Coral Gables Historical Archive
Coral Gables Riviera
Friday, September 12, 1941, page 6 (of 8)
The page
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
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 4-1654 Member, Florida 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.
Kindergarten Thru College
School bells ring this week in Coral Gables, and hundreds of children will trudge back to classrooms. Their ages will run the gamut from tiny tots to young men and women in their twenties, for Coral Gables offers adequate educational facilities from kindergarten through college. This community's schools have been one of the prime factors in attracting new residents. In all parts of the country Coral Gables is known as a community where the best in educational facilities can be found. Two elementary schools and a high school in the public school system amply satisfy the schooling needs of the majority of the city, while numerous private institutions offer select instruction to those who desire it. The University of Miami has made the Association of Southern Colleges and Universities and last year was accredited by the Southern Association of Colleges and Universities. Already its graduates are taking prominent places in the communities from whence they came. Coral Gables is not a large city, just a little over 8,000 population, but its educational institutions compare favorably with those of many of the largest cities in the United States.
Watch Out for Children
Have you ever watched a group of children on their way home from school? Happy-go-lucky bunch, aren't they? The cares of the world rest lightly on little shoulders as games of tag, races and the like occupy their thoughts for the moment. Too often these carefree games result in serious accidents. Many times the blame is engrossed in running away from the kid who is "it" and unthinkingly dash in front of an automobile. There is a squeal of brakes, a sickening thud, and then it's too late to do much about it, except call an ambulance—or the undertaker. The opening of school places a serious responsibility on the Coral Gables motorist. Because children do not think about safety, the driver must do it for them. Police Captain Lou Reeves is asking the co-operation of every driver in an attempt to prevent such accidents during the school year. Not only is it necessary to use extreme caution driving through school zones, but the driver must watch for youngsters all through the Gables. After school is out, the children scatter rapidly. On bicycles, roller skates and running on foot, hundreds of boys and girls can be found on almost every Gables Street. Therefore, the motorists must watch out for them at all times. Among elementary and junior high school children exclusively, accidents resulted in 6,600 deaths in the United States during the calendar year of 1940. Let's see that there are no such figures chalked up against Coral Gables during 1941-42.
Escort Service
The proposal of the city to employ the use of colored lines to "escort" visitors to various points will ring the bell of nostalgia for many of the tourists and perhaps recall the intricate web of trains and turnstiles, red arrows and green arrows, in New York's Grand Central and Times Square. These arrows, without doubt, have proven valuable in guiding the puzzled visitor to New York on the right track, both literally and figuratively. It is to be hoped that the Gables "guide" lines will enjoy the same measure of success. Of course, there is always the sad-to-contemplate possibility that a color-blind tourist bound for the Country Club might wind up betting on the second race at Tropical Park. Or a visitor, who had perhaps been sampling the grape, might find himself studying algebra at the University of Miami instead of enjoying a pick-me-up at the Biltmore's Cascade Room. But nothing ventured, nothing gained, as the saying goes.
Filling a Gaping Void
Prevention is better economy than salvage—yet through salvage better methods of prevention are evolved. We are talking now about the South Florida Crippled Children's Hospital, which soon will launch a drive for $25,000 for its completion. For several years now there have been men in Coral Gables who have been silently planning and building a hospital. Most of the work in this direction has been on few shoulders. By word of mouth, through salesman against salesmanship on the part of these great men, land was secured and a foundation for the institution was dug. These men worked hard, "sold" other great men on the need for an institution where crippled children might get recuperative treatment, where the medical profession might study the dreaded polio. Brick by brick the hospital progressed. When money came in its was used to build without debt as fast as possible. Building contractors, sub-contractors, architects and engineers made services and materials available without cost. Bricklayers and laborers donated labor. At the present moment, after an expenditure of $28,500, there has been completed $43,000 worth of building. The hospital lacks $250,000 of completion. You are going to be asked to contribute in accordance with your ability. In South Florida we have some of the best medical talent in the world—grossly handicapped by the lack of hospital facilities. No one who loves a child can help but give!
