Coral Gables Historical Archive
Coral Gables Riviera-Times
Tuesday, November 4, 1947, page 4 (of 12)
The page
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CORAL GABLES Riviera Times
Published Monday through Friday afternoons by the Riviera Publishing Company, 396 Aragon Avenue, Coral Gables 34, Fla. Established as a weekly newspaper January, 1926; combined with the Dade County & Coconut Grove Times, 1929. Established as a daily newspaper November 3, 1947. MEMBER OF THE NATIONAL EDITORIAL ASSOCIATION and Florida Press Association. Albert E. Harum, Editor and Publisher; Kenneth S. Reynolds, Business Manager; James B. Moore, Managing Editor; Helen Reynolds, Society Editor; Edward W. Wright, Circulation Manager. UNITED PRESS WIRE SERVICE FULL LEASED WIRE, UNITED PRESS PICTURES. RIVIERA 36 SUBSCRIPTION RATES: Three months, $6.00; one year, outside of United States, $15.00; local, $12.00; six months, $6.00; three months, $3.00; carrier: 20 cents a week, payable to carrier. Entered as Second Class Matter May 28, 1926, at the Post Office at Miami, Fla., under the Act of March 3, 1879. Mail Address, Box 6972, Coral Gables 34, Florida. Phone 4-1674. Classified Dept., 83-2551. The Coral Gables Riviera-Times is liable for errors in an advert only to the extent of the space in which the advertisement appears.
Medical Council
In mid-October, when the hinterlands and parts of Coral Gables were wallowing in a three-foot dew, doctors and school authorities said, were deluged with calls from anxious parents. "Johnny's been swimming on the Granada Golf Course. Is the water contaminated there?" "The radio says to get typhoid shots. Does that mean us?" "We're high and dry-but can you catch typhoid from other people?" These were questions which kept Gableites awake nights. To eliminate confusion and avert the possibility of panic in a real emergency, the City Commission might do well to appoint an advisory medical council, comprising three local physicians, to caution and inform citizens when a health menace affecting Coral Gables arises. Three times within the past year this city has been faced with potentially disastrous health problems: the 1946 polio epidemic, the rabies campaign this summer and the recent flood-induced typhoid scare. Dade health authorities issued bulletins based on the over-all picture in the County. They were not co-ordinated. What we wanted to know was whether polio had reached epidemic proportions in Coral Gables, whether rabid dogs had been picked up within the city limits, whether flood conditions here and in neighboring communities warranted wholesale anti-typhoid measures. A medical advisory council would have the answers to those questions or know where to obtain authoritative information. A medical advisory council composed of doctors known and respected in this community, and aware by virtue of residence of exact conditions, would be assured of the confidence of all Gableites. Its recommendations would be hearkened to attentively, travelscoff lore quietly ignored. And Coral Gables residents would rest easier just to know that a vigilant watch was being maintained over their welfare and that a source of authoritative information was available in times of uncertainty and confusion.
Practical Training
Of late years there has been increased activity among a group of American educators to inject a more practical curriculum of business training into our public schools. As might be expected with an issue involving changes in the accepted method of training our youngsters to take their places as tomorrow's citizens, the question has split parents and educators into two camps, those who think the idea has merit and those who oppose any deviation from the time-honored three R's. During the past few weeks, while the Riviera-Times has been going through the transition from a weekly to a daily paper, we have had an opportunity to observe first-hand the workings of a system which has set up a corps of Gables youngsters in their own businesses-and we like it. Under the direction of Ed Wright, Riviera-Times circulation manager, the Riviera-Times is delivered to your home each day by a Gables boy who is a "Little Merchant." This plan, which is used by the majority of America's daily newspapers, elevates the carrier boys from the status of salesmen. The boys actually buy the papers from the circulation manager and then resell them for a profit. Here, as in other cities where the plan has been introduced, it has proven its worth. The carrier boys are more interested in their work than they would be if they were just employed by the paper at the bottom of the journalistic ladder. Being in business for themselves, they learn early in life that good service, dependability and courtesy go hand in hand with success. From the outset, when the boys make their purchase of papers, money enters, requisite to the business transaction by which they may earn their livelihoods in a few years, is encountered. Learning by actual experience, these boys will be better businessmen. Carrier boys range in age from 12 to 16 years. While we hesitate to recommend the addition of practical business training to the program in all grades, it would appear that with boys of 12 and over, proponents of such a plan have a strong argument.
