Coral Gables Riviera

CORAL GABLES RIVIERA

—PAGE 6— THE CORAL GABLES RIVIERA— FRIDAY SEPT. 26, 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 R. 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.

Men for Our Navy

The United States Navy has asked the Riviera to be its Coral Gables representative in its broad campaign to enlist men for the Naval service. The Riviera staff—editorial staff, advertising staff, office staff, and printers alike—this week has delegated itself as the recruiting officer for this area, proud to be enlisted in such a cause. Young men interested in learning what the Navy offers in the way of education or career may feel free to visit the Riviera office, secure an interesting booklet on "Life in the Navy" and ask questions on what branch of the service—without fear that they will be "high-pressured,, into joining up. We hope that Coral Gables business will talk up the Navy; that former Navy men will join us in this all-out effort to provide sufficient men to equip our battleships; that young men will look into this attractive branch of the armed service. Any member of the Gables' large Navy committee will be glad to answer questions of eligible men—in most cases they are former Navy men themselves and are qualified to speak with authority.

The Citizenry Is Aroused

Determined that Coral Gables schools all have the same facilities and assistance that other institutions in the county enjoy local residents began circulation of a petition this week,asking that a special election be called to set up a special school tax district coincident with the boundaries of this community. This action comes as a climax of a long series of incidents that have made parents in this community feel that Coral Gables schools were not getting a "square deal" in improvements, funds, etc. The idea of a special school district for Coral Gables is founded on the belief that the local residents will have more voice in the administration of the affairs of the local schools. It will eliminate the "split condition" now existing, under which half of Coral Gables lies in district 5 and the other half in district 2, which also includes a very large portion of Miami. It's an old theory that any group of citizens can stand for just so much, and will then rise up and demand a change of conditions. That is what is happening in Coral Gables right now. The citizenry is determined that our schools will never again take a "back seat" and be satisfied with meager crumbs while other schools in the area get the improvements for which they ask

The Lighter Side

When we can set aside for a moment the serious considerations which are forced upon us in these days of constant crisis and have a good debate about how to pronounce the name of a lowly vegetable there is still health in us. Whether we pronounce tomato with a long or a broad A in Coral Gables in this year of our Lord, 1941, will leave a small mark if any on the pages of history, but the fact that we are able to argue such a point is a tribute to our sanity. Let's not forget the lighter things of life in the press of this Hitleresque emergency.

Prosecute the Vandals

It must be very discouraging to Harley Pittman and his parks and parkways crew to spend weeks planting flowers to beautify the community, only to have the plants and shrubbery torn up by people who want flowers for their own lawns but who must steal them rather than obtain them legitimately. Just recently, 5,000 poinsettia plants were planted at the Country Club Prado Entrance Granada Entrance, LeJeune Plaza and Coral Way an Dalhambra Circle. Already vandals have removed some of the plants, leaving gaping holes in the planned shrubbery. A fine of $ 100 will be imposed on anyone caught stealing city-owned plants or shrubs and police are keeping a special look-out for offenders. It's hard to believe that any of our local residents would be guilty of this vandalism and we prefer to think that the damage is being done by outsiders. But Gableites or not, anyone caught taking of these shrubs should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

