Evening Star Newspaper, October 18, 1931, Page 84

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C., OCTOBER 18, 1931. cent to preserve the invaluable visual records of our own times! Despairing of geiting action in Washington before many of the priceless films had been Jost or destroyed or had disintegrated, Miss Gentry then turned to private individuals for help in carrying out her plan. A film history cf our cwn country, she realized, would have to begin with Roosevelt, as he was the first President extensively pictured. Only a few scattered shots were taken of McKinley, and these, with the jerky movements and fine rain- like lines, were unpleasant examples of the imperfection of early photography. The idea of ccllecting filras about Roosevelt's activities immediately suggested to Miss Gen- try an organization which might sponsor and finance the undertaking. So she appealed to Herman Hagcdorn, director of the Roosevelt Memorial Association. Mr. Hagedorn, with his interest in history and appreciation of the im- portance of original records, lisicned to her en- thusiastically and succeeded in raising among Mr. Roosevelt’s friends enough money for the project. - ITH the passionate enthusiasm of a mother searching for and reclaiming lost chil- dren, Miss Gentry threw herself into the task. The films she sought were more widely scat- tered thah war refugees, and many of them, as she feared, had been destroyed. -Some of them rested in the long unopened vaults of newsreel companies, and others, whose makers had gone out of businers, were stored hap- hazardly—anywhere. Qften the owners them- selves did not know that they possessed Roose- velt films. Many of the most interesting shots —those taken during the expedition to the River of Doubt, on the lion hunting trip to Africa and the triumphal retuin through Eu- rope, were made by foreign firms, and whether or not they had been preserved all these years was very doubtful. The question of expense was always to the fore, as Miss Gentry's appro- priation was slim, and a large percentage of the e | SONG OF AUTUMN By Charles E. Scotton AM not a poet. 1 have never been able to master the little tricks of rhythm and the twists of meter that play such an important part in the work of these idealists. But sometimes, when I hear the Song of Autumn, I imagine that I possess the soul of a poet. It is possible that I am mistaken in this— that all men may hear this song—that decp sn their hearts they also thrill at the glory of the soft notes. I do not know whéther they seé the hillside massed in color—a country lane ankle-decp in rustling leaves—yellow pump- kins giving their touch of color to drab rows of corn — the gentle lapping of blue water against an old wharf—moonlight through the mist. And whether they hear the call of the whip-poor-zill and detect that pungent odor of wood smoke. feet revealing him making a speech dedicating the Roosevelt Dam. All these casual bits she fitted into place, rounding them out with other films which carried on or further illuminated the story of that particular episode or side of his character.” For example, the picture of the President at Rceosevelt Dam. This was one of his cherished projects and important contributions, and Miss Gentry has made it the subject of a one-reel picture. First she collected, from somewhere, pictures of the arid desert land in Arizona be- fore the dam was built. Then_a few shots of the dam in construction; then a picture of the completed work, with Roosevelt making the dedication speech. As even this did not finish the story, she sent a photographer to Arizona to take shots of the fertile farms which now dot the valley, thus ending her picture with I am not a poct, but sometimes, when I hear the Song of Autumn, I imagine that I possess the soul of a poet. and led me to the Capitol Building in Wash- ington. When I applied to the custodians of the Capitol for films which my records showed had been delivered there, they could not be found, but three years later I was summoned to Washington by a long-distance call and the question, °‘Are you still intcrested in those Panama films?’ “Yes, I certainly was, and Miss Manning and I took the first train to Washington. From these negatives and many others we finally succeeded in getting enough showing the great machines at work to make a thrilling epic of modern machinery. There are scenes of Roose- velt in Panama going over the work, con- sidered by him the greatest achievement of his administration. I wound up the two reels with pictures of the completed canal in oper- ation.and a shot of President Coolidge making “On Roosevelt’s birthday, October 27, the pictures will be exhibited in schools and clubs.” films needed had to be begged or wheedled from their possessors. “At this task,” says Mr. Hagedorn, “she was very adept. She has not only great persever- ence, but a gift of gentle persuasion, flavored with humor and indignation, which few people can resist.” She first communicated with all the film companies who might by the remotest possibility have taken shots of the strenuous former President, and from these companies got whole-hearted co-operation. Much of the film had changed hands, and often the own- ers could not tell her whether or not they had Roosevelt film; or if they did possess any, where it was. Many, however, allowed her to examine old lists and go through their storage rooms; If she found anything, they either sold it to her at cost or made a gift of it. With her assistant, Miss Manning, she spent hours, days, weeks, running old negatives over a hand ma- chine, hoping to discover the eye-glasses, the toothy smile, the vigorously pointing finger of the Rough Rider. Some of the earlier pictures had been taken by the old Biograph Co. This firm had long since gone out of existence, but its vaults were still intact. One of the trustees of the estate allowed her to go through the vaults, and at his own expense made for her duplicates of the Roosevelt films she found. Since these were the old style, taken before the width of films was standardized by the American So- ciety of Motion Picture Engineers, they had to be reduced to 35 mm. before they could be shown on modern projection machines. “When,” says Mr. Hagedorn, “after days of search and almost endless round-the-barn ne- gotiations, a film would find its way into Miss Gentry's hands, it would sometimes turn out to be only a few feet, just a moment’s flash of Roosevelt. But she showed remarkable re- sourcefulness and ingenuity im building these fcattered remnants into consecutive, complete stories. For instance, she would get 20 feet of film showing the President making a speech on the back of a train, 30 feet showing " him driving up Pennsylvania avenue, or 100 the tangible, visible results of the reclamation act. The captions she took from the colonel’s own Wwritings on reclamation. making of the Panama Canal reels was another triumph of intelligent patchwork. “It begins,” explained Miss Gentry, “with a scene of President McKinley speaking at Buf- falo on September 5, 1901, on the great need for a canal across the isthmus. On this occa- sion he said: ‘The Panama Canal is & sub- ject of large importance to our country and of increasing appreciation on the part of the people.” I succeeded in obtaining this valuable film, taken the night before the President was shot, from Mr. George Kleine. To find pic- tures of the actual building of the canal in- volved a search which lasted for three years a speech in which he said: ‘By building the Panama Canal, Theodore Roosevelt brought into closer relationship the East and West and realized the vision that inspired Columbus in his search for a new passage to the Orient.’ “When the picture was shown at a dinner -given by the Panama engineers, they were wild with enthusiasm; they felt that the Canal story had been rescued for all time.” Other Roosevelt films have been built up in a similar manner. For the one on the expedi- tion to the River of Doubt, Anthony Fiala, the explorer, contributed some of the most beauti- ful film in the entire collection, containing many splendid shots of the former President in South America. But Mr. Fiala, after going up the Paraguay and across Matto Grosso with the Roosevelt-Rondon party, had left them when they embarked upon the headwaters of the un- The Age-0ld Protest By Elizabeth D. Hart Watching the crumpled, weary leaves that shower Upon the shrivelled ground, and sullen mist Choking the hills, I wonder at the Power That forces us to keep an annual tryst With Desolation—and my heart is crying The age-old protest, cried in every land, Against the world’s sole wrong that merits sighing, And can be righted by no mortal hand. -Ten thousand throats have mourned the grim decision That all the loveliest things must fade and die, And begged of beauty a less scant provision— Yet Sappho was as impotent as 1, And Herrick's daffodils were left to fail With Villon’s youth and Omar’s nightingale. known river, and had taken another route to the Amazon. The Fiala films were therefore augmented by some taken by a local photog- rapher, and, after long-drawn-out negotiations between the American Ambassadcr and the government of Brazil, by others taken by the official Brazilian cameraman. However, Miss Gentry still lacked adequate pictures of the River of Doubt itself and the remote and lonely surrounding country. In 1927, therefore, Comdr. G. M. Dyott, formerly of the British Navy, was commissioned by the Roosevelt Memorial Association to make an ex- pedition to this region and bring back