The Key West Citizen Newspaper, March 31, 1939, Page 2

PAGE TWO Published Daily Except Sunday By THE CITIZEN PUBLISHING CO. INC. L. P. ARTMAN, Presideiit and Publisher JOE ALLEN, Ansisfant Business Manager From The Citizen Building Corner Greene and Ann Streets Only Daily Newspaper in Key West and Monroe County The Key Wiest Citizen | WHAT ABOUT PUBLIC BEACHES? | All last year various groups discussed | proposals to provide Key West with an Entered at Key West, Florida, as second class matter Member of the Associated Press The Associated Press is exclusively entitled to use for republication of all news dispatches crelited to it or not etherwise credited in this paper and also the local news published here. SUBSCRIPTION RATES Qne Month Weekly ADVERTISING RATES Made known on application. SPECIAL NOTICE All reading notices, cards of thanks, resolutions of sespect, obituary notices, ete, will be charged for at the ra f 10 cents a line. - ‘or entertainment by churches from which venue is to be derived are 5 cents a line. zen is an open forum and invites discus- | public issues and subjects of local or general but it will not publish anonymous communi- cations IMPROVEMENTS FOR KEY WEST ADVOCATED BY THE CITIZEN Water and Sewerage. Comprehensive City Plan (Zéning). Hotels and Apartments. Bathing Pavilion. Airports—Land and Sea. Consolidation of County and City Governments. Officers of the law have a great call- | ing when they follow it. The messenger boy is the fellow who put the “leg” in telegram. When a man can’t find time to go fishing, he must be busy. Income tax returns may be made on a cash or accrual basis. But both are cruel. Every editor hopes at this time of the year that the crop of poetry has diminished. A scientist says the flight of time is an illusion. We wish he would convince our banker. Some of this so-called personality is the same thing that used to be known as the big head. Sugar is one of the most important in- dustries of Bohemia, and didn’t Hitler help himself to a huge lump. Wher. a man begins to feel a bit leery when streamlines are mentioned, it is a| good sign of middle age. er, until] the money runs out—then brother will have to go to work. father and son. gets a chance to wear it. it will not be a matter of choice. Newspaper boosting others, but are seldom. boosted themselves—except in the pants. Eventually women reach the stage of | life when a run in a silk stocking is not im- portant but it takes some of them a long | with firing the imagination of the South time. = It might be well for Mr. and Mrs. Key West Citizen to brush up a bit on personal history in the next few months. Reason is that the census takers will be aroynd be- fore.long with a set of questions that are likly to put a heavy strain on most peo- ple’s memory. It is not going to be a job ofjust counting noses, etc. This year the government wants to know what each citi- zen Was doing 10 years ago; where he lived 10 years ago; what his earnings were, and any number of other memory puzzlers. Some day Hitler and Mussolini will clash and then the democracies will come back to their own. For instante the Ger- mans in South Tyrol, which on¢e bélonged to Austria but was ceded to Italy after the World War, have been suppesséd to the extent that even on their tombstones the German language is not tolerated. In due course, Der Faehrer will want to take over the Tyrol under thé guise of self-detér- mination for the German-speaking people | “Yivihg there, and then Watch the sparks | fly. editors are constantly | adequaté public beach. For some weeks it appeared likely the Monroe County Com- mission and the Works Progress Adminis- tration here would j in providing some | kind of beach fa It was hoped the project would be completed and ready for the 4ourfst season. beginning last No- lities. , vember. ; | hits Everyone knows that nothing was ac- complished. Tens of. thousands of tourists came'to Key West. The great majority re- mained a short time and then returned to ‘the mainland:' Others wanted to remain here in our bright and healing sunshine, but only the hardier souls among them were able t stomach the small beach areas available here. Disgruntled, the majority | of these people headed northward toward those communities which provide their | guests with carefully terded beaches. Key West lost untold thousands of dollars through her inability to give these visitors | what they wanted—a dip in the ocean on a sandy shore. For a time last year a substantial dée- | velopment appeared in the making at Rest | Beach. A group of investors offered the | South Shore Development Co.,. the ma- jatity of the stockholders of which live in | Boston, $50,000 for that sandy shore. The syndicate proposed to erect a large colony of cottages, extend a yacht pier out into the ccean, build a bathing house and put | up a pavillion. The beach would have been open to public use and would have been one of the most attractive of the tourist facilities here. Like other owners of beach proper- ties here, the South Shore Development Co. did not accept the offer. The develop- ment that would have meant so much to the city was killed before it was born. This is not the kind of public spirit that is good for a struggling resort community. No resort can attain full growth without proper beach facilities, whether they be in private or public hands. not sell to qualified developers, it seems be assessed at somewhere near their true value. The city at least should get some be in a position to sponsor a