Evening Star Newspaper, January 19, 1930, Page 99

THE ”SU‘NDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, JANUARY 19, 1¢33. ] - “Th'ey Are at It Again!”—RBy Stephen Leacock One of a Series of Humorous Stories by the Leading Humorists of Other Sketches Arc Written by Sam Hellman, Donald Ogden Stewart, P. G. Wodehouse, Ellis Parker Butler and Richard Connell. the Day— O the second lap of the indoor season, the period of engagements and dates and gatherings, is on us again. I have only to open my morning mail to see it.” Here we are, for example—the Old Alumni of the Dear Old School are getting together again —blast them—for their annual reunion in the form of a 6 o'clock supper. I thought they were all dead! Will they never die? No, it seems not. There they are anyway, with the same bright, cheery, old invitation to come together for that 6 o'clock supper. They want. everybody up! Do they? Well, some year, if they keep on long enough, I'll fool them. Ill die on them, the day before their dinner. Meantime, mark it down, the twenty-third— all right, I'll be there, but this shall absolutely the last time. . What's this next thing? Ah! here’s a rare opportunity, The Women’s Winter Uplift Asso- ciation sent tickets for six evenings with great thinkers! What a chance! And only $2.50 a thinker, if I buy the six tickets in advance. Whereas, if I were to wait and try to buy them at the door, they cost $2.55! And, anyway, think of the awful rush to get them at the door, with hundreds of people squeezing and «pushing to buy tickets for the six great thinkers. How wonderfully attractive the prcgram looks— six evenings with great thinkers—beginning with Plato and going on to Shakespeare, Mil- ton, Dante, Buddha and Confucius. There's a bunch for you. 8 AN’D notice how excellently it is timed. The lectures begin at 7:30; just a nice time to rise up from a Winter dinner and carry it over to the hall, Isn’t it strange to think that those four fiends will sing all evening, when one determined man with a rifle in the gallery could end it? Hurry; hurry! Let's reach for a pen and write cut a check for six times $2.50, What wonderful opportunities modern community life gives, doesn’t it! Now what is this next? To let me know that the Civic Spirit Club is starting up its weekly luncheons again, beginning Tuesday at 1:30, on which occasion Prof. Poose will talk on Civic Duties as Civic Privileges. I suppose he thinks that funny. That's about as near as he can come to saying anything witty. - As to the Civic Club, something tola* me they’d be at it again. You can’t kill them. Financial deficits, boredom, indigestion—noth- ing affects them. The truth is that they have among them three or four of those fiends called organizers. Once let those men start a thing and you can't kill it. Well, at any rate, it will be a bright Winter, with every Tuesday touched up with a jolly little luncheon of cold cabbage and a talk on citizenship. Now, then, let me look at some more of these. The Rev. McFarquhar McGee McPherson has just returned from 16 years of missionary work in Northern Labrador, and they are to fill him - up with tea at a reception in the basement of the Boulevard Avenue Church. It appears that he hasn't seen a white face for over 15 years. Well, I know one that he won't see now. So! The famous Dutch Hellendam Quartet, Jjust over here from Opdam, Holland, is offering an evening of Old Dutch Folk Songs in the ball rcom of the Whizzle. Isn’t it strange to think that those four fiends will stand up and sing all evening, when one determined man with a rifle in the gallery could end it? AND this one, this last one! Ha! I knew it. The scoundrels are at it again! The Merry Amateurs’ Dramatic League'is going to put on eight shows this year! Ha! Glorious! See what their circular says—they are going to put on eight plays which can't be seen.any- where else, because no one else is willing to produce them under any circumstances. What a rare chance! And look! Among other things, they are going to put on a wonderful old Anglo-Saxon miracle play and an old Norse Saga play, Bjarrli Bjarnison, and two old Flem- ish plays—two in one night!—Flim Flam the Phlegm, and Yssel Dryssel the Thistle. My! What a snappy theatrical Winter this will be! 8o runs it for all of us. Too busy, too crowded, too highly organized this civic life. Yet here and there in the side corners one sometimes stumbles against other lives than ours; people who live in the backwaters of the moving current and never feel its movement. I have a friend, for example, who belongs to a geological society., It meets once every five years; when it meets, it listens to papers deal- ing with the question of the age of the old Silurian Rocks of Labrador, whether 10,000,000 years or, perhaps 100,000,000. My friend is a vice president—very young for the office, only 58. But already they talk of him as the presie dent after the next one—for the annual meete ing of 1940. He read a paper in 1920 which he hopes to carry forward and complete in 1960, That'’s the kind of life—there’s peace and quiet in that—none of this every other Tuesday and every third Wednesday! The geological society doesn’t use the days of the weeks—just the five years, 1930, 1935, 1940 and so on. They say that they form real and lasting friendships in this way and get to know one another. If you meet every Tuesday, you remain strangers; meet once in five years and you are brothers, KNOW another such quiet corner in life— the chess club. Its full name is the Players’ and Amateurs’ International and Royal Some- thing or Other, but they call it just the Chess Club. This Chess Club never meets. It is always there. You may go in, if you know a member, at any time in the afternoon or eve- ning, and there