The Key West Citizen Newspaper, June 3, 1953, Page 4

Page 4 THE KEY WEST CITIZEN Wednesday, June 3, 1953 The Key West Citizen Published daily (except Sunday) by L. P. Artman, owner and pub- Misher, from The Citizen Building, corner of Greene and Ann Streets. Only Daily Newspaper in Key West and Monroe County i. P. ARTMAN MORMAN D. ARTMAN Publisher Business Manager Entered at Key West, Florida, as Second Class Matter TELEPHONE 2-5661 and 2-5662 Member of The Associated Press—The Associated Press is exclusively @ntitled to use for reproduction of all news dispatches credited to it @ 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 Seinen ADVERTISING RATES MADE KNOWN ON APPLICATION The Citizen is an open forum and invites discussion of public issue and subjects of loca: or general interest, but it will not publish @nonymous communications. IMPROVEMENTS FOR KEY WEST ADVOCATED BY THE CITIZEN More Hotels and Apartments. Beach and Bathing Pavilion. Airports—Land and Sea. a Consolidation of County and City Governments. Community Auditorium. , WHEN THE KEY WEST DOLLAR WAS WORTH FIVE OF TODAY’S DOLLARS Let us paraphrase “Listen to the mockingbird” to “Listen to auction bells.” Though Susan McAvoy, in her excellent articles about oldtime Key West, does not men- tion the bells; an oldtimer can hear them ringing when he reads what she has to say about the 1880s in Key West. Her articles have struck a responsive chord among Key Westers generally, because their interest is a quiver in our town when it was the largest in Florida and when its per capita wealth was said to be the largest in the world, Our chief industries in those days, as Miss McAvoy stated, were cigar manufacturing and sponging, but the auction rooms were the life blood in our city’s business, Front Street, between Duval and Simonton Streets, was lined with auction rooms on both sides, except for a grog shop at the southeasterly corner of Ann and Front and a coffee shop at the northwesterly corner of Front and Simonton, From 10 to noon every day, except Sunday, hundreds of Key Westers crowded the block, going from auction room to auction room, seeking the things they wished to buy. And what could they buy? Anything from a package of pins to a three-masted schooner. Key West has a Wall Street, named after one of its early settlers, but that block of Front Street was to Key West what the Wall Street Stock Market in New York is to the country. If you had anthing to sell, you could sell it at the auction rooms, and buy anything you needed. Cargoes from ships wrecked on the Florida Reef, in- cluding bolts of satin or silk, cloths of all other kinds, the best in laces or perfumes, everything that entered into the commerce of the world, were auctioned on Front Street. Auction bells began to ring at 9:54 a.m., and five minutes later, selling began, and for two hours the cumulative roar of the auctioneers could be heard for blocks around. 5 “Listen to the auction bells.” Thohgh they rang day after day, yet their ringing roused the age-old trading spirit in man. Coupled with the ringing was this question, “Wonder what they are selling today?” As nobody knew what was to be offered for sale (even an auctioneer did not know what another had to sell), the block was crowd- ed every day by prospective buyers before the bells stop- ped ringing. What were the prices for foodstuffs? They were so low Key West housewives may gape wishfully when they hear them: Coffee, 10 cents a pound (green coffee beans were sold and parched and ground in practically every household) ; turkeys on the “hoof”, shipped here from Galveston, averaged from 10 to 15 cents a pound for toms and 12 to 18 for hens; bananas, 10 to 25 cents a_ bunch, and other fruits proportionately low, and so on to corned beef, which was sold cheap enough at auction for grocers to retail it at three cans for a quarter. “Listen to the auction bells,” and, while you _ listen, let this thought flicker in your mind: the dollar in Key West in the 1880s was worth five of today’s dollars. ' Dollars and sense lay the foundation for big fortunes. Everything you hear in church is not necessarily the goapel. Is anybody doing anything for the boys returning | from Korea? ose their tempers at games should stick | new record in 1952, and modities. ers advertis proved n er one as a si Baseball managers are now beg ng to realize that their optimistic predictions might have been optimistic. | | | World tension ha died, and if the trend is n should be grateful. e Joe Stalin | deceptive, we HAL BOYLE SAYS LONDON (# — Rain came down on London town and showered a merry-faced elderly lady sitting knitting patiently on the pavement of Trafalgar Square as she waited to see her queen. As the queen herself is the sym- bol