Coral Gables Historical Archive
Coral Gables Riviera
Friday, September 5, 1941, page 4 (of 6)
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The text of this pageRead by computer from the scan, so some words may be wrong. The page picture is the original.
CORAL GABLES RIVIERA
-PAGE 4- THE CORAL GABLES RIVIERA FRIDAY, SEPT. 5, 1941 CORAL GABLES RIVIERA AN INDEPENDENT COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER Published every Friday by the Miami Riviera Publishing Co., 306 Coral Way, Coral Gables, Fla. Established January, 1926 Combined with the Dade County and Coconut Grove Times, 1929. ALBERT E. HARUM President and Publisher JAMES B. MOORE Managing Editor Mailing Address, P. O. Box 704 Telephone 4-1634 Member, Press Association National Editorial Association SUBSCRIPTION RATES One Year by Carrier, Coral Gables and immediate vicinity $2.00 Six Months $1.25 One Year by Mail $3.00 Entered as second class matter May 21, 1926, at the Postoffice at Miami, Florida, under Act of March 3, 1879.
Our Child's Health
It is a tribute to the good sense and clear thinking of the Coral Gables health authorities that they have in no wise relaxed their precautions against the deadly polio attack. The fact that a long period has elapsed since that mysterious germ launched an attack against our children is no reason why we should throw caution to the winds. The two-week quarantine which has been established should serve to avoid the possibility of any student bringing the polio germ to the Gables from other areas-as well as serving as a safeguard against other communicable diseases to which the children may have been exposed. Meanwhile, a number of civic and service groups in the Gables have launched a movement to have the classroom walls in the elementary school painted and the rooms fumigated as a precautionary measure. Undoubtedly this suggestion will be given every consideration by the Dade County Board of Instruction. There should be no forgetting the fact our last wave of polio disappeared with the closing of school and we agree with William L. Gray that if this move were to prevent one case of polio it would be worth the entire expense.
'Friend of the Boy'
We hope that the Coral Gables Optimists will get a firm start and make a definite groove in the wall of our civic life. The Optimists have made large gains in the past few weeks in South Florida, having organized clubs in Miami, Miami Beach and Miami Shores. The Optimists are a service organization, its principal objective activity being to aid youth and to help solve the problems of the boy. There isn't much one can say about their objective but that it is of the highest, and that, if nothing else, should assure their prosperity in Coral Gables. That Lucian Renuart is a high official in the Optimists and will guide the young club here only serves to commend more attention for the budding service organization.
Signs Of The Season
The coming of September brings with it the annual harbingers of the season just ahead. Just as the first fall month in the North is accompanied by the first tinges of red in the trees, September in Florida has its unmistakable signs that winter bwill soon be upon us. This year, despite the threatened gas shortage and the difficulty in obtain merchandise, Coral Gables is busier than ever. From all indications, Florida is going to have as big a season, if not bigger, than ever before. Of course, in some aspects, it will be somewhat different. The defense boom in the North will prevent some industrialists from taking the whole winter off to bask in the sun, but, nevertheless, they will send their families here. It will mean that there will be more money in circulation, higher wages and that many people who could never before afford a Florida vacation will take it this season. Perhaps they will come for shorter periods, but, nevertheless, thousands will migrate south for a two or three-weeks' pause from the breathtaking pace of readying a nation for war. The signs of fall are all around us. One merchant is repainting the front of his store, another putting new stock on his shelves. Hotel rooms are being cleaned, refurnished and aired. All about us the pace grows more rapid, the bustle more pronounced. No leaves are turning red in Florida, but the slap of the painter's brush and the ring of the hammer are a clarion cry that winter will soon be here.
More Taking The Plunge
The new attendance record at the Venetian Pool seems to indicate that more people are learning to enjoy the recreational advantages of Coral Gables. During the warm summer months we have noticed more and more Gableites joining the visitors in the cooling waters of the pool. Even our envy of those who are sojourning in the North Carolina mountains seems to melt away with the first plunge into the "world's most beautiful swimming hole."