this and That by Jim Moore

If you see us going down the Boulevard with a rolling gait and singing "Anchors Aweigh" or a "Life on the Bounding Main" you'll know that we're just surrounding ourself with atmosphere in keeping with our new position of Navy Editor of The Riviera. The Nav Editor business is all a little new to us but we're finding it quite interesting. The reason behind the new title is the Navy's launching of an intensive recruiting campaign in Georgia and Florida. Because the shipbuilding program is months ahead of schedule, our first line of defense finds it necessary to increase its quota of recruits from 10,000 a month to 13,000 monthly for the next four months and 15,000 a month by the first of 1942. The Navy feels that its highest caliber men come from the small towns consequently the drive is limited to cities under 50,000 population, with the newspapers in those cities serving as campaign headquarters. The drive has already been tried in eight states, mostly in the middle west, with very gratifying results. Florida now has its opportunity to show what it can do. Certainly a state that's bound on three sides by water, should be able to furnish much more ideal Navy material than the land-locked states of the middle west. Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox has furnished us with a supply of books entitled "Everything You Want to Know About Life in the U. S. Navy." These booklets will be given out free at The Riviera office and will be given to any young men who are considering the Navy as their part in the national defense effort. If we can secure just one recruit each man who enlists in the Navy from the Coral Gables area, Draft Board Seven's quota is automatically reduced by one. We never before realized the vast training program the Navy carries on. It is estimated that $1,500 is spent on each man during his first year of enlistment, teaching him to become an expert in the trade or vocation in which he is qualified. The enlistee is given an opportunity to learn one of 45 different trades and vocations in the Navy's trade schools. Over 5,500 enlisted men are sent to these schools every month to learn to be expert photographers, electricians, dental technicians, diesel engineers, hospital technicians—only to mention a few of the courses of instructions offered. In addition to being housed, fed and clothed during his training period, the enlistee is paid regularl. Four months after the training period is completed, the men are given a 70 per cent increase in pay and a promotion to a higher rating. Men go ahead fast in the Navy. Pay increases come regularly. By the end of the first enlistment period a sailor can be earning up to six times as much as when he first signed up. It's possible for a Navy enlisted man, in five and one-hal fyears, to bring his total pay to $180 a month. Every year a large group of enlisted men are appointed to the U. S. Naval Academy at Annapolis. Here a complete college education is given, with a commission as ensign at graduation. The Navy also offers the chance of a lifetime to get into the big pay field of the future—aviation. Quoting from the Navy booklet, we learn, "In the Navy you can attend the finest flying schools in the world. You can be taught by men who introduced dive-bombing, aircraft carriers, catapult, takeoffs to the world. You can become an expert as an aviation machinist, aviation metalsmith, or in aerial photography, gunnery, observation, navigation, parachutes, bombing with Uncle Sam's famous bombsight. And remember, every bluejacket who receives flight orders—whether as a pilot or in any other capacity—automatically receives a 50 per cent increase in his pay." Quite a bit the Navy offers, isn't it. These few short paragraphs give you just a glimpse into Navy life. The booklet goes into it much further. We firmly believe that every single young man between 17 and 31 should obtain a copy of this booklet and read it carefully. Receiving the book puts you under no obligation and it may get you started on a career you could get into in no other way. It's easy to get one of the books. Just fill out one of the coupons you will find in this issue and mail it in. Better still, just drop into the office and ask for us. We'll be glad to give you one of the books, talk it over and help you in any way we can. You older folks can help in this campaign, too. If you know of a young man who may be interested in a naval career, tell him about these booklets. Clip the coupon and have him send it in or bring him to The Riviera office. The Navy needs your help, and you can play a vital role by talking up this recruiting campaign. It's a service you can do for your country that will be appreciated by Navy and any young men you might introduce to a naval career. Let's get going!

Changing Maids Again

JOHN B. WEATHERMAN You're fired! I've got a live one! SUMMER AUTUMN

Dollars and Sense

By ROMEYN W. SMITH Investment Consultant Have you ever known people who have a chronic habit of deferring their security losses. [?]How many times have you heard someone say: "I don't want to sell that stock. I'd have to take a loss on it." Or, "I don't care how low that bond goes, as long as it continues to pay interest." More than anything else we have found that such statements definitely indicate the inexperienced investor. Often we have wondered how such ideas become so firmly implanted in the minds of so many people. Some years ago we knew a hard-working man. Suppose we call him Richard Brown. On a moderate income he had saved $7,000.0, his life's savings. Richard's son worked for a small local public utility company. Mr. Smith Their "customer ownership" plan attracted Richard. He bought 70 shares of preferred stock for $100.00 per share. We happened to have made a careful study of this public utility property. We advised Richard to sell his stock. We gave him good reasons. But when he learned that the market for his stock was $80.00 per share, he refused to sell. He "could not afford to take a $1,400.00 loss. Besides, the $7.00 dividend was very sweet. Well, this particular preferred stock kept declining in market price. When it reached $40.0 per share, the dividend was passed. Then the price dropped to $8.00 per share. So Richard wound up with a loss of $5,60.00 and no dividend income. Shortly thereafter he had a stroke and became almost helpless. The foregoing lesson is a terrible lesson for anyone to learn through bitter experience. Usually there is no cure. In security management, we believe that one ounce of prevention is worth ten of cure. People who plan to ride through periods when their securities "simply fall in price but keep on paying" seldom count on a possible imperative need for their money at the bottom or reckon with the possibility of omitted dividend or interest payments. Declining quotations of an individual security—against the market trend of similarly graded securities—are a warning signal, a signal that should be investigated immediately. Why "lock the barn after the horse is stolen?" We can suggest a method which should change this almost universal attitude toward losses. On a specified day each year, convert every investment you own into cash. Then study the securities markets carefully and reinvest immediately. It is surprising how much easier it is to view investments dispassionately when you possess cash instead of securities. The perfectly natural, but completely illogical, temptation to hang on to a security which is slipping badly, will be removed. Such positive action will be well worth the brokerage commissions and sales taxes involved; regard them as insurance premiums. Perhaps this apparently inborn reluctance on the part of inexperienced investors to part with a security, once they have bought it, is a reflection of their pride of possession. Perhaps having passed an unfavorable judgment on it once, they are loath to admit the error which a change implies. This attitude is unreasonable. Frequently it is very costly. No doubt many readers of this column have heard the expression, "You'll never go broke taking profits." It also is true that "you'll never get rich deferring losses." Many an investor is quick to take profits and slow to take lossesce. A better rule is to be quick to take losses and slow to take profits. We shall never forget a definition of the word "hope" given some years ago in a financial publication. "Hope is that unbelievable force which holds the inexperienced investor in a falling security with the flimsy promise to himself that he will get out as soon as he can break even." "Hope," it said again, "is that incredible force which leads people to believe that there is a difference between a 'paper loss' and a 'real loss.'"

