The Key West Citizen Newspaper, January 7, 1953, Page 6

Page = THE KEY WEST CITIZEN Wednesday, January 7, 1953 The Key West Citizen Published daily (except Sunday) by L. P. Artman, owner and pub- lisher, from The Citizen Building, corner of Greene and Ann Streets. Only Daily Newspaper in Key West and Monroe County L. P. ARTMAN ——— Publisher NORMAN D. ARTMAN Business Manager Entered at Key West, Florida, as Second Class Matter TELEPHONES 2-5661 and 2-5662 Member of The Associated Press—The Associated Press is exclusively entitled to use for reproduction of all news dispatches credited to it or not otherwise credited in this paper, and also the local news Published here. Member Florida Press Association and Associate Dailies of Florida ——— Subscription (by carrier) 25¢ per week, year $12; By Mail $15.60 pO. cS aA RES SAS ADS ERIRERD OUR SpE (bo SRE ADVERTISED RATES MADE KNOWN ON APPLICATION The Citizen is an open,forum and invites discussion of pvblic issue and subjects of local or general interest, but it will not publish anonymous communications. 0S A NE SEN eS a JACK FROST IS ONE VISITOR THAT HAS NEVER COME TO KEY WEST Key Westers know their greatest asset is their city’s climate. Business may come and business may go, but our climate, like Tennyson’s brook, goes on forever. The brook continues to babble, and our climate continues to draw dividends. We are rightly hypersensitive about our y eaee because it means so much to our economic wel- ‘are. 2 as We are quick to react if you say something about our climate that is not true. A writer, in a Miami paper two days ago, said “. . , with frost forecast for Monday morn- ing for all Florida.” That was not so. The Lakeland Weather Bureau did not forecast frost for “all Florida.” Two years ago, when the bureau made a similar forecast, The Citizen informed the bureau that Key West is a part of Florida, and that frost had never occurred here in the then 80-year history of the local Weather Bureau. Since then, the Lakeland bureau has confined its frost forecasts to “peninsular Florida,,’ which excludes the Flotida Keys. What does it mean for Key West to be the only frost- free city in the United States? Due to the publicity that has been given Key West in the last few years, we are now realizing a prediction that J.W. Ricketts, a vice pres- ident of the Coral Gables Corporation, made in 1926. At that time a movement was afoot to construct a pipeline for fresh water from Florida City to Key West. The late Captain Clark D. Stearns (USN), who was the commandant at the Key West Naval Base at that time, was the leader of the movement. Ricketts, an engineer, said, in a story published in The Citizen, the project. was “perfectly feasible.” ‘ : It was a cold morning in Coral Gables when Ricketts spoke about the feasibility of supplying Key West .with running fresh water. Im-his office, he was bundled up in an overcoat and had an electric heater on theufloor near his feet, and he said he was still chilly. Then he remark- bd: . = "- “Some people come to Florida in the. winter for Sports and other entertainment, but the bulk of them come to get a week or two or a month or so of’ warmth. They don’t always get it to the extent they hope to get it, but the day will come when they will discover the Florida Keys and learn that the farther down the Keys they go the warmer will be the weather. The result will be that many of them will not stop going till they reach Key : ‘West, the country’s southernmost city.” ' That prediction is now being fulfilled, and every win- ter an increasing number of warmth-lovers will come to Key West. For that reason Key Westers are on tiptoe to cry, “Nay, nay!” when their town is included in the Florida frost belt. When that Miami writer included us in the belt Monday morning, our lowest temperature was 52, - degrees above the temperature when frost begins to form. Naturally, because it means so much to us, we want the world to know that Jack Frost has never visite? Key West in the 82 years our Weather Bureau has been oper- ating. There is still considerable debate as to whether sins result from ignorance or willfulness. SLICE OF HAM “WONDER WHAT HE'S GOT ON THE MESS SERGEANT Thuis TIME #* THE MAESTRO’S GRAND FINALE Filibuster Fight To Finish Looms In Congress Opening By G. MILTON KELLY WASHINGTON \# — The Senate Republican» command called its GOP hands on deck here with orders to stay there if it takes all week, for a finish fight in the battle over filibusters. The orders came from Sen. Taft of Ohio, Republican floor leader, as opposing factions squared off to start the scrap late Tuesday. The filibuster