Coral Gables Riviera

Friday, April 10, 1942, page 6 (of 8)

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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 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.

Birthday Fete

Coral Gables merchants are in the throes of planning their big sale-iron-year, the "Festival of Values"-in conjunction with the 17th birthday of the incorporation of the city. The present plans are for a week of celebration beginning with Saturday, April 24th, and closing Saturday, May 2d. There are big doings planned for the evening of April 29th, the actual birth date of the city. An active committee is associated with Andrew N. Houston, chairman of the Merchants Bureau of the Chamber of Commerce, and Mayor Joe W. Whitley is honorary chairman. Look forward to this festival of values and start thinking about a buying spree for the occasion.

Football in Air

Hurricane boosters are rare in Coral Gables. So, when the fighting gridders bow in their spring game tomorrow evening there should be few missing from the Orange Bowl stands. The Quarterback Club has launched its 1942 campaign for members-and the success of the University's Hurricanes is largely dependent upon that group of public-spirited and sports-minded citizens who comprise the club. If you haven't already, get your dollar in for the club membership-and for your dollar get a ticket to the spring exhibition tomorrow as a bonus.

Track Policy

Tropical Park today concludes its first season under its New Deal management. With the taint of big-time gambling removed from its escutcheon Tropical Park has launched a noble career as act promoter of the "Sport of Kings." Coral Gables should pay tribute to Walter Donovan, former secretary of the Florida State Racing Commission, whom the management of the Gables Racing Association designated to carry out the New Deal. Mr. Donovan has done that-and has made himself, as well, a part of the community that is Coral Gables.

In Our Mail

Editor, The Riviera: There are many things on my mind this morning, but only two, I believe, that are really worrying me. First, I noticed Tuesday afternoon that the authorities are permitting cars to park at an angle on Coral Way, East of Ponce de Leon Boulevard. This is such a sensible innovation that I could hardly believe my eyes. I am worrying for fear that it will rot continue. "Caramba" as the Spanish say, for parallel parking here. Second, I am worried because I have not noticed anything that would lead me to believe that anybody in the Gables is aware that this month is the anniversary of Shakespeare's death. When we begin to lose sight of Shakespeare we have, indeed, become decadent. Sincerely yours, MARY MARTHA MIMS. * * * Editor, The Riviera: I was much impressed by the Easter message published in Friday's paper urging people to attend services that day written by Victorine Blanchard. Somehow, we expect the churches to urge people to attend church, but for an individual to make a point of it is truly commendable. In these troubled times the church stands ready as a sanctuary for prayer and insipration. Truly yours, MARY HELM CLARKE. * * * Editor, The Riviera: The Easter message published in your Friday's issue under the pen of Victorine Blanchard was truly inspirational. If only the peace of the world could be attained by going to church, the churches would be packed at all times by the mothers of the boys in service. Sincerely, MELISSA SUSONG. (Mrs. Charles Susong)

