The Key West Citizen Newspaper, June 14, 1941, Page 1

The Key West Citizen THE SOUTHERNMOST NEWSPAPER IN THE U. S. A. KEY WEST, FLORIDA, Sf TURDAY, JUNE 14, 1941 ‘ | , ‘STEPPING OF Commerce: Seeretary Urges ~ MAINMAST’ OLD 3 Action Be Taken!To Have SHIP. TRADITION DEEP IN salad eal NEW BAT- Naval Headquarters Here TLESHIP NORTH CAROLINA! Senator Claude Pepper today , b@any road as to have the one now IS VARIOUS COINS AMOUNT- | Was urged by Stephen C. Single- ic necting us with the mainland. ton, secretary of the chamber of | Shaky, narrow bridges, every one ING TO $7.71 commerce, to take action in trans- | of them a fire hazard and an anti- ferring the headquarters of the quated county road full of ‘S’ ; seventh naval district from Char- | turns, spells trouble for our ar tri Pbtcrihinats jleston, S. C. to Key West. \ forces if an emergency arises.” - eature Serviee Writer i inti istri i Singleton, pointing out that ef-| Transfer of the district head- | WASHINGTON June 14— forts to get completion of Over- lodneiers was talked here several Christening a battleship (or any seas Highway might be delayed | months ago when it was revealed other ship for that matter) gener-! by the press of business at Char- ja naval appropriations bill had ially gets a lot of attention. paste, Page ciao oe to ae ction apy 3 BPE revive the old struggle for a trans- | viding money for the transfer. No Miss or Mrs, So-and-so socks jer of district headquarters to this | word has come from Washington {the prow with a bottle of cham- | Pagne and while Miss or Mrs. So- ; Associated Press Day Wire Service For 61 Years Devoted to the Best Interests of Key West Key West, Florida, has the” most equable climate in the country; with an average ~ range of only 14° Fahrenheit VOLUME LXII. No. 142. Ofiee And any Off '$200 tered Office Section EIGHT GERMAN AND | : ITALIAN SHIPS SUNK Through Transom; Jim- (Ry Annociated Press) LONDON, June 14.—Brit- ish submarines operating in the Mediterranean have de- stroyed eight German and Italian ships within the ‘past few days. ‘ The admiralty said some of the ships were sunk at sea, while submarines invaded North France, Also Ge Roosevelt Orders Freezing Of NazHtaian Credits WU. 8 (By Ansoelated Press) WASHINGTON, June 14—,European conflict began, and the |on the subject since, however, and | President Roosevelt today signed |order today includes all nations} logal naval officers say they have }a proclamation freezing the cre-|coming under the direct or indi-| By JACK STINNETT mied Open Filing Case | Factory Sections In Flames | | Thieves last night broke into the Senior high school office of { Principal Horace O’Bryant, steal- ' | | ‘By Avsociated Presa) — icity. LONDON, June 14.—Royal Aic In his letter, Singleton said: | ing more than $200 in class and! to launch and-so is trying to btush the bub-|. “This is the commanding. sta- | h enemy harbors | wher fends. i torpedoes against several of O'Bryant, who called sheriff's! the others. officers when he discovered OTT OOM M. maim GERMAN THREA | NOT CONSIDE had been jimmied open, the thief or thieves apparently entering \INVESTIGATION CONTINUES IN SINKING OF AMERI- the office through a transom. CAN VESSEL Officers said the money must have been stolen by someone | with a thorough knowledge | the office procedure, since it was} an accumulation of a dozen funds, | and its presence would not haye | (Ry Annnetnted Prete) ble-water off her orchid corsage, the ship slides down the ways. The ;cameras grind and the flash bulbs flash and the headwriters write |“U.S.S. Plunkett Is Launched At n2 * That isn’t the whole story of get- ting a ship under steam at all. A jTeally good story—which never is , written or photographed—comes | when they “step the mainmast.” | Let’s take a recent big ship and trun through this ceremony and I think you'll get what I mean. ceremony—is probably a lot older “Stepping the mainmast”—as al j tion, not only for the Caribbean | and the Gulf of Mexico, and,.the itich valley of the Mississippi, but | ‘without making any detours, for | beth. of the coasts of Florida, from | the Georgia line to the Appalachi jcola. river. “We are greatly concerned ove! |the fact that, for military pur- poses, there just might as well not For Local dits of Germany and Italy in the}rect domination of the Axis, Committee Authorizes Fund (By Associated Press) United States. } The proclamation brought to 16) the number of such orders the.) President has signed since the} bea no further discussion of it. ey West..,formerly was the seventh district.headquarters, but the office...was .transferred to CHiarleston at.the same time when | sixth district headquarters were | Es transferred there from New Or- leans. Later, New Orleans rep. gained its status as sixth district} headquarters, but no such move has been made for Key West. AGENT COMING | TO KEY WEST CRIPPLED IN SOME MAN-, NER WHO MAY PROFIT BY "Naval Hospital) President Roosevit already had frozen credits of 14 other nations overrun by Germany and Italy in the war. | Force bombers, fresh from one of their heaviest raids over Ger- EVACUATE. KISWE , BRITISH AND FREE FRENCH TROOPS ARE MARCHING ON DAMASCUS \than christening. It goes back be- been generally known. | :yond Roman times and has its INGTON, Ji 4.