fight seemed likely to be the only concrete business it come before the new Congress Senate and House had a date to meet in joint session for the formal counting of Electoral College votes which will make * Truman’s final State of the Union message, but he won’t deliver it in person. Fri- day the Truman budget message will be sent to Capitol Hill. Otherwise, most of the work was being done behind the scenes to- ward completing the organization of the GOP Congress, which met for the first time on Saturday. Committee assignments were the biggest and touchiest problem. In the filibuster scrap, the issue is a move by self-styled liberal Northern senators to make it easi- er to muzzle the endless debate with which Southern senators in the past have talked to death civil rights bills. Anti-lynching and anti-poll tax bills, and proposals to forbid racial mination ~=in employment, have been victims of filibusters. Even staunchest civil rights sup- porters conceded they have prac- tieally no chance to win. Taft is seeking to prevent the row from blossoming into a full-fledged fili- buster which could paralyze the Senate for weeks and tie up the legislative program of the incom- ing Eisenhower administration. Sen. Dirksen (R-Ill), one of Taft’s lieutenants, is reported to be drafting a civil rights bill around which he expects the GOP to rally later—a measure seeking to dis- courage racial discrimination in employment without providing for criminal prosecution of offenders. eee have not been made public. In that connection, Rep. Sam Rayburn of Texas, dean of all | Democrats in Congress, said Mon- | day that he expects that any civil rights program which Eisenhower | be ron 3 will help united the Dem- ocrat “Some Democrats who hated President Roosevelt and Truman because of their civil rights pro- posals will now start hating Presi- dent Eisenhower for the same reason,” Rayburn said in an in- terview on the eve of his 7ist birthday today. | Rayburn, speaker of the House in the last session, said he thinks his party will be more united as | @ minority than it was during the | nearly 20 years it ruled the gov-| ernment. In the Senate maneuvering, Sen. Anderson (D-NM) had made the opening move Saturday, with a motion challenging the long-he!d theory that Senate rules—includ: the one which gives a filibo its strongest bulwark—remain from year to year. The storm centers about Rule 22 which requires the votes of 64 of jtime limit on debate, and which jforbids any time hmit at ail in j debating Tules changes. Anderson and Sen. Lehman (D- People’s Forum ‘The Citizen welcomes res sions of the views of its ‘rend- ers, but the editor reserves the right to delete any items which are considered libelous or anwar- raated. The writers should be fine th must accom will be publ un- leas requested otherwise, HEARTLESS DRIVERS Editor, The Citizen: Heartless drivers should have to experience the loss of a pet by someone who is merciless. The time of the driver of the the English Bull Dog in Poineiana between 1:00 and 3:00 p. m. Christmas Eve, must hay been too valuable for he or shx #9 4~"* how badly the anuna! wos u.,4.--, or try and locate the owners to advise them of the accident. dently so as the animal was dead by a neighbor about 75 yards from its home, True, the dog could have been at fault. How would you, Mr. or Mrs, Pet Killer, like to return to you home to fine that a relation or pet of yours had been struck by a hit and run driver, then left unable to care for its injuries. It could have been possible, that a bit of aid might have saved the injured’s life or at least made the last mo- ments on earth more comfortable. It is hoped that the above mention- ed accident is no way caused the guilty party any unel thoughts during Christmas. Mariory Albury FIRST SNOW OF °53 FOR LONDON LONDON ® — Britons-buffeted by gales, blacked out by fog and bogged down by ice and frost so far this winter had their first 1953 taste of snow London and parts of southeast England were blanketed by three to five inches of snow which start ed falling early this morning. Thousands of commuters in the London area were held up be cause the snow delayed rail and | bus services. Lib-NY), who is quarterbacking the move for a change, contend the old rules expired with the last Con- gress, and that the Senate now is free to adopt a new set. They say jit should include one to permit a debate limit—death knell to a fili- | buster—by a vote of only 49 sena- tors, a majority. Taft told reporters he will try to bring the issue to a head not dicated he may try to do this by moving to table the whole con- troversy. Unless