The Key West Citizen Newspaper, January 25, 1939, Page 2

PAGE TWO The Key West Citizen | SHOULD GET HIGHWAY GRANT Publishe y Except Sunday By THE CITIZEN PUBLISHING CO. INC. L. P. ARTMAN, President and Publisher JOL: ALLEN, Assistant Business Manager rom The Citizen Building Corner Greene and Ann Streets Only Daily Newspaper in Key West and Monroe County , West, Florida, as second class matter ber of the Associated Press ated Press is exclusively entitled ‘to use jlication of all news dispatches credited to for ré it or the local news p No user of Overseas Highway greatly { i complains about the toll charges, but this | | does not mean that anyone would register i ' any loud complaint if the tolls were -re-. | duced or cut down to a nominal | tenance fee through eventual repayment of | the $3,600,000 loan from the federal gov- | ernment. There seem to be only two ways to ® | reduce the debt—an increase in the toll AD TISING RATES Made known on application. AL NOTICE rds of thanks, resolutions of s, etc, will be charged for at ine, ainment by churches from which . derived are 5 cents a line. » is an open forum and invites discus- | F issues and subjects of local or general but it will not publish anonymous communi- ImMPhOVEMENTS FOR KEY WEST ADVOCATED BY THE CITIZEN Water and Sewerage. Compreheusive City Plan (Zoning). Hotels and Apartments. Bathing Pavilion. Airports—Land and Sea. Consolidation of County and City Governments. The man worth while takes defeat with a smile. Promises not only come home _ to roost; they also lay for one. The strike. radio performers threaten to Some should be struck, Have you ever noticed that whispers in Key West often travel much faster than | loud noises? The female of the species always gets in the last word—even if she is speaking | to another woman, Calling the wild orgy of government spending an investment is truth in the re- verse with a vengeance. The voters may do nothing now about grafting by public officials, but they will remember when election time comes around, and this is election year. If Key West had the political pull, it | would have gotten the Naval air base, where it belongs, rather than Jacksonville at the other end of the peninsula. | Presidents born in log cabins have | proven themselves decidedly the best for the country, but log cabin prospects are | getting scarcer. In the present Congress | only five members were born in log cabins. | — | Letters to The Citizen must bear the signature of the writer, not necessarily for publication, but for the purpose of identi- fication. A pseudonym is permissible only | if the writer’s name accompanies the com- | filed applications for collections and cancellation of part of the | loan. Collections are increasing steadily and are now at a rate more than ample to quirement costs. Cancellation of part of the loan can be accomplished if the fed- eral lending authorities make the usual | grant of 45 per cent allowed such projects. | With that in view the Overseas Road and | Toll Bridge district last Saturday decided a grant amounting to $1,638,000. Letters produced results, so the commission is the necessary quests, The Citizen believes that in justice to representations authorities will grant the request. Mem- that Overseas Highway is the only road project in Florida which did ‘not benefit from ‘a grant when funds were advanced for the work. Why this should have been the case seems to be a mystery, and why the government does not act favorably in this just demand is a question that has been puzzling officials of the bridge au- thority. While in Washington, Commissioner Kennedy should also be_ instructed to sound out officials of the PWA and the FHA on the matter of making suitable leans and grants for extending the new highway over the old railroad bed and via- ducts above Marathon and below Big Pine Key. Above Marathon there are several miles of old county road. It is uneven and dangerous and should be eliminated as socn as:possible. Everyone is familiar with the need for a new roadway and con- crete bridges'from Big Pine to Key West. The bridge commission some weeks ago loans and grants amounting to around $2,000,000 for these proposed works. Commissioner Kennedy should find out if this sum is likely to be allocated in the new appropriations for PWA being considered by Congress. As The Citizen has pointed out repeatedly, the time to start projects through the complicated fed- eral lending agencies is before the money has been advanced to other sections