The Daily Alaska empire Newspaper, December 23, 1944, Page 8

——_____—i PAGE TWO CHRISTMAS EVE IN BETHLEHEM {Many American Soldiers | Join Throngs of Pil- | grims This Year By “'ILLIA_Ni—L‘—lCG.‘FFIN AP Features BETHLEHEM, Dec. 23, 1944 A. D. —Thousands of Twentieth Century {follow the path of the three wise |men tonight to worship with™ re- joicing hearts on the hallowed ground five and a half miles south | of Jerusalem where the Prince of Peace was born nearly 2,000 years ago. Their hearts are full of hope and |they sing with exceeding joy as“@d | blacked-out world observes its sixth | Christmas of the war. For this | year there is a promise in Allied| | victories that it will not be Tongj | the angel’s message can be reaffirm- | led, “Peace on earth, good will to- | .\ Jerusalem, Mister"), | pilgrims, many of them in khaki,| THE DAILY ALASKA EMPIRE—JUNEAU, ALASKA Church is a beautiful new police' station. dentally, has become Bethlehem's! major industry. Much of the pearl comes from the Red Sea. i Radio Plays Arab Music i 1 Walking from Mgnger Square to- {ward Star Street you hear a radio| |playing Arab music and you pass in | turn, 2 taxi ramp (“Two dollars to| an'ice cream and lemonade stand, and an Arabic mosque with a stately minaret. | Thesa are the external signs of {any modern town. | And if you shut out the modern |world for a little while you have simply to join the bands of modern pilgrims who are wending their way, into the Church of the Nativity and down to the Grotto where the spell | still holds that was waoven over this| sanctuary 20 centuries ago. NOVEL DECORATIONS ENLIVEN APPEARANCES SRRG CALIFORNIA’S PITTSBURGH—That's a Los Angeles antbition. I Here steelmen pour an ingot in one of Los Angeles couniy's steel mills. streams of war-time steel. By BERT H. DAVIS Press Correspondent 5 ANGELES—“Find jobs for plane # hern California verdict, ; Angeles will come out on top 1 ship builders,” is “and r the war.” The job shift is not an immedi- ate problem, Los Angeles knows. We coast cities are well aware of hard fighting still ahead in the including victory in the homeland and on Chinese x4 a mop-up at pin-point occupied by Japan. Last year Los Angeles became third most populous metropoli- the Unitec States, pass- lelphia during the period eastern are war-time ed to be area city’s suppo in the L. A the There )0 ci mers in this city, Long \ Diego say: “We're i ingers now and we have to ue up for movie shows and res- and we don't quite tables , the Crowds! nice to have prosperity, they “We don't any longer v where to go for a swim or a being swarmed over ing Army Joes driving is supposed to you said you came from Drive this tank like g down through traf- rire boulevard—and ke out all right.” e of war-time welding s produced five customers b chop is only cne n southern California's 1t, according to the calm sts you find in banks and tax iese have been the waves wash- prosperity on the golden iculture, then petro- the fabulous movie in- \e tourist crowds flocking 1y playground, and until came, constantly increas- » foreign trade. The tourists are staying home, s they should—but most GIs and lavy men from the east promptly bost s ern California to the ne foiks, so Los Angeles only vorries about having hotels, mo- and eating houses ready for visitors. building is probably here to and even the plane builders in other parts of the country con- ede that the Los Angeles area ¢ itself the capital of airplane e inevitable fly in the oint- L. A. analysts point putting planes together hould not be a final goal in peace- duction hereabouts. we produce in this sec- ood parts, plastics, nd fitments and electrical sipment, L. A. will not get the ume of business nor offer the employment that aircraft manu- CAROLS WERE ONCE "HITS" Good ng Wentecatas, 20th cen- tury patron of Bobemia and virtu- Qus churchman, would not be pleas: ed to k that ‘his fame largely rested on Christmas carol, He probably didn't approve of carols at all. ¥ the rd is correctly applied to lyrics wrilten to dance tunes, and the carols we now stem direct- ly from exuberant dancing and merry-making in early churches at the viglls of saints’ This | tice was outlawed by the T Coungil of Toledo, in 589, andl in the 13th century at the C of Avignon. lay ird ain il _ | boosters. aluminum and magnesium | The coast {facturing should bring us,” is one opiniop that shows stern self-study 1in this$ city, to supplement the en- | thusiasm of the typical west coast | What the long-distance planners are aiming for is that John Paul, now a fourth-year vocational high | student at Glendale, can come out into a peace-time job in which he will work on electric motors, or | television equipment, or auto parts, using machine tools and other equipment made in this neighbor- hood and drawing on California | smelters and mills for his raw ma- | | terial supply. Without putting it intosso many words, southern California has a feel for economic independence. Los Angeles industrialists and |some groups of well-informed | workers take a big-brotherly inter- est in the 11 western states. They find those states, before Pearl Harbor, bought 10 times as |many radios as the; produced.