somebody springs a sur- |prise, this would halt debate and force an immediate decisive vote. The Taft forces are bulwarked by Dixie senators and seemingly hav- other Senate leaders Met yesterday with al! newly eiect- senators, and it was d them not to stray mtil the fight what might hap- pen,” be was quoted a8 saying. vehicle, which struck and killed | their journey long enough to seo” Sonny Tufts Has Changed His Outlook _ By BOB THOMAS HOLLYWOOD \#—Meet the new Sonny Tufts. The blond actor, once known as Hollywood’s prime party boy and jokester, is back in town after graduating as the first man in the “18-Month Club.” That’s the ex- clusive group of Hollywood people who spend 18 months abroad for a full tax exemption. But that isn’t the news about Sonny. It’s his new behavior. He has been in town a month and hasn’t had a date. What’s more, he says he’s through with the party life and the elbow-bending that goes with it. “Sure, I used to: drink,” -he ad- mitted, “‘but I did it just for the fun of it. I can remember execu- ~, }tives whé"aisked me why I didn’t do like some other stars did. When these guys wanted to let off steam, they’d take a couple of cases up to a far-off mountain cabin and have a ted “T could never see that. And I wasn’t like some others I could mention who. always started fights when they get loaded. My trouble was that when I got a couple of cocktails under my belt, I wanted to have fun. If I were at Mocambo, Td know all the boys in the band, and I'd get up and play the piano and sing. I guess this gave people the wrong impression.” But that isn’t what tripped up his film career, he remarked. “Tt was a series of bad pictures,” he explained. “In fact, I had only one good picture while I was at | ing Paramount. That was my first one, ‘So Proudly We Hail.’ “I wasn’t told about it, but I made the fan magazine polls faster than any star in history. After one picture, I was No. 3 on the lists, preceded only by Alan Ladd and Van Johnson. I was also given the ‘Star of Tomorrow’ award by the Motion Picture Herald. “So Paramount started putting me into anything. At one time, I was actually working in four dif- ferent pictures at the same time! The pictures were so bad that my former classmates at Yale would write and ask me: ‘What are they doing to you out there? Those last two pictures of yours were aw- ful.” Sonny said he never allowed pleasure to interfere with his work, even in his party days. “I never held up production for a minute,” he said. “Anybody at Paramount will tell you that.” He hit a slack period after his departure from Paramcunt, but his career is getting into high gear again. This is largely due to the | later than Wednesday. He has in-|fact that he pulled up stakes and ‘headed for England He was the first Hollywood figure to take advantage of the 18-month |tax arrangement, and he indicated ; that he had profited nicely from it. |He toured England, Ireland, Wales {and Scotland for 3 weeks in a play. ao - |“The Gift Horse,” a big production by the Wolff brothers, who made “African Queen” and Moulin Rouge.” Sonny will return to 2p. pear in another film for the same iproducers next spring Meanwhile, he is resuming his - . HAL BOYLE : SAYS NEW YORK ™® — Everyone yearns to leave a modest hoof- print in the sands of time. There are two ways to do this: 1. Do something in the world yourself to put your mark upon it. This method is for the restless, two-ulcer, go-getter type of indi- vidual, such as Napoleon, or the people who climb to the top of the Washington Monument just to scratch their initials there. 2. Keep a diary. Then after gen- erations will honor you, not for your great personal- deeds but because your shrewd insight has given the real inside story of your time. As the average man is born with a strong inclination to rest on his oars while he criticizes the other fellow’s rowing, most people at one period of life or another start a diary with the secret hope it will win them ultimate fame. Since I early developed an utter appetite for leisure, that is the path to renown J chose. I suppose I have started and siopped my diary 20 times. Any future h’s- torian who reads it and tries to figure out what life in the Twen- tieth Century was like will have a lot of gaps:to fill in from some- body else’s diary. The earliest entries aré marked by a sure judgment and a keen observation: “Agnes Stubble is the ugliest girl in the class. men Rob- | bins came home’ drunk again last night. Ha, ha, ha!” Then came the dawnint of {2 old struggle between friendship: “Harry Banting wouldn't and play marbles after is goofy over a girl in the i ear A cradle snatcher, eh?” A lot of the entries are followed by that word—Eh? In the books I was reading then somebody was always saying something like, “‘so that’s your little game, eh?” In my last year in grammar school I joined ‘an organization called S.S.G.P.