for other projects, many of which are not as worthy and worthwhile as Overseas High- way—which has demonstrated it can be made to pay its way. That is more than one argument in favor of a new loan and | grant to the bridge district. munication. | | Those who suvscribe to the doctrine | that a government can “spend its way into | prosperity,” are due for a rude awaken- | ing. The regrets come after the money is | . Spent and it is too late then, for the money can be enjoyed but once, even if the gov- | ernment has cut the dollar’s value in two. | © Es | If Harry Hopkins didn’t say “we will | tax and tax, spend and spend, vote and | vote”, who dig? Max Gordon is credited with having overheard the former WPA administrator make the remark, but he re- | fuses to testify. Hopkins admitted before | a congressional committee that he talked too much, and this is one time he did. Hugh Johnson, former NRA adminis- | trator, now a columnist and a good one, | makes the statement that each person on | the WPA means four votes for the <Ad-| ministration at election times, It seems a | reasonable conclusion. Publishers reckon | the number of the readers of their news- | papers on the same basis—four for each paid subscriber. That gives The Citizen | about 5,300 readers, but it is a conserva- | tive estimate in Key West. Former Mayor | Curry, deceased, informed the publisher | that 42 people read.his copy of this paper, | and the item with his permission was pub- } lished in The Citizen at the time the state- ment was made. Perhaps some of the sub- | were born in big cities. MAKE-UP? OF CONGRESS According to the new congressional directory, fewer members of the present Congress were born on farms than has been the case in the past. Only 136 came originally from farm homes, while 110 were born in towns or in cities of less than 50,000 population, Of the former farm boys in Congress five proudly relate that they were born in log cabins; three were born on western ranches and one in a sawmill camp. A large majority of the members are college | graduates, although 88 did not get beyond grade schools. Some went to college but | did not graduate. Fourteen members were born in for- | eign countries, but all came to the United | States while young, and were educated | here. Of these there are two each from Germany, Wales, Scotland and Austria, and one each from Czecho-Slovakia, Eng- land, Ireland, Norway, Sweden and Canada. Five members are women—one sen- ator and four representatives. There is | of tidal effect. It is believed that 10. one Negro member, and one vacancy, caused by the death of a former member since the election. The present session promises to be a bay is bound by extensive areas with that to send Commissioner John Kennedy of | Fort Lauderdale to Washington to ask for | addressed to the lending officials have not | sending one of its own members to make | and fe- the users of Overseas Highway the federal | bers of the commission rightfully point out | some projects have been able to do and is | main- | ; meet maintenance, operation and debt re- | now able to brea' chest alone. by means of THE KEY WEST CITIZEN |___ VEST LUNG Frederick B. Snite, of Chicago, who has been paralyzed for more than two years, and kept alive only by means of an iron | is a “vest lung” which fits over THE ISLAND CITY Along the Waterfront AT THE COAST, and Geodetic | offices may be;seen a copy of the earliest: maps made of the Cape Sable and Florida Keys coast.' The map was drawn up by B. Romans in 1774. Cape Romani lat Cape Sable was named for | him. Cape Sabie on the old map is Sandy Point, the Spanish add- ing the Sable, which meant san- dy. Matecumbe is Matacomba. All the navigation landmarks, such as Soung Matacomba, Ma- jtanea, Key Rodriguez, Sound |Point True, Cape Florida, Key Tabona, Black Caesar’s Creek and: {Saunders Cut for the reef wa- ters, are included. Off the spot |where is now Miami is Fools! | Cape, so named because it was |a false appearing cape to the |navigator. Rivers around Miami jare marked fresh water. A “Grand Marsh” is marked above Miami. - At Cape Sable, Dry; | River and Shark River are nam-) ed. This type of map is known as a “reconnaissance” map. | VELASCO IN HIS Geographia de la Indias (1571-1574) describes |the island of Matacumbe as situ- \ated at the northern extremity jof Martyr Islands. lin his Lexicographia Antillana idefines Matacutnbe as “rocks |dangerous to. navigation, in 1662 wrecked a vessel bearing | gold and silver to Spain”. Brin- re