beach-build- ing WPA project. The owners of Rest Beach have been permitted to escape pay- ment of taxes because the spot has been given over to public use, but no provision as been made for keeping the sand clean and fit for public use. It isa pretty sad re ae ah | situation that compels our visitors them- It’s all right to be our brother’s keep- selves to clean the beaches so that they may stay here and spend their money. Something concrete and definite must — be dore and done very soon to provide de- It is said there is always a tie between | That’s why dad seldom | | tourist trade. : | house operator or businessman will verify We might as well start practicing economy now and get used to it, for soon | cent beaches if the people of Key West expect to reap any lasting benefit from the Any hotel and _ lodging the fact that lack of beach facilities here is a costly deficiency. SOUTH AMERICA IMPORTANT Wilfred J. Funk, who‘has just re- turned from a trip thinks that the United:States should sub- sidize its movies in South America, if necessary. They are considered our most persuasive ambassador and are credited American youth and turning their minds away from Europe to this country. Mr. Funk says it will be wise for us to remember that Brazil alone is larger than the United States and two-thirds the lands can be dropped into it like pennies in a slot and that only four per cent of its | territory is under cultivation. He believes that the United States should make a definite drive to encourage greater trade with South America and, if necessary, the Gdvernment should lend some of Nts gold hoard to the South Am- /éticait eéuntries. :-Among othet'things that he suggests is the encouragement of tourists‘to travel in South America, the study of Spanish in our. schools and colleges, the establish- ment of scholarships in our educational institutions for South American students, the loan of technicians and experts to as- sist in the development of great resources :nd a willingness on the part of our busi- nessmen to sell the South Americans what ney want to buy rather than what our businessmen want to sell. If the owners of beach property will | to The Citizen that the properties ought to | taxes from those properties, so that it will | to South America, ; size of all Europe; that fifty-seven Eng- | THE KEY WEST CITIZEN | ee FROM MAY 14,1936 TO JAN. 11939, bare th PERSONS VISITED THE FORD) UNDA, HIS TINY GASOLINE ENGINE, WEIGHING . ONLY 3% OUNCES, ORIWES AMODEL AIRPLANE- IT EIGHTH HORSE POWER.- 5 Sar "2 4 an te e Devit's Tower, wvOmM 1S OVER 600 FEET HIGH. IT WAS CLIMBED FIRST BY A RANCHER- BILL ROGERS, WHO ASCENDED BY DRIVING PEGS INTO THE STONY SIDES On JULY 4, 1893... AT DEARBORN, MICH.. ENGINE GLOBE TROTTING — — — “tion “and posted a Bond of $2,000 NCE STEAM | WAS USED IN ONE OF THE EARLY MODELS, THE LAND, BUILT INJ THE RIDER HOWEVER, WAS FORCED TO AID BY PEDALING... ING, 2960666 e660 WHEN THE SAVANNA FIRST STEAMSHIP TO THE ATLA THE ENGLISH CHANN' JUNE, 1819, LOOKOUTS SHE WAS ON FIRE,ANDA BRITISH CUTTER GAVE HELP EXTINGUISH THE IC, APPEARED IN iN Stave. STCOCSSSSOOSOESESOOOESOESEEHE “BUT” says.-. Boake Carter eeveses | (Reprinted by courtesy of Boake Carter and The Ledger Syndicate. locate where they can find more Permission to reprint was obiained by Secretary Singleton of the Key West Chamber of Commefce) Key West, Fla. This is the city that came back. Knocked down by labor troubles, knocked out by the hurricane of four years ago, this southern out- post of the United States—but 90 miles from Cuba and 375 miles farther south than Cairo, Egypt— has come elive again. It is quite a story of “rugged in- dividuality”—this will to survive in an American city which easily could have given up the ghost end called it a day. In fact, at one time that very thought hovered disastrously in the minds of the city fathers. Key West stands today as at least one monument to the credit side of the ledger of the federal emergency relief administration. After the 1935 hurricane destroyed the railroad between here and the} mainland—the only real means of | transport at the time to Key West —the Roosevelt © bdministration pouréd several millions into the city to save it from collapse. The people of the city did the jrest of the “comeback” job. There was a time when the city boasted a population of more than 30,000 people. Today there are only about 12,000 inhabitants. In bygone days many tobacco companies employed hundreds in cigar factroies—here the Ameri- ean Tobacco Co.’s payroll running beyond 1,000, with weekly pay envelopes amounting to a large , figure. But the continual bickerings and often fantastic demands of jthe workers—the majority were Cubans—caused most of the big |tobacco companies to abandon | their properties in Key West and jresettle in Tampa. There they { ~~ ‘employ mostly girls from Geor- | gia. Cubans are inveterate consum- ers of homeland news. i | | lishment of permanent readers of | Cuban newspapers in each of the |factories. The readers were to sit jand read the latest news while | their audiences tried to listen and concentrate on maknig cigars at one and the same time! ‘for them on this island”. Then came the expansion of Don’t for a moment think that transport vehicles. Shippérs found Key West is a “goody-goody” FRIDAY, MARCH 31. ! | Happedings Here Just Tes KEY WEST IN DAYS GONE BY Vets Ags Today As Taken Congressman M. Alfred Mich- aelson, of Chicago, who was in- dicted for smuggling into Key West from Cuba bottles of rum, signs of which were shown by