of empire, Mrs. Hugo Harper was the symbol of all the voiceless millions who have served the Brit- ish crown in places high and low across the centuries. “No, I don’t mind the rain,” she said placidly. “I’ve known rain be- fore.” She has known sacrifice in her life, too. So has her family. For 200 years the men of her family and her husband’s family had, as she said, “given unbroken service to the crown, mostly in the army, and half of them were lost in ac- tion.” “Oh, yes, we've paid the price,” she said with quiet pride. “‘But you expect to pay the price if that’s your job.” Mrs. Harper, widowed by the First World War, is now a lec- turer in history at Cambridge Uni- versity, and is studying for a Doc= tor of Philosophy degree despite her years. She wore a blue Red Cross uniform and on the blouse gleamed a medal given her for her work as a volunteer nurse in the last war. Sandwiched in a crowd of pave- men squatters between a house- wife from Devon and another housewife from Lincolnshire, who had brought along five young chil- dren, Mrs. Harper had no com- Plaint because she had no seat for the coronation. Nor did she seem to mind sleeping on the pavement during her 33-hour wait to see the AT waited 21 hours in the rain to see her father crowned,” she said, “and I waited 14 hours in the rain and snow to see his funeral cortege pass. “These ceremonies are the cen- ter of our lives, the tokens of our | waiting patiently on the pavement “Why. do you think these people are here? At the bottom of it is the simple desire to show their loyalty and support for the crown.” A sound truck passed by then, blaring the tune, “Oh, We Ain’t Got A Barrel Of Money,’’ and the pave- ment squatters stood up on their blanket seats and laughed. ‘I know I ’aven’t,” said one. “I was born on the high seas under the British flag, somewhere between India and Canada,” con- tinued Mrs. Harper. “Just where I don’t remember — I was quite young at the time. “My father was a doctor, a par- son and an army officer. I’ve lived in India, Bermuda, the West Indies, British Guiana, and Canada. My father went to Canada to help the North American Indians.during an epidemic in 1914, He’s up in the Arctic somewhere now, treating the Eskimos, “I married and had. three sons in | w; three years, and then my husband was a missing officer, killed in France in 1918. I had two sons in the last war, and both were badly ‘wounded. “My third son?’—a pause, a caught breath, and then more soft- ly: “He was killed by a bomb dur- ing a Zeppelin raid over Kent in 1916. There were 16 of us in the house at the time, and 14 killed.” Pain darkened her bright blue eyes, as a passing cloud dulls the surface of a lake, and then the light of pride came into them. “The only point in all this.” she said firmly, “‘is that the more you serve the more intense becomes your loyalty—the more you have suffered in the empire's cause, the more you believe in it.” She stood at the foot of the tow- ering monument to Lord Nelson, who won Britain's greatest naval victory at Trafalgar. And as I looked up at the statue of the fa- mous sea hero he seemed no high- er to me than the proud little lady empire and the continuity of a|—Mrs. Harper, heart of empire, thousand years of history. When everything seems changing all over the world, it is comforting to have a stabilized realm, loyal servant of the crown. Cows were known in the earliest dynasties of ancient Egypt. BUCKLEY “HELPHT I CAN'T Swim?” FDIC Has Progras To Protect Depositors From Heavy Losses This is how FDIC deseribes its job of protecting bank depositors | against crippling losses: “1, Each bank approved for de- | Posit insurance must meet rigid standards. “2. Adherence to these standards is checked thoroughly through bank examinations. | “3. If, despite these precautions, | an occasional insured bank gets | into trouble, the Federal Deposit | Insurance Corporation is there with the cash to protect the deposit-' ors.” In its 20 years, FDIC has run into some fantastic schemes to latch on to banks’ assets. In one} Pennsylvania case, institution’s assets in an effort to buy control of the other half through “dummy” operatives. The corporation says that only last year a defaulting woman banker in a small Arkansas town tried to mask an $80,000 shortage by shredding bank records and stuffing them into an outhouse. FDIC examiners still don’t like to} recall that one. it is charged | a bank official stole half of the! j No Chance To Beat Ike's New Measure By B. L. LIVINGSTONE WASHINGTON \® — President Eisenhower's plan for reorganiza- tion of the Agriculture Department was called up for House action Safety ' Notes SS ; By BILL GIBB “What is a safe speed?” “Safety Notes,” which is ¢on- ducting a June traffic safety