About OUR TOWN By Jim Moore
It's funny, the things we don't know about people. The fellow who first said, "Everybody has an interesting story to tell if you can just dig it out of them," really said a mouthful. For example, did you know that the kindly old gentleman who served us butter, milk and eggs from behind the delicatessen counter at the Coral Gables Grocery was a scientist, with a "Dr." prefixed to his name, and years of research in silkworm culture to his credit? It took a war and a silk shortage to bring that out. Now Dr. Thomas de Pamphilis is news and Florida stands to gain a new industry-so important that it may even eclipse cotton. Following up the threads of the silk story, we uncovered another interesting fact, concerning another Gableite. Did you know that Jimmie Santacroce also used to be a silkworm grower? Neither did we until we got to talking to him about it the other day. JIM MOORE Forty-two years ago, in the central part of Italy, Jimmie was quite engrossed in the fascinating business of silk producing. In fact, 50 per cent of the families in that part of the country were silkworm growers. The industry was worked out on sort of a sharecropper basis there. A large company would distribute the eggs to families that had mulberry trees on their properties. The eggs were kept in incubator trays, and when the tiny worms hatched, the family spent busy days chopping the mulberry leaves into tiny bits to feed to the voracious "youngsters." As the worms grew in size, the leaves were torn up into large pieces, and when full growth was reached, whole leaves were tossed to them. Jimmie swears that you could hear the big worms chewing on the foliage. At this stage, the procedure was changed. The worms were taken out of doors and placed on bushes, called "jungles." They then ceased feeding and began spinning the cocoons. When these were completed the buyer from the big company would come around and collect them. Some were allowed to hatch into moths, which would lay from 400 to 600 eggs each and provide the new crop. The others were taken to the processing plant and were immersed in hot water. This step killed the worms inside and loosened the strands of silk on the coocoon. A spinning machine unraveled the silk onto spools-and you know the rest. Jimmie also told us the background story on Dr. de Pamphilis-a story so packed with heartbreaks and disappointments that we wonder how he had the courage to go on. In 1923, he had 20,000 mulberry trees under cultivation in central Florida. These were wiped out by a hurricane. He was next lured to Coral Gables by promises of free land and money to carry on his experiments. After arriving here, he was so enthused by the prospects that he refused a proffered $100,000 certified check to take his experiments elsewhere. Then the Florida bubble burst, and with it went the dream of the silk industry for Coral Gables. Again in 1935 a glimmer of hope arose. Jimmie Santacroce, knowing of Dr. de Pamphilis' ability, interested several growers in forming a company to try to revive the industry. Prospects seemed very bright and then disaster struck again. The 1935 hurricane practically impoverished one of the backers. A killing frost somewhat later ruined a people crop and out dropped another backer. Things again looked black. Then came another promise of success for de Pamphilis. Machado, the Cuban president, made him a proposition to establish a colony of silkworm cultivators in the island republic. But before much could be done about it, along came the revolution. Machado fled the country and another chance hit the dust. Now, success beckons again. Commissioner Charles Crandon has the Government interested. May fall killed the foreign silk market. The situation looks rosy. Those who have studied the proposition are more than enthusiastic. They say that the climate and soil is ideal-that Florida can become the location of a great industry-worth millions of dollars. It seems to be an opportunity that should be grasped and promoted for all that it is worth. We hope that it works out-and when it does, we hope that the success, that has been snatched from him so many times, will demand a millionfold on Dr. Thomas de Pamphilis.
Must Anticipate Collections
JACKSONVILLE, Sept. 4.-County Commissioners must anticipate the collection of at least 75 per cent of tax delinquencies accumulating since the Murphy act and both county-wide and school board millage levies must reflect these anticipations with comparable reductions in millage over and above other possibilities under the new statutes, Comptroller J. M. Lee told a session of the Duval County Tax Board and Board of County Commissioners here. The rule means that after the county budgetary authorities decide the amounts needed they must deduct the amount of anticipated delinquent tax collections required and levy millage only for the balance-so that every dollar collected on delinquent taxes reduces by $1 the amount to be collected the coming year. "Collections and millage levies are fully as important as assessments," Comptroller Lee told them. "Levies made and never collected amount to nothing."