— O’Bryant, after making a quick hadegagoaphiadercaas une gl WASHINGTON, June 14—The | propriation previously had been | Senate Naval Affairs approved in the house. (By Associated Preas) TRAINING CAIRO, June 14.—French REHABILITATION (FRENCH TROOPS berapslsste, e mPascets oases |. Hundreds of giant | smashed at factory cities in the ‘Ruhr valley during the night and pilots told ef guiding their planes check when he found the file) 1>Fough history, the Amfican open, said the loss would amount | People never have been impress- to at least $200, but it would be | ed by blunder or threats”, Under- | impossible to determine the exact | Secretary of State Sumner Welles amount, since the records, too, | declared to newsmen today in an- had been stolen. The school's! " i k enishee’ Sai teintdiny $81, and \ awering German threats to sin! @ manual arts fund amounted to) @!l vessels carrying supplies to, . | Britain. Officers today were attempting | Permitting himself to be to check on persons who would | quoted directly, Welles said this have known of the money's! ernment is not impressed presence in the office. Nothing |& - si by wise ‘had’ ‘stolen or--bfoKen | Te eet Bates Manica 1. tee havestigition into ibe sink- . was obvious the money had been|ing of the American freighter taken by someone familiar with | Robin Moor will be continued. the office and its procedure. | He said, however, that the sink- | ing of the freighter last month off | HALF-YEAR TAGS | the South American coast must be j | viewed dispassionately. | | Welles’ statement was in answer Half-year automobile covering the next six months {to German semi-official comment ; | that the sinking of the Robin Moor ; will go on sale Monday morning | Great Britain. at the office of County Tax Col-| Berlin oficials, although lector Joe C. McMahon, he an-! are reported investigating the! nounced today. sinking, have announced they may ; |destroy all vessels carrying aid to 1 German threats, and declared! aia roots in Superstition. A few days ago when the U.S.S. North Carolina—newest of the modern battleships—was ready 'for the ceremony at Philadelphia, {a group of workmen and navz! of- |ficers assembled down in her low- est depths and tossed coins into | the base of the metal shaft that is the ship's mainmast. They tossed {coins until $7.71 in U. S. money, a | St. . Christopher's ‘medal, an En- |glish penny, an English half~ } a into the shallow, 17%-inch pie plate that is the mainmast/ base. | A cover was screwed over this and j then the mainmast was swung in- to position and screwed down. It Must Be Done Throughout the solemn cere- mony rain came down in gentle torrents, but no one paid any at- tention to it. The state of the weather means nothing when the ; | was what could be expected in “stepping of the mainmast” is in| grafted or shouldn't.” licenses | view of Adolf Hitler's promise to; progress, but failure to step the | « mast would be as fatal, seafaring men will assure you, as leaving they | sprung-seams in the ship's plates. | Aside from the Chinese and British coins (I couldn't find a iy, an. English half-penny. |. Chinese “cash had clinked McMahon said he had received | not make any answer to American | soul who could explain why these instructions from Henry F, Drig- | protests. particular coins were selected), gers of the motor vehicle com-; ithe “treasure” of the North Caro- mission instructing him to begin! \lina consists of a half-dollar, 18 ROOSEVELT IS i quarters, 11 dimes, 23 nickles and 146 pennies. | Although I knocked on a lot of jdeors at the Navy department, all sale of the tags with the opening of business Monday. Previous- | ly, tax collectors had been in- TAKING IT EAS' structed to begin sale of the tags! July 1. i Pcie Driggers informed the tax col- lector that sale. of maintenance) PRESIDENT SUFFERING FROM tags for trucks and trailers of | SORE THROAT; HANDLES 34,000 pounds also are to be»put | on sale. | BUT LITTLE BUSINESS | CRICKET BLITZ | Seca age | (By Associated Press) RENO, Nev.—Nevada’s peren-| WASHINGTON, June nial summer invasion is on—Mor- | president Roosevelt, still suffer- mon crickets. The destructive | ing from the effects of a sore crop pests are being fought by) throat, remained in the residen- about 150 men. j tial section of the White House | today on the advice of his phy- } sidian, attending only td busi+ SATURDAY |ness demanding tion, | Elks’ Flag Day Program at Concha Park, 8:30 p.m. Physicians said the President's jcondition is about the same as | yesterday, with his temperature La} about one-half degree above nor ‘mal. Various Changes Planned For Property Assessments On Keys Assessment changes, in some} Reassessments made by Gandol- instances amounting to thousands [fo Qn the basis, pf) the inspection