How to Fight Ideas
We have reached an advanced state in the war of ideas. Ideas divide not only nations but the people in them. Unless we win this idea war, and win it now, the next global war will be not only international but civil. Civil war-an internal fight for individual freedom-is already raging in plenty of countries. In others freedom seems about to fall through political intrigue and even through free elections. All of Europe and Asia are close to the black-out of liberty. We have seen that black-outs abroad soon reflect on our own shores. This will happen unless we fight the idea war with everything we have. Some, however, still do not know this war is going on. Others know it but think it hopeless. Still others want to fight but don't know how. To fight the war of ideas means fighting as many the idea of freedom workable. You fight for everything that unites for only unity can save our liberty. You fight for higher moral standards in all people, beginning with yourself, for higher morals cannot hate each other-do not divide. You fight to find the way that you and your wife-you and your workers or your boss-you and your competitors in politics, in business and in love-can work together instead of splitting up in strikes, deadlocks and divorce. You fight to conquer your own pride and self-sufficiency, admitting that men and nations cannot build and strengthen their moral relations until, in humility, they seek strength from God. Against the background of lost liberty, all petty, human divisions pale into insignificance. And moral and spiritual re-armament becomes an absolute priority for every man and nation in the world.
Why Don't You ...
By Jim Moore I wish I had a nickel for every time some reader has said to me, "Why don't you write an editorial about . . ." Fill in any subject that you like, for the suggestions have been as varied as the lengths of milady's skirt in the past 20 years. Now I'll ask you a question. If you have an idea for an editorial that you think should be written, why don't you write it? "But, I don't have a newspaper," you may say, immediately. Well, I'm right back at you with the answer. You do have a newspaper, and the name of it is The Riviera-Times. Anybody who has an opinion to express about something that concerns our town will find a warm welcome as a Riviera-Times guest editorialist. All that you have to do is to sit down at your desk, or the dining room tables after the dishes have been cleared away, and wade right in. When you're gotten what has been bothering you off your chest and onto the paper-sign your name and address and mail it. Unless it's libelous, you'll find it in print in your Riviera-Times. "But," you protest, "That's not an editorial. That's a letter to the editor. I'm not the kind who writes letters to the editor." You're right. It is a letter to the editor-but you're wrong when you say it isn't an editorial: The Riviera-Times' mail column is just as much an editorial column as the one which appears below the masthead. In it you find the sounding board for reader opinions . . . and what are editorials but opinions set in type? If your reasoning is logical, if you call attention to a wrong that needs to be righted, if you laud some worthy enterprise you have written an editorial. You have just as much chance of influencing your fellow readers as a member of the paper's staff. So the next time you have something that you think ought to appear in print as an editorial-sit down and write it. I'll promise you one thing-we'll print it.
Voodoo Practice Still Frightens New Orleans Folk
By CHARLES NETHAWAY United Press Staff Correspondent NEW ORLEANS (UP)-A New Orleans housewife who found three pieces of cake under her doorstep didn't even look back. She went straight to St. Louis Cemetery No. 2 and scratched a sign of the cross on the tomb of Marie Laveau. It was the only thing to do, she said. Her neighbors and certain policemen agreed. The cake meant voodoo. The cake was gris-gris, or a malefice, one of the kind of hocus-pocus brought by slaves from Africa. Police figured at once that since the housewife was a landlady, one of her tenants was trying to conjure her because she had filed an eviction notice. Marie Laveau practiced voodoo in the 1830s. But she was still a power in her tomb today, still able to overcome the power of a bonafide gris-gris. St. John the Baptist was still mixed into voodoo practice in New Orleans, though his connection with the mysterious stuff never has been explained. Gris-gris usually was traceable to negroes, but at least one city detective said white practitioners has been found. A genuine gris-gris can be almost anything. It can be a hideous material made from candle grease and match sticks, or pennies in a circle. But whatever form it takes, it bodes nothing but ill will for its victim, usually death. Voodoo does not always deal with death, however. Big, handsome, banana-colored Marie Laveau reportedly used it to round up a houseful of husbands. Along South Rampart street today, a suspicious person still can buy a box of "stay home" or "leave me" powder, each of which has voodoo beginnings. But on Bayou St. John, nobody there takes baths in the blood of a chicken, or mixes rum with wine. Marie did both.