| | Their rug and carpet buying took | | one-seventh of the country’s prod- ucts in that field, but the west made almost none. Twice as many stoves, four times as many auto batteries, were bought in the 11 big states as those | states manufactured. When Los Angeles planners look laround at the swarming crowds in overalls and slacks and at the sprawling new plants where they work, they think about those con- trasts between western buying and manufacturing—and get ready to go after more production oppor- tunities in post-war. . Even with the congestion in buses, apartment houses and self- service stores, this region does not have workers enough for all its |jobs. The shipyard force at Cal- |ship in Wilmington, Cal., has | dropped one-fifth from its peak of last fall. Scouts Hunt for Men More manpower is being sought, ven by scouts sent far into the least in search of it. In one recent | day's additions to the payroll, a shipyard company discovered 16 states represented among the first |20 men hired. On the streets and |in the stores you hear more differ- |ent accents than either New York or Chicago will provide. Lockheed and other plants piece out by employing boys of 16 and 17 on a four-hour shift. Arrange- ments are made through the high schools and with Pasadena Junior college. The other half of the eight-hour shift with the same tools or at the same assembly post may be taken over by office and slore people who come in for four hours of war-pro- duction overtime following the reg- ular work-day. Morton Bach of Lockheed says, “Boy-power has been the greatest single stimulus to employment since the introduction of women in the factories. The boys provide us with some of our outstanding workers and almost no employe problems.” In some plants mothers and their high-school-age sons have been | | !the power to see spirits and even to command them. Sir Walter Scott says §hat the Spaniards attributed the haggard and downcast looks of Philip II to the terrible visions he was able to see because he was born on Christmas. French | babies born on Christmas have the gift of prophecy. In Silesia a baby born on Christ- mas will become either a lawyer or a thief In Middle Europe it is said that if a baby is born at sermon time Christmas Eve, someone in the house will die within the year. English mothers used to take sick babies to the door Christmas Eve midnight. Mary was expected to pass with the Christ Child. If the baby recovered, it was a sign that it had been touched by Christ, with healing fingers, and if it died, the Christ Child had called the baby to be His playmate in heaven. be downed In England, where carols became suddenly pepular in the 14th cen- tury, they were composed by nomad bands of clergymen, called “gypsy scho " who had left their churches to live *ir wits, In a argen of Latin and English called macaronic,” they injected both wit and gusto into their vers Peo- ple sang them to popular tunes of the day. A final attempt to end cargl sing- ing cccurred in 1644, when the Puri- ans banned them by an act of Parliament. It didn’t work. Carols had become synonymous with Christmas cheer — something folks meant to hold on to. .- SUPERSTITION AT CHRISTM There is a Scottish belief that to city’s industries are fed by molten working together on aircraft as- sembly. The after-school employ- ment plan kept a good many youth tied in with classroom train- ing, and that is an asset for Los Angeles in view of its interest in having well-equipped, skilled work- ers on tap. Even in these busy times a Los Angeles neighbor, Pasadena, pio- neers in a new Xind of education for the mothers of small children. These women are not supposed to be handling war )Jobs at the fac- tories, but Superintendent of Schools John A. Sexson convinced several hundred of them that they could help their children and the community by coming down to school themselves. A mother takes her boy or girl under five years of age to a