—for “Secret Ser- vice Girl Protectors.” The entries are in code. The code consisted of substituting the number ‘‘1” for the letter ‘A,” “2” for “B”—and so on through the alphabet. ‘The miost significant entry I can now decipher by counting on my fingers—to crack the old code— says: “Bill and I trailed three girls home from school today. Every- thing okay. Following three more tomorrow.”* In the diary of my freshman year at high school there is a notation that clearly shows the wing disillusion of Ameri outh in the Prohibition Er: “Algebra, Ugh! What good is it’ Another entry in my senior year indicates the questioning spirit of those faraway days: “Why was_I put upon this turning globe at all since Mary (last name censored) loves another?” A brief scribble during my soph- omore year at college reveals the exalted grasp of poetry common to the more thoughtful student then: “Ah, the moon is a wound | against the sky tonight. It looks like a cold sore on a piece of black velvet.” The impact of the depression of the early 1930's on a fine, sensi- tive mind is shown in the follow- “Dad says a college graduate without a job stil has to earn his keep, so I must pass out hand- bills for his grecery store tomor- row. Ah, Shakespeare. Ah, Shelley. Did you have to pass out handbills | for your bread?” The scattered diary entries in the years since I went to work merely mirror the developing sor- didness of a sorry world: “What a day this has been ~ | Trouble, trouble, trouble!. . . to- morrow is my birthday. . . That tooth has been bothering me again . +. When am I going to have the | guts to ask the boss for more | money?” | Gradually the diary just dwin- died away in a sea of blank white | pages. Maybe it won’t tell much to the historians of an after age, but it tells a lot to me now about | what I was like when the world | was young. i What's in your diary? ‘Smathers Suggests | ‘Churchill Speak | | WASHINGTON (®—Sen. ers (D.Fla.) Smath- THIS R grade, and he’s in the fifth grade. | } OCK OF OURS Perhaps Mrs, Susan McAvoy will forgive me for sticking my nose into a subject which she mentioned in “Key West Is My Beat”. It con- cerned sponging. She did an admir- able job but since her column was devoted mainly to a new film that! would be made soon, she left out much of the exciting battle that | might best be called “The Key West-Tarpon Springs War.” It re- sembled some of the old Western range feuds. Tarpon Springs lies on the West Coast of Florida and was populated | principally by people of Greek an- cestry. Key Westers on the other hand were people of English and | Spanish stock. They were humble folks but proud and had no inten- tion of yielding their surrounding waters to intruding Greeks from Tarpon Springs. The feud began in the early part of the century and continued intermittently until about 1928. In the earlier struggles, Tarpon Springs spongers moved into Key West waters with their two-mas- ters and began to sweep the ocean floor clean, taking any and all sponges that they found. Key West spongers had always been conser- vative. Using hooks on poles some times as long as fifty feet, they harvested only the largest and best of the sponge and left the rest for assured of a steady income year jafter year. Emotions-concerning the situation reached battle intersity and both sides went armed. Greek spoage | boats tied up at a dock near Curry mes -- their lines cut so that urning boat would drift out open and not damage near- uctures. It should be ‘men- d that two-mast spongers and from Key West were also soing around the Ten Thousand Is- lands and Tarpon Springs to work. When they would tie up at night |near the ccast, gun fire from shore would rake their ship. Both sides, the Key Westers on the West Coast and the Greeks in Key West de- cided that life would be sweeter at home and they eac™ vacuated to their respective po..s. In 1928, through the invitation of several local people, the Tarpon Springs crowd invaded Key West again. Using diving suits with big leaden shoes, they trampled ‘the ocean floor -- grabbing any and all sponge regardless of their value or size. Unfortunately, a blight began to hit the sponge grounds and many Key Westers blamed it on the way the Greeks stirred up the ocean bottom by using diving suits. Key West spongers still used the old method of hooks and took only fully developed sponges, Without