do these mar- honored Gordon Nelson, veteran and student-mayor of "Trailerville." with the EWC scholarship cup in recognition of PEP SALUTE By Wally the highest marks of any student. So much for the bogey that marriage and father- hood keep a good man's intelligence down. One of the larger trailer camps for student veterans is Tyson Park Village at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville. There are 225 trailer units, housing 600 people. The university conducts a baby clinic free for trailer children, and the College of Agriculture provides free gar- den plots for the ex-fighting men. A fea- ture is the Dames Club, which cooperates with the University of Tennessee in a school of home economics, with weekly classes in home management, child care, and cooking. Veterans are engaged in all kinds of part-time work to eke out a living. They care for gardens, drive cars, wait tables, do office work, and have little businesses of their own. One of them. Bill Smith, who was an instrument specialist in the Air Corps, set up a tiny watch repair shop in a corner of his trailer. He has all the business he can handle. A look-in at the University of Georgia, the oldest chartered state university, at Athens, reveals an interesting trailer park for veterans. Others are housed in pre- fabs. It's a rapidly developing legend there that diapers wave oftener than pennants on the campus. Dean William Tat.- is said to have established some sort of a record in having walked the floor with five expectant fathers in one day recently. An enterprising trailer father started a diaper service, but sold it to a commercial plant, which now hires veterans to launder the squares. There are coin-operated washing machines at the trailer park for those who wish to roll—or wash—their own. At the University of Florida are 100 veterans living in their own trailers. They have landscaped their plots, put in gar- dens, play yards, outdoor sitting rooms and picket fences, and have paved areas about their trailers. They have a coopera-
46 * The American teg'on Magazine • September, 1947 »
constantly increasing numbers on the cam- puses. Several universities have already cd cut utteuual ordered replacements, and the Trailer Coach Manufacturers' Association has had inquiries from a score of states regarding new equipment. Also, more students are coming in their own trailers. The average FREE cost is $2,000 to $3,500. but the conveni- ences approach those of the modern home. REPAIR Now and then a deluxe model of the higher bracket costs appears in the stu- SERVICE dent-veteran trailer park, but the owner soon is just one of the boys, and the wife We arc not ashing gose and baby train with families which have to bug a ZIPPO Lighter
to watch the pennies. If you own a Zippo lighter which is not in perfect operating condition, Zippo consider it a favor Will the veterans who attend college will if you return it direct to us for our free repair via the trailer route want to keep on with service, as we have never charged for the repair of a Zippo regardless of its age or condition. wouldn't live trailer life? Some say they We guarantee quicker service than you have ever otherwise, but the majority want homes received on anything returned for repair, regardless of what it is or what it cost. of their own, with trailers for travel and We are the originators of this free service on light- vacationing. A multitude affirm that the ers and we are always anxious that any Zippo we have ever manufactured gives its owner good service. home-ownership bug has bitten them be- There is absolutely no handling charge. We prepay return postage. cause trailer life has initiated them into ZIPPO MFG. CO.. 5 Barbour St., Bradford. Pa. the live-in-your-own-home fraternity by degrees. Many city youths, who had known only apartment life, look forward to a cottage in the suburbs or the country. Perhaps an indication of what the vet- erans will prefer in years to come is given by a survey conducted among trailer coach owners by the Trailer Coach Manufac- turers' Association. It showed that 73 per '29!" 'You're the first car I've seen since cent of present trailer owners prefer that of living apartment. rtERICAN LEGION MAGAZI type to an The study further revealed that 54 per cent owned their homes before buying a trailer coach, tive post exchange and laundry, and rule or still own them, and 41 per cent of trailer through a mayor and village council. coach ownership is among persons under Trailers are numbered by the hundreds 35 years of age. MIDGET ELECTRIC at the University of Iowa, where student That trailer parks will continue to be a NEW policemen, part of university life for some years to veterans work as chauffeurs, 1MB HETRILS janitors and laboratory assistants, in order come is shown by the fact that while CSNLY to support their families and get an educa- nearly 2.000.000 veterans have enrolled for tion. college or university work, 3.000.000 more A swing across the country shows trailer have said they would like to take advan- mm parks for veterans attending college at tage of the government subsidy for their scores of educational centers, such as education. As modern trailers, with all If, North Dakota Agricultural College, the their conveniences, replace the war type, PLUGS into
Colorado School of Mines, the University they will be increasingly in favor with 1 LIGHT SOCKET nee. oi student-veterans, who prize not only pri- ;'s new! It's handy! It's efficient! of Oregon at Eugene, Kansas State Col- the Midget Electric Arc Weldtr for hun- dreds of light-metal jobs. Doescompar- vacy but also association with their own ' lege at Manhattan, and Pennsylvania State able welding work with a 1/16 inch ' kind. I welding rod on thin metal as that of College. larger higher priced welders. [ and Operatesonl5 ampere fuse, llOvolt^ who but that trailer \ \ And knows the park use ] 60 cycle A. C. or D.C. current by >^ This year between 60.000 and 70.000 for students will become as much of a '/of our special standard -coated 1/16*^- ^ inch weldingrods. Generous sup-^^b^u trailers will be built, according to Edward tradition as the ivy-covered walls or the ' ply of rods supplied with machine. I , Kecommendedforalllightwelding L. Wilson. Managing Director of the campus lovers' lane? There's food for \ like automobile fenders, etc. Take I the Midget Arc anywhere to the job. Sturdily built Trailer Coach Manufacturers' Association, thought in the fact that the trailers are and fully guaranteed. Comes complete— ready to] use. Nothing elseto buy. No previous welding expe* L™ which has its headquarters in Chicago. bulging with babies. These toddlers are rience needed to strike an arc. In a short time, anyone me- chanically inclined can learn to weld with this machine. You'll Last year the coach manufacturers, who inoculated with the college atmosphere find hundreds of money-Baving, time-saving uses for the Midget Arc around your home, garage, or workshop. Also in number more than 100, turned out 50.000 from birth. Literally there never has been garages, factories, repair shops, tin shops,mechanics, farmers, inventors, etc. Order a Midget Electric Arc Welder NOW! trailers despite a shortage of materials a generation before reared right on a Crtin lin MniirV I We'll rush one to von. complete OLNU nil IVIUllCI ! with rods and helmet (equipped and numerous bottlenecks. The magnitude campus. They will want to go to college, with approved welding glass). Pay postman only $3.95 plus postage. If not satisfied return Midget Arc in 6 days from of this achievement becomes apparent and why shouldn't they follow the tradi- receipt and we'll refund your money immediately. Order now! Welder Co., Strader Ave. Dept. Cincinnati 26, Ohio when one considers that in the nine pre- tion of their parents and live in a trailer Midget Arc , c-231, ceding years but 220,000 house-type trail- while learning? ers built. "The trailer industry is just in its were in- SOMETHING NEW and SENSATIONAL in Most of the student-veterans are now fancy, like these kids are," said TCMA's fAT\ LASTt. CHRISTMAS CARDS housed in the government trailers used for Wilson. "We're growing up together, and AMAZING "OILETTE" CARDSR Like oil strictly utilitarian when they're ready for college, costly paintings. Designs never [ war workers. They are we'll be before offered. Amazing Value! Gets easy orders fast! Gorgeous Christmas and primitive compared to the modern able to take care of them in any number J Cards with name, 60 for $1 up. New features, trailer appearing in with dream houses wheels." end I clever ideas. Pays up to 100% coaches, which are on the cash profit. A I no Stationery . 20 other money-makingr assort- ments sell at 60c to $1. Samples on Approval. Write today. PUR0 C0. Locust, September, 1947 47 f 2801 Dept. 729-L,St. Louis 3, Mo -
On « SuiiihI F»ntin«j are usually ready for the following day. On campus and in den, one "must" of the Each lunch sells for 35 cents and contains modern male's wardrobe is the comfortable a large sandwich, a paper cup filled with a moccasin, a hand-me-down style born salad or vegetable, cookies, and fruit. Half- when early redskins first showed New Eng- pint cartons of milk are seven cents extra. land Pilgrims how to make them. Basically a simple idea generated by an In Dover, New Hampshire, moccasin obvious need, Frank Cotner's lunchpack making is still a thriving business as car- service has proved so handy to bite-and- ried on by three young men back from war. run fans that ex-airman Cotner feels he has telescope. Young men can be seen working When Joe Connors, a pre-war shoemaker, only scratched the surface. hard on their own versions of Lilliput— took off his Navy lieutenant's serge, he —By George Laycock making dwarfed stainless steel kitchens, lured former army signal corpsman Ted laundry-rooms no larger than a hatbox, and \\~4'iltliiig Weiss to join him in the production of moc- lli'llriiififrs miniature breakfast nooks complete to a casins. Ex-noncom Charley Lawrence Marriages are said to be made in Heaven, peanut-sized percolator. The tiny rooms joined the pair and now supervises the plant but ex-GIs Joe Darany and Hartwell In- have indirect lighting, chrome trim, lino- where the footwear is given initial soles and gram will handle the mundane details if leum floors and generally look like full-size stitches. To help pro- you live in Detroit. All you need is a bride- living quarters shrunk down twenty-five duction, the Connors- to-be (or groom, as times. All that's missing is a rushed house- Weiss enterprise put the case may be) and wife scurrying up lunch. in motion a unique Weddings By Dar- Last year, A. D. Schrader, a WWlPfc. and method of finishing ing will do the rest. merchant of modern kitchens, searched for the raw moccasins. A womanless Afri- a way to promote appliance modernization. From Dover, batches can battlefield is an He hit upon the idea of making a small- of the leather slippers unlikely spot to dream scale display model of a deluxe kitchen. are shipped to Went- about weddings, but Placed in the window of a Pittsburgh bank, worth Acres, a hous- during lulls in the his first miniature brought the desired re- ing development out- 88th Infantry Divi- sponse from local home-planners—but he side Portsmouth Navy sion's fighting, Joe was pleasantly surprised when a big utility Yard packed with married vets attending Darany meditated on company asked him to make more little the state university. Using a former kinder- how he could provide young lovers with a rooms for their own use. That was last Oc- garten as warehouse, the Connors-Weiss complete wedding service from bridal bou- tober and two men were set to work making moccasins-in-the-raw are consigned out to quet to honeymoon, and make a living at the toylike kitchens. student wives. Each day sees a line of it. Came summer, 1946, and Joe, home in Today, Schrader Mini-Craft Company young women at their receiving window, Detroit, broached his scheme to friend In- has three partners and twenty employes, some with babies in their arms. The wives gram who had donned mufti after life as a all veterans. They turn out 130 miniature take their lot home to lace, size, polish and B-24 gunner in the North Atlantic. The two looms each month and have a backlog of pack. Finished, they turn in their completed young men formed a partnership. orders from all over the country. The 22 x moccasins, are credited for the number Since their service began last Fall the 9-inch kitchens and other models selling for done, and pick up another raw batch for young men have handled over a half-dozen $75 up, or rented on a monthly basis, are more homework. "I Do" affairs—selecting flowers to match widely used here and abroad by appliance Not only does this unusual assembly line the bride, helping the groom through those dealers and manufacturers for visual sell- turn out bushels of hand-finished "injun last-minute jitters, taking care of the best ing aids at dealer meetings, conventions, shoes," but it also gives GI Bill students man, and arranging things through the and in store windows. Recently, the Na- extra coin for foodbills and that feeling of whole rigamarole that will make the wed- tional Cash Register Company placed an having their feet more firmly on the ground. ding a pleasant memory years hence. order for a miniature food market which —By Franklin J. Bills. Weddings by Dar-Ing furnishes the rice will be exhibited to promote sale of their as well as the wedding cake, a terraced con- machines. S.mn h i'uvlivr fection of their own design. They instruct Schrader insists on hiring vets, prefer- When Air Corps veteran Frank Cotner well-wishers how to toss the rice so as not ably disabled. One of these is former 34th saw university students in Columbus, Ohio, to bruise the bride. The traditional over- Infantry Division machine-gunner Nicholas form chow lines about a block long he the-threshold carry, incidentally, is still Rech. In Africa a shell explosion that par- began to wonder why a fellow couldn't left to the groom. tially paralyzed his face resulted in a establish a paying business by packing Vows uttered, the happy new Mister and slight speech defect. Coming back home, he lunches for busy people. The following day Missus don't fret about where to go on their found it tough to get a job. Schrader hired he had quit his job and soon found an honeymoon. That, too, has been taken care him and now claims he is one of the best in empty store-room in which he could pre- of by the travel-wise vets who have train, the shop. pare food. It wasn't long before he found plane, and hotel reservations ready. Schrader, who made that first model himself with a profitable business. Oddly enough, both Darany and Ingram room just for local trade, woke up to find Aided by his ex-sailor brother, Cotner are bachelors. —By Donald Beutler himself in business on a national scale. He delivers the sacks every morning to down- is doubly pleased: business is still growing; town office buildings. He spends the after- 1947 Gulliver and the painstaking benchwork of making noons taking orders and starting the next Wandering through the Schrader Mini- Mini-Craft miniatures is giving many a dis- day's work. His wife and mother pitch in Craft plant in Pittsburgh gives the impres- abled young man a craft where he is "100 during the evenings and by ten o'clock they sion of looking through the wrong end of a percent able."—By Al Peterson.
