Coral Gables Historical Archive
Coral Gables Riviera
Friday, February 27, 1942, 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
-PAGE 6- THE CORAL GABLES RIVIERA FRIDAY, FEB. 27, 1942 CORAL GABLES RIVIERA AN INDEPENDENT COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER Published every Friday by the Miami Riviera Publishing Co., 206 Coral Way, Coral Gables, Florida. 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 4-1624 Member, Florida Press Association National Editorial Association Represented in the National Advertising Field by the American Press Association, New York City SUBSCRIPTION RATES Six Months | $1.25 One Year | $2.00 Out of Town | $3.00 Entered as second class matter May 21, 1926, at the Postoffice at Miami, Florida, under Act of March 3, 1879.
No Axe Swinging Here
City Manager Shaw's pronouncement that any necessary curtailment in the near future will be confined as much as possible to materials and shifts in personnel, should go a long way to maintain the peace of mind among city employees. Too often a new executive, coming into office feels that he must start swinging the discharge axe and let the heads fall where they may. Except in cases where corrupt or undesirable conditions have to be cleaned up, this policy usually results in dis-harmony and lost efficiency. Fortunately, Mr. Shaw does not come into his job unfamiliar with local conditions. Because of his long service with the city as city clerk, tax collector and director of finance, he knows the city and its operations like the proverbial book. Fortunately too, Coral Gables is free from corruption and grafting employees, so this situation does not have to be faced nor its remedy sought. Shaw's chief problems will be concerned with maintaining present services in the face of possible reductions in revenue. In the solving of these we feel that he will not only have the complete cooperation of every employee but of every citizen.
Another Blow
Ten thousand dollars' worth of United States Series F Defense Bonds now make up a part of the city's trust funds. Thus, in another way, our community strikes another blow at the enemies of democracy. In addition to this, every city employee has pledged a portion of his or her monthly income for bonds and stamps. Other small communities throughout the nation can well follow the example of Coral Gables, by diverting reserve funds into ammunition to "axe the Axis".
Button Your Lip
We heard an utterly fantastic story the other day. Someone right here in Coral Gables told us that the reason the German fleet got through the English channel was because the ships were insured by Lloyd's of London. Now anyone with a grain of intelligence would know immediately that such a story was silly and absurd—at least they should. Yet it was being bandied about as "inside information". That's the kind of thing that brings glee to Axis hearts. The military intelligence has definitely established that such stories are deliberately started by enemy agents. They are artfully dropped at a cocktail bar. They are buzzed about at a party. In no time at all they have spread all over a section of the country. Their purpose is to spread confusion and distrust for our allies. Yet, unwittingly, you and I—our neighbors and our friends—rapidly spread such rumors. When such a story starts, it seems harmless, but as it passes from mouth to mouth it grows and becomes even more distorted. Don't be a tool for the enemy. Button your lip! Don't spread false rumors!
No Thumbs for Soldiers
Gableites may often wonder that while there is always a profusion of college boys on Coral Way, thumbing rides to Miami, cadets seem to be conspicuous by their absence. It's because army regulations forbid the cadets and all other soldiers to solicit rides. So while the "U" student blatantly begs for a ride, the service man is forced to walk or take a bus. The soldiers, however, are allowed to accept a ride if it is offered them. So if you see one hiking along, stop and offer him a lift. He'll appreciate it and it will do you good. As for the college boys, we might suggest that they keep to the curbing while doing their thumbing, instead of standing in groups in the middle of the street, constituting a menace to the public safety.