of dollars, appeared in store for eftectiv: 4 caans Sduerty Gerdes ta os heys | 7 become effective in Novem- ber, he said. jay with the return to Key West x Assessor Claude Gandolfo; Gandolfo, with other county of- Frank Roberts, his assist- ant, fyom a week-long inspection. Gantolfo, who recently com- pleted a similar study of Key West lund, said some property valued pri his books at $200 or $300 actually\is worth as much at $10,-icome to Tallahassee with the 000 to $1,000. The two assessment county tax collector, clerk of the men it a week checking over | cireyit court, school superinten- property from the county line at'dent, chairman of the county Card sound bridge into the city | board, and the chairman of the limits of Key Wost. ‘eounty school board. heads from throughout the state June 24 in Tallahassee for instru: tions in the new laws affecting them. J. M. Lee, comptroller, in- Structed Gandolfo in a telegram to 'Tigot Was vague answers as to} | where the strange rite originated }and why it has been carried down ! through ‘the ages. | Ancient Roman dug-out canoes tand old Spanish wrecks have been |found with coins hidden in their \keels. Pomeranian seamep, a long, j long time ago, were known to have 14.— | buried silver coins and “a bit of | ‘stolen wood” under the heel of ithe mast. These are long-ago things. But a few years back when the |U.S.S. New Orleans was commis- |sioned, it was recorded that the immediate ac- | officers-to-be placed 10 pennies | under the foremast—and two j dimes, three nickles and 28 pen- |nies under the heel of the main- | mast—all coins laid “heads up.” "Keep Souls Saie’ | Seafaring men will tell you that | coins under the mainmast not only | bring good luck but “keep their } Souls safe.” Commandant Beckett, jof the British Royal Navy, who |has made a study of the custom, says it arises from the old Roman ihabit of placing coins in the ; mouths of the dead to pay Charon | for transportation across the River | | Styx. Should & ship meet disaster, says the commander, there would be coins there to pay the ferryman | of the Styx for a safe crossing for jall aboard. Masons, Attention! All members of Dade Lodge are { be present at the | Temple, ‘clock Sunday aft- | erneon. |fumeral of Brother Wm. Wea Sister Lodges and jare invited. By order of W.M. | F. O. WEECH. | fumes Secretary. ficials, will meet with county} to 4:00 for committee | today authorized a $1,000,000 ap-| propriation for construction of a/ Key West naval hospital. The ap- | WASHINGTON, June 14.—Jim' Preston, who works for Archives and probably carries more facts, historical and contemporary, about Washington than any other man in these parts, and I were chewing the rag. Somehow we got to discussing the subject of women being draft- ed for national defense. “Whether women should be said Jim, is somebody else’s argument— |not mine—but American women have been fighting their men’s battles with them ever since there } Was a country. “Why, right here in the files jand records in this building are oe of stories—not just about women who went a-nursing the sick and wounded—but about wo- jmen who shouldered a gun and | did their share of the shooting, j too, They did it in the Civil War and, in.the Indian wars and in the | Revolution—in fact in just about jevery serap on American soil. | “OE course. every school,.kid | knows. about Molly Picher, but | I'll bet there are few if any, who jever heard of the strange case. of | Deborah Sampson. | Started In Massachusetts | “Her story started up in Mas- ; Sachusetts when a fellow named | Robert Shurtleff joined one of the | Massachusetts regiments in April fof 1781. This fellow Shurtleff, it | seems, was a good soldier and if | the colonists in those days had had | time to knock out a lot of medals, he probably would have gotten one. In a way, he did get one— | but that’s getting head of the rm. | “It was at the battle of Tarry- |town that Shurtleff, in there | pitching lead as fast as his old muzzie-loader could be stoked and fired, got on the receiving end of a bullet. His pals carried him out of the battle and back to one of those emergency hospi- tals, probably in same little. farm= house, and then—the army sur- CALL FOR APPLICATIONS POSITION OF CITY CLERK, The City Council of the City of | Key West will receive written ap- plications for appointment to the position of City Clerk up to and including June 16, 1941 at 4:00 P. M_ Applicants are requested to state fully their qualifications. Detailed information regarding the duties and responsibilities in the office of the City Clerk may be obtained by calling at the City j Hall, office of the City Auditor. } CHAS. R. ROBERTS, | City Auditor—Acting City Clerk. i june9-11-14,.1941 A general bill containing the troops have evacuated Kiswe, the | Key West appropriation now will leity where for three days they, go to the floor of the senate for | Dr. J. B. Parramore announced | | i | AND HOW HER HUSBAND GOT PENSION "Wy TACK OWTINNEPE AP Feature” } {stubbornly fought off Allied ef- debate. {today that he had received no-— - tice from the State Department | ? lof Education that a rehabilitation ;agent would be in Key West on \ the afternoon of June 16 and all’ lday June 17 to interview per-! 