Coral Gables Riviera

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, 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 8, 1879.

University Zoning

The suggestion that the city commission evolve some plan for setting aside certain areas in the Gables for fraternity and sorority houses is one that cannot be taken lightly. It is difficult, almost impossible, to consider the fraternity and sorority house question as an individual problem. In taking up this matter, the future plans of the entire University must be taken into consideration. Firstly, the commission and those who direct the school must decide, once and for all, whether future expansion of the university will evolve around the buildings now occupied, of whether the original site, south of Blue Road, still figures in the picture. If plans to move day move the institution to the original site have definitely been discarded, then it seems like rezoning, not only for fraternities and sororities but for other University buildings, is in order. On the other hand, if a future move to the Riviera section is still contemplated, drastic zoning changes in the present school area might be a mistake. It's a problem with many ramifications and it is an urgent problem. But first, let's settle the point of a permanent campus.

There Must Be No Wedge

Building in Coral Gables last week, along with that of the rest of the area, seemed for a while to be faced with a complete halt. The nation's defense industry was using all available steel and builders feared that the supply of the necessary building metal would soon be exausted. Fortunately, word came from Washington that arrangements were being made to replenish the rapidly diminishing supply. Construction men were assured that they would be able to obtain re-inforcing rods and other steel articles necessary to building. It is probable, however, that the supply during the coming months will be somewhat limited. To meet this emergency, Coral Gables has announced that it will relax its rigorous building restrictions enough to allow builders to pour concrete footings, where trenches are dug in coral rock foundations, without the hitherto required steel reinforcing rods. Furthermore, fewer rods will be required in the lintels. This was a necessary step. It had to be taken if the construction program was to follow its normal course. It is an important step for the community, which has a building code that is regarded as one of the strictest in the nation. We are glad that the code is flexible enough to meet an emergency such as this. But this one relaxation must never be used as a wedge for further concessions that would tend to lower the standards for the type of buildings we require in Coral Gables.

Unpleasant Suit Averted

The WPA time extension on the Community House deed situation averted, at least for the time being, what might have been a very unpleasant law suit. Now the Woman's Club and the City have until November 15 to iron out the situation, which has existed since WPA directed the city to recapture the deed to the property, held by the club since 1937. Mrs. Charles J. Susong informs us that this additional time will enable her to present the matter, with the various city proposals, to a general meeting of her club in October. Since this is the last time extension the federal government probably will grant, it is to be hoped that the coming of the deadline will find the differences amicably settled, and the Club and the City working together on the more important task of building Coral Gables.

Our Men in Blue

One of the largest gatherings of newspaper publishers on record for the State of Florida took place this week in Orlando when Capt. F. E. M. Whiting, national director of Naval Recruiting, explained details of the forthcoming drive for recruits for the state. Captain Whiting explained that the speed with which ships were coming off the ways made it imperative to step up recruiting activity to secure men to equip these fighting craft. The Navy offers a splendid opportunity for the young man to learn a trade--Uncle Sam pays $1500 to train each recruit--to travel and see the world, or as a career in itself. Enlistment in this vital branch of the defense program makes possible a choice of the line of work which the young man wishes to follow in his naval training. For the next few weeks the Coral Gables Riviera, along with many newspapers in the State will present the Navy's story of its service and we hope that there will be among us many who will seize upon this opportunity to do their part for defense of our liberties.