School Time
(NWNS Service)
YOUR CITY by Jim Moore
The clanging clarion of the school bell is summoning the youth of Coral Gables back to classrooms this week. Later, another call may be issued to a much older group in the community—and readin', 'riting and 'rithmetic will have little to do with the form of instruction. For a long time City Manager A. B. Curry has been turning an idea around in his head, and he's about ready to go ahead with his plan. Curry believes, and rightly so, that the impression a visitor gets from his contact with city employees has a whole lot to do with the spreading of a town's good name. Consequently, city workers who have contact with the public are going to stress Courtesy with a capital "C." This courtesy campaign is going a lot further than a mere note to city employees to be courteous. Classes are planned, maybe in policemen, City Hall employees, etc., will get together to try and find out how they can be more helpful to the public. Perhaps business men will be invited to send their employees to the sessions. The crux of the whole matter resolves itself into this: Suppose you are a visitor from the North spending a few weeks in Coral Gables. You've been here several days and you like the town—in fact you've about made up your mind that when your retirement comes up next year, you'll buy a house on Greenway Drive and settle down amid this tropical beauty for the rest of your days. You've even talked to several real estate men about lots and houses. Then this happens. You're driving around the Gables, thinking about that house, and you happen to miss one of the "stop" signs and go barging through. You hear a siren blast and a cop pulls up beside you. "Whaddayuh you think ya goin'?" he shouts, scowling at you. You start to make some explanation, while he looks you over like you'd just robbed a bank and left the bodies of three tellers and a guard lying on the floor. After you've finished explaining that you're a stranger in town and weren't familiar with our stop streets, he says: "Whassamatta you blind? You gonna kill somebody some day. Mebbe this ticket will teach guys like you a lesson." After which he writes you out a summons, sternly admonishes you to appear at the police station, and roars off without even telling you how to get there. Pop goes your dream about a home in Coral Gables. You're mad and you leave the next day, telling all your friends in the North about what a lousy town they run in Coral Gables. This is a hypothetical case and we're probably unfair, using the Police department as an example. In fact, we know many officers with whom tact and courtesy is a daily byword. But discourtesy on the part of any public servant will see the same result. A man inquiring about building restrictions can get just as mad if he's put off with a curt, vague answer. The same is true with every city department. The old adage that you can catch more flies with sugar than you can with vinegar still goes. Let's take our friend from the North and change the circumstances a little. The scene is the same; he's driven through the stop street and the cop has pulled him over to the curb. Let's listen in. COP: "I see from your license that you're a stranger in town." VISITOR: "Yes, I'm not very familiar with the streets here, and I was through the intersection before I knew it." COP: "We're trying very hard to reduce accidents in Coral Gables, and we've found that a great many of them are caused by motorists running through the stop streets and crashing into some fellow on the through street. We'd appreciate it if you'd watch carefully in the future. Here's a little book that outlines our traffic rules and regulations. We'd like to have you read it carefully when you have a spare moment. That's all, and I hope you enjoy your stay in Coral Gables." Our visitor drives off with a warm feeling about the Gables. He tells his friends about our courteous officers and eventually he buys that home and becomes a desirable citizen, ready with a boost for his adopted home town. One day last year a lady from New York called up our office. She told a story of having missed the last bus and being faced with the prospect of walking about twenty blocks to her room. A squad car pulled up and an officer asked, "Can we help you lady?" She explained her plight, and the officer replied, "Hop right in, we'll have you home in a jiffy." "I just had to call the newspaper and tell you about how nicely I was treated," she said. "Furthermore, I'm going to tell all my friends to spend their vacations in Coral Gables." Of course, visiting motorists who fail to heed a friendly warning and are caught a second time should be fined just the same as a resident. But if the first offense is a minor one, we think that the courteous treatment will reap many rewards for this community. Curry is determined to engender this spirit of courtesy and co-operation in every city department. The fact that the majority of the city employees are courteous now is not enough. It must be a characteristic of EVERY employee, the City Manager points out. Coral Gables has always been known as a friendly city. Mr. Curry's campaign will do much to enhance that reputation.
