Evening Star Newspaper, July 24, 1932, Page 61

THE SUNDAY STAR, WASHINGTON, D. C, JULY 24, 1932 Those of you who swelter when the thermometer hits the 90's once described as a cold weve Nobody ever got Licked eut of a Phoenix night club or speakeasy in Summer for not having on a boiled shirt and a tux. BY OREN ARNOLD. AYBE you think it's hot? Well, you're wrong. You don’t know what heat is! You fret and sweat at 92. You fear sunstroke at 95 and say it's unbearable. But you ought to move over to the Colorado River country and get thawed out! Unless you happen to live near Phoenix or Tucson or Yuma, Ariz., or near Needles or El Centro or Brawley, Calif., you need an overcoat, relatively speaking. The inhabitants of that southwestern territory are the only Americans who really know what “temperature” is. Phoenix is the hottest city in the United States—and that doesn’t mean 98 degrees, efther. Several little towns—like El Centro and Needles and Yuma—have a degree or two ad- vantage (or disadvantage) over Pheenix, but nobody envies them. The official records for this season aren’t in yet, but last’ Summer the thermometer in Pheecnix stampeded up to 118 degrees Fahren- heit in the shade. A few days later it was down to 104, and the papers there carried headlines, “Cold Wave Brings Relief!” ELIEF! At 104 degrees! Chicago would have called out the Red Cross, and New York's flags would have been at half mast mourning her dead. But in Pheenix the ambu- lance drivers just poured another glass of lemonade and went on with their checker game. Ladies and gentlemen, it gets hellishly hot in Phoenix—a capital city of 100.000—but it doesn’t get anybody’s goat. Now the Phoenix Chamber of Commerce would resent that strong statement if it were left to stand alcne. Phoenix has a lively chamber headed by the energetic and affable A. C. Tavlor, owner of a big printing establish- ment. Naturally, 7Tayler is proud of his tewn, and here’s w some of that same Summer heat slops right on over into January and February and makes Pheenix one of the fore- most Winter resorts in the world. 8o if the truth hurts in August it means tourist dollars later on. As a matter of surprising fact, nobody in Phoenix or Yuma or Tucson seems to “suffer” from the high temperatures. This country comprises what geographers refer to as the American desert and, so, heat is expected. It is a very dry heat, not the sticky seacoast variety. The residents there know what to do about il. Those Southwastern residznts have learned some very definite rules and methods of com- bating high temperaturcs, so that life can go on with no more discomfort than in Chicago or Cincinnati or Houston or New Orleans. This despite a differential in temperature of maybe 20 degrees. The Phoenicians and others in that territory scoil at the fclly of conventional Summer dress, for example: This month a coat in Southern Arizona is absolutely taboo. Sartorially perfect Jimmy Walker of Manhattan might gasp in horrer if he dropped in this afternoon on Mayor Fred Paddock of Phoenix. Fred undoubtedly would arise from his desk to greet him in shirt slecves. Further, Fred wouldn’t even be wearing a tie, and his shirt collar would be hanging disgracefully open! But Fred is in styvle. His coatless, tieless at- tire is ultrafashionablc in Phoenix and Tucson, society centers of the American semi-tropical You fret and sweat at 92. You fear sunstroke at 95 and say it's unbearable. But vou nughl to move over to the Colorado River country and get thawed out. Death Valley lies right in the middle of the Southwestern hot belt, and here are “Death Valley™” Scotty and Betty Gillette, movie actress. seeling relief from the heat on the roof of Scotty's castle. zone. He would be conspicucus—and miserable! —1if he dressed any other way. Nobedy ever got kicked out of a Phoenix night club or speakeasy in Summer for not having on a boiled shirt and a tux. The dance floor of the Grand Cafe is crowded nearly every evening. But you don’'t sec an elaborate fashion show. The women are gay in filmy limitations, and the men—traditional sufferers in formal attire— are gay for once because of their light white trousers, perforated shoes and sport shirts without ties. HERE are few more dignified individuals in the world than Scotch Presbyterian preach- ers in their pulpits addressing wealthy cengre- gations. Consider “Vic” Rule, then. The Rev. Victor Alexander Rule, D. D., formerly of the First Presbyterian Church ef Phoenix, largest and wealthiest congregation between Denver and Los Angeles. Dr. Rule, who just recently accepted a new pastorate near Pittsburgh, Pa., spent the last 10 years in Phoenix. From October through May his pulpit costume was a voluminous all- over thing in formal black, calculated to be both warm and dignified. But from June through September the * doctor exhorted his parishioners from the same pulpit in shirt sleeves. N special occasions—like baptisms and hav- ing guest speakers—he somctimes added 8 loose necktiz. His successor in Phoenix, and virtually all the other preachers there, dress with equal comfort, setting an example followed by their flocks. W. C. “Curly” Lefebvre, youthful chief of police, is one of Phoenix's fashion plates. In Wintertime Chief Lefebvre is a well dressed individual, who ‘can be an efficient city oficer as well as carry a cane. InSummer he “moults” like his fellow townsmen .and gees coatless and tielsss. Even Gov. George W. P, Hunt, Arizona's “old werhorse,” who has been. a Governer more times than any other man, geoes daily to his eoffice in shirt sleeves. The ice cream man gets rich in Phoenix. You can buy more kinds of frozen desserts per wagon or roadside stand in Phoenix than in any other city in America—if you insist on a statistic. Similarly does the soda pop flow freely. And Phoenix has been a veritable paradise for the electric refrigerator dealer. First of all, nearly every major refrigerator on the market made elaborate tests in Pheenix and other desert centers, and then started their national ballyhoo saying their machines had stcod the “extreme” test. But dressing and eating preperly to combat the heat are still not all. What about sleeping? Drive up the Phoenix residential streets around 5 o’clock this morning and -about every third house will show beds occupied in the front yard. Another third of the residents will be snoring in back yards and en Toofs. The re- mainder will, quite frankly, have moved away to cooler localities. Phoenix people in Summer do not sleep in houses, except rarely. Nér do they often rest on the conventional sleeping porch, because the intense heat of the long day’s sun is stored in the mass of wood or masonry that is the home, and is radiated all night. UT—and this may arouse the Eastern So- ciety for the Prevention of Semething or Other—many, many of the respectable and other residents sleep eutside stark nude! It is distinctly a soclal error, & faux pas, to go snooping around front yards in the Phoenix dawn. Even the merning paper boy a=d the milk-‘man must be gentlemen of rare discretion, schooled in the diplomacy of non-seeing silence. Numerous public swimming poels dot the countryside, and many more private ones are in use all Summer. A swimming pool in the back yard is a mark of high wealth in most cities, but many middle-class homes sport them in Phoenix. Even the families of small jcb holders pro- vide portable pools for their children. A strip of canvas tacked on a wooden frame and filled with the yard hose makes a wonderful kiddie cooler, restores energy and good temper on iong August afternoons, and costs around $5 enly. It's expensive to insulate against the heat— the 118 or more degrees in the daytime and the 87 at night—in small residences and business houses, but the really big expense comes in cooling the Phoenix office buildings and theaters. Mest of them weren't cooled, except with electric fans, prior to 1931, and some of them aren't today. But air conditioning has changed the rental atmosphere in Phoenix, literally as well as figuratively. ECAUSE this city was the biggest one in the hottest climate. it became the tryout eenter for numerous scientific experiments in cooling buildings. The new Luhrs Tower and Professional Building there have perhaps the most medern air-conditioning systems in the world, but they cost! In fact it costs the landlords something jike three times as much to cool their buildings in August s it costs to heat them in February. The residents of Phoenix and other eities of abimdant hot sunshine have discovered at least one way of making Old Sol share the cost of living. In many homes there he heats the water. For as little as $10 it is possible to have a solar heater that will “do the work.” The latter is no more than a second-hand iron tank set up on the roof, and connected with the house water system—cold intake at the bottom, hot outflow 2t the top. Painted black, the tank absorbs much heat from the sun. One 20-gallon tank, so placed on a Phoenix home, will supply three baths and two gecnerous dishwashings daily from late May to September, with water that is “scalding” hot. Better Heat for Fruit OR years there has besn considerable Joss from shipping perishable fruits and vege- tables in refrigerator cars which were improper- 1y heated during transportation in cold weather. In order to overcome this loss, the Department of Agriculture, threugh the experimental work of the Bureau of Plant Industry, has developed a new system of heat control which it expected to result in great savings. It has always been the practice, heretofore, to light the heaters in the cars according to the outside temperatures. This, of course, on the face of it was a wrong practice, for the insula- tion which keeps out the heat in Summer, keeps it in in Winter. Therefore, the inside tem- perature was sought as a basis for gauging the heat necessary. Fruit in cars which were heated according to the outside temperature often spoiled because the temperature in the cars was too high. A device used by the bureau in carrying out its tests kept the temperature below the per- mitted maximum control and not only brought the fruit to its destination in fine shape but also saved considerably in the fuel consumed in heating the cars. No commercial apparatus has beer perfected yet for determining the inside temperatures, but now that the way has been shown and the sav- ings indicated, it is likely that some manufac- turer will take up thc matter and work out some feasible plan to do the work. Impure Foods Sei~ed UNE was & bad menth for violators of the pure foed and drugs act. Altogether, 65 cases of misbranded foods and drugs were investigated and seizures mace. Some of the products were found to be short in their con- tents, others claiming curative qualities they did not possess and some shipments of food particularly were found to contain decomposed matter.