Grows Fruit Salad
ARAPAHOE, NEB. (UP)-Three years ago a small Grimes Golden apple tree was broken in the yard surrounding the J. P. Patten home. As an experiment, Mrs. Patten grafted a branch of the apple tree onto a limb of a nearby pear tree. This fall the grafted limb produced 30 small yellow apples. On the opposite limb were 15 perfectly formed pears.
Concerning Consolidation
The proposed Dade-Miami merger amendment proposes that all officers and employees of the County and any consolidated areas are to be secure in their seniority rights under civil service and retain all existing pension rights. It doesn't say what would happen to worthy and deserving, faithful employees not under civil service. Most of the municipalities in Dade County operate WITHOUT civil service, which would present quite a problem in so far as further consolidation is concerned. WATCH THIS SPACE EVERY DAY IT IS IMPORTANT TO YOU!
These Days Here
Is that printer's face red:- approximately 500 members of The Coral Gables Woman's Club received through the mail this week, a page to paste in their new year books. of 16 names in the "B's," overlooked by the printer. There's a middle-aged lady who has pulled the same gag several times at the Coral Gables postoffice. She rushes in, with a bag under her arm, looks at the lines in front of each window and then mutters about her bus which is just leaving. Looking at her watch nervously, she babbles about being late for work-then, as if suddenly making up her mind, she bolts to the head of the line, gives her sad story to the clerk and departs with her mail-to the disgust of the other customers. Not to be outdone by the floral offerings in the front office, Foreman Chris Christenson received a bouquet of weeds from his assistant on the occasion of the daily's birth. A basketful the Cosmos Club paid his check this week-end and asked Bartender Tommy Miller to note the questions on the reverse side: 1. Who is the blonde up further? 2. Is she married, single (check one). Trick or Treat was heard at every door Hallowe'en and we're of the opinion it meant just that. However, two bright little girls jumped the gun on the night and appeared in their neighborhood on Thursday. Carol Harding, daughter of the Jack Hardings and Beth McDonald, daughter of the M. B. McDonalds. Their method of trick or treat was novel and an offer to come in and perform. Miss Harding was the spokesman. Said she "I play the piano and my pardner will do a ballet."
Birthday of Will Rogers Recalls Coliseum Fiasco
By MARY HELM CLARKE November 4 is the birthday of the late Will Rogers. This week is also the anniversary of the dedication of the Coral Gables Coliseum in 1927. The two events seem to have little in common, but old-timers remember when the visit of Will Rogers to the Coliseum almost provoked a community crisis. Rodeo of Upsets To begin with, the Coliseum was born in the time of crisis and has been in a rodeo of upsets ever since. When the real estate frenzy of the 20's gripped Florida, the Coral Gables Corporation realized the need for a convention hall, a Music Hall and an Opera House. They promoted interest in building a Coliseum with Douglas Road west of the present structure to house sports and cultural needs. They let a contract for a $300,000.00 building of steel and tile to be completed in March, 1926. The building was well along its way when the "Embargo" brought the first crisis. In those days, materials reached the Miami area by a single-track line to Palm Beach, and then by truck or by boat to Miami. A ship capsized in the mouth of the harbor, effectively blocking the waterway, tying up shipping for a long and tragic period. The Coliseum was still unfinished when the Blow struck and left it without financial, as well as structural support. As a part of its re-financing project, the City of Coral Gables purchased the Coliseum, completed its construction and set out to make a financial asset out of a colossal liability. The Woman's Club sponsored the appearance of Will Rogers in the Coliseum. He would attract men, women and children and net a large sum for the proposed new Club House. House Was Packed A packed house proved their choice of entertainer was a wise one. Every one strained to hear the Will Rogers witticisms on politics, world affairs and the foibles of human nature. But something was wrong! They could hear but they couldn't understand. The audience became restless and disorderly. The babel of sound made by a thwarted humorist, an irate audience and eighteen echoes created nothing but confusion. The upshot of the whole affair was, that Will Rogers returned his fee to the protesting Woman's Club, and the Coliseum was doomed as a cultural center. Although it failed to fulfill this purpose, the huge structure has given service to the nation in time of war and in time of peace. It has echoed and re-echoed with the joyous laughter and triumphant yells of spectators in thousands of matches of athletic excellence. Will Rogers would enjoy a 1948 visit to the Coliseum, now owned by the Riddle interests. He would agree that prize fights and wrestling matches are a "sight more" rewarding than wrestling with 18 echoes.