Turning a New Leaf

"SHAKE HANDS WITH THE DRAGON" By Carl Glick - This is a delightful visit into Chinatown - not the Chinatown of G-men and opium dens and melodrama, but that curious little triangle of streets in lower New York that we know so much less about than the far reaches of the Yangtse interior - the abode of quiet, humorous, fun-loving families. The author, fresh and green as the rest of us, came to know these people when he was made athletic director in an outdoor playground. Only gradually did the Chinese boys open up to him, but when he demonstrated that he had no superiority and appreciation grew, and with the years the friendships have deepened. He tells facts and figures and innumerable nice little anecdotes about them. He describes some of their customs, brought over from the Orient, changed in this new environment but still strange to us. Juvenile delinquency, for instance, is practically non-existent among the Chinese. And why ? Probably because the father is punished when the child is bad. When there's a funeral, everyone is invited to a banquet. One gives a newborn baby a present which one would like to play with oneself. After all, a rattle will be far more enjoyed by the baby's uncle than by the baby. At a cocktail bar the Chinese bartender gives the polite customers the larger drinks, but the books balance. If the guest in a Chinese restaurant does not finish his meal, it is expected that he will take home the remainder, neat little containers being furnished for the purpose. If he buys a $ 5.00 dinner, he gets five dollar's worth of food - as many people as the guest wishes may eat it. The Chinese love a secret almost as much as a joke. They are conservative - at least An Fan, the grandmother, was. The Tongs serve as a check on too powerful families, having started up in this country much as the Vigilantes did in California. The dragon is friendly. To shake his hand is to hope for the "way of peace" don't see how anyone can fail to enjoy meeting the laundrymen and green grocers and curio dealers and students who people these pages. "FRANCE ON BERLIN TIME" by Thomas Kernan - If there are any doubts remaining in anybody's mind about the nature of the New Order in Europe, they should be dispelled by this startling narrative. It is a historical document of considerable importance, for it provides the first comprehensive picture of France under Nazi rule. Mr. Kernan, director of Vogue in Paris and representative of the Conde Nast publications in Europe, gives a first-hand account of the systematic process by which the Nazis are bleeding France to death. He names firm after firm in the publishing industry and elsewhere which the Germans are "buying" from French stockholders with paper marks. In fascinating detail he describes the transformation of the French press, radio, and theatre into outlets for Dr. Goebbels's eloquence. Most important, he proves that modern war does pay - for the warrior, economist, and politician who are in at the kill. The Nazis in Paris admit quite candidly that they are avoiding the mistakes of the Allies in 1919 and after, by collecting their reparations as they go along! Already France is taking her place in the New Order as supplier of peasants and workmen. This observer, well acquainted in French literary and social life, seeks to explain as well as to describe the many different factors that placed France in so perilous a position. While much of his interpretation of the collapse is not particularly new it is underscored with dozens or hideous details - all the now familiar intrigue and corruption in high places and the fatal divisions between Right and Left. Like all who knew and loved France,he hoped to reform - but not in so tragic a form. Like them too, he hopes that a greater and nobler France will emerge from the disaster.

Book Briefs

It's A Fact

THORPE CORAL GABLES WAS ORIGINALLY INTENDED AS A HAVEN FOR RETIRED CONGREGATIONAL MINISTERS! The Rev. Solomon G. Merrick, father of George, originally had the idea of developing the tropical terrain surrounding his citrus groves into a colony for retired ministers of his church. George, however, expanded the idea into a planned community of homes and luxury.

In Our Mail

Editor, The Riviera: The city fathers should be wise to the fact by this time that that traffic light in front of City Hall is very little good, and a very lot of nuisance. There are seldom enough cars passing the LeJeune, Coral Way, Biltmore Drive junction to warrant the long waits necessitated by the three-way light, and no one can claim that it doesn't detract from the impressive picture the City Hall makes, day or night. E. V. S.

In Our Mail

Editor, The Riviera: Will someone please tell me why the groups of doctors' offices which see mto be the vogue down here are called clinics The word has a bad connotation—a resort for those unable to pay medical fees—in other words, public wards. And this, I believe, is the true definition of the word "clinic." PATIENT.