pro gram in cooperation with the Na- tional Safety Council, asked this question of Chief Joseph O. Kemp, | head of the Key West Police Dept. “The average person, when he tdday, and Rep. Hoffman (R-Mich) | *K8 ‘What is a safe speed?” ex- said there was would be defeated. Barring an unexpected upset, the Plan takes effect at midnight to- night, permitting Secretary Benson to tighten the reins of authority over the diversified functions of his department. The reorganization plan wasn’t called up for a House vote on the jlast day of the 60-day period al- lowed either the House or Senate to veto presidential reorganization Proposals before they automatically take effect. “no chance” it} pects the answer to be given as a certain number of miles per hour,” Chief Kemp said. “Actual- ly, no definite speed always can be labeled as ‘safe.’ “A safe speed can be determin- ed only after consideration of four highly variable factors. These fac- tors are weather, the condition of the road and traffic, the mechani- cal condition of the car, and the driver's own physical and mental conditio.1.” Everyone realizes that rain re- duces visibility, and wet roads Insurance coverage at the start of FDIC operations was limited to $2,500 per account. This was increased to $5,000 in 1935 and to make cars harder to control, Chief Backed by some farm state Kemp cok Bat at members who say they fear effects : Pointed every of the plan on agricultural pro-| “tiver takes these factors into ac- grams, Rep. Fountain (d-NC) gave | Count when his foot is on the \ defense below the danger Eisenhower Is Expected To Urge Economy Tonight By DOUGLAS B. CORNELL WASHINGTON (# — President Eisenhower makes his first tele- vision report to the people tonight, apparently to bear down on the idea that in such perilous times spending must come down, but not too much and taxes remain up. Four Cabinet members will be on the program, too, taking their cues from the President and from big printed cards outside camera Tange. The broadcast is scheduled for 8:30 p. m., Eastern Standard Time. Reports were there might be some word on a new “goldfish bowl policy” of publicity for tax enforcement cases, perhaps to emphasize that the administration is trying to clean up what Eisen- hower has called “the mess in ‘ashington.” But there were no advance signs the half-hour TV show would pro- duce any major announcements. The White House says the program is intended largely to tell the people what the administration has done, and why, in its first four months, It is expected to touch also, in more informal over-the-coffee-cups fashion, some of the high spots of Eisenhower's radio address to the nation May 19. In that broadcast, he defended his military budget and called for temporary main-! tenance of present tax levels. All four TV networks will carry the program. Along with the Pres- ident, it will star Atty. Gen. Brownell, Secretary of Agriculture Benson, Secretary of the Treasury Humphrey and Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare Hobby. A test run yesterday ran seven minutes over time. That meant condensing or cutting out nearly a fourth of the half-hour program. Another rehearsal was set this morning. If present plans ‘ what people will see on their TV screens is a picture of the dent seated at a big desk in a conference room a few s' from his White House office. The Cabi- net members will occupy a brown leather divan nearby. Eisenhower probably will start! $10,000 in 1950. The official annual assessment rate against the bank remains at 1-12 of 1 per cent, but the banks are allowed to recapture 60 per cent of that assessment aft- er losses and expenses of the cor- poration, have been deducted. The remaining 40 per cent is added to the insurance fund. This makes the actual assess- ment rate about 1-33 of 1 per cent, an FDIC spokesman said. The treasury put up 150 million dollars of the original money to finance the insurance system, The 12 Federal Reserve banks sub- notice he would call up a resolution of disapproval which has been pigeonholed in the House Govern- ment Operations Committee, Hoff- man heads the committee. A majority of the full House membership—218 members—must vote against a reorganization plan to veto it, A resolution of disap- proval fell 20 short of the required 49 Senate votes last week. The Agriculture reorganizatibn in the main provides: 1. Three new assistant secre- taries. 