films, a perilous task which he accomplished suc- cessfully. Films showing the country which Col. Roose~ velt traversed on his famous big game hunt in Africa had to be augmented in the same way. After this adventure the mighty hunter made a triumphal tour. Zine Vital to Auto Tires HE auto has brought zinc oxide its great= est use. Properties imparted to rubber by the oxide make it indispensable to the prep= aration of automobile tires, tubes and other auto accessories. The addition of the oxide adds tensile strength and resistance to abra- sion and tears and greatly increases the lon- gevity of the rubber. Inasmuch as the auto- mobile interests consume 75 per cent of the entire output of the rubber industry, the im- portance to the producers of the zinc oxide is apparent. According to the Bureau of Mines, two methods, the French and the American, are now in use in the production of zinc oxide in this country. The American is preferred but the French produces a purer product. In the latter method, metallic zinc is heated in a current of air, the resultant oxide fumes being collected in leng chambers, where it is depcsited in almost pure form. The finer grade is used in the manufacture of high-grade enamel paints. In the American method the zinc ore is heated in a mixture with anthracite. The re- sultant metallic zinc vapor is then treated with heated air and the oxide formed. This method usually leaves some lead present as an im- purity, for there is usually some lead in the zinc ore. Zinc oxide is gaining more and more use as a pigment in fairly large proportions in paint. It has a more stable color than white lead and is much less expensive, covers well and is lasting, but cannot be used alone, for it dries in a hard, smooth surface, which with aging cracks and peels off. It is finding a wide demand among the man- ufacturers of oilcloth, linoleum, pottery giazes, glass, eelluloid, druggists’ supples, printers’ ink and other materials. Investigators have also found that zinc oxide can be used as a lubricant. Mixed with oil, it has been found to prevent the corrosion of bearings by depositing a thin coat of zinc on the surfaces of the bearings. This field offers considerable possibilities for future develop- ment. Careless Smokers Blamed HE careless smoker was responsible last year for the loss of some 10,000.000 acres of valuable timber land in this country, if figures assembled in the protected forest areas were similar to those of the unprotected area. Alto- gether 52,000,000 acres were burned over, one=- ninth of this being on fire-protected areas and the rest in unprotected areas. Some idea of what the amount of forest land burned amounts to may be found in compari- son with the combined area of Indiana and Ohio, which just about equals the amount of burned-over land last year. For the year there were more than 190,000 fires in the forests, careless smokers being blamed for 20 per cent. Deliberate woods burn- ing and incendiarism are responsible for 17 per cent of the fires, while lumbering operations accounted for but 4 per cent of the blazes. The value of fire-protection measures is shown by the fact that, although more than a third of the fires broke out on protected areas, the total loss was but one-ninth. New York’s Mines Least Safe EW YORK, with its 27 metal mines, was by far the unsafest for the work in the list of States with metal workings. Last year, ac- cording to statistics gathered by the Bureau of Mines, the 735 men injured represented a rate of 349 per thousand workers based on a 300-day working year. The next nearest State, California, had a rate of 284 injured workmen per thousand. Minnesota with a rate of 60 per thousand was the safest. California and Colorado with a rate of fatalities well above five per thousand led in the death rate. For the entire country, 271 were killed, which was 79 less than in 1929, while the in- jured totaled 15,594, which was 7,500 less than the previous year. INC OXIDE has loi\g been known to the in- dustrial life of this country, but it re- mained for the advent of the rubber industry to bring the simple monoxide of zine into its Now the Mexican Fruit Fly THE Mediterranean fruit fly was met and conquered after heroic treatment and now a fruit fly is hovering in the offing awaiting to enter the United States and start new damage. This new fly, the Mexican fruit fly. has been discovered quite frequently in border towns across the Rio Grande and, as a result, the Department of Agriculture is seeking to battle it on its native heath. Dr. A. C. Baker of the Bureau of Entomology has gone to Mexico City, where he will carry on an extensive study of the fly, its habils and means of combatting it. It is hoped that the fly can be kept from entering the South- ern fruit belt of the United States.