In Our Mail

Editor, the Riviera: If it is quite proper to say "tomahto" why does one not say "potahto"? Sincerely, Constant Reader

This Town and You

SPAGHETTI—The national dish of Italy has always been interesting to us. We could sit in front of a dish of spaghetti and, with the aid of a stooge to provide the refills, could stay there all day long just eating and eating spaghetti. But we've been warned about spaghetti—it's very fattening, they say. Mrs. M. Zocca who has an eating place on the trail at 350 S. W. 8th St., tells us that spaghetti doesn't necessarily make you fat—provided it's cooked a la Mrs. Zocca. She also told us about how spaghetti isn't really an Italian dish because Marco Polo brought the recipe from China as a sort of reciprocal measure after Italy showed the Chinese how to use gunpowder. But the Italians really made spaghetti what it is today; they developed the delicious sauces that go with it. Says Mrs. Zocca: "Water, spaghetti, and cheese are a bad combination for the damsel who would preserve her lithe figure. But I have a secret sauce which renders spaghetti unfattening. It (the sauce) contains garlic, celery, onion, carrots, and another vegetable which counteracts the effect of the starch in spaghetti." It was then we decided to ask Mrs. Zocca a personal question: if Mrs. Zocca ate her own brand of non-fattening spaghetti why, then, did she not have a slim figure. "Oh," replied Mrs. Zocca, after giving us permission to ask this personal question, "I am a little stout because I drink beer." About the international situation, Mrs. Zocca had only one thing to say: "I hope that sauerkraut will never become Italy's national dish." PEANUT VENDER—Sam Sparks confides that he is thinking about going back to the little town in Kentucky where he was born and open a peanut stand. "You'd kid, ding, of course, but the reason is that they're getting ready to build a big army camp there. Sam says the town's been asleep for a hundred years but that it will certainly wake up now. ACCOMPLISHMENT—With the aid of a huge derrick they were removing the marquee of the Gables Theatre last week and we joined a group of sidewalk quarterback's to see that the job was accomplished properly. As the great mass of wood and steel finally rested on the sidewalk, Harry Meigs, also watching, dusted his hands and said, "Well, we got that done in short order didn't we?" NOT SO GOOD—Dan Boone, manager of the Gables Theatre, confides that running a closed theatre isn't everything that it's cracked up to be. "In the first place, Dan says, when the theatre's running you don't have to get to work until about 10 A. M. But now that alterations are going on, I have to be there as 8 A. M. to open up for the workmen. I. Q.—Lieutenant Stanley Jones, in charge of Navy Recruiting for Georgia and Florida, is the officer who supervises the giving of an intelligence test to prospective Navy men. He says he likes to tell his Army friends that, in giving the test, he always asks the candidate whether he had ever considered joining the Army. If the candidate's answer is "No!" he immediately credits the candidate with 50 per cent on his intelligence test. EARLY CALL—Leland Shepard, who does a very good job writing the Lions Club weekly bulletin, was aroused from his bed at 5 A. M. the other day by the insistent ringing of the telephone. But let's let Shep tell it. We quote: "Arriving at the phone and broadcasting a hello, we were rather puzzled at the first sounds coming from the receiver — sounding like the gurgling of bubbles in a stagnant pool. However, they soon became understandable and it turned out to be Dr. Glenn Clapp telling us he didn't know any funny stories we could print in LIONEWS this week. Don't you admire guys like that?—neither do we." KLEPTOMANICIATIONS—The trend toward serve-yourself markets may be saving footwork for grocery men, but they've also brought headaches in the way of sticky fingered customers. Market men whom we queried were unanimous in admitting that even in Coral Gables the beautiful are customers who are not above taking refuge behind a stack of edibles to slip an item or two from the shelves into purse or pocket. Unpaid for such groceries may be—but seldom do such depredations go unnoticed by store "spotters"--so if you happen to know any kleptomaniacs, you can tell them they're not so smart as they think they are! Reluctant to make a scene, grocerymen usually protect themselves by never permitting a suspect client to wander far from the eagle eye of a clerk, who, strangely enough, always appears to have work to do, shelves to straighten, in the immediate vicinity of the light fingered person. A clerk at the Coral Gables Grocery told us the other day that one of the dodges employed by not-quite-honest self-servers is the nice ingenious little habit of standing before the egg baskets, and surreptitiously passing grade A eggs from the "A" basket into the cold storage egg bin. Then the customer quite openly helps herself from the lower priced basket—being very careful, however fut to select the Grade A's she has just transferred! That's why, in case you've noticed, there is usually a member of the store staff watching the egg supply with all the vigilance of a mother hen.