OUR TOWN

by Jim Moore We went into a huddle with A. B. Curry and Andy Houston the other day and came out filled with Christmas spirit. (Note to printer: Be sure and make that last word singular). It seems funny to be talking about Christmas at this early date, but those boys aren't letting any grass grow under their feet. They've already whipped up a tentative program for Christmas week that is a honey. There's going to be a meeting of the merchants next Friday, and following that things are going to get started. Firstly, the business district is going to be dressed up much better than ever before. In years past, we've all waited until the last minute to get going on decorating the Boulevard, but this year things are going to be different. If present plans work out, the big community Christmas tree, which has heretofore been over on Salzedo Street, will be right smack dab in the middle of the business section at Ponce and Alhambra Circle. There is by no means any thought of taking any of the glory away from the firemen, by moving the tree. In fact, Curry and Houston believe that putting the tree out where everybody will see it, will help build up the Christmas spirit with the result that many more people will donate toys to be given to the poor kiddies on Christmas day. The smoke-eaters have always sponsored this party, and for weeks ahead they spend their spare time mending broken toys that have been discarded by more fortunate chlidren. As a matter of fact, there is a plan underway for the various civic clubs to stage Christmas parties at their meetings prior to Christmas week. At these gatherings, each member will bring a toy, which will be turned over to the firemen. In this way, the stock of toys for Santa to distribute will be greatly increased. Christmas week plans, as tentatively laid out, sound better than ever before. A program is being arranged, whereby a series of Christmas music concerts will be presented nightly under the big tree. The bands and orchestras from the University of Miami, Ponce de Leon High School and the Elementary School will be asked to take part in the programs. In addition, various choral groups will sing carols. Organ music programs, over a loud speaker system, are also being considered. Christmas should have a very important significance to Americans this year. It's one of the few spots on the globe where "peace on earth" still has a real meaning and we all fervently hope that Christmas Eve, 1941 will find that peace still in existence. The newcomers in Coral Gables always say that they're going to miss the "white" Christmas of the North, but most of them find that Christmas in the tropics can be just as beautiful. The poinsettias are in full bloom in their natural surroundings. The nights are clear, star sprinkled and beautiful. In fact, here you find a setting very much like the surroundings of the first Christmas, when the Star of Bethlehem hovered over a manger in just such a tropical clime. It's still September, but days move swiftly as the winter season comes to Florida. So it's really not too early at all to start preparations for the holiday of holidays. JIM MOORE

It's a Fact!

REX BEACH WAS ONCE PAID $5,000 TO WRITE A BOOK ABOUT CORAL GABLES! Yes, sir, during the halcyon days of the boom, the Coral Gables Corporation employed Beach to write a book praising the embryo community. He produced a beautifully written work, "The Miracle of Coral Gables." Copies can still be seen at the Coral Gables Library and the Chamber of Commerce.

Welded Together

Dollars and Sense

By ROMEYN W. SMITH Investment Consultant So far we have been pointing out, for the most part, the difficulties of managing money. Our first four articles were intended as a brief presentation of investment problems. We now understand the great importance of selecting the proper type of security in the industries which are in the most favorable position at the time of selection. The third function of management consists of passing intelligently upon individual corporations within the favored industries. An illustration of this importance may be seen from the record of the automobile industry during 1926. At that time ten companies comprised most of the industry: Chandler-Cleveland, Chrysler, General Motors, Hudson, Hupp, Mack Trucks, Packard, Pierce-Arrow, Studebaker, White and Willys Overland. Ford always has been owned privately. Taken as a whole, the stock values of the industry advanced. But only General Motors stock advanced. The others declined, but not enough to eliminate the advance of General Motors. Here is a striking example of stockholders owning the right type of security in one of the right industries but in the wrong company. The real skill needed to select the proper company is no ability to appraise values. Most people know how to "shop" for food and clothing. Few women will pay $50.00 for a $25.00 dress. But for some reason beyond our comprehension, only a small minority of investors learn how to shop for securities. There are various methods of ascertaining security values. We know of one man who uses a fairly simple method. He evaluates the company's property by first determining current earnings, and estimating what proportion of those earnings can safely be paid out as dividends. Suppose a company is earning $1,000,000 annually and can afford to pay out 60 per cent, or $600,000, in dividends. From a knowledge of hundreds of other stocks, a reasonable yield is determined for the risk involved of investing in the company, instead of it our buying short-term U. S. Government bonds. Assume 7 per cent to be the yield demanded. Then 7 per cent of the corporation's business must be $600,000, the amount of estimated dividends. By dividing $600,000 by .07, the fair value of the business approximates $8,500,000. The latter figure is divided by the number of shares of stock outstanding--say 500,000 shares, resulting in a fair value of $17.00 per share for the stock. If the stock is selling well over $17 per share, it is too high. Under, it is a good buy. There always is a level where any security, bond or stock, is a "good buy" or a "good sale." People who are trained to know values recognize these levels. Others guess. Valuation methods are necessary. Otherwise costly errors are made. It is our experience that the average investor has little if any conception of the real worth of a stock or a bond. Frequently the only reasons given for buying a stock are that it is going up rapidly, or that it has sold much higher. We have outlined a simple method of determining quality in investment, fair value of costs. But the investigation should not end there. A painstaking analysis of every bond and stock is made by a competent investment manager before arriving at a final decision to buy or sell. There is hardly any limit to the scope of such an analysis, which should include consideration of the company's earnings record, financial structure, record, general history, products, competitive position, management, financial structure, security provisions, etc. Inter-views with responsible company officials are helpful, although we can recall personal experiences of having the former heads of certain large concerns deliberately attempt misrepresentation of facts. The motive, self-interest, was not and is not new. Always we must guard against the self-interest motive. Watch carefully that you do not get taken in by the rumors and tips which are being circulated constantly, usually with a purpose. Mr. Smith