WALTER LIPPMANN

(Continued from Page One) ment that the risks of war were real enough to call for extraordinary measures to assure our supplies of rubber and other strategic materials. Authority and money were given by Congress to Secretary Jesse Jones. The second level of responsibility was with the earliest ancestor of Mr. Nelson's War Production Board-the National Defense Council. Its business was to advise the government as to how much rubber would be required for the arms program and for civilian use. Mr. Stettinius, foreseeing the likelihood of our being cut off from the Far Eastern supply of natural rubber, advised the Administration to build plants sufficient to manufacture 100,000 tons of synthetic rubber a year. This was in the fall of 1940, and while the 100,000 tons proposed was by no means sufficient judged by our present needs, what Mr. Stettinius advised was certainly a substantial, beginning, and would have laid the foundation of an industry which could have been expanded as experience was gained. Having been warned by the State Department and given the right advice by Mr. Stettinius and the National Defense Council, the responsibility for action rested upon Secretary Jones, subject to the approval of the President. Just what happened between the fall of 1940 and the spring of 1941 is not too clear from the public record, except that Mr. Jones did with the President's approval decide to spend $25,000,000 on synthetic rubber, and that he made little headway because, as he reports it, he could persuade "neither the rubber companies nor the oil companies owning the patents ... to spend any of their own money in manufacturing synthetic rubber." Secretary Jones, on the other hand, did not wish to spend much government money. And so we arrive at the month of May, 1941, and Mr. Jones testifying before the Banking and Currency Committee. Mr. Jones told the committee that "it would seem we have rubber enough to run us at least one and a half years if we were cut off tomorrow from a supply of natural rubber ... and that would give us about the time required to build synthetic rubber plants." After quoting this testimony of his to the Senate Committee, Mr. Jones adds in his recent report, dated March 21, 1942, that "the problem of synthetic rubber was generally discussed in the meantime, and it was the consensus that limited operations should be undertaken. The President concurred in this course." On May 16, therefore, agreements were made by Mr. Jones with various corporations to do what Mr. Stettinius had advised him to do seven or eight months earlier-namely, to build synthetic plants with a 100,000-ton capacity. This is the record, and the most important point which it raises, now that the milk has been spilt, is whether the responsibility rests upon the President or upon his Secretary of Commerce. The point is of very great importance because it involves the fundamental question, absolutely vital to the successful conduct of the war, of the President's relation to his Cabinet and the heads of the great agencies. In order to understand the question, it must first be stated accurately. Mr. Jones, speaking generally in his own behalf, says that his recommendations in regard to rubber were "concurred" by the President and that "the President concurred in this course." The day after Mr. Jones issued his report, Mr. Arthur Krock, writing in "The New York Times," said that "the most interesting and revealing aspect of the report ... is that it was the President, after Mr. Jones had gone over the rubber situation with him, who made the 1941 decision not to go into the manufacture of the synthetic product on the scale which subsequent events proved to have been necessary." We have here the beginning of a legend. Mr. Jones, having said that the president "concurred," Mr. Krock reports that the President "made the 1941 decision." Six days later Mr. David Lawrence carried the passing of the buck further: "Just why the President refused to allow the Reconstruction Finance Corporation to appropriate sufficient money either for government-owned or government-sponsored plants is not yet officially explained." Mr. Lawrence's comment is downright misrepresentation, and a great disservice to the cause of sound journalism. Mr. Lawrence makes forth that the President "refused to allow" Mr. Jones to do what Mr. Jones himself says he did not wish to do. If the President "concurred" in the Jones program, is it fair to make it appear that Mr. Jones wanted to do something better, and that the President "refused to allow" him to do it? Mr. Krock's interpretation, though it seems to me seriously misleading, turns on a mere debatable matter. If a member, since Mr. Jones was charged with the responsibility for our rubber supply, the President can be said to have "made" the crucial decision when he concurred in Mr. Jones's recommendation. For if the President "made the 1941 decision," then we must suppose that the President is supposed to know more about rubber and the technology of making synthetic rubber than the Cabinet officer whose prime duty it was to take care of the rubber supply. It is impossible, I submit, to conduct a great government, and especially in time of war, if the President is to be held responsible, or if he is willing to be held responsible, for highly technical decisions of this character. My view is that the President is responsible for Mr. Jones but that Mr. Jones was responsible for the rubber supply, responsible for giving the right advice and responsible for taking the right action. Until the President was convinced that Mr. Jones was not the right man to take charge of rubber, it was necessary for the President to concur in what Mr. Jones recommended about rubber. Many of the President's troubles come, as they have in this case, from the fact that he himself is so unmindful about this fundamental principle of good administration. Because he is so careless about it, he is excessively tolerant of weakness in his subordinates and inordinately willing to carry on his own shoulders burdens that a sound administrator would fix firmly and squarely on their shoulders. The effect is to protect weak men in his official family, men who lean absurdly too much or the President; the effect also is to weaken strong men in his official family by dituting that sense of responsibility without which there is no initiative and no enterprise. (Copyright, 1942, New York Tribune, Inc.)