2. Centralization of the secre- scribed the remaining 139 million |tary’s authority over certain de- dollars’ worth of capital stock. The | Partment functions not now direct- corporation paid all this back by/ly vested in his office, This in- 1948. Two years later it paid 81/ cludes jurisdiction over six agen- million in retroactive interest. {cies now holding a degree of If ever the nation’s financial sys- | Statutory responsibility for their tem encounters an emergency,| FDIC has authority to borrow up | to three billion dollars from the treasury. The $10,000 individual insurance limit applies to accounts main- | tained by a person in the same | “right or capacity.” In addition to} his personal account, a depositor insured deposits as a trustee, ex- ecutor or agent. His wife's account could be insured up to $10,000, so could their joint savings or check- ing account, if held with right of survivorship. If a person has accounts in sey- eral insured banks, the maximum coverage applies to his accounts in each of them. Over the entire period of its operations, the corporation figures its non-recoverable net losses at only 27 million dollars, It concedes | freely that part of this achieve- ment is due to the generally favor- able conditions in recent years for | the disposition of assets by re-) ceivers or the corporation, Some} also may be due, it claims, to) | FDIC’s own liquidation policies. | The government-sponsored insur- | ance plan apparently has a wide) appeal. In 10 states and the Dis-! trict of Columbia all banks regu-) larly engaged in deposit banking | are insured — Arizona, Montana, ! Nevada, New Mexico, Sguth Da- kota, Utah, Wyoming, Alabama, | Virginia and Vermont. In each of | 13 other states fewer than five! banks are uninsured. Three directors manage FDIC. The present chairman is H. Earl Cook, The other members are Maple T. Hari and Ray Gidney, comptroller of the currency, Nationwide Net Spread For Sex Slayer In London LONDON, #—Police and U. 8. military authorities spread a na- off with a general statement of| tomwide net today for a knife- subjects and ask the Cabinet mem. Wielding sex slayer who killet one bers to fill in details. | teen-aged girl and possitly # sec- In one version that remained | 04 Teay. feared te some sort, then bring.up specific subject to change, the Executive took up his program, then tapped Humphrey to give his Program is essential to checking inflation and keeping a strong defense, He assures Eisenhower © sing taxes or recocing nati Chiet e H blood | that “I know you never promised | ans = two talk back and forth, and} Humphrey says the President's tax | Police were convinced that Chris- tine was killed. tco he were found on r bank near bicycle was dragged from the riv- both girl. own functions. This proposal has attracted the sharpest opposition. Rep. Cooley (D-NC), senior Democrat on the Heavy motor or pedestrian traf. fic tends by its very nature to slow down drivers, yet those who haven't slowed down have been responsible for many fatal acci- dents, Kemp And too often the car with “Probably the fa generally pe ose in said. “The driver who from a ban headache or extreme fatigue cannit react as rapidly to unexpeted highway hazards as can a healthy and well-rested man,” Likewise, Kemp continued, the House Agriculture Committee, |. called it a “power grab” and an attack on existing farm programs. Of 20 agencies in the Agriculture Department, the functions of 10 already are under direct jurisdic- tion of the secretary. The reorganization plan would permit Benson to take full auth- ority over six of the remaining 10 —the Rural Electrification Admin- istration, Farmers Home Adminis- tration, Soil Conservation Service, the, Forest Service, Bureau of Agricultural Economics, and the office of the solicitor. Cooley, attacking the plan in the House yesterday, said it “calls for more power than any good man should want, and more than any are and cannot be hazards are “Even aia Rat totes ways ty. Ashmore Elected bad man should have.” GREENVILLE, 8. C. #—Robert “No one questions the character/T, Ashmore, 49, a state solicitor of Secretary Benson,” he said.| (prosecutor) since 1936, is South “But everyone seems to question|Carolina’s new Fourth District his competency. I don’t question|U, $. representative. his purity, but I do question his} Ashmore, a Democrat from purpose. I am inclined to say, here | Greenville, defeated five other can- comes a pious prince riding a Tro-| didates. He will finish the unex jan horse.” Cooley said Benson didn’t know why he wanted it or what he would do with it when he got it, Benson has said he does not know what shifts he will make, “LT have an idea,” Cooley de- clared, great number of people will be discharged, and then at a later date a greater number will be employed. And I have an idea they will be of another political faith.” A plant is a chemical factory which takes oxygen and hydrogen from water, carbon from the car- bon dioxide in the air and various other chemicals from the soil to produce the substances which make up the plam. Her shoes | and her}