Earth Said To Be Slowing Up But Don't Reset Your Watch, Yet
SCHENECTADY, N. Y. (UP)-The earth is slowing its rotation and the day eventually will be 48 hours long. The process is a slow one, however, increasing the length of the day about a thousandth of a second every century, General Electric scientists have concluded. It is caused by the braking action of the waters of the earth as they flow by tidal movements over shallow areas. The same effect causes the moon to recede from the earth and thus makes the month longer as well. The maximum effect will come millions of years hence when the day and the month will be the same, equal to about 47 of our present days. Then the earth will always keep the same face toward the moon, just as that body does now toward us.
Sauce for the Goose
SPRINGFIELD, O. (UP)-Red faces were in order in the city manager's office here as a result of the city's weed-cutting campaign. The city has undertaken to cut weeds on vacant properties and City Manager Oscar L. Fleckner received a police letter ordering removal of weeds on what police said was municipal property.
UP AND DOWN BROADWAY Charles Laughton Makes Gesture in Returning to Beeway for "Galileo" Role
By JACK GAVER United Press Drama Editor NEW YORK, (UP)-Charles Laughton is making an unusual gesture in returning to Broadway in December to appear for a week in the leading role of "Galileo" for the Experimental Theater. The group was established last season under the sponsorship of the American National Theater and Academy. Laughton, who is one of the highest paid actors, will work for the Equity minimum of about $60, or may play for nothing. "Galileo" is a play by the German author, Bertold Brecht, which Laughton has wanted to do for a couple of years. A regular Broadway production has never developed, however. Laughton did the play briefly in a tryout on the West Coast this past Summer. * * * Stephen Foster, whose melodies are always cropping up in show business, is now the inspiration for a restaurant. Max Vocke, proprietor of the place in Hoboken, N. J., says his establishment is in the only building still standing which can be proven to have been an abode of the song writer. Some of his famous songs were composed there, Vocke says. The main dining room is dominated by a life-size portrait of Foster done by Mrs. E. P. Korn. * * * Puppeteers Walton and O'Rourke, currently at the Cotillion Room of the Hotel Pierre, have about 300 puppets but only use a few of them at a time. A perfectly made puppet will be good for about 500 workouts. Walton and O'Rourke give their marionettes frequent baths in soap and water. Both male and female puppets get regular beauty treatments involving all materials in the cosmetician's kit. They are even perfumed on occasion. The average height of the Walton-O'Rourke puppets is two feet, with the heads and feet half-life size and the mouths and eyes movable the better to create the illusion of being. Papier mache and carved wood are used in making the puppets. The strings with which they are worked are 12-pound-test fishline. * * * A departure in furnishing drama material to church and school groups has been made in the current issue of the magazine Seventeen, which prints a one-act comedy, "Date-Time," by Edwin and Nathalie Gross, along with complete instructions on how to stage it. A small royalty payment is required for each performance. * * * The Theater Guild has no cause for dismay over the decidedly mixed reviews accorded its new Rodgers-and-Hammerstein musical, "Allegro." With the Guild subscription list still to be exhausted, the show is grossing over $47,000 weekly and once the reduced subscribers' tickets are exhausted the take should bounce up to slightly over $50,000. The show benefitted from the largest advance sale in theater history, $600,000 before it opened. Two weeks after the opening well over $750,000 had been taken in, paid by some 250,000 persons buying tickets well into 1948.