48 ' The American Legion Magazine • September, 1947 RUSSIAN FAIRY TALE As to religion, the Russians are very ENGLISH.. explicit. They have never renounced their (Continued from page 23) basic tenet on this subject: "One of the /^QUALITY.. that when of the world since 1917 shows most important tasks of the cultural revo- L "liquidation" he a communist leader says lution is the task of systematically and /tsKWV. means it. The movement was launched unswervingly combatting religion — the by Lenin and Trotsky in a sea <>f blood. opium of the people." In his purges of 1934-35, Stalin is said, Alone among the nations of the world, even by his apologists, to have killed the United States has exploded atomic 4.500,000 Russians and to have dispersed bombs. But the stark truth is that the coun- about 15 million more. He pursued the try and the co-operating powers, Britain same policy in Poland in 1939, "his mur- and Canada, have no monopoly on atomic ders, according to the best estimates, run- knowledge. No process so complicated as seven figures. It is not hard to atomic energy is a ning into the manipulation of " " the Navy, Al ? imagine what he has done to the citizens sudden creation; it is rather the product How's "Fine. But my Pacific trip of Eastern Germany. of years of research in many countries. taught me how lucky we are in the The avowed Stalinist policy of world What will happen when Russia has U.S. to have so many luxuries at a for conquest is as clear as words and acts manufactured a stockpile of atomic price we can all afford— KIWI instance." can make it. Greece and Turkey are not bombs? The humane and generous Amer- ' folks ' KIWI's a daily habit with most the only states threatened by Russian ica did not hesitate to use the bomb to —Al. Gives a swell shine, and its Communism. The Communist Party is. save the lives of its soldiers. Can we waxes sink deep into the leather, j the strongest political party in France. have any doubt that Russia, as soon as keeping it soft and supple." Communism is a disturbing factor in Italy. her bombs are ready and at the proper It is powerful in Latin America. Com- place, will liquidate the hated "capitalist KIWI BLACK munist power in the United States has democracies," Britain and America in a The ORIGINAL English STAIN not been estimated, for communists and world-wide atomic Pearl Harbor? Shoe Polish Ask also for fellow travelers in our Government in re- Unlike America, Russia will not have KIWI DARK TAN cent years have been too strong to permit a to await the building of a great fleet of TAN, LIGHT TAN. BROWN, OX BLOOD genuine investigation. The best way for the long-range bombers. Her task will be easy, and MAHOGANY. For all of Glace Kid ask patriotic American to inform himself is to for atomic bombs are not large and Soviet colours for KIWI Transparent read the "Report of the Royal Commis- agents have free access to the cities and (Neutral). sion" on the Soviet Spy Ring in Canada. other vulnerable areas in Britain and Obtainable at the better stores. If you have shoe dealer. difficulty send us the name of your Through the initial impetus of a cliange- America. The way for these agents will Sole U.S. Distributor: of-heart of one it 7.N.Y. Communist was discov- be made smooth by the ample number of LYONS & CO., 120, DUANE ST., NEW YORK ered that in friendly Canada the Soviet communists with which certain govern- government had bribed and corrupted dis- ment agencies and some of our labor satisfied and venal citizens, including unions have become infested. CROSMAN 6« RIFLE scientists, professors, and even a member We risk a fiery death for most of our Most Amazing Gun Ever Invented for of the Canadian Parliament. For a copy people and the extinction of our civiliza- Target and Small Game Shooting The ideal rifle for year 'round shifting Indoors or of the vital Canadian report send one dol- tion, unless the United States Govern- Shoots low-cost SUPER PELLS without noise, lar to The Government Printing Office, ment at once completely eradicates com- odor or recoil. Requires no cleaning. At your dealer or write direct. Ottawa, Canada. Multiply the facts in this munist activities in agencies of our Gov- report by ten and you will have an idea ernment and at the same time strengthens of the extent of communist activity in the our position in the Eastern Hemisphere. Adjustable power—rifled United States. The latter is as important as the former, barrel for accuracy. .1 77 and .22 caliber models. for despite the lulling sound of the term CROSMAN ARMS CO., INC. Write for information. N. Y. "Hemisphere Defense," the Western Hemi- 2 |B HENRIETTA ST.. ROCHESTER 7. sphere cannot be defended within its bor- Communist ,, iff" ders. This hemisphere has in round num- FALSE TEETH bers only one-tenth of the world's people KLUTCH holds them tighter and its two continents are badly located KLUTCH forms a comfort cushion; holds dental from the point of view of defensive plates so much firmer and snugger that one can eat and talk with greater comfort and security; strategy, as will be obvious to any one in many cases almost as well as with natural who reflects that no good highway yet teeth. Klutch lessens the constant fear of a dropping, rocking, chafing plate 25c and 50c at links North and South America, that druggists. ... If your druggist hasn't it, don't waste money on substitutes, but send US 10c and Alaskan territory is in sight of Russia, we will mail you a generous trial box. © i. p. inc. and that Brazil is closer to Africa than KLUTCH CO.. Box 4752-1. ELMIRA, N. Y. to New York. CHRDS. ,Mt CHRISTMAS America is to be congratulated that its c,UN^* C J WITH SCNDERS MAM* President and Congress see things, not as Smartly Styled. Super Value. Everybody buys. Others to $2.50. 56 designs. Sell Nationally Fa- alien propagandists wish, but as they are. mous 21 Christmas folders $1. Costs 50c. Nature Prints, Deluxe, Glitter, Religious Boxes. Gift There remains the task of seeing that no Wraps, Everydays. Personal Line. 21 Ass't and funds furnished by America for any pur- Sunshine Notes on approval. FREE SAMPLES of Imprint Lines. No investment. Start today. pose are wrongly used either by the wire- SUNSHINE ART STUDIOS
1 15FultonSt. Dept. AL-9 New York 8. N. Y. pulling of high echelon State Department leftists or by United Nations or other MECHANICS • HOME STUDY Step up your own skill with facts & figures of your trade. commissions with Communist members. A Audels Mechanics Guides contain Practical Inside Trade Information in handy form. Fully illustrated. Easy to "I just gor orders from Moscow to good start in this direction has been made Understand. Highly Endorsed. Check book you want for publicly deny we're getting orders by the President's executive order that 7 days' Free Examination. Send no Money. Nothing to pay postman. Carpentry Sfi • AutoS4» Oil BurnersSl from Moscow!" communists eliminated from the payroll Sheet Metal $1 • QWeldlng SI • Refrigeration S4 be PlHmbingSG • DMasonrySe" PalntingS2 • RadloS4 AMERICAN LEGION MAGAZINE of the United States Government, the end Electricity ?4« Mathematics %2 •Steam Engineers S4 Machinist $4 • Blueprint S2 • Diesel S2 • Drawlng?2. If satisfied you pay only $1 a month until price Is paid. September, 1947 49 AUDEL, Publishers. 49 W. 23 St, New York 10. N. Y. WHATEVER GOES UP asked about today's chances in private air operating smoothly, acts of God and the business, he replied grimly, "It's hopeless. weather cut in at the worst times." (Continued from page 29) Stay out." As the stories of Callinicos and the and mounting profits, plunged into the Operator Callinicos, 42 and married to Cousins indicate, the air, not unlike any competitive air without pausing to check his secretary, is doing all right working other scramble for profit and loss, must for wind-drift After all, didn't the king- his own seaplane base on the north shore be approached realistically. You cannot size lines have more passengers than they of Long Island. Fairly typical of inde- cash in merely on your love of flying. could handle? Wasn't every family in pendent airmen known as fixed base oper- There is the real estate to think about, the country soon going to have its own ators, Jim had shut down his small pre- heat, repair, taxes (personal property, air jitney? Might as well get in on the war business when coastal flying was franchise, real estate, social security, ex- gravy. Some of the more starry-eyed boys banned. He enlisted in the AAF as private cise, State and Federal income, to name a rented lush offices, emblazoned brave and spent forty-two months instructing, few) and a plethora of Government regu- names on doors, and using a couple of ferrying, and test-hopping bombers. Dis- lations There is the rigging of aircraft remade or rented planes, opened for busi- charged as a second lieutenant he leased to meet Civil Aeronautics Administration ness with an anxious smile. Quite a few of four acres of salt water on Flushing Bay, approval, without which you cannot fly. these Pollyannas were soon frowning near Whitestone, N. Y., set up a ramp You also need their okay if you want to deeply at ledgers scarred with debts. and a two-by-four office shack. Customers run a school or take up payloads of people There is much more to aviation than came and business grew. Today, his and parcels. If you want to start a sched- flying. Primarily, it is a business. And Queens seaplane Base is fitted with new uled air line, it means months of litigation, like all businesses, American style, it de- hangar and ops building, Seven Cubs and research and double-talk. pends on a profitable amount of customers Seabees, and the place is overrun with All the above costs dough, and plenty who are ready, willing and able. vets learning to fly on the taxpayers dol- of it. Most of the failures in small avia- Men who had gunned warplanes into lar. Jim learned long ago that a small tion have been due to the fact that wishful- that wild blue soon found that handling a thinking operators did not start with a private winged enterprise took more than deep enough bed of folding lettuce. a prayer to come in on. Quite a few of Counting on more business than was logi- the more headstrong have already folded cally to be had they were forced to close their wings. Others, like one veteran because they could not pay the help, did freight line, had to consolidate, selling not have the working margin for costly most of their transports for capital with overhauls, and besides, were not making which to keep the remaining planes in enough to live on. Instead of gold they high octane. Even the big glossy airlines, saw red ink. stretching routes and assets too thin and But for most, aviation is more than a crash suffering from the public's mania for way to make a living—it is a way of life. headlines, have had money worries. Feeling that zing in their pulse as they eat, sleep and talk flying, youth in the But lapses happen in any business for air is little different from youth in the much the same reasons. Hundreds of level- theatre. Give them a chance to eke out headed young enthusiasts, combining air- expenses, and they will be happy. sense with horse-sense, started out on their One gamble that is paying off is Bob own in a moderate way and have nursed Prescott's National Skyways Freight Corp., their babies into paying propositions. also known as The Flying Tiger Line. 32- Take the case of 26-year-old Charlie year-old Prescott interested several of his Retz who flew Liberators over the Hump, China buddies in starting an aii cargo and his cousin, Al Heinsohn, 3*0. who saw service nearly two years ago. With $87,000 navy action at Okinawa and Iwo. Back of their own money plus an equal amount in January 1946'. these two pooled their from friends, they bought fourteen war- personal savings and set up business with surplus cargo planes and pitched in to do one lone 65-horse-power monoplane on a solid job of selling their nation-wide Staten Island's 2000 x 2400-foot Class II service. They hauled things that had never airport, eleven airline miles from the been flown before and their lading bills Statue of Liberty. They called themselves listed everything from frosted orchids and "Cousins Air Inc.," and used the rear lobsters to prize racehorses. Last spring, seat of a dilapidated Oldsmobile for opera- the Tigers floated a $2,500,000 stock issue tions office and pilot lounge. in their old planes for faster These two young "capitalists" today have "You're still a hazard to flying unless and turned you get a light on top of it!" This ambitious group of former eight sturdy training planes on the flight transports. AMERICAN LEGION MAGAZINE servicemen helped stimulate the entire fly- line, facilities of a modern hangar and of- ing freight field into a new major industry. fice, sell up to six planes a month, are are close to 200 ex-GI air profitably briefing 60 GI Bill students how air base is pretty much like a general Today there freighters, including many one-man affairs. to make with the joy stick, and do charter store. To make it pay he has to be a jack- cargo concerns are the "big work on the side. Young and spirited, this of-all-trades. Part of his hangar space is These air business" of veteran airmen, but most of small but healthy outfit is a good example rented to six private plane owners. He is aviation enterprises of how intelligent young veterans are ad- sales agent for Piper and Republic and the independent soldiers and sailors justing themselves to a confused post-war will rent you a plane by hour, day or founded by returning breaks economy. Depending on no political week. Jim also sells accessories, runs a are small and specialized, making creating ways to panacea for a better world, but pitching maintenance shop, flies special charter for themselves by new in to make one of their own, Heinsohn jobs, and does aerial photography for city use the air. instance, have and Retz are hard-headedly optimistic papers. "And let me tell you," urges this Bedridden invalids, for to get to distant about their future. ex-shavetail, "even with so many rods in the always needed some way quicker, more comfortable But another man, seaplane-base owner fire, it's still nip and tuck to make the hospitals in a (Continued on page 53) Jim Callinicos, is more discouraging. When whole works pay. Even when everything is
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She Saved Football
More than 15 players were killed this last year playing football and this fact caused scarcely a ripple. But 50 years ago the death of a football player almost brought about the end of football. University of Georgia met the University of Virginia on the gridiron. Virginia had the bigger % players and was favored to win overwhelm- I've just made ingly but Georgia, due in a large part to the activity of its star, Von Gammon, was able to hold its opponent to an ll-to-4 score. And in the last few minutes of the game Von Gammon grabbed the ball and streaked for touchdown a young man land. But he never made it. A couple of Virginians tackled him—but hard. The Georgia player never got up again. He remained in a coma very happy" for a while, then died. The young man's death caused a furor throughout the land. Football was condemned by different organizations, by many news- papers, by the ministry. The University of Georgia disbanded its team and the governor of Georgia got ready to ban the game. Other states, waiting for Georgia to take the lead, got their machinery in order to do likewise. But Georgia never prohibited the game. So the other states didn't either and gradually the tirade against football subsided throughout the nation. What caused Georgia's governor to change his mind was a letter he received, a letter from a woman. Pleading that football not be banned, the HViiy this idea didn't dawn on me sooner, I'll never know. — letter said that the dead player loved the The Regular Army is the career for my nephew, Jack game and that the last thing he would have but it took me three months to think of suggesting it! wanted was that his death should bring an end to the gridiron sport. "Here he's been casting about since graduation, dis- "I know," wrote the letter writer. "I am his liking jobs he's looked over, dissatisfied with the one he's mother." By Harold Heifer had until now. Just couldn't settle his mind. Seemed to want to move around more, trying his hand at several types of work. You know how far that gets you. "And Jack has promise! He's smart. He's built like an athlete. He has the makings of a good family man. I felt sure he'd make the grade for enlistment. And he has!