Dollars and Sense By ROMEYN W. SMITH Investment Consultant
We have discussed the importance of the longterm trend of security prices and the need to select the proper type of security best suited to the trend. Equally important is the study of various industrials. There are about thirty generally classified industries. Without study or research on the subject, one might think that the securities of all industries advanced during the 1921-1929 period, the greatest bull market in history. But the securities of all industries did not advance. We have seen a study showing how the common stocks of twenty-six major industries acted in the security markets from 1918 to 1928. The average common stock price during that period advanced 220 per cent. While the above industries were doing well, others were not. Stock prices of the steel industry gained only 73 per cent; the copper industry, 51 per cent; theatres, 44 per cent; oil companies, 42 per cent, and the rubber industry, only 18 per cent. We have not finished the story. During this remarkable bull market, stock prices of leather companies actually lost 1 per cent in price quotations; the coal industry declined 10 per cent; textile stocks, 12 per cent; the sugar industry, 15 per cent, and the shipping industry dropped 73 per cent. Obviously, the shipping industry result largely was related to the terrific drop in postwar shipping activity. The experience of shipping industry stocks favorably illustrates the "long trend" methods of investment operation. During 1919 shipping industry stocks advanced faster than the average. But by 1921 they had registered a 65 per cent drop from the record of the average. Again in 1921-1922, this industry's stocks advanced more rapidly in price than the average. Subsequently they declined until, as stated previously, they finally lost 73 per cent of their value during the ten-year period. Suppose you had foreseen long-term trouble for the shipping industry in 1918. No sooner were you out of it, however, than its stock prices proceeded to shoot up ahead of other industries. Probably you would have been provoked at yourself and perhaps have doubted your own or your investment adviser's judgment. These experiences can happen, do happen, and will continue to happen. Has it ever occurred to you that owners of large blocks of stocks in sick industries would like to unload? Usually the "public" never gets greatly interested in any security or security group unless the market is active and rising. Sometimes large owners of these stocks create a "pool" to run them up and unload on the public. This has been done many times, even despite the fairly recent Securities and Exchange Act. Another device of the "insiders" is in connection with an industry which is about ready to show a pronounced advance. The pool manipulates the price downward this time until it has squeezed out the poorly margined, and scared out those who are guessing. Then the good news breaks and the stocks bound up to their new price level, reflecting the improved situation in the industry. This is just another example of the value of skilled long-trend security ownership versus the "short swing." The latter can be manufactured. Long trends cannot because they are the result of powerful economic and other forces.
In Our Mail
Editor, The Riviera: Having been a resident of Coconut Grove since 1926, I have enjoyed attending the Grove Theatre. It seems to me that during this time something could be done in the way of making this theatre more comfortable. If new seats, carpets and a better system of cooling were installed, my evenings would still be spent in our neighborhood, instead of going to another theatre with more comfort. Money is being spent left and right in other communities on remoderning their theatres, yet our own theatre stays in the background. The tourist season is coming on and the select patronage we have in the Grove section is not kept here at all. Instead of going to our community theatre they go downtown. There is atmosphere, courtesy, service and entertainment to be had in our community theatre if only it were more comfortable. A GROVE RESIDENT.
In Our Mail
To the Editor of the Coral Gables Riviera Dear Sir: School is about to start and I as a mother, of two children attending the Coral Gables Elementary School want to complain. First I want to complain about other mothers who bring their children to school and park their cars only for as long as it takes to drop the kiddies out. These mothers, persistently, will back away from the curb without so much as a backward glance. Perhaps they think for parking only a second they have the right to back out without looking behind for another car's approach. The elementary school is on a busy thoroughfare and situated at the very busiest intersection. I hope through your columns read by practically everyone in the Gables, that you will stress the necessity of the "mothers" who drive and park and drive again to heed what they are doing. Yours truly, "A Mother."
Turning a New Leaf Book Briefs
"The Keys of the Kingdom," by A. J. Cronin (Little, Brown and Company). If it were possible to turn a phrase, a sentence, as A. J. Cronin could mature even more, it would be true of his latest novel, "The Keys of the Kingdom." We believe that this new novel is more significant than either "Hatter's Castle" and "The Citadel" by reason of its principal quality. It takes its title from Christ's words to Peter, "And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven," and it is the story of Francis Chisholm, Father Francis, a Scots priest. It tells of his Tweedside youth, of his education of how his environment and a tragic event impelled him to become a priest. He was a curious mixture of child-like simplicity and logical directness, and he was a complete individualist. He believed that tolerance was the highest virtue and that humility came next. So often his idealism, in the eyes of his superiors, made him a failure as a curate, the Bishop, who understood him, offered him a vicarate in China. There, for thirty-five years, a thousand miles from Tientsin, he labored to establish and maintain a mission in a Chinese village. There he struggled against indifference, famine, plague, bandits and civil war. There he searched for the eternal truths and wondered if he was a failure. Many other people throng the novel—his relatives, the girl he loved as a boy, the nuns who came to help him at his mission, priests and doctors, Chinese peasants and Chinese officers. The book will hold you because of its story, perhaps not so much in the first part of the novel, but definitely after the first few chapters. You will be drawn towards its principal character, whom you may find yourself comparing to his namesake, Francis of Assisi. It will bring to your mind the whole great question of the part that religion can play in the world today—and the dire need for Father Francis' most important ideal—tolerance. Perhaps, when you lay it down, you will say as did Monsignor Sleeth: "Oh, Lord, let me learn something from this old man."