Hobo King Job Not All Loafing Says Jeff Davis, Knight of Road
CLEVELAND (UP)-Take it from Jeff Davis, being king of the hoboes doesn't mean less work, it means more. Davis, who stopped off here on his way to Cincinnati headquarters of the Knights of the Road Thursday, said his duties as life-time king of the hoboes entailed considerable office work. "The Grand Supreme Knights pay dues and there are 2,000 of them," he said. "We have 48 laymen representing the states, also representatives in all United States possessions. I have 14 assistant secretaries and it doesn't seem enough." The hobo head, just turned 65, admitted he was paying for train tickets in his travels and not resorting to the time-honored "riding the rods." "It's against my better judgment, however, to travel inside trains," he said. "In the 53 years I've been hitting the road, I've traveled 2,286,000 miles, made six trips around the world and only paid for 96,000 miles of the distance." The king said he believed he was the world's most traveled individual. "There are only four of us in the higher-travel bracket," he said. "The Duke of Windsor, Eleanor Roosevelt, Believe-It-Or-Not Ripley and me. "The Duke has gone about one and a half million miles, Ripley's only gone a million, but Eleanor is my closest competitor. She's gone over two million, if her mileage reports in the papers are correct." Stand on Labor Speaking for his fraternity members, who number 1,006,000, according to his Cincinnati files, Davis said in commenting on the political scene: "We're not exactly opposed to Senator Taft. We are opposed to labor laws. If they will let labor laws alone, then labor, they'll be regulating food." Today there are few members of the itchy-foot brotherhood on the road, Davis said. "During the war a lot of our knights enlisted," he added, "and more went into defense work. After VJ-Day, all the knights wanted to hit the road again, but we dissuaded them at the annual conventions. Each year we've agreed to spend another 12 months in reconversion work. "Of course, as soon as the work is finished we'll go back to our normal life."
SHORT QUIRKS
Parson Stretches Truth HURON, S. D.-(UP)-The Rev. Charles Bullock, a Sioux Falls Methodist minister, won a liar's contest because he had experienced several dry years. He said that during one of them, there was such a scarcity of water he had to put a well through a wringer to get drinking water. Born to Eat TRACY, MINN (UP)-A six-and-on-half pound baby boy, born to Mr. and Mrs. Donald Zieske, had six fully-developed teeth at birth. One Light Too Many ROSEBUD, TEX. (UP)-The alertness of a Rosebud telephone operator saved the Planters National Bank from burglary. The operator saw two flashlights in the bank instead of the night watchman's usual one and notified police. The robbers escaped before police could arrive. Sweets Grow Big EASTON, Md. (UP)-Frank Tappa says he will match the sweet potatoes grown on his farm with any in the country. Tappa exhibited several 10 to 11 inches in circumference, weighing slightly more than nine pounds, and declared "that there are plenty more on my farm just about that big." Business Snaps Back AKRON, O. (UP)-The rubberband business is snapping back to pre-war level. According to B. F. Goodrich estimates, about 30 quadrillion, 800 trillion bands of assorted sizes will be turned out in this country this year. (A quatrillion is a million billions.) That represents about 1,750 tons of raw rubber, for on the average a pound of rubber yields 6,800 bands. If you can't stand a person you can't understand him. Kansas Industrializing PRATT, Kan. (UP)-Who says this is the land only of wheat and cattle? George B. Weews, western Kansas representative of the Kansas Industrial Development Commission, says two garment industries are seeking sites in the western part of the state for new factories. Man must be disappointed with the lesser things of life before he can comprehend the full value of the greater.-Bulwer-Lytton.
HOLLYWOOD FILM SHOP
By PATRICIA CLARY United Press Staff Correspondent HOLLYWOOD (UP)-There's a lot more work to being a swoon-crooner than clutching a microphone with a soulful expression. "I used to think that all crooners did was to sing, and the kiddies would fall right into the aisles," Michael North said. But now that he's learning to be a crooner himself, he's found that it's not so easy as it looks. To get in shape to make like a convincing vocalist in a Michael Curtiz productions musical, North takes six hours of training a day, six days a week. He reports each morning to Dr. Daniel van Dragen, the speech expert on the Warner Bros. lot. He works with the vowels, consonants and proper breathing for 60 minutes. Then he moves to the singing room, where Dudley Chambers, studio vocal coach, helps him rhyme "June" with "spoon" in professional style. Exercises, Too After lunch there's an hour for reflecting on the ways and means of crooners. Then comes a three-hour session with Mushy Callahan, physical director, who has helped shape the muscles of such stars as Errol Flynn, Humphrey Bogart and Dennis Morgan. "Mushy seems to think that every crooner should be lean like Sinatra," North commented, flexing a tired bicep. "What's good enough for Sinatra is murder for me." Just being an actor in his first picture for Curtiz-"The Unsuspected"-was a cinch, North said. No diction, no arpeggios and no skipping rope. "If I'd known, when I agreed to warble a tune or two in a musical, that I'd be in for all this," he said, "I'd still be running." And that's what he is doing, under the supervision of Callahan, who winds up each gymnasium session with a run around the lot-to develop North's wind.
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