school- sponsored playfield. Quietly estab- lished on the sidelines, with a score of other motkers, she takes notes on the play and the manner her child has in dealing with various situations. There are personal talks with the play leader and a series of lec- tures on home training, to fill out this novel plan fer tying in the school with child life far below school age. Fashion Center, Too The sunshine in which Pasadena children revel is analyzec as favor- able to developing a complete fash- ion center in Los Angeles and Hollywood. The “sunshine styles” from southern California have been popular enough to give an infant industry plenty of reason to try out other ideas in garments and fabrics. The movies are at hand to show the new slants in fashion to millions of prospective custom- ers. Synthetic rubber is also repre- sented here in skyscraper plants to hold and purify styrene and in the finishing process of the new material. Here and all through the west, the large number of government- owned plants is a problem. Who gets them and when—and how quickly must the money be raised to buy out these establishments? Los . Angeles prosperity prophets ask such questions with the reali- zation that only Congress has the answer. It must still be decided at Wash- ington if the government will stay in some of the newer enterprises— such as magnesium. aynthetic rub- ber and aircraft, which have be- come so important to California’s future. As in other parts of the United States state and ccunty officials are getting ready for huge public works projects as scon as mate- rials come back and numerous war-time plants cut their shifts. The state of California has voted a $10,000,000 fund from which lo- cal governments can get advances for engineering plans and the pur- chase of sites for projects. ‘With this advance aid, Gov. Earl Warren expects that a quarter of a billion may be expended in pub- lic works throughout the state, with Los Angeles area accounting #or a large bite of this. e ——— Civil airways of the U. S. now total|rectly across the street is a grocery But festive merriment would not be born on Christmas is to havelover 35,000 miles. peasants believe that | marble columns, {the lights and shadows are long- |side as we enter is a silver |sunk in the floor. lwerd men = ° = Even the stars in the eternal ’l:eu\'ens, once brilhant with won- {drous tidings, seem to shine more | brightly as the glad refrains of the ‘\old songs float up from the cheer- | ful mortals below, “Hark the her-| |ald angels sing,” they carol as they crowd about the ancient stone | Church of the Nativity which Con- |stantine built on the site of ‘the | Holy Manger in the year 330. | Greatest News Story | For this is the anniversary of a |miracle, the greatest news |the world ever has known. |it marks the nearing emergence of the world from its greatest war. “Silent night, holy night * * | winter air is crisp and their breaths |come white as they stand singing |on this hill of Judea about the ‘weatherbeaten gray stone church {which is built in the shape of a | cross. story Let us enter the church. 'must stoop low there for it is but |a tiny door, the “Eye of the Needle” |they call it. It was made small, camels and donkeys to continue you are reminded, is a sacred place! The air {s heavy with incense.| As you look yp you see that the |church is roofed with wood. Along! cither side of the nave are heavy bearded priests. The Greek Onhu-‘ | dox (which observes Christmas 12 | structure and the three adjoining | convents. | Lei us go forward to the choir ® now and descend the stone steps to the grotto below which is hol- lowed out of solid rock. In a gray marble recess on the right hand star This marks the actual place of the birth and ‘is in addition symbolic of the star which guided the three wise men. ' | A few feet away on the left is | another marble recess marking the place of the manger where Jesus was laid. The grotto is hung with cil lamps and red tapestries and religious pictures. The original manger is now in Rome, you are told. Rome * * * the war * your thoughts sweep back. Thén you resume your reverie over the Christmas story. “And she brought forth her first- born som, and wrapped him in a manger because there was no room Jor them in the inn.” There is no inn in modern Bethle- hem. In nearby Jerusalem, how- ever, there are fine hotels, but it is almost impossible to get a room {in them. Two thousand years later and still no room in the inn. There Fas been progress, though, for this time, if it were happening again, Joseph and Mary could go to a marvelous modern hospital, the Hadassah Rothchild University Hos- pital, on Mount Scoups. | the American influence in this holy city, aside from the soldier tour-| ists—whose favorite purchases, ac- cording to the shopkeepers, are Bibles bound in mether of pearl, end rosaries. There is, for ex- shopkeepers prize as the finest shell for the manufacture of souvenirs.