in his Florida Peninsula ex- |presses the opinion that Mate- |cumbe is identical with Guaran- gunve or Guarangumbe, which |Fontanedo described in 1575 as \the largest Indian village on Las, Martires and which he translated by Pueblo de. Llanto, “town of weeping”. THE FORMATION of the Keys in the Florida Bay area are gen- jerally in groups. This formation jis due to the mangroves growing along the shoal areas, which are long and narrow and have chain- like formation. These shoal |areas are very extensive in the locality and it is conceivable that | all of those Keys that are on the shoal areas will some day be connected. However, all the | Keys in the Florida Bay area are |not on the: “long” shoals. Some ‘are the result of mangrove, growth on a. small, detached) shoal area. The area along the, |mainland of the Florida Penin-' |slightly higher strip along this area that contains a thick growth | of sub-tropical trees and is about {a foot or 2 foot and a half above high water. Immediately in-| ishore of this band of hammock {land there is usually found an} jextensive growth of mangrove | which is cut up by many lakes and ponds. North of this man- | grove area the land is given over |to glades which is dotted with many smali,clumps of hammock. FROM CAPE SABLE eastward to Flamingo the terrain just north ¢ the high water line’ is © much |higher than is found further east. | There the land is a marl prairie jand is covered with a growth of | | short grass. It is soft and impass- | | able for trucks and cars during} |the rainy season from June to_ |November. To be -noted in this, jarea is the nearly total absence |nearly all tide at or near the | mainland between Little Made- ira and Snake Bight is caused by | _wind. The western area of the have. been filled during the con- struction of the railroad and has shut Off the tidal flow into the bay. NONE OF THE COMMON TREES of the other sections of the country have been noted here, with tropical or sub-tropical trees evident. Such trees as stopper- wood, handlewood, madeira ma- hognay, wild lime, pigeon plum, pond apple, buttonwood, Jamaica dogwood, Mansanita, palmetto palm, fan palm, royal madeira palm, gumbo limbo and lingum- vitae are among the most num- erous. Hammocks tropical jungle, impentrable be- cause of numerous trees and climbing vines. Aerial and ter- restrial orchids are found on the hammocks that are difficult of cecess. Most of the damage done by tropical hurricanes are to the trees. RESIDENTS of the mainland are mostly at Flamingo, east of Cape Sable. Little success at cul-} Alfredo Zayas tivation at Davis Creek and Trout} reek has been noted. There are many lime groves on the Keys which 2nd a few areas where tomatoes’ and certain types of melons are cultivated. It seems remarkable that the land is able to support eny type of cultivation as there is very little top soil and only a leaf mold between the rocks. Lime groves are cleared only of underbrush most by the residents and the lime trees planted. AMONG THE TYPES of water bottoms and land on the Keys are grassy, shoal, deep water, mud flats or salt flats, channels. TODAY’S COMMON ERROR Do not say, “The wea- ther was real cold”: say. “seally cold”. TEST YOUR KNOWLEDGE test questions? Turn to Page 6 for the answers — - 1. What is a pedologist? 2. Name the capital of the American Virgin Islands. the Tropic 3. Is resemble a. PEOPLE'S FORUM Ceeeeeersaes-~seageceooces SUGGESTS TAX METHOD /€ditor, The Citizen: in order to get personal prop- ,erty used in business properly as- sessed, all kinds of business | should be required to obtain a li- jeense. The taw should require every business to take an inven- }tory within six months prior to issuing a license so that an in- ventory can be taken when ‘it is most convenient and advanta- ;geous to each particular business to take it, In making applica- jtion for a license the applicant ' should state: The date of the last inven- tory which should include all taxable assets, both tangible and intangible, and that a statement thereof was set forth on Page — in Book.