you will see them at five or six little tables, shaded with green lights, not speaking, not moving—just sitting there. For them time has stopped. It is always eternity. The players of the Chess Club don’t know one another., They don't need to. They have played against one another for years and years, but they don't know one another’s names. They don’t know what time it is, or what day it is, or what season it is. Why should they? They are playing chess. Sometimes they die, But not often. Mostly they live forever. Oc- casionally, but only very rarely, they break out into activity. Once, long ago, the club of which I speak played a correspondence match with Rejkavik in Iceland—for the best total in twod. years. But it shook them up too much., The pace was too swift. They recall & sometimes, but they don’t dare to repeat it. Looking at the quiet corners in our distracted life, I cannot but wish that we might imitate and reproduce them a little more than we do. Why can’t the Civic Duty Club be content to mest in 1930 and then adjourn till 19507 What about askidg the teur Players to put on a show In 1945? t would give them really time to do it properly. And how about a little evening with a quartet for 1960? Come, let’s think it over for 20 years and then see. : (Copyright, 1930) Among the Flying Celebrities of the National Capital Continued From Sirteenth Page. portation and her enthusiasm for aeronautics is contagious. She has never attempted piloting and it is unlikely, at least in the present multiplied duties of her public life, that she could give leisure to this ambition. But she admits that flying rests her utterly, soul, mind and body, and that three hours in the air prove more beneficial than a day's rest on land. She can sleep more refreshingly and inhale oxygen in the pure, high air above the . earth to keep her alert in the dust-laden, over- heated atmosphere of Grubland. All necessary journeys made in her role ‘as Representative from Lowell are in airships and of all varieties, Interested most profoundly in the veterans of the World War, she makes many trips in their behalf and then an Army plane is placed at her disposal. But the air mail, commercial planes all have served her purpose. Happily her experiences have never been painful and she has never been in an actual accident, although she has skimmed perilously close to several. In Summer Mrs. Rogers makes her visits to the Fort Adams Citizens’ Military Training Camp at Providence, R. I, in this congenial way. There are four such estab- lishments in New England —Camp Devens. which is in Mrs. Rogers’ congressional district; Fort McKinley, near Portland, Me.; Fort Ethan Allen in Vermont, and the fort at Newport. All these States permit the young men to select their camp and to exchange posts in the course of their training. Mrs. Rogers, being a stanch advocate of preparedness, visits them all, sometimes flying to the four in one day for a brief inspection, and thus ‘ac- complishing in daylight hours what would take two days’' hard traveling by train or motor. But what this intrepid flyer believes her most notable contribution to national air mindedness was her aid in having Lowell, her home city, begin the manufacture of planes. This is already proving a highly successful venture— the Moth Airplane Construction. The first plane was christened by Mrs. Rogers on April 3, this year, and the staid citizens displayed an unwonted enthusiasm and in a triple cause. For their Congresswoman, who had talked aviation and had finally gotten the manufac- turing world right up to the minute in prog- ress in launching the City of Lowell, and for the excellent ginger ale which flowed over the sides just as golden and sparkling as cham- pagne when Mrs. Rogers broke the bottle. ‘This ale is a native product highly appreciated. A long and arduous air journey was that taken last Apr}l to Dayton when the Federation of Women’s Clubs was holding a three-day ex- hibition of aeronautics in order to promote interest in the State. Massachusetts’ vigorous Congresswoman flew to the convention, made a rousing speech, accepted some slight hospi- tality and winged her way back to Washington all within 12 hours. g The Senate and House have many other devotees of the air. Representative W. Frank James of Michigan is the unfailing friend of the Army Aviation Corps. He is a practical pilot and knows the mechanics of the cockpit from every viewpoint and he counts a high rate off mileage in the air. Representative James sympathizes like a brother with birdmen of the land defense and as ranking member of the House committee on military affairs he won a decisive victory for them in the recent passage of the bill giving allowances and other privis leges similar to those enjoyed by the various grades in the Army. In this struggle Repre- sentative James had the cordial co-operation of Col. Lindbergh, who studied all the de- tails and made some ‘highly valuable con- tributions to the bill. The “baby Congress- man,” Melvin J. Maas of Minnesota, who was one of the air heroes of the Marine Corps dur- ing the World War, is among the all-around aviators in official life. He holds military hen- ors b2cause of his martial overseas service and after he returned to his home in St. Paul he secured a commercial pilot’s license and later he took a thorough course in mechanics and holds that license also. Not onecs in a blue moon do either Representative James or Rep- resentative Haas move about except through the air and, naturally, both are able coadjutors of Senator Bingham and of Senator Capper in getting proper airport for Washington, and that within this dawning year. For about seven years the Secretary of Labor had been the cabinet’s only patron of flying, but now he has a