the leakage of the liquor from his trunks, surténdered voluntarily and said he would go to Florida for trial and face the charges. He denied the indictment and said he would be able to prove the charges were false. Telégrams retelved in Key ' West today advise of the death of Myron T. Herrick yésterday in sizting of two planes under comma tenant Sehiidhauer te the city hanng Season's vrogram im near r Roy. W Edwards and beth Weech: Pair Corahe poor Paris. Mr. Herrick died yester- 6 day from a heart attack at the <>. He was the United t ambassador at Paris. The country is prepared to pay 2 great | tribute of respett to the man who helped France through the dark ar days of the World War. Editorial Comment: In a pre- ‘vious paragraph The Citizen sug- gested giving the fire laddies a hot time while they are our guests ‘three days. Now we fing that fare used to hot times at ‘home.and would greatly appre- : @ Cool period. They'll find ‘it here, where refreshing breezes ever blow. Young Sluggers trimmed the Pirates yesterday afternoon im one of the niftiest games of base- ball played on the American Le- gion grounds, it being a hard- fought exhibition throughout |Bethel, star pitcher of the Slug- gers, was knocked out and was |relieved by Ubieta, who finished the game, allowing 10 hits, but was given good support. The i game ended with the Sluggers having accumulated nine runs. while the Pirates had seven meeting of the Wom-'! Regular 'an's Club has been postponed un- | til Tuesday afternoon, April 9. It was to be held tomorrow but was deferred because of the firemen's convention, which is to be held this week. Cdn ecadssosssesscssedsees © County a ee: special session Saturday, checked ‘congenial surroundings, and we | the ccMinty’s depository accounts pare frank to say there is no plate and found everything in balance |The only other business transact- éd was authorization to meet the paytoll for the truckers of the Chase project. | | j it cheaper to ship by steamship town where the jocal | which is seven miles long! One of: tti¢ir demands was for the estab-_ from .Havana to Miami than to Key West, and then be obliged to pay for a 170-mile railroad haul to Miami. The Florida East Coast railroad watched its revenue go- ing down and down, to be ad- ministered the coup dé “grace by the 1935 kuricane. So it yanked up its rails and sold them to the Japanese government for scrap. It was after that year that Key West decided to make its come- back on one of the sure-fire bets of the world—the great American tourist! If other cities could do it—if France, England and other European countries could attract Americans—Key West felt it could beat them all! Apparently ‘the city is coming back fast. Where there were four hotels thefe.are now eight. Where tere, Wéré but a handful of boarding houses, now there are jbetween 40 and 50. Where there were no such things as trailer camps, there are now four such parking iots. While there were some 30 automobiles per. day over a rough trail from Miami, which charitably was ¢alled 4 highway, now an average of 600) cars whistle over oné of the most amazing highways in the world— a high sometimes almost out of! sight of land and aided by mag-' nificent conerete bridges, one of starts fishing for a footrule an@ | handcuffs if a lady appears in; shorts on the main stem. But, on the other hand, it is a city which decided to make its comeback on a decent commercial basis, offer- ing clean inducements to clean people. Commercialized vice, dressed up in camouflage, so com- mon a foundation to so many popular resorts in America, was told to scram from Key West and stay scrammed! Thus Key West, stuck way out in the ocean amid the most my- riad colors of blues and greens, exists now on the homey type of American tourists. From the 1,-/ 000 people per day who pour in and out of the town, Key West has found that sometimes it real- ly does pay to be decent! They plug their fishing _busi- ness, their sponge business, their Pinéapple trade from Cuba. Théy { and |PILLEGAL TRAFFIC Californian about the fact they, have what they call the longest main street in the world, extend- with unabashed egoism. In short, Key West, knocked out é¢om- mercially, about ready to quit, | !and go out of business as 4 ¢om-} —— |munity, has come back by mak-| But Key West does not cater to;ing America Key West con-| tourists as some of her sister cities in Florida have done.: Tramps, riffraff, the sporting elé-| ment and the gambling crowd are | not wanted in Key West. Under ;Mayor Albury, what few gamb-| ‘ling housese there were have been) closed up. 1 The city’s chamber. of com-| merce puts it neatly in this fash-| ion: Key West once was the great’ jterminus for freight going | through to Havana. Chinese im- | migrants not allowed to tarry in ;the United States on their way | from China, rode in to Key West lin cattle cars all the way from }San Francisco: From here they | were shipped to Cuba and South |4 be are invariably accompanied by. an undesirable underworld fol-! lowing, wé perfer to have them! scious. If that ish’t old-time rugged individualism, What is, pray?— (Copyright, Ledger Syndiéate.) sos Ob bse edsédveedscdsdeses taurants. He—No, and as a we hear moré soup. | t For Tourist | MONROE THEATER || HAWAII CALLS BOBBY BREEN Let Us Estimate on YOUR Prnting POSTERS STATIONERY OFFICE FORMS at Reasonab‘e Prices PHONE 51 seecee . OVERSEAS CAFE AND LODGE Marathon Fis Phone Me 4 “Tike Best iz Food and Rooms” Between Key West_and Miemi C GARAGE SERVICE Toppume Prop