doubt, the sponge blight, one of the the peculiarities of the sea, would have | Is Dan McCarty 31st Florida Gov? TALLAHASSEE (#—The official program calls Dan McCarty Fiori- da’s 31st governor but It.depends on how you count them. The program has a list of 31 names of governors beginning in 1845 when Florida became a state and running through retiring Gov. | Fuller Warren. If you counted them ail, Me- Carty would be the 32nd governor. But the list contains the names of Marcellus Stearns and William D. Bloxham twice. Bloxham is the only man who actually served two | terms. Stearns served out the term of a governor who died, then served a term of his own. Also on the list is Samuel T. | Day, who really wasn’t governor, another time. In this way they were | bogan to mysteriously go up| By BILL GIBB struck anyway, spongers or n@® spongers.. Its presence however, served to stir up hard feelings. Clevy Niles, Captain of the char. ter boat Lucky Strike, was sheriff at that time. He was honest, ca- pable, and all in all, proved to be one of the best sheriffs Key West has ever had. Sheriff Niles, realig- ing that the rising tempers would soon give way to open violen loaded a boat with ammunition an arms and went out in search of the invading Greeks. Near the Mar- quesas he intercepted some of them and after checking their load, ar rested them for taking undersize sponge. Up at Marathon, he caught five more Greek sponge boats. Four had undersize sponge and were promptly taken to Key West. The fifth boat, though empty, was only too glad to hoist sail and head for home - Tarpon Springs. The arrested spongers were given trial and sentenced to six months in the County jail. In this way, | Sheriff Niles nipped in the bud a | situation which would have soom developed into open warfare. Mrs. McAvoy mentioned that the sponging industry fled from Key West. She probably had in mind the Greeks for since the late twen- ties, they have never returned. Only a few Key Westers went to the West Coast. The blight that hit Key West sponge gradually spread throughout the Gulf and nowadays most of spongers have converted {into shrimpers, hoping to’give the |sponge grounds a chance to re- | grow. The old auction dock at the foot of Grinnell and Caroline Street is a thing of the past as is the vege- table auction market which Mrs, McAvoy mentioned as being locat- ed at Simonton and Greene. How- ever, sponges are beginning to re- turn. The quantity is small though, and spongers now sell their pro- duct directly to buyers in Miami and New York as well as to local curio shops. “Old Ropes” Higgs reaped the biggest haul since the blight when a few years ago he chanced to go through a nine foot channel just off the Navy Yard. Usually cloudy with mud, the channel on this particular day was clear. He discovered a huge bec of sponge and his luck held for nearly a week while he hooked the biggest and best. Then the waters clouded up again and he had to quit. Incidentally, enmity still exists between Tarpon Springs and Key West, Any Key Wester who visits Tarpon Springs and who doesn’t wish to reach Heaven sconer than he expects, will find it advisable to keep his mouth shut as to where he came from. and the Ten Thou- sand Islands is still a place where law enforcement officers find the natives stubborn ‘and backtrails al- most impossible of investigation, j wut served while Gov. Harrison Reed was impeached. So if you disregard Day—which the program writers apparently did—McCarty would be the 3ist governor. If you disregarded the partial term of Stearns, he’d be the 30th. If you counted Bloxham's two terms as only one governorship, he'd be the 29th. If you wanted to go beyond state- hood, you could count Gen. Andrew Jackson as military governor and five territorial governors, includ- ing one who served twice, Next, time you are planning on roast leg of lamb for Sunday din- ner, have the butcher bone and roll the meat for easy carving, Slices of the leftover lamb will make delicious sandwiches when teamed with lettuce and mayon- naise or thinly sliced drained mustard pickle, } Suggested that | | Prime Minister Winston Churchill | | be invited to address a joint ses-/ | sion of Congress during his current jvisit to the United States. | He made the suczesticn in a let- new Senate president pro tem Churchill bas addressed joint congressonal sessions before, the last time @ year ago when he came to Weshineton to confer with President Truman. Smathers seid th: speech to beth br: a forma! *s * wou! nto the plans ef Mr. Church ¢ might be that he could in formally address the Senate. | Strange Facts About Polio