keen rival in ths Secretary of War. Col. Hurley, being young, vigorous and progressive, likes to fly, and Mrs. Hurley and the three youngsters look upon it as tremen- dously exciting. Like the little family of Fred- erick Trubze Davison, the young Hurleys are of the growing factors destined to instill “air ease” into the Nation. James J. Davis began to take airplane journeys along in 1922 and before the present rush toward that end. He b:gan as almost all busy people do, to save time. But he has become committed to the idea and no one would be astonished to hear of his buying his own plane and getting out a pilot’s license, because, of coursz, he has learned all about the movements ih these multitudinous flights. He usess a plane to save changing trains on a journey and for the thrill he gets and for ths absolute rest and pleasure of the transit. He rarely reads en route and never works, simply enjoys himself, naps and breathes the ozone. He has flown all over the United States to attend conventions, to make speeches and sometimes just for the trip. The Secre- tary will study.time tables to catch a fast train at some remote station on his line and thus save a few hours besides enjoying the initial flight. Last Spring Mr. Davis flew to Houston, Tex., to attend a convention held by the Brotherhood of Enginemen and FPiremen at which he mads a speech. He then took a fast train to New Orleans, for he would have had to wait for a plane, and besides he had certain work to accomplish, and he can write and study on a Pullman as well as at his desk in the Department of Labor. From New Orleans he flew to Spartansburg, S. C., and, alighting just in the nick of time, caught the Southern ex- press. Dapper and rested, he appeared at his desk the next morning just 12 hours out from the Crescent City. S!CR!.'TARY DAVIS counts as an outstand- ing adventure that he flew from Washing- ton to Pittsburgh in the Question Mark just after that plane had made its altitude record and before that record was lowered. He is as proud of this as his young son is of having flown with Lindbergh. Mrs. Davis, young James and the other little “J.” Davises, Jane, Jean, Joan and Jewel, all flew with Lindbergh and they tell their adventure with breathless details. Mrs. Davis, despite her privilege of soaring with the spotless Knight of the Alir, is not converted to flying and regards it as hagardous for the mother of a large family or the father, either, to take such risks. But the small girls do not share these views. So many “official” children took flights with Lind- bergh during his three-day sojourn in Wash- ington when he was the guest of the President and Mrs. Coolidge and immedistely after his triumphant returnh from Paris, that some of the more enterprising would like to organize something like a “We Flew With Lindbergh” society. There is young John Bowler Hull, son of Maj. John A. Hull, recently Judge Advocate General of the Army, and his numerous chums, sons of Army men, who sp:nd their waking hours constructing airplanes of paper or of wood and experimenting down on the Tidal Basin when weather permits. Col. Lindbergh inspired many a small girl's heart toward the air also a::: with the desire to become an expert in the ether, ; In the realm of Col. Young in commercinl aeronautics the year 1929 has shown a heart- ening increase of Interest in flying. On De- cember 15 a total number of 12,716 of com- mercial pilots’ licenses had been issued, and despite all conceivable handicaps the District of Columbia makes a fair showing with a of 60 licensed aircraft, 183 pilots and 1. chanics. This is a big jump ahead previous year. In the entire country an crease of airmindedness is proven by the tistics gathered from all sources, except Naval and other Governmental planes. On December 1, 1929, more than 3,527,000 personsi® had taken flights in commercial planes, and this means that one in every 30 persons in the total of the Nation‘s population has confidence in air travel. takes pride also in the recent expansion of express by air, for in 1929 3,468,562 pounds were carried. ‘This shows that express aerially is making even strides with passenger and aire mail trafic. New York and California con< tend for honors in having the greatest number of licensed planes—New York, 752, and the Golden State, 518. Illinois rates third with 299 and Pennsylvania close behind with 285, Michigan, where the manufacture of planes is now associated with that of motor cars, hhs leaped into prominence in the past three years and now registers 265 planes. Every State and insular possession has registered some licensed planes, although some, like Nevada, New Mex- ico and all the New England States except Massachusetts, show less than 10. Alaska has fallen into the line of progress with 7 aircraft, 12 plos and 13 mechanics, Hawali has 3 planes, 2 pilots' and 47 mechanics. Columbia Breed of Sheep Tl-!l new breed of sheep, Columbia, which has been developed by experts at the sheep experiment station of the Department of Agriculture located at Dubois, Idaho, is fast coming into popularity. It has been found td}- be the most desirable type of general purpose sheep so far obtained in this country. The new breed was obtained by crossing Line colns and Rambouillets. The former sontrfbuted size, mutton, form and length of staple in the fleece, while the latter strain has added rug- gedness of constitution and the flocking in~ stinct desirable in range sheep. » Results tabulated over a three-year period: show the Columbia ewes producing 11.37 pounds of wool per year, as against 10.82 for the Rambouillet ewes and 8.28 for Corriedales.. For the same period the Columbia lambs whem’ weaned weighed 78 pounds to 73 for the Core riedales and 69 for the Rambouillets. 3