OUR TOWN

by Jim Moore "A rose by any other name would smell just as sweet." And a war, no matter what you call it, is still WAR! For the life of us, we can't see the sense of spending valuable hours, sitting around and scratching our heads, trying to think of a suitable name for it. Personally, we feel that General Sherman aptly named all wars years ago. Try as you may, you can't make a social function out of war . . . and this war in particular. The world has never witnessed a conflict like this before. This is streamlined, mechanized, high-powered war. It is a war of machines, science and materials. But most important to the civillians-it is a war in which they are as much involved as the men at the front. Not only do they face the possibility of death and injury from air raids, but the war work of every civilian is of vital importance to the successful culmination of the battle. That's why this "Think Up A Name" game is so silly. We don't have time to sit around and think up names. There's work to be done by you, and you and you. Do you realize that for every man in uniform, there must be from 14 to 25 civilians working full time to back him up and keep him in action? In addition to these full-time workers, there must also be hundreds of volunteer part-time workers making bandages, doing clerical work and the hundred-and-one other details necessary to keep the armed forces moving. And when all of these people are moving at 100 per cent efficiency, the equally vital problem of civilian defense has hardly been touched. Here is another field, encompassing thousands upon thousands of active workers. Wardens, doctors, auxiliary police, fire wardens, nurses, spotters, filter center workers are a few of the vital positions that must be manned 24 hours a day. There's plenty of work for everybody to do-if we would shake ourselves out of lethargy and do it. "But I am doing something," you say indignantly. We submit, that in nine cases out of 10, you aren't doing enough. Let us give a recent example. Last week, it was announced that one of the O. C. D. officials would lecture in the Elementary School Building. This man had a message of importance for the people of Coral Gables-he had information that every one should know. The speech was widely publicized in The Riviera and in the Miami dailies. Every man, woman and child in the Gables was invited-even urged to attend. Yet how many do you think attended that meeting? Fourteen! Isn't it incredible, doesn't it? The air raid wardens and auxiliary police, the Red Cross workers, members of the first aid classes, and, most of all, the private citizens, should have been there. Instead there was a handfull of 14 persons! Is this the community spirit we brag about so much in Coral Gables? Is this the community that is known over the nation for being alert and on its toes? Are we too wrapped up in social activities and the seeking of pleasure that we are blind to the fact that we are all fighting a war-fighting for our very existence. Don't forget this. No matter how small and unimportant it may seem to you at the time-if it will help the war effort, it's well worth doing. May we paraphrase the title of E. T. Leech's splendid editorial we had the pleasure of printing last week and say: "Wake Up, Coral Gables-It's Late!"

Mark Sullivan

Prime Minister Churchill, publicly and other British and American sources feel concern about shipping. Mr. Churchill's statement in London last week was: "The Battle of the Atlantic . . . is now . . . worsened." By "worsened," Mr. Churchill means merely that sinkings of American and British cargo ships by Axis submarines and planes have increased. But these sinkings are not at this time a complete barometer of the shipping situation-and the new seriousness of it. To understand it is necessary to consider the shipping situation as a whole, and as affected by recent turns the war has taken. As to sinkings, the current figure is not known to the public-both the British and ourselves, for good reasons, ceased giving out the figures some time ago. There is a rough figure which in many quarters has been taken as a kind of weather vane. It arose during the great war. At that time, if sinkings were above 500,000 tons a month the situation was regarded as serious, indeed, fatal, for if sinkings kept up at that rate for month after month Britain could hardly survive. But if sinkings were materially less than that figure there was no feeling of desperation. To some extent this figure, and the corresponding deductions, have hung over into the present war. A year ago, when the monthly rate of sinkings went up to 729,000 tons and kept up at that average for three months, there was deep concern. President Roosevelt took notice and increased the quantity of our building of new ships for the British under the lease-lend act. Subsequently, last fall, the sinkings went down to some 200,000 tons a month and there was a sense of respite. Now the situation has, as Mr. Churchill says, "worsened." Compare Britain's shipping situation during the great war with her situation, and ours, today. Then she had only one principal sea lane to be concerned about, the one between Britain and the United States, and perhaps to South America. She had no concern whatever about the Mediterranean-hardly a ship was sunk in that sea during the great war; in the latter part of the great war Britain had Italy as an ally. She had little concern about submarines in the Indian Ocean and the Pacific for Japan was her ally-in those oceans the only damage done was by a few hurried German raiders. Finally, and importantly, the plane as a threat to shipping did not exist during the great war. With that comparative immunity, compare the situation today. There are now at least six major sea lanes for Britain and the United States to guard. There is the lane from the United States to Britain, which is also the lane to our outpost in Iceland and to Russia-this line continually under attack by German submarines, planes and raiders. There is Britain's lane from her home ports to North Africa and other points in the Mediterranean, constantly subject to attack by German and Italian submarines and planes. There is our lane from the United States to Australia-now a lifeline for the United Nations-subject to attack by the Japanese. There is the lane from the United States to the Indian Ocean, by which we try to supply China and Russia. There is our own lane to South America, from which we need vital supplies. There is even our own home coastal lane between our Atlantic ports and the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean, now subject to intense attack. Not only the lanes to which Britain is involved, all the waters in the world must be guarded by us and Britain. And it is misleading to regard sinkings as an index. We have been thinking of our shipping problems in terms fantastically out of date. We must think of it in terms of vastly increased new construction. The program President Roosevelt set down for 1942, 8,000,000 tons, is in the light of present conditions, quite inadequate. If we maintain a great fighting force across the Pacific; in Australia and the Far East, as we are now committed to; and if, in addition, we maintain a fighting force across the Atlantic, in Europe, North Africa or elsewhere, we shall need cargo shipping far beyond what is now imagined. Something is to be said on the hopeful side. Japan has a serious shipping problem, and is less able to meet it than we. Pre-war figures gave Japan a total cargo shipping of some six million tons, and we destroy her capacity of some half a million tons. Already she must have lost half a million tons or more. In her new expanded empire, composed of islands and territories separated by waters, she desperately needs ships. Shipping might be her Achilles heel. (Copyright, 1942, New York Tribune, Inc.)