"Well, he's a changed man already — so far as outlook goes. The Army Recruiting Officer outlined the types of work Jack could take training and schooling for. He showed him pictures of the clubs, sports fields and rest hotels they've opened in Japan. He showed how the layout of the new Infantry division almost doubles the number of corporals and sergeants. The Army's a good set-up for a fellow like J ack — and he knows it
"Talk it over with the young men you know. And don't forget — your nearest Army Recruiting Officer can be a big help."
WHEN YOU FIND A PROSPECT WHO HAS WHAT IT TAKES, DIRECT HIM TO THE NEAREST
U. S. ARMY RECRUITING SERVICE
Your Regular Army Serves the Nation and Mankind in War and Peace
"Help!"
AMERICAN LEGION MAGAZINE
52 " —
WHATEVER GOES UP the title of Air Commuting, Inc., over a ball helmets, shock boots, and bright- year ago. Getting backing was only the colored jackets. During the past months (Continued from page 50) beginning, as many vets on their own have these men have mass-jumped at several found out. Gile and Kincaid had to file county and state fairs. They thrilled way. That job is being done now by two and wait for CAA approval on routes to crowds at the World's Air Show in Phil- former army pilots and an ex-flight nurse eighteen suburbs around the city. Then adelphia and last month made fourteen who put their faith and savings into Air they had to wait for delivery of their first jumps at the Utah Centennial in Salt Ambulance, Inc. First licensed service of sleek plane, a $125,000 Grumman Mallard. Lake City. Youthful Ward and his men its kind, Air Ambulance officially started Last July, the 10-seat amphibian loosed are out to sell themselves to anybody who at Raleigh-Durham airport last September its mooring in the shadow of skyscrapers can use an expert at hitting silk. But the when North Carolina's Governor Cherry to finally begin operations with morning main business of these do-or-die veterans christened their first white plane '"Madame and evening flights to and from Port Wash- is making mass jumps guaranteed to excite Curie." Now based at LaGuardia Field, ington, New York, about fifty miles away. the most jaded audience. New York, this unique company's three Kincaid, who is general manager of this What can fly without wings? Well, planes stand by for mercy flights to any- firm, has this advice for would-be en- there's blimps, balloons, and helicopters where. The planes, 2-engine Cessnas, were trepreneurs: "Nobody should think of and ex-GIs are using them all to earn bought at surplus sales with per- WAA starting their own air business today un- bread and butter. sonal savings and borrowed capital, and less they've plenty of financial and legal People living in East and West coast are fitted with foam-rubber stretchers, a backing . . . there's so much administra- cities are already well-acquainted with the special trapdoor entry, and resuscitators tive red tape . . . and the ramifications of mammoth helium-inflated blimps that float for polio cases. Most ambitious trip by Air air transport are extremely difficult." through evening skies, their bulging water- Ambulance so far was cross-country to melon sides festooned with ten thousand San Francisco where they took aboard a Most veterans in the air game are not lights twinkling advertising slogans for critically ill Bolivian whom they flew to flyers. Of the more than three million men movies, cars, and gasoline. More than one La Paz. All three of the AA crew helped and women in the nation's air" forces dur- hundred pilots, mechs, and ground crew- fly that mission—Warren Clark and Rush ing war, the great majority were in useful men who were in the "gas bag navy" now Hughes, both former war pilots, and 24- non-pilot capacities. operate a fleet of two dozen floating bill- year-old Rita Wessler who has over 300 Typical of this large group is Bobby boards over metropolitan areas. Composed hours in her logbook. Ward and his Sky Devils. Every time they of surplus K, L, and other type navy air- A case of not only meeting demand, take to the air hundreds of spectators crane ships, the fleet is based at leased space but originating it as well, took place on their necks in anticipation that "some- on three navy fields Moffett and Santa the West Coast last summer when ex- thing might happen." For the fourteen Ana in California, and Lakehurst, N. J. Marine pilot George McKusick talked owners of a tuna clipper into using he and his pontoon-equipped plane to spot schools of fish. The tunamen were skepti-
cal at . first but finally agreed to build a special deck and loaded plane and pilot on as members of the crew. When, two months later, the clipper returned from the Galapagos fishing grounds to San Diego's Embarcadero, it was crammed to the gunwales with a prize $60,000 catch. McKusick, who had made take-offs and landings twice a day in the choppy salt water, scouted the tuna grounds from one thousand feet where he could scan the sea for thirty miles around as compared to the captain on deck whose range was limited to a 6-mile radius. Making shal- low dives, this former gyrene directed the fishermen to the better spots where all they had to do was drop nets. "Yes sir, John, the day I won Mary away from—you was the Changing people's habits, airminded start of the happiest years of my life AMERICAN LEGION MAGAZINE veterans are replacing timeworn meth- ods of transport with the speed of direct flight. Up to an hour is cut off grinning "devils" turn an honest dollar Two four-stripers have left the navy to travel time when Wall Street financiers when they rise to heaven on a DC-3, handle administration of this venture. in outlying suburbs go to their down- nonchalantly jump out and float down in The idea of using lumbering blimps as town offices by way of an aerial commut- army parachutes. To this gang of ex-para- advertising media was a natural for ex- ing service run by two young men who troopers, peaceful exhibition jumping is navyman Douglas Leigh. Previous to war saw plenty of active duty. Nursing the no more rugged than leap-frog, Every Sky he had earned the monicker, "Lamplighter idea for such a service while on a carrier Devil has made at least one combat jump. of Broadway", by dazzling the Big Town during the Tokyo bombings, 29-year-old Such violent showmanship comes easy with spectacular electric signs that moved, Clement Gile joined forces with Elmer for Legionnaire Bobby Ward who was an smoked, wiggled, and popped. On leaving Kincaid, Jr., who had been dreaming automobile stuntman with his own thrill service, he formed the Sky Advertising along the same bnes during his five years show before he enlisted. With Chuck Corp., bought several quarter-million dol- flying supplies to front-line troops in Eu- Breit of Denver as partner, Ward cor- lar blimps at around $5000 each and rope. Stiff costs of such an operation were ralled paratroopers from various divisions rented their rubber-panelled wall .space to met when they interested wealthy, crowd- at Philadelphia's Northeast Airport last manuiacturers and Hollywood studios. weary commuters and incorporated under fall and saw they had proper gear—foot- Incidentally, the world's best-known
The American Legion Magazine • September, 1947 • 53 lightet -than-airman, Vice Admiral C. E. and even save thousands of dollars worth within the Civil Aeronautics Administra- Rosendahl, having retired from the navy, of fruit by windmilling the air above or- tion,- an agency which can give the new is now a veteran and has set himself up chards, mixing warmer air into threaten- man in the air much guidance. Your in business as aeronautical consultant. ing frost. garage has its aviation parallel "in the Pilots of the Skywriting Corporation When gatherings of dark cumulus leer maintenance and repair shops found of America use the broad sky itself for a over the horizon, a sailplane pilot will near most airports. An outstanding ex- billboard. Closing shop in '42 to go with often welcome this advent of more turbu- ample of this is the A & E Flying Service army and navy air units, the dozen pilots lent air. But the average power plane located right next door to Cousins Air, whose sole profession is the writing of jockey will grab for his earphones and Inc., on Staten Island. Started in a modest trade-marks with smoke, restarted their start calling home. Part of almost every way by Wally Anken who was engineering outfit last September with thirty airplanes, pilot's blind flying savvy is gained on the officer at Grand Island (Nebraska) Army including surplus AT-6s and BT-13s ground in whirling, buzzing Link trainers, Air Base, and his partner, bomber-pilot bought from the War Assets Administra- covered box-like contraptions equipped Godfrey Engle, the A & E shop has stead- tion. Head of this outfit is Sidney Pike, who with all the instruments a man needs to ily increased its turnover in rebuilding, saw action with the AAF in Europe. He learn how to fly a radio beam. Dozens of repair, and general servicing of planes. says that his men will this year write 8000 skyboys in service were taught Link by Today Anken and Engle are busier than signs over more than 800 U.S. and Cana- dian communities. Each sign is inscribed above 10.000 feet and only on perfect days —when the sky is blue and cloudless and the wind is low. To spell out "Pepsi-Cola" in mile-high smoke symbols requires 25 miles of precision flying. This is perhaps the only place a pilot could go broke because of rotten penmanship. One time, a wag hired one of the smokewriters to make a sign above a Princeton-Yale foot- ball game in progress at New Haven. The fans were startled to read in the sky: "Send your boy to Harvard." Fragile sailplanes have no engines but soar like birds by riding hot air cur- rents rising from the earth. Stephen Zooming his army surplus trainer, this ex-GI makes his mark with patent smoke Bennis had flown sailplanes for pleas- ure ten years before he enlisted as Aviation Chief Warren Youngclaus, who usual. They have a lucrative contract for a second-class petty officer and went to also navigated many an ocean flight. Out overhauling ninety-six surplus army planes work on the navy's guided missile proj- of service, he obtained three surplus Links bound for Argentina. ect. When he was discharged, Bennis de- from the government at a bargain and It is easy to see from some of the ex- cided to make a living out of his soaring opened his Eastern Air Navigation Service amples we have cited that the air game hobby. Along with his wife Virginia and in roaring midtown Manhattan where he is a young-man and he-man industry with friend Alexis Dawydoff, he set up a gliding gives navigation refresher courses to top- little room for weaklings. But males do and soaring school at Sanford, Florida, with notch pilots of foreign airlines. Two ex- not have a monopoly on the field. Hun- three of the soundless aircraft. Today the noncoms and two former Gl-girls instruct dreds of women have dropped their knit- Bennis school has a waiting list of vet flyers "under the hood." In addition to the ting at the sound of a spinning prop. enthusiasts who want to learn this gentle commercial pilots, Youngclaus had passed Most females take to air for pleasure, art of careening through the heavens via over 200 veterans through his ground school such as Wally Anken's wife Dorothy, who the GI Bill. Both Mr. and Mrs. Bennis and is now preparing a Navigation Manual recently organized forty Island women pi- are on the record books. He holds a prob- for the North Atlantic. He recently added lots into a "Powder Puff Squadron." Even able world's sailplane speed record (forty a new-type Link that has engine dials on Anken's 15-year-old daughter, Joan, can miles in 22 minutes or about 110 mph) its instrument panel and does everything do steep banking turns and figure 8's that and she captured the American women's but fly out the window. shame more rugged vet-trainees. distance record and is the only commercial Commercially, aside from airline pilot- female soaring pilot in the U.S. Like the auto industry, aviation has ing, ladies are into just about everything Another unusual craft that most people given rise to many related occupations, that has to do with flying. Thirty miles in- dn not connect with aviation proper is the such as the Youngclaus "driving school." land from rockbound Montauk Point out helicopter. Looking much like an infuri- Today you can find aviation insurance on the tip of Long Island, two former ated palm tree as it zooms straight up in salesmen, air tour agents, plane and parts Women's Air Service Pilots who used to a tornado-like whirlwind, the helicopter is dealers, airport bus operators and conces- ferry anything from army L-4s to Flying still much in the experimental stage. Mod- sionaires. And as trucking firms have their Fortresses around the states, are running els are costly. But the army already has freight brokers, so aviation is beginning their own airport and flying school. Doing established a special squadron of them on to sprout freelance agents for the air most of the greasy repair work, bookkeep- the east coast, and at Camden (N.J.) freight lines. Out in California, 29-year- ing and instructing themselves, Margaret Central Airport, a well-heeled outfit known old Tom Stevens started the Federal Air Lowell-Wallace and former model Char- as Helicopter Air Transport, Inc.. has Freight Company after he left the Naval lotte Niles are usually seen in slacks and gone into commercial passenger and util- Air Transport Service. This new business shirt, sleeves rolled up for business, but ity work. Six skilled pilots who flew army acts as routing agent for shippers and still managing to look feminine. Both the helicopters while in uniform, now man- lumps together scattered consignments Wasps have 3000-plus hours in the air. ipulate swirling rotors in experimental that provide independent air freighters When let out by the army late in '45 they hauling- of mail from airport to the roof with volume payloads. leased abandoned WPA-built Easthamp- of downtown post offices, fly horseraeing You will find your "traffic cops" and ton Airport in a wealthy neighborhood fans right inside the Atlantic City track, your "highway commissioners" somewhere where they felt business would be good.