In Our Mail

Editor, The Riviera: I've lived in Coral Gables for six months now, and I'm still amazed that there's no such thing here in town as a delicatessen, that boon on "cook's day off" and that rendezvous of gourmets who love to poke around pickled herring barrels for plump morsels, and delight in row upon row of delicacies from every corner of the earth. Maybe it's the result of a conspiracy on the part of husbands who believe what they read in the comic strips about lazy wives and delicatessen meals, that account for the absence of such a shop--but I still think it would pay someone, well, to go in for cheeses, snacks, salads, fish smoked, kippered, and pickled, hors d'oeuvre spreads, etc., in the manner of the real delicatessen in the north. How about it, somebody? HOUSEWIFE Editor, The Riviera This is Wednesday and I have just come back from attending the famous dollar day bargain day or what have you annually staged in the shopping district in Miami. After fighting my way through the crowds, milling crowds, I bought a $1 bathroom set that I could have bought any time for the said $1. Never again, from now on I do my shopping in pleasant sane, cool Coral Gables. "Dollar Dayer"

Turning a New Leaf - Book Briefs

Turning a New Leaf Book Briefs "The Blind Man's House," by Hugh Walpole. This tale, in which a blind man advances a theory for the solution of mankind's troubles, is the last novel Mr. Walpole wrote before his death. It is the story of Julius Cromwell, blinded in the first World War and living during the advert of the second. During his years of darkness, Cromwell has come to believe that "unless we have fellowship, we have nothing." Speaking through his character, Walpole says: "It seems to me that until we learn this fellowship--the fellowship, generous and understanding--or all living men on this earth, made so essential now by our close quarters, the impossibility of our escape from one another, there will be no peace." Cromwell learns this lesson only after almost losing his wife, whom he brought back to the small town in which he lived and inadvertently brought changes in lots of people's lives Celia, his spouse, was frightened of her marriage, not because of her husband's blindness but because of the different quality of mind possessed by a blind person. Cromwell seemed to live in an "inner world," where she could not penetrate. The story is different from anything he has done before. It is told in an expert fashion and packed with interesting characters The fact that the fellowship theme predominates in the book seems to indicate that this work was mean to be Walpole's contribution to a world involved in conflict. "The Passionate Witch," by Thorne Smith. Devotees of the incredible tales of Thorne Smith will be delighted with this new book, discovered unfinished after the author's death and completed by Norman Matson. Readers who revelled in the Rabelaisaean antics of the characters in "Topper," "Turnabout," "The Bishop's Jaegers" and other Smithiana, wil lfind again the same alcoholic and naughty humor in this tale of a staid pillar of his community who gets involved in a series of incredible experiences. Our hero, T. Wallace Wooley, settled, leading citizen of a small community, rescues an unciothed maiden from a burning hotel building, marries her and his life completely changed for him. The young woman, Jennifer by name, turns out to be a witch whose strange antics turns Mr. Wooley from a steady diet of carrot juice to the more stimulating effects of bourbon, brandy and champagne. Jennifer is killed, but before she dies she curses her spouse by endowing him with the ability of reading people's minds. This new sense can only be shut off by drinking copious quantities of alcohol, which Wooley does because he finds the minds of his acquaintances so distasteful. The book is packed with typical Thorne Smith incidents, including his old standby, the uproarious courtroom scene. The novel also provides a new hope for Thorne Smith addicts, who have been pining for new works since the author's death seven years ago. It is impossible to ascertain where Smith's writing ends and Mr. Matson's picks up the thread of the story, which leads us to believe that the latter man be able to fill the gap created by Smith's untimely demise.