LIPPMANN
The question which must haunt any one who visits the West Coast is whether our high command has made a thorough and fearless open-minded study of the lessons of Pearl Harbor. I feel bound to report, though the censorship rightly prevents me from citing chapter and verse, that the negative evidence is stronger than the affirmative. This does not mean that the findings of the Roberts commission are being ignored. Far from it. Indeed it would almost seem as if in the effort to correct the obvious mistakes made at Pearl Harbor, we were failing to consider the more fundamental questions. The Roberts report fixed the attention of every one upon the grievous mistakes made by responsible officers in Hawaii and in Washington during a period of about ten days. But because the Roberts commission expressly refrained from examining the broader questions of naval doctrine and naval strategy, the net effect of the inquiry may, one fears, prove to have been gravely misleading. For is it not the general belief among laymen, and to a considerable degree among military men, that our naval policy in the Pacific was sound but that, owing to a bad accident, it was upset? Now, this belief may be, and probably is, wrong. If it is wrong, then the mere correction of the obvious mistakes will only produce a false sense of security. It will prevent the high command from thinking out and developing an effective plan of campaign in the Pacific. Therefore we must ask ourselves the radical question—was Pearl Harbor a case of a sound policy badly executed or was it a case of an unsound policy? On the Pacific Coast there are now many men who were at Pearl Harbor. Nothing they say contradicts what a discerning reader of the Roberts report can find out for himself, for, nevertheless, no one can talk long with many of them and not realize that the policy under which the American people compelled them to operate was one which flesh and blood and the human nervous system cannot endure. The basic instructions to the armed services were that they must wait until the enemy had struck the first blow. This meant that the enemy was guaranteed the privilege of planning the initiative of any, place, and at any time which seemed convenient. It meant that our forces had to be forever and everywhere on the alert, waiting passively to ward off a blow that could be struck at a dozen different points in the world's greatest ocean. Thus the enemy could put his whole attention to preparing the blow he meant to strike. Then he was ready to strike, he could retire and rest. When he decided to strike he was fresh and alert, knowing exactly what the battle was to be. Although this does not excuse the derelictions of the Pearl Harbor defense, it ought to bring home to us the solemn realization that our national policy of passive defense placed an inhuman burden upon our commanders, and that when they were outwitted by the Japanese they were carrying out a policy which was infinitely more difficult to carry out properly than the policy which the Japanese were carrying out. These truths should, I believe, be acknowledged, not only in the interest of injustice and of that higher justice which is charity, not only because we owe the and must not allow the pride and self-respect of the Navy to be impaired by the gross libel that they are inferior to the enemy, but because the whole future of the Pacific war may depend upon a radical revision of the pre-Pearl Harbor doctrine of waiting to be hit and then of waiting to get ready to hit back. The doctrine, if I understand it correctly, provided for a concentrated battle fleet which, moving slowly, majestically and irrestibly westward from the impregnable fortress of Hawaii, would crush the Japanese Navy and then recover, after they had been lost, the weakly held outposts from Wake to the Philippines. Reliance upon this doctrine made it seem not too desperately urgent to fortify the distant outposts, to organize for the masses of the battleships where they provided such a target. It accounts for what may be, considering the titanic shock, the relatively small loss. It accounts, I suspect, for the current doctrine that until the battle fleet is repaired and restored so it can carry out the original plan of a grand counter-offensive, we are condemned to the policy of reinforcing weakly for passive defense innumerable places all over the Pacific. Is this the only policy open to us? Is it a sound policy? Is there in fact so vast a theatre of war as the Pacific any such thing as an effective passive defense? These are questions which the lay observer cannot and should not try to answer. But the more he studies Pearl Harbor the more he is bound to ask them. Copyright, 1942, New York Tribune, Inc.
In Our Mail --
Editor, The Riviera: We have an idea that some of the young people who are newcomers to Coral Gables are not yet "flooded with invitations" or up to the hilt in activities. We have an idea that some of these would enjoy meeting other young people, singing around the piano and raiding the icebox, even engaging in activities and classes for defense. We have an idea that Coral Gables has hidden talent and experienced leaders of young people who would volunteer their services to make these informal gatherings "click." We have an idea that all the young people's groups in Coral Gables will be proud to sponsor a Friday evening open house for young people, by young people. And so we would like to start the ball rolling by being hosts to Coral Gables newcomers on Friday, March 6. What do you think? Please drop a card to Miss Eleanor Fuller, 546 Minorca Avenue, Coral Gables, and let us know how the idea strikes you. If you like our idea, watch next Friday's Riviera for the details of the first open house. YOUNG PEOPLE'S CLASS Coral Gables Presbyterian Church Alhambra Circle at Ponce
A Possibility -- It's Up to the Senate
BY BROWN RHUMBA! TO BEGIN DANCE-FEET IN POSITION SHOWN IN DIAGRAM 1-NOW, LEFT FOOT FORWARD ETC FIELD BOOK FOR CIVILIAN DEFENSE DANCE -MR.PUBLIC- "OUT DAMNED SPOT! OUT, I SAY!" O.C.D. PLAYS OF SHAKESPEARE ETC MRS. PUBLIC INCENDIARY BOMB
OUR TOWN