54 * The American tegion Magazine • September, 1 947 It lias been. But when they first started build 2700 new airports and improve 2000 they had to stake down their planes on others. Runways may come closer to town an open field and use their car for an if a swivel landing gear now being tested office. They have since installed a hangar, works out as promised. With it, a plane a neat cottage-type operations building, needs only one runway, regardless of water, telephone, electricity, and have five crosswind. planes in which they teach VA-sponsored Thousands of miles of air route exten- student vets how to fly. sions are under consideration. You, as an Main income for these girls, as well as ordinary passenger, can already take a hop most fixed base operators, is from people around the world in less than seven days for whom flying is a hobby. To own and via flying clipper. And predictions that a operate your own personal plane still takes plane can arrive in Los Angeles before a good outlay of cash. But, like the auto its take-off time in New York, and that industry again, increase of landing spots no point on earth will be further than and production of cheaper, better planes sixty air hours from any other point on may soon put private flying at the level earth, are not mere tall tales. automobiles were in the mid-twenties. Our world today would look mighty Some people tend to pooh-pooh any bewildering to that breezy open-cockpit further advance in the air and think that hit-or-miss pilot of 1927. Back then people aviation, like Kansas City in the ditty, has were humming "Come Josephine in my gone just about as far as it can go. One Hying machine" and thought it was plain man, wryly frowning, said, "Aviation is crazy to go up in one of those infernal PAR* SUPPORTER at its saturation point. There's not room things. But even with 200-mile-per-hour NEW FEATURES for another pilot in the whole damned air wagons and speed-of-sound fighters, for greater comfort and protection. New all- country." our proud "modern" era may seem old- ^ elastic Par Supporter: 6- Let's take a look at a few fast facts. fashioned to that guy of 1975 who thinks inch waistband supports back and In spite of screaming crash headlines, nothing of scooting off in his rocket to abdomen; spe- cial tubular leg bands the air traveller is safer today than ever Shanghai for an afternoon of golf. won't crease, curl, roll; self-adjusting before. Safety records for U.S. airlines Many World War Two vets did not even fly-front pouch ! So comfortable you forget you have a supporter on! Ask for new Par! during 1946 were best in history. know what it felt like to be airborne back Pal* all-elastic Supporter 3-inch All-weather flying is emerging slowly in 1941. But they do now, and they've has extra -long- stretch waistband, soft, knitted into reality. Radar. VHF omni-directional made themselves at home. pouch. »Reg. U. S. Pat. Off. ranges, ILS, GCR. Teleran, and other such For the man who wants to go into some PAR $2.00 — PAt $1.50 devices are being perfected toward the small air business there's still plenty of AT ALL STORES goal of safer, surer flying. The unpredict- wing room. Air space exploitation has been PAR - Division of able human element is a question mark, only fractionally touched in ways of profit- 'SUPPORTJR^j The Kendall Company, Chicago but under tightened standards, that too making, community service, and lively ad- may improve. venture. But in more ways than a compass
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MAD MAESTRO OF FOOTBALL (Continued from page 15) Coach, I think Notre Dame could com- pare favorably with a good pro club." "No, no, no," wailed Leahy. "We will be lucky to win half our games. Why, Army, even without Blanchard and Davis, will be as strong as last year." It was so pathetic that soon Luckman felt like ask- ing for a crying towel. So did Leahy. He believed the sad story himself. Actually the 1947 Notre Dame club may
excel previous editions. It is loaded with veteran campaigners of a national cham- pionship team, yet Leahy is exceedingly dubious about the coming season. Other coaches tremble at the latent power of Notre Dame this year, but Leahy worries and frets. Yet with a whip like Leahy 'Hii 1 Honest Unip IVo Quarter Asked it's hard to see how the Irish can lose. Diogenes would have to hold up his lan- Practically every baseball fan has heard he assistant at Fordham sev- tern a long time to find a more honest fel- of Monty Stratton, the former ace When was low than Roy Funkhouser. moundsman of the Chicago White Sox eral years ago Leahy had to show Alex Mr. Funkhouser was an umpire in the who lost a leg in a hunting accident and Wojciechowicz, later an All-American Kitty League until one day, while driving returned to win more than twenty games center, how to block. Leahy demonstrated his car from Hopkinsville, Kentucky, to in 1046 in the East Texas League. Less the special Mayfield, Ohio, to umpire a game his car well known was his heart-warming base- arm motion he wanted and ran into a cow. running against Greenville one day. forced Wojie to go over it time and again. He promptly quit his job as umpire. Monty drove safely to center field and Somehow, Wojie's best did not please "Hell," he said, "if I can't see a cow the "gardener" took the ball on the first Leahy, and there developed a long, bitter, on the highway how am I going to see a bounce. It was too late to cut off a single, so duel. little white ball coming up to the batter?" he got ready to peg to second. Just then he apparently endless By Harold Heljer. saw Monty fall, Finally, in exasperation, Wojie threw a two-thirds of the block on Leahy that was so devastating Bear Business way to first. His the line coach was knocked unconscious. My two pups barked as if they wanted artificial leg had to tear something up, and when I went buckled. The When aides revived him, Leahy pulled his out on the porch to see what the trouble fielder checked 195 pounds up to its full six feet and, tall standing by the yard was I saw a man his throw and turning to Wojie, exclaimed happily: fence with a bear cub under his arm. tossed to first. "Great—that's the way to block!" "You could train your puppies to be. Monty, mean- bear dogs with this cub," he said. "I'll while, crawled on That is the kind of story they always ." trade it for your gun . . hands and knees tell of the single-mindedness of Frank I minute and said, "It's a thought a as fast as he Leahy. The men who play for him at deal." I got my gun down from over the could, and as the Notre Dame confirm how far he will go to door, gave it to horsehide sailed the man and in he made a establish a point. He is currently the hard- took the bear last, desperate rush for the sack, a head- est driver in football, and sets the hardest cub. The stranger first lunge. He was nipped by an eye- example himself. As a result, his men walked away lash and out at first, ending the inning. % season, road usually resent him at the start of a down the Stratton got up, brushed the dirt from the high- respect him in the middle, and worship toward his uniform, and went to the mound. The play- way. I was fans, most of them with tears in their him for his genius at the end. His talent with the cub ing eyes, rose to their feet and roared an in the house ovation that lasted five minutes. I heard when a By Gordon A tkins. vicious snort and growl on the One Man Disaster porch and when The great Bronco Nagurski, one of foot- I glanced up an ball's all-time stalwarts who is often de- old bear was scribed as the very best football player looking inThe window. Then it moved over ever, had a terrific day against Southern and reared against the door. She seemed California during one of the years when to be ready to push the door down so I he was starring as fullback on the Minne- raised the window just enough to push the sota team.