JUST BETWEEN ONE'S SELF AND You

HERE'S HOW-A sign in Bayliss' restaurant on Coral Way is designed to alleviate the sugar shortage. Here it is: "Use less sugar and stir like Hell; we don't mind the noise." Our thanks to Leland Shepard for telling us about it. * * * YOUNG ROMANCE-Little David, aged 6, gazed with admiration upon the Easter outfit of his little friend, Marilyn Mayes, about the same age. But new shoes sparkled-and so did David's eyes. Finally he said, reproachfully, to Marilyn: "You haven't loved me in THAT dress." * * * DENTED HONESTY-Coral Gables has at least one honest man-according to Society Editor Helen Reynolds, who has good reason to know, Helen parked her car in a Gables angle parking space last Monday. When she returned a few minutes later she noticed a small card stuck under the windshield wiper. Thinking it was probably a campaign card and being unable to read it from inside the car, she waited until she reached home. Then she removed the bit of pasteboard and read on the back: "I have bent your left rear fender and I will gladly pay for same. Sorry." The message was signed by Daniel B. Sheffield. * * * REVERSE TECHNIQUE-We've often heard of wives leading their husbands away from the flowing bowl, but we heard the old story with a new slant last Friday at the policeman's ball. One young wife practically exploded with ire because friend husband departed from his usual role and declined to imbibe. Furthermore, he took their station wagon and went home to bed at 11 p. m.

Book Briefs

"CROSS CREEK" (Charles Scribner's Sons). By Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. Reviewed by LOUISE LEYDEN From the pen of the author of "The Yearling" comes a fascinating new book, "Cross Creek." This book deals mainly with the lives, the everyday doings, the fortunes, good and bad, and the misfortunes of the simple people, both white and colored, who are the neighbors of the writer in the orange-growing section out in Cross Creek. During her many years of residence among these people Mrs. Rawlings, who was born above the Mason-Dixon line, has learned the strange ways and the still stranger dialect of the real Florida backwoodsman. She has come to trust him and he to trust her. They are bound by ties that naturally draw soil-loving people together. The wild creatures of the hammocks and the marshes are also her friends, and in her book she has gone to trouble to tell of her associations with them and to take the reader over the same paths she journeyed to study them first hand. Through her own wise observations, and from veteran hunters and fishermen, she learned the habits of the deer, the raccoon, the rattlesnake and countless other fauna. The flora indigenous to her section was not overlooked-the magnolia, the orange tree, the wild iris and others too numerous to mention. The book reveals many things not hitherto generally known about the author. Outstanding among these is her highly developed talent for the culinary art. Mrs. Rawlings gives her own method of preparation of various foods, particularly Florida foods, and frequently expresses her fondness for certain tropical fruits. However, Miamians and Gabelites will probably dispute her claim that the best Hayden mangoes grow below Miami-that is, down on the Keys. They know too well the delicious flavor of this particular variety which grows right in their own yards. "Cross Creek" is a tale well told. The author presents things as she sees and observes them-bad points as well as good. While "The Yearling" remains to date her best work, nevertheless "Cross Creek" has something to say and says it in the manner of a curbed brown back, giving the reader a complete picture of life in a small rural community of Florida.