| It comes from California. And there is the model of the Church of the Nativity, painstakingly con-| structed out of 15000 pieces of! mother of pearl and intended for, exhibition at the New York World's Fair—a project doomed by the war. Modern Bethlehem If Christ were to return today to| His city He would find many 2,000 years. But his spirit still pre- vails and never more so than today Christmas of the war. The little shops which crowd the quiet, narrow streets about the Christian Church of the Nativity are mostly run by Arabs—but they| are Christian Arabs. The physical appearance of Beth- lehem todav is interesting. THe Church of the Nativity on Manger Square stands resolute guard over the Holy Grotto beneath it. But round about have sprung up the modern trappings of any town. Di- And ! White glass ornaments, and frosted a1 The | Wreatt You | white |they say, to prevent rioting crowds|Christmas wrapping paper help to from sweeping inside on their|“fill” a big tree inexpensively if glass their fights within. The Holy Land, ! ing. to more than one religion. | found in the vicinity, such as un- | Moving about in| especially when they’e spangled with swaddling clothes, and laid him in g There are various reminders of g ample, the white shell which the| S | changes as might be expected anew; - | on this sixth—and most hopeful—|§ | OF CHRISTMAS _TREES | Before pulling ouf. the old box of |ornaments used for trimming the| | Christmas tree for the past several | years, it is good idea to plan some jother decoration which will make he tree different than it ever was | before. An occasional change from | the old familiar design will do much Ito brighten up the room. | one novel arrangement is to imi- tate the snow-draped trees of the ! forest as closely as possible. Trim the tree all in white with popcorn necklaces, tissue paper snow balls, | e o L e e e A S BRI RRCRRRRRRA AR R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R R P R R R R R R AR R PRI RARRRRRRS | white lights. The effectiveness of | this color will be increased if green with red berries are used | about the room. A graceful pine tree trimmed lavishly all in gold ornaments has |2 fine formal grandeur about it and | {‘xs particularly distinguished in cer- tain rooms. In contrast to this a| |tree trimmed entirely with red and and red and white ( (¢ ( 1 lights istriped candy cones is very young | |end informal in heart | Little pleated paper fans made of balls ang other ornaments are lack- | It is also interesting to add local interest by hanging articles usual sea shells, or huge pine cones, | or curious burrs and pods which are gilded to improve their appearance. Miniature trees are attractive, too, beads and shiny jewelry | e, A raccoon will not eat food until émwww‘maw o 2 days later), Armenian and Roman} it has carefully washed Catholic churches share this holy| ————— ooy the morsel. | i NN A A tore, Cater-cornered from the! g BRI RRRRRRG | RBG “The Nativity Store” on Mmger‘ Square announces that it engages in “Manufacture of Mother-of-Pearl —Best Souvenir of Bethlehe m."‘ Mother-of-pearl manufacture, inci- l SATURDAY, DECEMBER 23, 1944 AR R R AR R AR R AR IR AT R AR A ARRRRRS: 555 RRRRG o each of you who, by your Tiberal patronage and fine friendship, have had an important part in the progress of this organization, we wish to say, “Merry Christmas.” In the spirit of warm appreciation for this liberal patronage, we wish for you a Christmas and New Year that will be the best you have ever had. Alaska Federal Savings and Loan Association of Juneau 119 Seward Street PHONE 3 s you gather with your loved ones and [riends for a happy Christmas, just re- member that we shall be thinking of you, and of the amicable relations that have existed be- tween us. We want you to know these associations mean much to us and we are hopeful that we -may continue to enjoy your goodwill in the years to.come. . " May your Christmas be brim full of hapfiinesx .and the New Year @ thriving one for you and. those dqartdyou. S ; et 0% RRRRRRRRR) PHONE 3 ) TN O NN ot N NN o Vo oo N o o o o o Y o N o o o o N o Y o o o o S N NSNS SN oo N NN QNN NN NN NN NN NN NN NN NN S SN NN SN NNV NN N NN (GO