3 { sons who are crippled in .some } —eomere~ fway~but~yet may profit from i free training offered through the educational department. ‘Wervice Writer geon discovered he wasn’t Rob- ert Shurtleff at all, but Deborah} py. Parramore pointed out that Sampson. | there are many handicapped peo- “Deborah must have done a ple in the community, such as! little fast talking, because the those who have amputated legs army surgeon kept her secret. She got well, rejoined the army, was_with General Washington when Lord Cornwallis surrend- ered, and was honorably dis- charged in November, 1783. “Now, to get along to the way Deborah was honored. That year or the next, Deborah married a fellow named Benjamin Gannett. And Deborah put in her appli- | cation for a pension and got it— $48 a year at first and later on, $76.80. She and Benjamin lived ! or arms. Also, he said there are many other disabilities which keep people from holding regu- lar jobs but are not very obvious. These disabilities include arrest- ed tuberculosis, certain types of heart trouble, deafness, and such disabilities are a limited curva- ture of the spine which is not ob- vious. Dr, Parramore said that totally blind persons could not often be rehabilitated through vocational training but many i jforts to reach the ancient capi- tal of Damascus in Syria, a bul-! letin announced today. Giving few details, a war bul- letin said British and | French trops are marching \for a French evacuation of the! capital which would spare it from siege. Reports tor the past two days have indicated the Allied armies would be in command of Damas- cus and Beirut at almost a time, but today’s bulletin admit- ted the invading soldiers still are moving slowly from the south against both cities. French troops are mascus is unlikely, persons with partial loss of sight” jhad been successfully rebabili- | | tated in Florida. } The local public health service | JOHN ROOSEVELT head also said that to be eligible‘ jfor rehabilitation training a per-! json must jhe sixteen or over. ! However) .the rehabilitation de- | partment ean often give good vo- Veational advice to handicapped together happily tor 43 years and then Deborah died. Took An Act Of Congress “And here’s how we got the story. Gannett, the widower of a soldier who had been pen- sioned for years, petitioned Con- gress—with all ‘the evidence— claiming that he was entitled to | Who-ae:!!insitthe the same consideration as the ; CPP beanie . - : public school system and are baat of a pensioned soldier and , above the age of fourteen are ad- at the pension should be Con-| vised to take advantage of this tinued. : - “It took an act of Congress to | PIRertanity for vocational guid- | | do it, but darned _if Congress | sé didn’t act. Come on out to the| & J Kyte, of the State De- files. I've got the minutes of Con- | Pury "ent ,°t Education, will be ~ are age all the docu- | persons at Dr. Parramore’s office Aad Girned if Sin hadn't. |" the Monroe County Health De- There it was, in flowing script, pronase ae aed pene! a setting forth that since the an- : June 17. nals of this country “furnish no " incressi: emand other similar example of female | hifometsag “4 i : ; heroism, fidelity and ms Ba ad skilled workers in the na- " tional defense program the re- displayed by Deborah Sampson, ! bs her widower, Benjemin Gannett habilitation department is find. " jing more opportunities for should receive a pension of $80 a | hand pped persons ; year for the rest of his days. ay . - bare; Congress has never granted an- haga . s other “medal” like that | FLAG DAY EVENT. AT PARK TONIGHT { i } CLUMSY AS A LION NEW YORK—Sure-footed as a at, ch? Well, Brorix Park 700. ated tendants have found out that all! cats aren't so nimble. Americanism ‘talks by Capt. Five lions recently were trans-| Russell E. Crenshaw, navy base ferred to a barless run separated | commandant; Army Capt. E BE | from the spectators by a moat./ Lockhart, and Horace O'Bryant, One of them is so clumsy he’s high school principal. fallen in six or seven times, the | will ¥ others at least twice. GOES INTO NA © “dy Associated Press) BOSTON, June 14 — John elt, youngest of the President's four sons, announced duty to the navy Monday. The youngest Roosevelt holds Ten vacancies will exist Mon- day when the state department of education's boat-building Starts work on a new vessel at Program announced today. » under the direction Armando Alfonso, army p.m. until I otra 33.3 r ‘childfen who are approaching’ *day~he has: resigned from his | sixteen; and are in need of mak- Position in a Boston department’ | ing their vocational plans. Handi- *t°fe and will report for active | ,wnder $100 bond after he is al- leged to have threatened # group lof men with # gun. 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