by Jim Moore JIM MOORE Every other Tuesday we play host to the journalism students of Ponce de Leon High School down here at the office. Putting it a bit more bluntly, we might say that we professional journalists step aside while the neophytes take over and the Ponce Tribune goes to press. It's quite a paper, this Tribune. Competing with thousands of other high school papers, the staff has often clinched top national honors. Some of its present honors include Columbia medalist, All-American award from the National Scholastic Press Association and an international rating from Quill and Scroll. Headed by Roger Carlson a tall, lanky youth with a flair for feature writing, the staff is composed of 32 students. They do everything that is done in the front office of a regular paper and even get a little composing room experience. The staff is split up into regular departments. In addition to news editors, feature editors and various staff writers, there is a business department with copywriters, layout men and salesmen. The paper supports itself with advertising revenue going to offset the cost of printing and cuts. Most of the photographs are taken by students and developed and printed in the high school dark room. Harry Rath, school principal, is a No. 1 "shutter bug" and turns out quite professional-looking pictures himself. There's a gossip column, called the "Phantom Stroller" that is as eagerly read at Ponce as is Walter Winchell in metropolitan areas. The identity of the author of this tell-all feature is kept a dark, deep secret, probably to give him full freedom of expression. These Fourth Estaters of the future do not spend their time writing frivolous stuff. Editorials are timely and now devoted a great deal to the war and how the student should react to it. Roger Carlson writes a regular page 1 column devoted to national events that reveals a remarkably mature line of thinking. Staff members often interview celebrities while they are in the area. Douglas Miller, who wrote "You Can't Do Business With Hitler," and Clarence Streit, author of "Union Now" and "Union With Great Britain," were two recent "interviewees." Sonja Henie and Sabu, the Elephant Boy, were also quizzed recently by Tribune reporters. Most of the copy is prepared in the "news-room" at Ponce under the capable guidance of Nedra N'Namara, the journalism advisor. Copy is edited there and then sent to the Riviera composing room, where the linotype operators convert it into type. Galley proofs go back to Ponce for correction, so that all but last-minute stories are ready to be put into the forms when the staff converges on our office Tuesday mornings. That's when we regulars get out of the way. The students are everywhere. Girls, usually primped and pert, come out streaked with printer's ink from head to foot. The boys also bear the tell-tale smudges, picked up leaning over the forms as the pages are being made up. Sometimes staff members even lend a hand in the composing room, placing the type in the pages themselves. Staff members seem to do quite well for themselves when they leave for institutions of higher learning. Only this week we learned that Margery Loomis, the Tribune's star feature writer last year, was elected to the Freshman Honor Society at F. S. C. W. Barbara Brown, former editor and The Riviera's University of Miami correspondent, made a straight "A" average this past semester and Mary Carter was in the upper 10 per cent of her class at La Grange, Ga. Mary was the staff artist and feature editor last year. There used to be a day when newspaper editors frowned upon journalism classes and schools. The old-time newspapermen used to say that the only way to train a reporter was to put him to work as a cub then bawl the daylights out of him for the mistakes he made. That day is fast coming to an end. Graduates of college journalism schools are making a name for themselves in newspaperdom. And these high school girls and boys are getting a basic training that will stand them well should they choose to follow the rocky road to journalistic fame. Sometimes we might frown as they rush past us or clutter up our desk on Tribune press day. Sometimes we might speak sharply when we're in a hurry to get the school paper on the press and someone has forgotten to write a headline. But deep down, we think they're swell kids and they're going places.
Mark Sullivan
To put it this way is much too simple, of course. But this way is fundamentally true. And some way must be found for making our people see it and understand it as, for example, Australia at last understands it. Australia seeing it too late, has at last mobilized its man and woman power upon an actual war basis for the desperate and immediate business of resisting invasion. We in America must realize that invasion of us by the Japanese is the final step of a course now strongly under way. Invasion of us in the future is as probable as invasion seemed to Australia three months ago. Australia's degree of complacence three months ago is America's degree of complacence today. As Australia's reliance upon Singapore and the British and American navies turned out to be unjustified, so may our reliance upon distance and protective oceans. We must not rely upon anything, except our own strength and forehandedness. We ought not to waste twenty-four hours before going voluntarily upon the basis that will be forced upon us if Japan is at our gate. Between where the Japanese now are and the United States are four stepping stones. The first is Java, from which the Japanese are now hardly a hundred miles, and which they may reach any day. As we face the Japanese and see ourselves on the defensive, as in fact we are, our situation may be put thus: We can fight the Japanese at Java. Stepping Stones to Invasion If we do not fight and beat them at Java, then we must fight them in Australia. If we do not fight them and beat them in Australia, then we must fight them at Hawaii. If we do not fight and beat them at Hawaii, then we must fight them in California. To put it that way is over-simple—but it is true, fundamental picture. The