cub out . She caught it and carried it off On one play he took the ball and down the road in the direction the man smashed through the Trojan line, making had gone and left me musing, poorer by a hole where there was no hole. Cotton one rifle. Warburton, Southern Cal's quarterback, That, and similar incidents were talked rushed in to plug the gap. but he bounced of all up and down our creek, and I founi back several yards, passed into a coma and out the man also had a boy with him who ended the day in a hospital. would hold the big bear until the man Warburton recovered and was back had swapped the cub for a gun. Then he'd with team by midweek but never forgot release the mother bear to go fetch her the experience. cub. A short time later the Trojans were If a customer didn't want to buy a traveling east to a game and were in a bear the swindler would sell him a gun train wreck. During the commotion War- cheap. It cost me %i0 to get mine back burton ran down the aisles shouting, "Run from a neighbor, which was what he had for your lives, it's Nagurski!"—By Ben paid for it. By Mark Hager. Gould. J E AMERICAN LEGION MAGAZINE
56 The American Legion Magazine • September, 1947 bespeaks itself in his record—the best of "unless you can measure up to the re- could hardly stand up but he tried to any major college coach in the country. quirements and traditions of Notre Dame." make the 1930 team, anyway. Rockne, to By punishing himself so fiercely that he He spoke courteously, but indifferently, divert the guy with the one-track mind, often winds up with a physical and nervous although he well knew that every college kept him in the football picture by allow- collapse, the 39-year-old coach has in the mid-West and the South was seek- ing him to coach the B squad. Leahy in- achieved three national championships in ing the player. The next day the boy called stantly flashed promise as a teacher of six years of head coaching. He went to in person to find out about enrolling. tactics and fundamentals. the head of the class with Boston College Football players realize that Leahy will A year later, he helped coach the in 1940 and Notre Dame in 1943 and work them to the limit, that it is his credo Georgetown line under the late Tommy 1946. All in all, he has a record of 52 that men must pay with blood, sweat and Mills. When Michigan State played victories, 5 defeats and 4 ties against the tears for success in football or in life. Georgetown, Jimmy Crowley, then coach- strongest of opposition. "I would not want a boy of mine to ing the mid-Western school, saw some- Leahy is by nature a reticent, introspec- play football," he says, "unless he had a thing about the Georgetown line he liked. tive man with a sly sense of humor, a tough coach, a coach who would train him That something was Leahy. Frank trans- born instinct for salesmanship when he to be rugged and able to withstand the ferred to Michigan State the next year, wants to apply it, and is possessed by a knocks you have to take in this game." then followed Crowley to Fordham. determination that Knute Rockne, for Life taught him that philosophy, and Frank earned $2500 a year at the start whom he played years ago, termed ex- Frank sticks to it. He was born in O'Neill, at Fordham. To supplement his income, traordinary. He is not one of your hail- Nebraska, in 1908, but grew up in Winner, he took a job with the United States Rub- fellows-well-met. South Dakota. As one of a large, impov- ber Company. He had married Florence A man who is all concentration, alj erished family he shined shoes, sold news- Reilly, a Brooklyn girl, in 1935 and it thought, all absorption with his profes- papers, licked every kid in the neighbor- was imperative that more money come sion; who visits as many as eleven coach- hood—and kept on with his education. He into the household. ing schools in a Summer; who labors was so promising an amateur boxer that Today, Leahy earns a good chunk from eighteen hours a day in and out of sea- the crack middleweight, Ace Hudkins, his United States Rubber Company job son, and who would rather see a football wanted him to turn pro. But Earl Walsh, but, so far, he has not swerved from his movie than the greatest Hollywood ex- an old Notre Darner who was coaching goal of becoming one of the greatest of travaganza ever staged, is not geared to at Winner High School where Leahy was football coaches. How he can concentrate the soft soap school. • a corking back, talked him out of it. He unceasingly on that Notre Dame position Leahy's gift is that he has a frenzy for talked him into Notre Dame. and still do anything else is an enigma, ieaehing fundamentals until they are sec- Frank slaved three times as hard as but Leahy staggers on. ond nature to his men. Moreover, he is anybody to qualify at tackle for the 1929 Literally, he was staggering even in an unexcelled conditioner who knows how varsity eleven. He owned good, fast re- his Fordham days. He would toil so hard to bring in exceptional material, and is flexes and was always on the go, but tech- on two jobs and he had so many outside driven by a passion for victory. Put these nically he might have left something to financial commitments that along toward qualities all together and you have—Frank be desired. However, he was so full of eight in the evening, when he was groggy, Leahy. fight and so inspirational that he qualified he would be forced to walk home ten blocks for one of the few modern Fighting Irish to the Grand Concourse to save carfare. Cynics say that the Irish coach pos- lines that have had seven Irishmen on it— It got so bad that Leahy requested a sessed a world of material at Boston Col- the line of Conley, Leahy, Law, Moynihan, raise at Fordham. He would have been lege and at Notre Dame, hence outstanding Cannon, Twomey and Colrick. And Leahy glad to settle for $500. But the Maroon performance was guaranteed. The odd was not the least - efficient man on that athletic budget had been cut and the de- angle on that is that Notre Dame, for one, magnificent line which helped win a na- mand was not met. Leahy drooped. He has had sixty years of football and a score tional title. was at low ebb when he received a call of coaches, but Knute Rockne and Leahy In the Fall of 1930 Leahy incurred the one day. Purdue, tired of being stopped alone were successful in producing fully knee injury which changed his future. He by Fordham lines, wanted Leahy. Leahy recognized national champions. Gil Dobie preceded Leahy at Boston College and
Denny Myers followed him, but it was Leahy who developed a sensational team capable of winning 20 to 22 games, cli- maxed by invitations to two bowl games. Leahy's Seven-Blocks-of-Granite lines at Fordham were unequalled and nothing like them has been seen before or since.
Some coaches have material but mess it up. Myers' Boston College club exploded with a bang a year after Leahy left, under a devastating avalanche of touchdowns by "weak" Holy Cross. Some coaches fail to acquire material. Leahy always acquires it. He has a way of talking to promising young players. Bringing in classy mate- rial is half of a coach's success and Leahy has that secret weapon in his artillery. He does nothing that other coaches do not do except, perhaps, employ better psychology. Recently a high school star called Leahy, hinting that he was recep- / keep hearin' someone say 'Dig me, Jack.' tive to special inducement. THE AMERICAN LEGION MAGAZINE "We don't want you here," Leahy said.
September, 1947 • 57 —
told Fordham of the offer. An emergency yelled down, "Floss, dear, you take care of was, in many ways, his finest achievement. call went out as a study revealed how the children and I'll take care of the foot- The material was not of the best—a fine important Leahy was to the scheme of ball." first team and a few high grade reserves things. The result was that he was given He rushed down, fever and all, to avert but Leahy juggled and jockeyed so that a $2000-a-year raise. an upset that never occurred. he won eight games, tied one, and rated Now he was on somewhat more solid Leahy's Boston College team of 1940 with the top teams in the country. pound—other people were beginning to was called by Arch Ward, nationally- In 1942 he showed the depth of his notice him. When Gil Dobie, in the dol- known Chicago Tribune sports editor, "the foresight and imagination. His teams had drums, left Boston College young Leahy best-coached team in America." The eleven not lost a game for two years with the got the job. won each of its ten games, then proceeded single wing, Notre Dame box and a sprin- Early in the first season in which he had to the Sugar Bowl to down Tennessee, 19 kling of T formation plays. But Leahy, a team play under him with himself as to 13, in a memorable contest. Frank who thinks that if a man doesn't progress head coach Leahy found something new to Leahy showed himself a veritable Rockne he falls back, was not satisfied. He junked worry about— fear of an upset. Boston that day. After an inspiring dressing everything to install the T, for he felt that College, in 1939, literally pushed Florida room talk that lifted Boston College from this was the formation of the future. In all over the field but lost, 7 to 0. That the despondency of a 7 to 0 half-time deficit that first year it seemed as if he might left a mark on the coach. Today, more and 95 degree heat, he sprang a master- have been wrong for, with his own sick- than ever, that mortal fear is with him, piece of strategy. With a few minutes left ness and injuries to key players, he for everyone wants to beat Notre Dame in the game, the Eagles had bounded back dropped two games.
and any time it happens it's an upset. to 13-all. Leahy could have settled for a tie, These days, although he is severe in early but he does not think that way. His team practice, after the opening game he tunes opened up—got deep in Tennessee terri- Entrance Exam Notre Dame according to circumstances tory. Then it happened. Boston College had A large midwestern university recently and applies no hard and fast rules. been studying for weeks now to stop a pet held entrance exams for a group of ex-GI But getting back to Boston College and Tennessee play. Leahy caught the Volun- hopefuls. One of the questions was, "Name the Florida upset in 1939, Leahy was teer defense flatfooted by calling for Bos- two ancient sports." . One of the sergeants racked his brain desolated. "I wished I was back at Ford- ton College to use Tennessee's own special. and finally came up with an answer that ham," recalls the man who hates to lose. O'Rourke went for a touchdown and a passed him. He wrote, "Anthony and He consoled himself by listening to the perfect season ended. Cleopatra." —By Stanley J. Meyer semi-classical music that he "must have Leahy returned to Boston College, where at least once a week." He also drilled he seemed destined for a long stay. Sud- the boys a little harder just to make sure. denly, however, Elmer Layden resigned The wolves howled vigorously but were Then Boston College hit its stride and as head coach and athletic director at muzzled in 1943 when Notre Dame, with by the end of the season the team was in- Notre Dame to become Commissioner of the sharpshooter Angelo Bertelli finding vited to the Cotton Bowl. the National Football League. Among the the range, crushed everything on the grid- But that Florida defeat left its mark. first to whom the South Bend job was of- iron. The next two years saw Leahy in Leahy's dread of upsets was deeply in- fered was Buck Shaw of Santa Clara, now service in the Navy. grained. Once, while at Boston College, of the San Francisco Forty-Niners. His His faculty for inspiring men served in he suffered from a bad cold. McArdle and refusal was immortalized by a remark of good stead in the South Pacific where he Billy Sullivan, then his secretary, talked his wife to the effect that, "I'd rather live helped recondition the tired and the ailing him into remaining in bed although a in a tent in California than in a castle in at Pearl Harbor and elsewhere. In his practice session was on. It required lots Indiana." spare time, though, Frank would diagram of arguing. As McArdle and Sullivan But Leahy had gone to college at South plays and jot down in a notebook talks were being escorted to the door, Mrs. Bend and didn't find Indiana objection- for football squads on the value of cour- Leahy whispered gratefully: able. To him and his blue-eyed, vivacious age, tenacity, clean living and the T. "Thanks for talking him into staying wife the opportunity loomed as golden Returning to Notre Dame in 1946, Leahy in bed. After all, it's only little St. when he won the offer from South Bend. picked up where he left off. In his absence ." Anselm's and he can use the rest. . A Notre Dame man could ask no more. Notre Dame, like most "civilian" colleges, Leahy, the sharp-eared, heard her. He His first coaching season at South Bend had tumbled from the heights. But under Leahy, the Irish came back strong, and no team tallied more than one touchdown against them last year. Army scored none—the fourth time that a Blaik-coached team had been whitewashed by Leahy. Coaches have their little gratifications. This was one for Leahy. The only enthusiasm that can match Leahy's love for football is that for his home. The Leahys live with their five children—Frank, Sue, Flossie, Jerry and the new arrival, James Patrick—at Long Beach, Indiana, about thirty miles from the campus. Since there has been a maid shortage, Leahy occasionally cuts down his coaching to 14 hours a day to rush home for diapering and other household formations. More often than not, though,
Leahy is unable to get home at all in season and remains at the school. THE AMERICAN LEGION MAGAZINE The Notre Dame football team plays