THIS ONE'S ON YOU

BLITZERS BLITZED--Captain Carl Dewey of Pan American Airways has an interesting souvenir of the current European conflict. It's a counterfeit German ration card, printed by the English and dropped over Naziland by the thousands. It's such a clever counterfeit that even the rubber official stamp looks real. It gave the German officials quite a bit of trouble when the cards started showing up in the food stores, Carl tells us. TOWN SPIRIT--R. P. Terry, school board member, paid this community one of the best compliments we've heard this week when, speaking of the crowded school situation, he asked City Manager A. B. Curry, "What is it about Coral Gables, that when one of the citizens is picked on, the whole town comes running to help him out?" GOAT BEHAVIOR--We've always heard that goats were about the easiest things to have around--no trouble about finding something for them to eat--just throw them an old can or a telephone book. And the milk they produce on this diet of oh, rubbish! But we were enlightened this week by a talk with an expert on goat culture. It seems that goats are, in reality, quite finicky about what they eat and where they eat it. They won't, for instance, touch any growing thing lower than their food quarters--unless, of course, they are in the final throes of starvation. They won't touch any plant life through which another goat or a dog has walked or in any way disturbed. They look for their food in trees, browse off the tips of leaves, leaving the more plebian grass, hay and other unknowns to other animals on the farm. It's true that, provided they get this kind of diet they produce up to ten times their own weight in milk in a year's time. The average cow, we learned, can't even approach this kind of record, boasting of only three times its weight in milk. Goats in the north country get a more delectable luncheon from the foliage on which they roam than do southern goats. Down here the goat must look hard and long to satisfy his finicky appetite. TAIL TALE -- We were a bit astounded, while driving down the Trail the other day, to be passed by a motorcycle on which a young man and his female companion were riding tandem. One of those long squir-rel tails was attached to the middle of the rear seat, and as the wind waved it to and fro, it looked for all the world to be part of the young lady. AUTHOR! AUTHOR!--Jo Ranson of the writing partnership of Ranson and Pilat, was quite floored by the review of "Sodom by the Sea," which he and Pilat wrote. Either Mr. Ranson is not accustomed to such "rave" notices as we gave him or our enjoyment of "Sodom by the Sea," is an indication of our low literary taste--or both. Otherwise why should Mr. Ranson write: "That was a wonderful review you gave 'Sodom' and Pilat and I are planning to send you an amusement park and a girlie show for Christmas." Well, Jo, the boys and girls in the office wan to know why we have to wait 'til Christmas. OFFER REJECTED--Andy Houston announced at the last meeting of the Kiwanis Clu' that C D. Potter had been offered the position of dean of woman at Vassar. "C. D.," whispered returned from his vacation denies the story, but states that he wouldn't accept it, anyway, as it would prevent him from wintering in Coral Gables. DOUBTFUL--Bus Rasco tells this one about the Sunday school class his son attends. Mrs. Rasco was "sitting in" on one of the sessions and heard the teacher tell the tots, "God loves everybody." One little girl frowned and then commented, "I'll bet he isn't very fond of Hitler right now!" SCENIC WONDER -- Somebody asked Dr. Art Weiland the other day what was the most interesting sight he saw on his recent vacation. Without a moment's hesitation the medico replied, "A trip through the Hiram Walker Distillery." CHALLENGE-- L. G. "Skin" Lange telephoned from the American Legion convention in Milwaukee, Wis., Tuesday, to tell Dora Thomas an interesting sidelight on the meeting. Lange was present when Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia of New York and Governor Dwight Griswold of Nebraska got into an argument over the relative gridiron prowess of Fordham and Nebraska. The controversy developed into a bet, contingent on both games playing in the Orange Bowl this year. The terms of the agreement were recorded on the back of an envelope, signed by the litigants, and entrusted to "Skin" for safekeeping. Lange is sending the "contract" to Coral Gables by air mail for the local citizenry to see.