first two steps are actual and immediate. Without question the Japanese will fight at once, and hard, to take Java. If they take Java without question they will fight at once and hard to take Australia. These first two steps are in sight. Thereafter the later steps may wait some time. Also the later steps may vary. Their final attempt at American soil my be by way of Alaska instead of directly to California, or it may be an attempt, with the Germans, to take the Panama Canal or destroy it. Also while the Japanese are driving toward us by way of Java and Australia they will at the same time be driving in the other direction. They will push on into Burma—and if they take that they will separate us from our ally China. They will try to take India, and if they suceed will be well on the way toward fulfillment of their dream of dominating the yellow and brown races. They will send part of their navy into the Indian Ocean, and there may break our principal line to our ally Russia, as well as our line to the British in North Africa. They, having taken Singapore, will, with the Germans, try hard to take the other two great bastions of the United States Navy's sea power, Suez and Gibraltar. Australia a Big Hurdle While thus engaged in the eastern continent the Japanese may pause at whatever point they are when our counter offensive begins—always assuming they are stopped. Conceivably they may be stopped at Java, though this seems not likely. It is doubtful if the United Nations can exert enough force to keep the Japanese from Java. It is more likely to be Australia at which they are stopped. They may be prevented from taking Australia. Even if they were to suceed in taking Australia they would probably pause there for some time before striking on toward Hawaii and the American Continent. To say we should at once, today, go upon the same complete and intensive war basis as Australia now is,—is to say we are on the defensive, as Australia is, fighting only to defend. That is true—we are on the defensive. It is not safe for us to go upon any assumption except that we may some day be obliged to fight in self-defense on our own soil. We are on the defensive today and so is Britain. Everywhere (except in Russia) it is the Axis nations that have the power of initiative. While this may change it is hardly likely to change for a considerable time. Assuming we are given time, we can take the offensive after we have built up our Army and Navy, and especially our air power; and after we have built up our production of war material to maximum output. When we have done that the United Nations can take the offensive. And when they can take the offensive they can win the war. Copyright, 1942, New York Tribune, Inc.
Off The Record With You
STAGGERING—Folks struggling with income tax blanks to offset the national debt might be interested in Leland Shepard's explanation of just how much a billion dollars really is: “If a person started his own business in the year 1 A.D. with a billion dollars capital, and if this person managed his business so poorly that he lost $1,000 each day, at the present time he would still have enough capital left out of his original billion dollars to continue in business, losing $1,000 each day for almost an additional 800 years, or until the year 2739 A.D. MURDER WILL OUT—We found out yesterday that Henry Clay Anderson was once a press agent! Henry handled the publicity for the Centre College football team at the time when Baseball Umpire Charlie Moran took a school with 90 students and built a football team that three years later whipped mighty Harvard. SIGNS OF THE TIMES—We took one of our infrequent excursions to the Beach the other day and saw two signs we think are worth reporting. One, over a yarn shop read, “Jack the Knitter". The other, on a sundry shop stated, "Eddie's News and Stuff." SLANGUAGE FAN—A couple of weeks ago Dan Boone, manager of the Gables Theatre, went downtown dutifully to see a screening of a picture called "Ball of Fire," starring Gary "Sergeant York" Cooper and Barbara Stanwyck. Dan came back to the Gables mumbling stuff like "What's buzzin', cousin" and "boy is that Stanwyck root, toot, toot and solid to boot." All this was because Cooper plays a Prof, in the picture, who finds out about slang and things from one Sugarpuss O'Shea, played by Miss Stanwyck. MEMORY PRODDER—We learned a bit of information this week. No matter how wrapped up A. D. F. Carey may become in the affairs of the City of Miami, he will never be able to forget The Riviera. His new private secretary, Mrs. Josephine Parris, is a former staff member, serving as society editor and reporter in 1927. OVER STOCKED—The Upton C. Ewings found themselves inadvertantly in the bicycle business this week. Seems as though the Ewings decided their bikes were too heavy and wanted to buy two of the light English type. They wrote one place, enclosing a check, and were told that it was doubtful if the bikes could be obtained. So, they wrote another manufacturer, enclosing another check. Yesterday, they received word from both that the bikes were on their way. Now they have four light bikes and their two original ones. EAGER SPECTATOR—Audrey Leitch, who is encased in a plaster cast as the result of a fall from a swing, resulting in a broken back, was so eager to see her horse perform in the recent Defense Horse Show, that she had herself carried to the ringside. The steed, "On Parade", didn't let his mistress down, but copped several ribbons under the expert handling of Roger Steiger. ENTERPRISING—Picture of an enterprising young Gableite seen at 19-year-old Leo Matthews, who sells popcorn nightly in front of the Grote Theatre. The son of an unemployed printer, Leo is the sole owner of his business. His modern popcorn stand, mounted on a tricycle arrangement, cost $300 and is all paid for. Leo is there every night but says Saturdays are tops, when the take usually runs to about $14.00. He keeps his "business" parked at the home of a friend in the Grove, and travels back and forth to his Edison Center home by bus. Daytime finds Leo an eager student in public school.