58 September, 1947 to about halt a million spectators annually. He learned horseshoe pitching from Ad- More than a quarter of a million requests miral Nimitz, who regards Leahy so high- YOUR OWN AAF PICTORIAL were received for the Army game this year, ly that he sent the Notre Dame coach an AAF Pictorials each contain over 250 pictures of air combat fighters flak although the home stadium at South Bend autographed copy of the Japanese sur- — bombers — — — and other scenes about the particular air force they cover. where the combat will be held holds but render aboard the U. S. S. Missouri. Ad- "The 9th sees France and England"— 56.000. Every segment of the population miral Nimitz, an expert, always defeated JflPRffll m littered beach and the smashed houses. It due to high altitudes, had been a bad blow, all right, and it speed and sudden changes, relieved will) had hit the town like the wrath of God, ripping off tin roofs down in the fisher- men's district like you would take the top ...Helps to conttol off a can of beans. organs of balance. Quiets the nerves. Since we still had the Sally, even if she wasn't all paid for, the Swede and I were a little better off. If we had been wise, we would have let it go at that, forgotten for LEGION POSTS and MEMBERS about Randy and gone after sponges, but SPECIAL FUND-RAISING PLAN—by which every is now bringing cash into Post "Hello! Is this the Peerless Legionnaire helps— you know what's good and what's bad only treasuries all over the country. Our easy,to- sell provide Exterminating Company?" after Christmas and Everyday Greeting Cards circumstances walks across your cash quickly. We show you bow. Also fine profit THE AMERICAN LEGION MAGAZINE makers for individuals. hopes in its hobnailed boots. Complete plan and SAMPLES ON APPROVAL JFANM0UR PUBLISHING CORP., 41 Rot* St., H*w fork 1, September, 1947 59 The next day was pretty good, but the ther out," Randy called, and we went over. Swede knocked on the helmet. sea was still running high and rough. By back to our watching. Ten minutes later "Just look around," he said, his voice, the time we got ready to pull out, about we made another turn and started back coming through the helmet, sounding weak eight-thirty, there were a bunch of divers over the course, and then Randy yelled and far away. "Look around and come up who had winked for us from time to time and Swede cut off the motor. We both and let us know what it's like." down there. We told them we were just went over to Randy and looked down into I lifted a hand to let him know I under- going out to see how it was, if it was too the green water. Somewhere down there stood him and started down the short lad- rough to work or not, and they looked at there was something dark, like a cloud der at the side. He went over and shook u~ ,i- if they thought we were damn fools on the bottom of the sea. We looked at out a little line. I stopped on the last and drifted away. The Greeks and the it for maybe a minute and there was no step with the water up to my shoulders Portuguese thought we were fools any- sound but the slap of water on the boat. and took a final look at them and at the way, so our tip didn't surprise them much. "There she is," Randy said. "If it was Sally. It was always a hard moment, let- There was a little haze over the sea a better day, it'd be clear enough you ting go. You feel as if already you are alter we got out. Behind it was the sun, could see it in Key West." in a non-human world, but that is only like a spotlight behind a curtain, the light "Yeah," Swede said. "But it's not a because you are inside the helmet. I waved splintering through the light cloud, look- clear day and there isn't any way of a hand at them and let go the ladder and ing cold and dead. The Sally lifted and making sure without going down. You then I was on the long and liquid ladder sagged in the long heavy seas. It made me want to do it, Dave, or you want me?" that took me down to the bottom. pretty uneasy. It wasn't a good day "I don't give a damn one way or the He let me down by easy stages and it to dive. It was the kind of sea that is apt other." seemed to take a long time getting there. to push the boat over your lines and snarl "It's not such a pleasant day for diving." Once the quick shadow of a sand shark them in the screw and leave you down there "Flip for it. then." We flipped and I went over me, but otherwise it was just like a cat tossed into a well in a tow sack. was tails. I got my gear ready. the usual dreamy ride to nowhere. After "How about me?" Randy asked. "I a while I could make her out better down After a while we got to Lost Key and found it. How about me going down?" there, and it was the Colonel Roberts worked around it and then old Randy took "That's no place for old men." I said. yacht, all right. They put me down on a bearing on a high point on the Key and "Especially for broken-down rummies." the floor, clear sand, about fifty feet away told Swede at the wheel to set her south- "I can dive," he said stubbornly. "I from her and I started over through the southwest. We ran that way for maybe found her." underwater twilight. Randy had been right twenty minutes and then we could see the "I'm not trying to rob you. You can go about the currents. They were strong and shoal area further out. In ten minutes we through my pockets when I come up," I they hit you like a high wind and it was were in close, and beyond us those long said. There aren't any pockets in my diving hard wT ork getting the few feet to her stern. powerful seas, running to the north, were suit anyway. shaking the drowned key that was the "I need you at the wheel," Swede told She seemed to be set pretty solid in the shoals. The water moved at tremendous him. "She drifts around in this sea and sand. The drift down there had already speed, the spume whipped off the tops of we don't want to get any lines snarled up." built it up around her a little on one side. the waves and blew away in the wind, "Amen," I said. I greased my hands On the other the twilight turned into the misting things a little so that unconsciously and wrists and got them through the cuffs darkness of really deep water, and I knew you rubbed your eyes thinking they were of the suit. Swede got the sack of Duke's that was the channel Randy had spoken watering. It was a little frightening, know- and wet it and squeezed the tobacco juice of, an underwater canyon cut by the cur- ing the shoals were there and so little to over the eye window so it wouldn't fog rent between the shoals and the southeast mark them. Those shoals, so close to the over on me. He put the helmet on me and tip of Lost Key. If she had been over surface that in some places they would fastened it down and took a check on the farther she would have been on the shoals have kept your head above water, were a compressor. Finally he hung the lead and they might have made it. Or if she contradiction of both the land and the sea. weight on my chest and I was ready to go had hit the bottom a little farther out she It fascinated me and scared me. "Well, here we are," Swede said, speak- ing for the first time since we started. "Let's see you pick her out." "Right around here," Randy said. He sounded pretty confident. "You let me at that wheel for a while." "Keep her the hell away from the shal- lows there," I said. Randy turned his whiskery face to me and grinned. "You figure you still need her for spongin'?" he asked. "I'd hate to have to swim back, any- way," I said. Randy took the wheel and swung her in a long circle and we came back in the di- rection of Lost Key with the shoals on our right, but farther to the west this time. " Take her again," Randy called and Swede went back to the wheel. Randy lay down with his head over the side, looking down into the water. He raised his hand and Swede throttled her down. I lay down on the other side of the deck and looked down into the green, and we went that way for maybe ten minutes. "Swing her around and come back far- 60 ' September, 1947 would have been in that bottomless scoured and there was jewelry inside it. I closed "I'll go down with you." canyon and nobody would have been able the lid and left it on the desk and started "Are you crazy? You think that old to get down to her. I came past the stern sizing up the safe in the corner. It was rummy can work the compression and the and up along the side and signalled up built into the bookcase, but that could lines and keep the boat from fouling them along the line. They took me up a little, be broken up pretty easy. The safe would and pull on a chain fall at the same time? but not square over the deck and I had to be hard, though. It was pretty big. I didn't You're nuts." get my hook onto the rail and pull myself like the idea of moving it around with the "The sea's not running bad now. You over. When I was on the deck I could feel boat none too solid as it was. There wasn't and Randy go down. Just put a rope on her rock gently under me, like a small anything more I could do, so I got the box that safe. I can work the two of you and boat, and I knew she wasn't very solid. off the desk and went out. I locked the the boat won't drift too much. After you I took a couple of steps toward the cabin door again and gave the line a flip and get a rope on it, come up and we'll pull it and she shivered and settled a little and they took me up. in. How's that sound?" I was cold scared and clammy inside my "Lousy," I said. "Randy's too old and suit. If she ever broke loose and went The sun was out in the clear when I beat to dive." over into that canyon she might foul me. got up and it was after noon. I went down "Just give me a suit," he said, turning I could see her rolling clumsily like some- and rolled up in some blankets in the from the jewel box. "I may not be a good thing in a night mare into the deeps be- bunk, had a shot of whiskey and told them diver, but by God, I'd go down in a bar- yond, hooking my line and taking me down how it was down there. They opened the rel to get a chance at that safe." with her. I knew I had to stop thinking box and went through the jewelry. There "It'd be damn funny if it wasn't full of about it, so I started down the deck, still wasn't much of it and it didn't look like anything but water," I said. feeling her shake and settle. When I got to "For Christ's sake," Swede said. "Are the cabin porthole and got a look inside, you in this or not?" I forgot about my other troubles. "All right. But I'm not responsible for I don't know how many there were Randy." aboard her. The newspapers had said ten "You go up and get that other suit with the crew of three, but some of them then," Swede said to him and Randy went must have gone over during the hurricane, on up. or maybe they took a chance with a life "We're taking some pretty big chances," raft. There may have been others in the I said. "We should have a crew to work cabins. There was one in there, anyway, this." in the salon. I looked through the porthole ""Will you stop worrying? You don't and a face floated up to me from inside, have to worry. I'll take care of you, any. the face of a woman, young and pretty way." I didn't get what he was driving at. and unbelievably white. It stayed there a "Why shouldn't you?" I asked. moment, sad and lovely, and dropped into "I mean your line gets first service. the darkness behind. There was a faint Randy is just an old rummy anyway." shadow of movement back there, as if "If you mean what I think you mean, someone was moving in the gloom and I I don't like that kind of talk." knew she was not alone. He came over to my bunk and his eyes Up forward and around the other side blazed down at me. "Damn you, Dave, there was nothing to interest me and I you're just a gutless wonder. Why should knew I had to go into the main cabin there we cut that old tramp in on it?" and look around. I didn't like it, but I had "I don't like that kind of talk," I said. "Randy's line better not to. I got the door open easy enough and "Tell us again, Laughing Elk, how you get fouled. I'm not a current brought them to me, all three of wrested your feathers from the mighty a murderer." them, the girl who was Jean, the daughter; eagle on the mountain top." His face bleached out and his eyes got and the old guy that I figured was Colonel THE AMERICAN LEOION MAGAZINE glassy again, and I knew he wasn't going Roberts and who was all cramped up; and to take a slug at me. He even tried to laugh a woman of thirty or thirty-five, bigger it was worth much, but it whetted the a little. "I was just thinking," he said. than either of them, with long black hair appetites. "Accidents happen, you know." loose around her. I couldn't let them get "How about that safe?" Swede said. All "They better not," I said. He went up out. I held the door closed behind me and the neutrality had gone out of those marble on deck and I got another drink of whiskey took a light line off my belt and tied it. eyes of his and they were as feverish as into me and followed him. That way it was close enough so they Randy's. "Could you put a rig on it so Randy went down ahead of me and when couldn't get out, but I could go through it we could get it up?" I got there he was on the deck waiting. I fast enough if the boat shifted. "Not alone," I said. "It's got to be got the door open and he stuck his head It was pretty messy down there. Most worked across that floor somehow. It's a in and then pulled it back quick. He had of the furniture had gone over. I suppose two-man job at least. I don't like it. That seen the floating corpses and didn't like she capsized first and that would have done shift of weight might send her down to them at all. I tapped him on the shoulder it. Whatever would float moved dreamlike the bottom of the world if it broke her and pushed him through ahead of me. I through the water, moving away from me loose from the bank." fixed the door the way I had the first time and knocking at the roof of the cabin, over "We can rig a tackle up here." and we went to work on the safe. I had my head, and the dead ones were moving "We need more men," I said. "Why brought a bar down with me and first we around up there too. There was a desk don't we just turn her over to one of the wrecked the book case. After that we got that was anchored on one side by a big salvage companies? They'd cut us in for the safe loose and using our bars we start- cellaret and it was still where it had been. finding her." ed walking it carefully over to the door. I I started going through it and the papers "They'd cut your throat, you mean. By could feel the boat shifting under us a came floating out of the drawers. I let them the time they got through, you'd be owing little and I wondered if Randy was as go. One of the drawers was locked and I them money. We take what we can get scared as I was. She didn't break loose broke it open with my hook. There was a first." though, and in maybe twenty minutes we kind of safety deposit box in the drawer "We can't do it without more men." had it over and he was trying to keep the 61 stiffs in while I got the thing far enough dumping Randy, and then when Randy's I could feel the pressure building up as I out so we could close the door. line fouled, I should have known that he fought to free myself and I kept thinking, It was while we were beginning to put had probably been thinking about me the you're a goner now, you're a goner. A a hitch on the safe, after we had it out on same way. I should have figured it that few seconds more and she would take all deck, that something went wrong with his way. But when he struck at me, it was the the slack on my line and break it. I cut line. It tightened up and he signaled for last thing I had expected, and all I could off the exhaust valve on my helmet and more slack and a few seconds later it do was try to dodge, moving with the dropped the line from my belt. Then I whipped him off the deck. I went over after dreamlike slowness which is all you can dropped off the lead weight on my chest him as he was signaling frantically again achieve when you are on the bottom. He and the heavy steel shoes and I was free and then his hands started fighting the didn't get me. If he had he might have and lifting away, starting the long climb air line and I knew it was fouled some- cut my suit and that would have been all. to survival. I got one last look at her as where and that he was choking. I signaled I went back toward the cabin and he fol- she plunged into the blackness down there. up for a rapid ascent and got hold of his lowed me, trying with that hook to get The Swede was still on the deck and I, line and took him up with me. Swede me, to puncture my suit, and I didn't