A New Exhibitor
UNCLE SAM'S RAISED QUITE A DEFENSE CROP LOOKS LIKE A "BUMPER" CROP TO ME BUY DEFENSE SAVING STAMPS
Dollars and Sense
By ROMEYN W. SMITH Investment Consultant We have determined that trends in business activity and in security prices do occur and reoccur, just as surely as the tide ebbs and flows, though with less regularity. In conformance with these trends, our problem is to use those types of securities which will conserve capital in times of depression and increase capital in times of plenty. Securities generally may be divided into three classes or types, as follows: (1) Equities, or common stocks. (2) Long-term bonds and preferred stocks. (3) Short-term bonds and other cash equivalents. Mr. Smith Properly selected common stocks will be safe and profitable in periods of increasing business activity and unsafe and unprofitable in periods of depression. Properly selected long-term bonds and preferred stocks will rise in value in periods of falling interest rates; and fall, as interest rates rise. Short-term bonds and other cash equivalents are essential to capital conservation in depression periods. Logical and elementary as this procedure is, it is astonishing how relatively few investors follow it. One reason is that they are sometimes guided by those, who have no interest in long trends. We refer to the speculator and the gambler; and to any individual or organization more interested in immediate profit, than in the customer's or client's financial welfare. Another school of thought is that it is impossible to anticipate trends that the best thing to do is to hold the same investments all the time, regardless of trends; that sooner or later falling prices will rise, etc. This is known as the "long pull method." These people lost sight of two things. When they need cash the investment market usually is at a low ebb. They also ignore or forget that anticipating long trends can be done. It has been done and it is being done. Some persons now are using 1932 investment polices. They are buying high-grade bonds and life insurance annuities right in the face of potential inflation. What these misguided investors do not see is that a type of security which is suitable at one time and under one set of conditions, may be extremely hazardous at another time, under a different set of conditions. Inflation is a much abused term. It may be defined as a rise in the internal price level. If the price of a loaf of bread increases from 11 to 44 cents, you have a 400 per cent inflation in prices. Furthermore, after such a price increase, a dollar would buy less than three loaves of bread instead of nine loaves. Bonds and annuities are dollar "contracts," They are contracts to deliver to the owner a specified number of dollars at a future date. Interest is paid on the bonds for the loan of the money. But nothing is specified about a decline in the purchasing or buying power of the dollar. There is just one more subject we wish to mention in this week's article. It is the much publicized propaganda that "everybody lost most of his money during the depression." Everybody did not lose money during the depression. The great majority lost. The few gained. And the great majority will lose again and keep on losing. Why? Because only a small minority will admit to themselves that they are inexperienced investors or will take a little of their time to find out how to protect their capital. Taxation alone becomes more involved each year. It seems to us that protecting your capital means protecting your home, your health and most of those things which make life worth living.
In Our Mail
Editor, The Riviera: On August 22 your paper carried an interesting article about the City Fathers meeting with and explaining the function of our government to the British cadets. This undoubtedly will result in a lot of valuable publicity for Coral Gables. As long as these boys live they will talk about the wonderful times they had in Coral Gables. When reading this article it occurred to me that it would be an excellent idea if you would use a column of your paper for explaining to the taxpayers of Coral Gables certain questions about the operation of the city that they do not understand. I personally know of many people who do not understand about certain things. I, myself, have three questions that worry me very much. Please ask the City Fathers if they will take the time to answer three, four or five questions each week; both the questions and the answers to be published in your paper. W. V. MORROW.
Turning a New Leaf Book Briefs
"Sodom by the Sea"-An Affectionate History of Coney Island"; by Oliver Pilat and Jo Ranson; published by Doubleday Doran. If we had any quarrel to pick with this lusty biography of the world's most incredible playground, it would be over the mhleading word, "affectionate" in the sub-title: for no tenderness or affection has been allowed to sugar coat the bloody beginnings, the bawdy adolescence, and loud-mouthed maturity of the sprawling beach community on the outer fringes of New York City, probed colorfully-but with a surgeon's objectivity, by the authors. "Here is the story of Coney. It may not be pretty, but that's the way it happened," Messrs. Pilat and Ranson seem to say, as they shake one by one, the skeletons of political corruption, gangster overlords, frenzied gambling, prostitution and sudden death, out of the closet, and only lightly concealed by a facade of loop-the-loops, scenic railways, gyp games, shooting galleries and hot dog emporiums. And with equal detachment it told the drying battle of sincere business men of the Island, which, medicidentally, is no longer an island, the honest citizens, to make Coney Island a clean and circumspect playground for New York's pale-faced millions. No less absorbing than the story of Sunday School teaching John Y. McKane, early political dictator, who enjoyed whipping trespassers in his domain personally with a thin steel rod and looked with equanimity at ballot box stuffing-so long as they were stuffed the right way, but who winced at pickpockets who relieved visitors of their wallets, is the description of the eternal rivalry among amusement park magnates for more thrilling rides and more freaks, to lure the nickels of city yokels into their tills. And not neglected in "Sodom by the Sea" is the part that Frankie Yale, vicious underworld racketeer, but strangely enough a well-liked fellow, played in the history of Coney Island. There's a wealth of fascinating anecdotes about the people who tarried to enjoy Coney: the Vanderbiltes and the Whitneys, who drove downtown in their tallyhos to see the races; Diamond Jim Brady, Marie Dressler, the singing waiters, Eddie Cantor and Jimmie Durante, Clarence Mackay, Nora Bayes, Fannie Ward, Bet-a-Million-Gates and a host of others who played parts in the passing show that was Coney. Take a tour of "Sodom by the Sea," with authors Pilat and Ranson, we urge you. See it as a fashionable watering place frequented by the creme de la creme-and as a honkey-tonk town; as a world of magic Luna Park, and Steeplechase -and as a hideout for the underworld. Each and the flow in the evolution of Coney Island. And if the seaside city of amusement has become less dangerous, you will learn it has lost none of its vigorous determination to be its boisterous, carefree self, and is even now fighting sturdily to defeat the ambition of Park Commissioner Moses to turn it into a sterile, softspoken, orderly replica of Jones Beach or Heckscher Park. * * * "Low Man on the Totem Pole"-By H. Allen Smith (Doubleday-Doran). Affectionately dubbed "The Screwballs' Boswell" by Fred Allen, H. Allen Smith is a newspaperman with a keen interest in the little guy and no regard at all for the stuffy interviewing of the big shot. During his career as a reporter and feature writer, he has tucked thousands of little anecdotes away in his mind, and brings them forth in his book in an entertaining manner that makes it hard to stop reading. Smith shuns stories about tycoons, statesmen and their ilk for breezy yarns about interviewing strip-teasers, flagpole sitters, nuts and semi-nuts. A keen insight into human nature plus the newspaperman's naturally questioning mind enables him to develop intimate profiles out of what could easily have been prosaic copy. "Low Man on the Totem Pole" takes the reader on a merry whirl of introductions to some of the nation's strangest people. Done in a refreshing style, which will shock a few but tickle the funnybones of many, H. Allen Smith's book is interesting-plus reading.