This ONE'S ON You
OH, DOCTOR—Virginia Eason and her escort, Dr. Frederick Poppe, had just finished a large dinner at the Deauville. In fact, too large. Feeling a twinge of discomfort, Virginia turned to him and requested, "Burp me, doctor, like you do with the babies over at the hospital." Obligingly, the young medico turned her over his shoulder and administered a resounding thump between the shoulder blades. * * * FOR POSTERITY—Roy Biery's picture and his reputation as a genial host will be known to the R. A. F. in England this winter. Roy's bistro, "The Huddle," is so popular with the navigation cadets that they had him pose for a picture the other day so that they could take it back to show their buddies "over there." * * * SLIGHT ERROR—A young man from West Virginia, who spends his winters here, is going to have to resort to hanging a lantern on his door if he makes any more excursions into the field of Dipsomania. Returning home in the wee hours with a party of friends, he picked the wrong block and the wrong house. They realized their mistake when the irate householders, aroused from bed by sounds of singing in their living room, sent them on their way with a threatened call to the police. * * * ALL THE TRIMMINGS—Construction on the new addition to Bill and Mary Leach's home was launched with due ceremony last week with a cornerstone laying and all the trimmings. The Leachs had the builder leave out one of the clay tiles next to the foundation, which was laid that evening as their friends watched. Into the block went a piece of Bill's shirttail, a clipping from the day's newspaper, giving the racing entries and a picture of the baby. * * * BOTHER THE BACHELOR—The charming Gables representative of a Miami "welcome to the newcomer" service had an embarrassing experience the other day. As is custom, the welcome lady gives bottles of milk, loaves of bread, tips on where to buy, etc., etc., to the new arrivals. Well, the subject of our story stepped up to a home on Avenue Navarre and rang the bell. Pretty soon came a young man to answer it—sleep still in his eyes. "I hear that you and your family are newcomers to Coral Gables," the welcome lady said. "I'm sorry," replied the young man, "but four bachelors live here and we're not newcomers." * * * PRESS RELEASE—Frank Kearns, who did a stint last summer on The Riviera during the managing editor's vacation, chose this novel way of letting friends know his new address. A card, bearing the following wording, arrived at this desk yesterday: "Priv. Frank Michael Kearns, one time pinch-hit newsman on The Riviera, known now as No. 18,042,354, will be 'at home' from Aug. 28, 1941, to Aug. 28, 1944 (!), at 2115 C Street, N. W., Washington, D. C. He is visiting friends associated with the War Department Motor Transport Pool Division, United States Army In fact, he will be there three years. Available weekends, evenings until 7 A. M., following day, except in periods of national emergency." * * * SCRUB—We've often thought about what a tough job it must be to scrub the Venetian Pool (most beautiful swimmin' hole in the world) once week, and figured that Coral Gables and Pool Manager Russ Ellington must have spent wakeful nights trying to figure out a way to do the task easily and cheaply. Well, we were right—Russ and the boys have a system and the job takes them 'way into the wee hours of Friday morning. At the 10 P. M. closing time the pool is immediately emptied—a process which occupies two hours. At the stroke of midnight three young fellows in bathing suits (well trained over a long period) get busy with scrubbing brushes. There are three types of scrubbing brushes used—a long-handled heavy-duty brush for the bottom, a slightly smaller brush for the sides, and a still smaller brush for crevices. What a time the Fuller brush man could have with Russ Ellington! Any other elusive deposits which may have escaped the brushes are burned out with chlorids of lime. Then the crew, under the direction throughout this procedure of the chief lifeguard, tackle the whole pool with a 75-pound pressure hose. Then, at four o'clock in the morning, the crew has finished the job and the Venetian Pool, its face cleaned and scrubbed, is ready for another week. We just thought you'd be interested. We were. * * * SECRET BARED—A scout for this column has uncovered Andy Houston's secret of his rapidly slimming waistline. Each morning at 6:30 the rosy-fingered tips of dawn point out the Merchant's Bureau chairman vigorously pedaling a bicycle through the near-deserted Gables streets. * * * CANARD—Little Terry O'Connell, aged four, was lingering near the youngsters' section of the Venetian Pool the other day. Said the lifeguard to Terry: "Are you ticklish?" "No," replied Terry, "I'm Irish."