have knew he was going to ride her into her hauled us over the side and went to work a damn thing to fight him with. I remem- long home. on Randy s helmet. When he got it off the bered that there was an iron bar in the Randy pulled me in when I popped old guy's face was black as the end man in cabin and I got in there. Colonel Roberts out on the surface. He was white and a minstrel show and his eyes were popped seemed to glare at me for intruding and scared. "Swede?" he asked. I shook my out. then turned over on his back as if he was head and he didn't say any more. When We put him down on the deck and Swede started working over him. After a while Randy got his breathing apparatus working again. "What happened?" he wanted to know. I waited for the Swede to say what had happened. He just shrugged. "Your lines got fouled in the screw," I said. I hauled you up." "Jeez, just when we had that safe ready to take up," he said. "Well, that's the end of the day for you," I said. "You can't go down there again. And that means the end of the day for all of us." "You don't think you can swing it alone, Dave?" "It's more than a one-man job," I said. "You can't rig it alone." That wasn't true, 'Oh for heaven s sake, Dave. It's only a fish, AMERICAN LEGION MAGAZINE but I wasn't going down there again. Not with Swede on top. "We'll both go down," Swede said. "You tired. Swede came in after me, but once he got me into the bunk he didn't even and me, Dave. Randy can tend us. The sea I had the bar I didn't have to run any take a drink before pouring me one. is smooth enough now so we can leave the more. Swede struck at me again and I When I woke up it was dark and Randy motor dead. We won't be down long, so she parried it, using the bar as a spear, trying had run us back to a cove on Lost Key won't drift far enough to pull on the lines." to get him in the hands. Casual and and he was working on the safe, trying to "I don't like it. Randy has never worked inevitable as a figure in a nightmare, one crack it. I had forgotten about the safe, as a diver's tender, and with that damned of the dead women drifted down from the but after a while I went up on deck and old hand compressor we got—it's too easy ceiling and crossed between us. I struck at got him a cold chisel to work with and for something to go haywire." Swede again and got him in the shoulder. it was as good as a can-opener. He swung "For God's sake, the thing is right down He backed up and I followed him out the the door open and grabbed the stuff and there! All we have to do is put a line on door, hitting again, and he dropped the put it on the deck. He went through it it. You want to let it go and take chances hook and grabbed for the bar and then we all and then started over again. Finally on somebody else locating it?" were wrestbng on the deck. he looked up, shaking his head as if he "All right, then," I said. "Rut I'm going It was like a dream fight, but when couldn't believe it. down to the sack for a while. I'm pooped." our helmets came together I could see his "Fifty," he said in a dazed voice. "Fifty- I went down and rolled up in the bunk eyes behind the little window, as crazy seven lousy dollars." and was asleep in a couple of minutes. and desperate as a weasel's. He tripped me After a while I said: "I told you there When they woke me, it was mid- and we went back, hitting the safe on the might not be anything." But I didn't feel afternoon and the sea was calm. The edge of the deck and pushing it over, good about it either. suits were on the deck and we got into and then I felt the boat moving under us, "It ain't enough to have a man die for," them and tested the air and went over. slow and ponderous, as if the whole world Randy said slowly. Swede went down first and he was at the was sliding out of its orbit and turning I hadn't told him about my fight with safe when I got on the bottom. We put a over like some undersea monster. I heard Swede down there. "Nobody dies for line on the safe and wrestled it over to the myself trying to scream inside my helmet money," I said. "People die for pipe dreams, rail. The boat under us stirred uneasily and we let go of each other, trying to or ambitions, or security, or a chance to be as we moved, but we were safe now. All kick' free of the lines, but we were trapped on easy street, not for money. Swede we had to do was go up and hoist the there. Moving as heavy as fate, roiling didn't. Nobody dies for money." He looked safe. I tapped him on the back and mo- the sand like one of those snowstorms at me skeptically, but I didn't go on. Swede tioned to him to go on up. and he turned inside a waterfilled glass ball, she slipped was down there in the dark now and it and stabbed at me with the hook he carried. off tlie shoulder of that drowned hill and didn't matter much any more what he had I suppose when he propositioned me on started her long plunge into the canyon. died for. the end 62 * The American tegion Magazine • September, 1 947 ! BILLION DOLLAR BARGAIN afford returning veterans an opportunity I STEPPED cctte a (Continued from page 11) to establish themselves as proprietors of HOW agricultural, business and professional During the past three years, the WAA has Big Pay HOTEL JOB! enterprises." received about 29 billion dollars worth of In other words, the law promised nothing Don E. Vlmcr Becomes Hotel Manager the leftovers of war. These leftovers consist With Substantial Increase in Salary to any veteran except the man who wanted of hundreds of thousands of different items. Althougk He Knew Nothing About go into business for himself, but it They include not only housekeeping, and to Hotel W ork wasn't interpreted that way. Imaginative combat equipment used by the Army and "Immediately after I received my newspaper and magazine writers, glib Navy but whole towns, shipyards, rail- Lewis diploma, I gave up my job in radio orators and even articles in service an office and accepted a position roads and industrial plants. Also in Uncle obtained for me by the Lewis Placement Serv- publications made it appear that Uncle Sam's store are cotter pins, waxed corks, ice at a resort hotel. At the end of the season I Sam would get back of his big counter was appointed Manager of another hotel. Later rubber cows and bottles of poison. To dis- I came to this hotel. Each time that I a and play Santa Claus to all veterans. made pose of this vast pile of public property, change meant an increase in salary. I give I was overseas myself as a correspondent Lewis Course." the WAA has set up a nationwide selling credit to the and know how largely this erroneous no« organization. It has headquarters in Wash- HOTELS NEED TRAINED MEN AND WOMEN tion colored GI's dreams. Nearly every- ington, six zone headquarters, 32 regional Thousands of Lewis-trained men and women winning body figured on picking up a slightly used success and a sound, substantial future in the colorful offices and 48,000 employees. hotel, club and institutional field. They are making good as Managers, Assistant Managers, Stewards, Hostess, jeep when he got home for $50 or so. This enormous sales force has succeeded Executive Housekeepers and in 55 other types of well- Millions of others thought they would be paid positions. Not only has this fascinating business in peddling or giving away more than half been breaking records, but authorities agree the months able to buy service carbines, radios, binoc- to come will see the greatest travel boom in history. of its acquisitions—approximately 16 bil- The demand for trained men and women, therefore, ulars, field jackets and what-have-you for will be greater than ever. lion dollars worth of stuff—and is now sell- Previous experience proved unnecessary is this busi- next to nothing. One boy whom I talked ing war surplus at the dizzy rate of a ness where you are not dropped because you are over 40. with imagined that, by laying out a couple Good grade school education, plus Lewis Training, quali- billion a month, which is faster than the fies you at home, in spare time. Write your name and of hundred dollars, he would pick up a address in the margin and mail this ad TODAY for Free nation's ten biggest merchandising outfits Book which tells how you are registered free of extra Flying Fortress for Sunday joyriding. cost in Lewis National Placement Service. get rid of their wares. In this gigantic bar- Through a disgraceful failure in public gain sale, the Government is getting back Course approved for Veterans' Training. relations, nothing was done to correct only about 17.5 cents on the dollar. The this ( ) Check here if eligible. unfounded optimism and the other 82.5 cents of the taxpayer's dollar when Joes came home millions of them were sharply is going down the drainpipe. disillusioned. They quickly learned that Lewis Hotel Training School SUCCESSFUL TEAR instead of playing Santa Claus, Uncle Room LS-4785 Washington 7, D. C. 31 But veterans are not getting any such Sam wasn't even in the retail business bargains as these figures might lead you to and that he was much more interested think. To date, 1,926,000 former GI's have in shoveling out war surplus to large in- bought $530,897,000 worth of war surplus, terests than in obliging individual ex- KIDNEYS which is less than 4 percent of the total soldiers. On May 3, 1946, the law was sold, and have paid $215,472,000 for it, amended to set aside certain desirable MUST REMOVE or 40.5 percent of its original cost. items for sale to individual veterans for These figures make it appear that the personal use, but prior to that date the his EXCESS ACIDS veteran is getting gypped out of eye- average GI was entirely behind the eigfu> Help 15 Miles of Kidney Tubes teeth, right on the face of it, but it's not ball and even the veteran who wanted to Flush Out Poisonous Waste quite as bad as that. Two-thirds of WAA's If youhave an excess of acids in your blood, your 15 go into business found buying from WAA miles of kidney tubes may be over-worked. These tiny inventory, that part of it on which and filters and tubes are working day and night to help a rugged ordeal. the price mark-down is sharpest, is made Nature rid your system of excess acids and poisonous After plowing through mountains of red waste. up of industrial plant and heavy machinery When disorder of kidney function permits poison- tape before he was permitted to bid at ous matter to remain in your blood, it may cause nag- which has little peacetime value. Ex-GI's ging backache, rheumatic pains, leg pains, loss of pep all, the would-be business found that obviously don't want these "dogs" and man and energy, getting up nights, swelling, pumness all kinds of people and institutions had under the eyes, headaches and dizziness. Frequent or "headaches" as the WAA staff refers to scanty passages with smarting and burning some- priorities ahead of him, including both times them, and, consequently, are not getting shows there is something wrong with your kidneys or bladder. Federal and State agencies. He was usu- the biggest bargains from a percentage Kidneys may need help the same as bowels, so ally required to pay a higher price for ask your druggist for Doan's Pills, a stimulant viewpoint. It's only the statistics which diuretic, used successfully by millions for over 50 small lots of any given material than non- make them look like victims of a con game. years. Doan's give happy relief and will help the 15 miles of kidney tubes flush out poisonous waste veteran competitors who could afford to Where millions of veterans have a legiti- from youi blood. Get Doan's Pills. buy it in large quantities. But that wasn't mate gripe is on the deal they have re- all. The veteran got fiat feet standing in ceived on the items they do want. Right lines that moved nowhere, and when he from the start, the majority of service SHINE WITHOUT 'POLISH' to answer enticing i New Invention !• Sells Like Wild men were shamefully misinformed on their traveled long distances ads which appeared in his newspaper or Replaces messy pastes, liquids. Sim- privileges under the surplus disposal pro- ply glide over shoes— and presto! — you have a lustrous, it told, often t I / / in WAA bulletins was to be as long-lasting shine. gram and, during the past two years, thou- I // jj No not, that whatever he wanted to buy • mess. Nomuss. Nosoiled sands of them have taken a beating in their as hands. Clean. Handy. already sold out. WORKS LIKE MAGIC dealings with the Government. was For Men's, Women's and Children's Shoes. Low Just a few months ago, more than 1200 When the Surplus Property Act was priced. Lightning seller I and dentists traveled ITC Sample offer se approved on October 3", 1944, American former Army Navy » mediately to a in. SENE> NO MONE\ Edgewater, our name. KRISTEE CO.; 1451 Bar Street, AKRON, OHIO soldiers and sailors were scattered all over to a WAA disposal center at attend the globe and, almost immediately, most N. J., from all over the East to a of dental equip- of them were given erroneous information widely publicized sale What Every Mason Wants in the about the provisions of the law. Actually, ment. Some of them stood in line We have important Masonic slept on Congress merely stipulated that, along cold for 27 hours and others books for Blue Lodge, Chapter, got Commandery, Scottish Rite, and objectivas, the Act should benches and tables, but most of them with 19 other Shrine. for their pains. When the hour of strive to "facilitate and regulate the or- nothing Our Rituals Are Used the World Over. Send free catalog of books and rituals for sale arrived, it was announced com- for derly disposal of surplus property so as to the Masons. Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias. Knights of etc. Columbus, . ... EZRA A. COOK, Puhlisher. P. O. Box 798. FS, Chicago 90, III. September, 1947 63 a placently that the amount of equipment jobs which were almost new. Scores of methods. "We are supposed to obey, not to be sold had been cut 75 percent on veterans were eager to buy the trucks think," is the cynical attitude of thousands "orders from Washington" and only 35 for contracting work, but 13 of them went of WAA employees, he said. "It may not of the 1200 dentists got what they wanted. to a concrete company and only one to an be the right way, but it's the Army way." Cases like this are not hard to match. ex-service man, and he paid much more The veteran with little cash has small In Chicago recently, in a shameful epi- than the company paid. chance of obtaining any real bargains. sode exposed by the Chicago Sun, the Precision machinery which had cost Burke testified, because the WAA policy WAA lured 2,000 ex-GI's to a super- millions was left uncovered in the rain of dumping plays into the hands of large colossal automobile sale which was ad- at this center, my informant said, large interests, and he implied widespread dis- vertised for "veterans only." What the quantities of valuable equipment were honesty. On one occasion, he said, his de- veterans found was a pile of decrepit junk smashed through careless handling and partment received a number of heavy —broken down and battered vehicles, few veterans were herded around like irre- boxes which were supposed to contain of which would run, and many of them sponsible orphans. They were not per- valuable hardware, but when opened they with wheels and other vital parts missing. mitted even to look at much of the more were found to contain nothing but gravel. There was nothing cheap, however, about desirable material which was offered for Somebody, somewhere, had been guilty of the prices asked. They ranged from $311 sale, but representatives of large commer- plain theft. for a smashed sedan to $1048 for a cial interests had a free run of the place. The fact that there is plenty of crooked wrecked and cannibalized station wagon. It was not unusual, he said, to see these work and shady dealing going on in con- Even more recently, at Elmira, N. Y., a men pass money to certain WAA employees nection with the disposal program is large quantity of office furniture and who were in a position to grant favors. proved by the army of Sherlocks which equipment was advertised for sale to vet- This kind of evidence might be dis- WAA employs in an effort to keep its erans. At the last minute, after the ads counted as coming from a disgruntled ex- operation honest. Its Compliance Division had been published, a representative of employee, but it is given weight by other has 250 investigators on the payroll, all the Federal Housing Administration reports from other sources. Many of these college graduates who draw from $4100 stepped in and reserved approximately 90 tell of the wholesale scrapping of valu- to $5900 a year and, as this is written, the percent of the stuff. Through an expensive able material to avoid shipping or selling boys are busily delving into more than and senseless tease act. Uncle Sam offered it. One veteran for whose word I can vouch 1600 alleged irregularities which involve veterans something with one hand but told me that he had seen Army bulldozers $50 to many millions. snatched it back with the other. run over a large quantity of fine radio But that's only part of the story. The Compliance Division does not prosecute cases but turns them over to the Federal Bureau of Investigation when it finds evi- dence of criminal activity. The F.B.I, is now probing many cases not included in the 1600 and the Department of Justice and Congressional committees have still other sleuths on the job. Never before did any business have so many dicks keep- ing tabs on its help and its customers. One of the most common violations they have to cope with is the so-called veteran- fronting dodge. In this racket, an outside speculator or company obtains large quan- tities of surplus goods from WAA by en- gaging an unscrupulous veteran to use his priority for them under the pretense that he himself is going to use the goods in his own business. In a notorious case on the West Coast, for example, four automobile dealers pre- These shocking cases were not excep- equipment at a supply base in the South- vailed upon five veterans to use their vet- tional. A former employee of WAA— west Pacific. The equipment was deliber- eran preference certificates to purchase man who resigned in disgust—told me of ately smashed to save shipping space. 22 heavy trucks for $62,200. The veterans several other incidents like them which got $622 in commission on the deal, but occurred at a disposal center where he Then there is the recent testimony of since the trucks were worth approximately was stationed for several months. Gordon T. Burke, who resigned on April twice their purchase price on the retail On one occasion, he said, a big sale of 30th as Director of the Regional Office market, the dealers made far more—per- sheet aluminum was advertised and it was of the WAA in Omaha. Mr. Burke testi- haps as much as $50,000 net profit. announced that veterans would have top fied before a Congressional committee that The sharpers were convicted in this case priority, first come first served. The alumi- WAA is run like a military dictatorship and heavily fined, but in all too many others num was readied for selling and stacked and that "fumbling and vacillating poli- they have gotten away with their chisel- roof-high in a warehouse, but something cies" in high places has led to an incredible ing. In the Southwest, a business man is mysterious happened the night before the amount of unnecessary paper pushing, known to have boasted recently that he sale. When the veterans trooped into the confusion and inefficiency. netted $100,000 by buying WAA automo- warehouse the next morning, every pile Burke said it was not unusual for as tive equipment and reselling it in South was tagged with a red "sold" label, and many as 23 different WAA officials from America. In the Middle West, a group of no explanation was given. The would-be Washington to drop into his Omaha head- men now under investigation are believed custmers cussed loud, but to no avail. quarters in a single day—they were called to have grabbed nip a large amount of On another clay. 14 Army engineering "paratroopers"—and other practices with- heavy machinery at ridiculously low prices trucks were placed on sale—big ten-wheel in the organization also recalled old Army by using veterans as their dupes. 64 * The American tegion Magazine • September, 1 947 This division has cleared up many cases wearer of a prominent school tie, signify- Don't look now, but your personality's showing.., ing a school such as Eton or Harrow, re- ceived the most respectful attention from waiters and tradesmen in general. It was, around your neck. If you have any self- /£tf5^V\. and still is, the mark of the upper class gentleman, usually of wealth. Members improvement problems, % - » your haberdasher has of aristocratic regiments wore ties of their regimental colors. Fraternities in At} r- jf the answers all \ (S'-ys**) racked up and waiting ican universities took up the cub tie idea, though it never caught on as it did in England. Note the man who owns and wears an unusually large percentage of stripes. He's the gent who lihes to ftel so- cially important, and sometimes he is. Along with the regi- mental stripe, the Scotch tartan at one time held a social significance. Each Highland Clansman By PAUL ANDREWS There's the guy who wears a plain dar!: wore the tartan of his colored wool tie. He's serious minded, clan. You'll still find 'a solid citizen. His political leanings are a few irien who will It's a funny thing about ties—and slightly to the right of center and he is tell you that they are You'll see plenty the men ivho wear them. The men well thought of by wearing the same iaf* of Arrow's Huddle ates. Mor" than like- cestors once wore. is a Swap .;, $i one of two classifications: 1. Those ly, the re^t of his who select and buy their own ties. clothes refle t this Now vertical stripes are a fairly recent 2. their Men who wear anything conservatism. He fashion innovation, popular since late wives have selected. may occasionally ^ '45. You can be fairly turn out in a modest certain that the man If you're looking at a man print but he never who wears them is who wears the ties he selects and really enjoys it. He an up-to-the-minute feels definitely sporty dresser... a man who buys himself, his tie Tells All. Try out in even the mildest of "JrN prides himself on be- the next man you meet, and see designs. ing in current style. if you can figure which Since conserva- He is probably ag- tism and practicality gressive and would group he's in. go hand in hand as make a good promot- personality traits, it er or salesman. He'll is not surprising that give you a darned he finds the wrinkle- good sales talk but proof qualities of a will not go into too woolen tie much to much mundane de- his liking. tail on cost break- If you're looking downs, leaving such for someone to fill a things to the respon- position, sibility As one feature of responsible j 1 1 1 of the home its extensive line, chances are you will I I I office. Originally the Botany offers solid not go wrong in hir- I ft ft vertical stripe con- colors at $1. Clip ™ is by Nu-Lok, $1 ing the fellow at left. 1 stituted a fairly ab- rupt departure from Take stripes. There is an historical reason McCurrach is fea- current designs. That turing this atten- . . for this popular design. It is the original Qn tion-getting verti- ° ^ "Old School Tie" device. In England the cal stripe at $2.50 ly surprised many. 66 Sherman's Frame Tie can be had as a four-in-hand as well as a bow. The price is $1.50 Consider the individualist, smooth or rug- ged. He is the bow tie fancier. In his case, it is the bow itself which is the indicator, not the color or pattern. This chap is not always able, for practical or personal rea- sons, to indulge in his suppressed de- sires to explore the South Pole, to write that great American novel or have a can- vas hung in the Met- ropolitan Museum— so instead he wears a HIGH LIFE bow tie. The wearer of the black knit tie is not the somber character you would expect him to be. It is he who enjoys looking back on his happy college days. This tie, then, is the badge of a "young feeling" group, no matter what the actual age. He may be a middle- aged father of four, This attractive now and then given pattern is a Chen- to reminiscing about ey Nylard, which is priced at $1.50 that "other war!' As a self-appointed psychologist, I fear to go into the intricacies of analyzing assort- ed Paisley and print designs. The possi- bilities are intriguing but endless, and might even be dangerous! This We know for sure about a man and his tie. His greatest happiness lies in wear- ing the ties of his own choice in the ex- pression of his personality as he sees it. He may be well aware that Fashion decrees it is not "the thing" to wear a striped tie with a plaid suit but if he likes a striped tie with his plaid suit then he jolly well will wear it. No matter how much better, according to Fashion again, a gay foulard may go with informal at- tire, if he likes a black knit to set off his slack suit and is happy in it, then it is his right to wear it. And he usually does. September, 1947 67 MILLER BREWING COMPANY • MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN — — — Fifth Wave Serenade The last movie we saw at Hollandia before our outfit (19th Inf., 24th Div.) i pulled out of New Guinea for the Leyte D-Day landing, was a comedy starring Jimmy Durante. Throughout the picture the Proboscis sang a wistful little song Parting Shots that contained the lines: "Did you ever have the feeling that you wanted to go? Arsenul of Democracy Drum majorette Then did you get the feeling that The Negro port battalions drew a great Oh, Milly, oh, Milly, you wanted to stay?" many varied assignments and one was to It seemed sort of silly, of the doughs in transport Jap prisoners on Okinawa from When twirling a baton you took up. One our company, a red-haired, freckle-faced kid with the main prison camp to ships in the har- You juggled and "wrastled" a sizable nose, took to imitating Durante bor waiting to move the Japs to a rear That stick all be-tasseled during the trip up to Leyte, area. In time with some radio hook-up, and he soon became our chief source of enter- One day a big strapping Negro GI was It whizzed past my ear or tainment. taking a dukw-load of prisoners out to It busted the mirror. Came October 20, 1944, and Red and their ship when a Jap, who had never That you're ambidextrous I doubted. I were assigned to a team moving in on seen a Negro before and who happened And so did your mother the fifth wave. We climbed down the to speak a little English, pointed toward And poor baby brother APA nets, into an LCM, and headed the Negro and asked one of the white Your baton so often has clouted. for the island. As we neared shore, the guards just what kind of soldier that Oh, Milly, oh, Milly, Japs proceeded to lambaste us with fellow was. My high-stepping filly, everything fhey had: knee and heavy The guard replied, "Oh, he's one of our You always are prancing in rhythm, mortars, artillery, machine special night fighters." While cash I'm supplying guns—and Zeros overhead. The Jap pondered that one over awhile, For uniform buying,* For the first time during the war, I shook his head ruefully and stated, "You Plus all the gold braid that goes with 'em. was actually scared. couple of Americans will win the war. You can And yet your proud father A men in our craft were killed, and the rest produce anything!" Now finds you no bother of us crouched low, saying nothing, —By Marshall K. McClelland But broadcasts all over the region expecting nothing but the worst. I think That crowds will be heeding I'd have swallowed if Alternative His daughter when leading my stomach it hadn't been for Red. He pointed back If you borrow, if you lend, Parades of his Post of the Legion. to the APA we had just left, its big You can never have a friend. —By Fairfax Downey guns blazing against attacking Jap All depends on which you do The Diplomat and the Lady planes. Next he pointed to the bedlam You'll dodge him or he'll dodge you. that was the beach. Then he jutted forth Philip Lazarus When a diplomat says "yes," he means perhaps; when he says "perhaps," he his profile, Durante-style, grinned ironi- cally, and softly sang: In Short means no; but if he comes right out and says "no," he's no diplomat. Sectionalism is an uncontrollable urge "Did you ever have the feeling that When a lady says "no," she means per- to reform a part of the United States you you wanted to go? haps; when she says "perhaps," she means know nothing about. Then did you get the feeling that yes; but if she comes right out and says Women are advised to take bending you wanted to stay?" "yes,"—she's no lady! exercises to reduce, which is a modern —By Carl C. Winerip - By Dora Jane Dcming version of she stoops to conquer. Straddling an issue is like straddling SEAvilian Washroom Wail the middle of the road. You are liable to Now that I'm home where I longed to be It's not before, when they are dry, be hit from both sides. A thousand miles from the restless sea But when my hands are wet, that I sense would not only avoid Common Will someone tell me why the heck Discover suddenly the lack many divorces but also many marriages. — I still eat chow and swab the deck? Of paper towels in the rack. By Herbert V. Prochnow Don Marshall —By Richard Armour Boys Will Be?? In our base at Morrison Field, Florida, about one-fourth of our personnel were men who were waiting to go overseas, while the oilier three-fourths consisted of returnees with scads of service ribbons. Needless to say, we sometimes had rookies who glamorized by borrowing their buddies' ribbons. <'ne Friday afternoon I waited in the PX while four rookies ahead of me begged the salesgirl to sell them ribbons without authori- zation. "We need these for the inspection tomorrow," the leader explained. "We have a little com- petition on these headquarters inspections, and we're trying to beat E Squadron." That was my outfit. Before I could say any- thing the girl held the ribbons where I could see them, and I grinned while she helped pin them on. I saw the colonel coming our way and I knew he'd blow his top when he saw four husky men—all dolled with WAC ribbons. By Major Henry Lee Somerville September, 68 1947 PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. 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