This One's On You
SNAKE REQUIEM-One of our Northern subscribers has been intrigued by stories appearing in newspapers about people finding snakes under the bed, in the kitchen stove, in closets, etc. This subscriber's interest was aroused all way back to the day when she was proprietress of the Crawford House in up-State New York. Around the Crawford House were snakes of all varieties, but our subscriber didn't bother with anything but rattlers-the bigger the better-and her sole means of attack was to arm herself with a rake. Many's the sad rattlesnake Who didn't run from Mrs. H.'s rake. Well, snakes haven't gone out of her life yet, and she writes: "The other day I ran upstairs for something-and coming along the hall was a three-foot snake. I called for my rake-but it was so slow in coming that I had a chance to see the snake climb downstairs. Well, anyway, I never got my hands on the rake and a friend shot the snake, and here ends the tale-and it's a true story." * * * TARDY TIPPLE-When the C. Eliot Thomsons were married a year ago, they were promised a bottle of champagne by the operator of one of the nearby bistros. Somehow, they never got around to collecting it until last Saturday night, when the cork was popped-exactly one year later to the day, on their first anniversary. * * * HENDERSON WRITES AGAIN-"I got a great kick out of a recent article a writer in one of the metropolitan papers, in which he raved about this area as a summer resort. He said many of the Beach hotels were crowded with visitors reveling in the cool ocean breezes, enjoying the night spots, playing golf and tennis, or just sitting. He then ended his rave with, "Golly, how I wish I were in Blowing Rock." I know just how he feels and that is why: I WANT TO BE WHERE I AIN'T When tired of the search for the elusive dollar, Tired of my pressed suits and stiff linen collar, When the boss gets crabby And says I'm too gabby Or makes some such perfectly silly complaint, It is then that I long for A spot that I'm strong for And want to be 'way off some place where I ain't. When the wife howls her head off about the depression Or her embonpoint (fat to you)-that's her obsession! When the air waves blast noises, For young girls and boyses That would ruffle the calm of the most patient saint, I restrain my profanity At the awful inanity And I wan't to be off some place where I ain't. As a matter of fact, our recent nights, hovering around the low 80's, have got this booster down and so my Missus and I will probably jump in the old jalopy within a few days and hike to a higher altitude." Yours sincerely, TOM HENDERSON. * * * COACH COACHED-Ponce de Leon High School's gridders will have to do without the services of Assistant Coach Micah Haskell Ruggles this season. According to a report from Local Draft Board 7, "Mike" will leave next Thursday for Camp Blanding, where he will be coached in the fine art of soldiering. * * * MOONSHINE DEFENSE - The old-time moonshiner-now practically extinct except in some parts of the State-is doing his share, involuntarily, for the Defense Program. Assistant Director F. E. Henderson of the State Beverage Department has instructed his men to keep an eye out for these moonshiners and to turn over all copper stills seized in raids to the chairman of the nearest defense council unit. The copper, in turn, will be disposed of through recognized junk dealer channels and eventually will find its way back into defense production. Thus the colorful figure of the dimming past, twenties, slowly washing into extinction by the tide of legal liquor, is "doing his part" for defense. * * * DOUBLE PLAY-Bill Gray and John White are having a bit of an argument over who should get credit for catching a ten-pound grouper on Labor Day. Fishing from Frank Holley's boat, both got a strike at about the same time. When they reeled in, they found that the fish had taken both baits, and that each hook was firmly and deeply imbedded in the fish's mouth.