— of the records of the busi- ness. | The Tax Assessor would then have definite figures on which to | base an assessment and a uniform ‘percent of inventory value could 2e adopted and enforced through- \out the state—30 percent of in- ventory value oi tangible prop- ‘eity would probably be a fair as- sessment—the assessment and tax on intangible property I will dis- cuss in another letter. In the event the statement was found to be false, the license should be cancelled and the in- {dividual making the fraudulent) | statement should be prosecuted | for fraud. I hepe that business men and | | particularly the merchants, will! ‘consider this plan and publicly |offer any criticism that might |cccur to them. i PERRY G. WALL. | Jan. 23, 1939, | KEY WEST IN DAYS GONE BY | Happenings Here Just 10 Years Ago Today As Taken From The Files of The Citizen ——— The industrial and port survey now being made of Key West by ! William T. Donnelly, consulting jengineer of New York, is design-| /ed to be the ground work of one! \of the most extensive, highly im- ‘portant and far-reaching move- ‘ments ever launched on the | western hemisphere. . Under the tentative ‘plans which prompted this survey, Key West will even; tually’ become what is termed a free port, a point of interchange | and distribution of the products of the world. Twenty-five pro-| gressive and far-seeing citizens of Key West formed themselves into a committee to sponsor the! / great moyement. It was through ‘heir efforts and voluntary con- tributed means that the service of Mr. Donnelly was secured for the important work of making the preliminary survey, which commenced immediately after his atrival from New York, Tuesday. With morte than 30 years of suc- cessful experience along this and kindred lines, the local commit-; tee believes Mr. Donnelly emin- ently fitted for the work. He is the designer and builder of the {Donnelly floating dock used by more shipping interests than any other type of dock in the world. With Key West made a free port, , goods and products from other ‘countries would be transported jhere in ships owned by the va- rious individual nations, entered free of duty and stored for future shipment to the countries which buy them, or distributed to! American interests. Duties will tbe paid at this port by the pur-| | chasers of the goods brought inj | under this plan. The free port of | The remainder |sula is very low. There is a Cam you answer seven of these Key West would appeal to the |coffee interests of the present) day. South American countries | | could each have a merchant ma- | | rine, transport their coffee or oth- | er goods to this port where the ‘merchandise could be stored in eg RELIEF FUND FIGHT 10,000,000 UNEMPLOYED BRITAIN PROTESTS COTTON TO POLAND TO CONFER ON BRAZIL THE PANAMA CANAL Nobody can tell exactly how much money Congress will vote for relief purposes because, no matter what is done immediately, there is always the chance that new funds will be provided. With the administration, both branches of labor, the conference of mayors and others .insisting that this is no time for a cut in the number of those provided for by relief work there is no certainty that any reduction will be more than a temporary saving in funds. It is estimated that there are 10,000,000 unemployed in the United States now, with about 3,000,000 on WPA. Of the others. one and one-half million are be- ing cared for by direct reliet from states, counties and cities and five and one-half million by their own savings or the charity of friends and relativ or by pensions and unemployment in- surance. Great Britain has followed the lead of the United States. in re- ‘gards to Japanese aggression in China, having delivered. a note demanding that the open’ door principle be respected in China: The British, it is reported, like the United States, refuse to rec- ognize changes brought about by force or admit the unilateral mod- ification of treaty rights and ‘re- serve all rights under treaties affecting China. France is expect- ed to take a similar stand. lines. At the same time it leads to much loss of life and physical injury and occasionaliy great waste of time and money. Island City League. will con- tinue to play ball at, the cjty ball park. Sunday afternoon there will be a, doubleheader, between the Young Sluggers and: the re- inforced White Socks. The first game will start.at 1:30 p:m: The second game will bé betwéen’ thé White Socks and Key West. Ow- ing to the fact’ that the Pirates’ team has disbanded the officials of the league have decided to continue with three teams. Joseph Albury, city sanitary of- ficer, who has been ill for some time, is now reported to be con- valescing. Committee appointed to select! a site for the New York memorial monument soon to be erected, is composed of Norberg Thmpson,’ Mrs. Norberg Thompson, Karl Thmpson. Mrs. Robert Spotts- wood and W. W. Demeritt. When the selection is announced the New York committee will be no- tified. finer prise? Either your of Cancer|pond. The ships returning with | enough extraincash north or south of the|cargoes from other countries,! fortwo years, or $1,500.00 lump sum in Equator? Who wrote “The Count of Monte Cristo”? What is the correct pronun- ciation of the word junk- er? Who was appointed by Presi- dent Roosevelt to fill the office of Attorney General of the U.S, to succeed Homer S. Cummings? What ‘is a ranarium? Name the principal tribu- tary of the Rio Grande. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Africa? Near which Vesuvius? Oh, Boy, Some Fun! “How’s Abel Sass getting on has proven to be both beneficial | school teacher he’s call-| and injurious. It gives the peo- | ple wide freedom of motion, link- | most interesting one, and the legislation (of shoal water, which interrupts ing on now?” : vd egisl “Well, every time he goes to see ing city and the country, promot- , nacted may have an important bearing on seribers will remember reading the story. | ihe presidential election of 1940. |the normal action of the tide and) i most of the water areas between her she keeps him an hour longer ing heaith and speeding up work | the Keys on the southeast side for being naughty”. What is the name for the largest antelope found in | such things as their nations can- |not produce because of climatic’ conditions. |. County Comissioner C. C.| | Symonette and Attorney W. H. {Malone will represent Monroe | county at the meeting of the State | Road Department in Tallahassee | next Monday and Tuesday, it was | decided at a special meeting of |the commissioners last night. Their mission will be to impress upon the State Road Department ‘ the importance, necessity and ad-| | visability of the state taking over | | | the Over-Sea Highway for main- city is Mt. tenance, it was shown. Editorial comment: The auto- 2nd Prize rd Prize 4th Prize... 300.00 | Sth Prize. 200.00 mobile was one innovation which | ete—duplicateprizesincaseof ties. jof many kinds, and in many HURRY! DON’T DELAY! SEND NOW! Just Your An- swer to the Puzzle Above. im MAIL COUPON NOW!, A line of credit has been estab- lished by the Export-Import Bank so that four American banks may finance the shipment of a “sub- stantial amount” .of American cotton to Poland. Those suppos- ed to be familiar with conditions in Poland say that many expert Czechoslovakian textile workers have gone to Poland and that country will be able to meet low- priced Japanese cloth on a com- petitive basis if it can secure cot- }ton. American exporters predict similar arrangements to _ assist other countries in the purchase of Amercian products. ‘They: believe that such a policy will be effec- tive economic assistance to those nations which conduct interna- t.onal trade along the lines advo- cated by this country. i _- \ Early next month Dr. Oswaldo Aranha, Foreign Minister of Bra, zil, will make an official visit\t shingten in order to discuss relations between the United States and he will be the guest of this country. The questions to be discussed have not been an- nounced but the conference will probably include the possibility of improving trade between the two nations; the discussion of hemisphere’ defense '' and ; other problems. Later on; it is,expect- cd, the foreign ministers of other outh: American countries will‘be invited to come to Washirigton. Tke Panama Canal was opened on Aug. 15, 1914, and more than 100,000 ships of 300:tons or more have passed ‘thtough the locks, carrying 500,000,000 tons of freight. The canal, with improve- ments, represents an expenditure cf more than $500,000,000 and, so far, has collected around $450,- (00,000 in tolls. The largest traf- fic was in 1929 when 6,289 ships used the waterway. Tolls vary considerably, with the tonnage of ships, but. just for information, he British battleship Hood paid 400. The canal saves consid- ble mileage for vessels that make voyages between the two oceans, with a ‘few’ exceptions. Just now, with some agitation for the construction of a‘ anal in Nicaragua, it is ‘interesting to ‘note that' the suggestion had been made that another set of.locks be built in the’ Panama’ Canal sys- tem. ———————— From and To ‘Boston, New York, Miami - Jacksonville, Galveston New Orleans and Beyond hs From Key West alternate Mon- i days. a From New York every Thurs- | day. From Boston every Tuesday. From Jacksonville, Miami and New Orleans every two weeks. CLYDE-MALLORY c. E. SMITH, A Key We' ote ot at, Fle,