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Show Friday, March ?t Ask Me Anoit ; VHOS NEWS As Soil Erosion Service Reviews Causes of Recurring Disasters for Future. Along Rivers, Uncle Sam Lays Long Plans Adventurers Club By WILLIAM C. UTLEY v alT-about- -it.-- In By FLOYD GIBBONS Famous Headline Hunter TT HAPPENED a long time ago, but maybe some of you remember the wreck of the U. S. cruiser Memphis in San Domingo harbor August 29, 1916. ' A still Do you remember how, capghf In the disturbance set up by a submarine Volcano, battered by a series of tidal waves, she was tossed against the clifTs of a rockbound shore and smashed to pieces In the short space of an hour and a half? Butwere going to have the story of the Memphis told hy a man who never saw those waves by a man who saw the Memphis disaster from the spet where the READ battle was fought. Were going to hear about the wreck as It was seen by the boys down la the engine room, where some of the most hereto deeds ef that historlo affair were done. Charles H. Willey, warrant machinist. United States Navy retired, of Concord, N. H., is the Distinguished Adventurer of todays column. Ordered Below to Get Up Steam. Charley was in his stateroom reading when, without any warning, the ship rolled over at an alarming angle. At the same time the order came for the emergency watch to go below and get the ship under way. When Charley got below his men were already going about their duties. The steam was up in only two boilers. The Job now was to raise it in the other four so the ship could get under way. For, until she was under way, the Memphis would be at the mercy of the raging seas. The waves, which had been mere heavy swells at first, were getting higher every minute. The ship rocked alarmingly, but Inside ef ten minutes steam was forming 4n four boilers and the men In the engine rooms were warming up the engines with steam from the two live boilers. " Firemen All Worked Desperately. There was a fireman at every one of those boilers, working desThe ship kept pitching and heavperately to force It, says Charley. ing. Us poor devils down there couldnt see the waves, but we knew wc were in their grip. Over the voice tube from, the engine room came the cry of STEAM Give us steam. And the steam, thank God, was rising fast The gauges were showing pressure, but we had to get it to at least 200 pounds. Even 250 would have been little enough in an emergency like this one. The steam was on the way-up- . Navy efficiency and discipline were doing their work. In another few momenta the engines would be turning. And then SUDDENLY another violent lurch ef the ship and n deluge from above. Water oea water COMING DOWN THE VENTILATORS. Engines Stopped, Fourteen Men Killed. Says Charley: We knew what that meant. The ship was broadside to the waves and those waves were sweeping clean over us. Now water began coming down the smoke stacks, putting out our fires just when we were nearing victory. "We cut in the four boilers on the main steam line. The engines were turning slowly, but how they ate up the steam! A sudden lurching pitch a sickening pounding of the ship on the main steam line burst In the bottom, and then, with a roar the port engine room killing seven men and stopping the engine. There la a mad rush to close the atop valve. Water tons ef It etill pouring down the stacks! Steam hisses from strained boiler tubes. The lights go out. The dynamos have been shorted by scs water and we are left in darkness! h Forced to Abandon Stations. And still those gallant firemen in the engine room of the Memphis stuck to their posts trying to get up steam. There was bedlam everywhere below decks. Slice bars, hoes, coal buckets were sloshing around the room with every roll and toss of the ship. And yet, in the flickering light of the fires, the men were trying to get up steam. There was another crash A the super-floo- The Job of rehabilitation now that policies is to be seen in the hunthe flood has Subsided Is so enordreds of photographs in the office of mous as to be unimaginable to one the soil erosion service. Vast fields who has never lived along the now stand burned out, ugly and levees. The task of simply clearabandoned. Where the corn and ing away the debris and making at beans were planted down the slopes leaat livable hundreds of thousands Instead of following the contours of of damaged bomea ia by far the the land there are now deep gulgreatest task of Its kind that ever lies. The topsoil has been eaten hat faced the country. And this away down to the clay by too rapid doesnt even begin to touch what is drainage. Because a each new the most Important problem that strata of soil worn away bared e ot long range planning and building new strata of less absorptive earth, to prevent such a disaster's occur- the runoff became faster and faster. The unfertile lower strata re- ring again. Salvation Army officials, the Red Cross and other agencies have estimated that in some places their work which is more of an emergency nature than that of the government-will keep on for two ip M ,Vw (Photo duced cropa and soon the land was deserted.' Great winds came and licked the sterile lands once protected by buffalo grass or forest They blew the dust from these lands in great storms to lay waste to better farm lands many miles distant. Then the floods came again, gaining greater momentum because the natural barriers were further worn away as the years rolled on. Some of the high marks were In 1884, 1913 and 1927. Still the speed and the de- - IIow Willey Escaped the Inferno. "I heard agonized screams from the men who had gone up the ladder ahead of me up over those hot, hellish, boilers to what they thought was safety in the uptake passage. Somehow God gave me strength to reach them in the uptake. Steam had risen there first and they were trapped in it. They were breathing it It was searing their flesh and their lungs and cutting them down before they could open the heavy iron door. I kept my wet jumper over my face and reached the door. Frantically I worked at the dogs that clamped it shut At last I got it open d ... A i Burgos Played Important Role in Spanish History Vvi Service. scene on Broadway looking toward the exclnsive Queen City cinb in Cincinnati. An across one side of the Plaza de Libertad. In Burgos was born El Cid, the national hero of Spain in the struggle to reconquer the country from the Moors. The hilltop casUe, then a magnificent stronghold, was the scene of his marriage to Ximena, who is buried with him in the cathedral. One of the town's saddest days was that of their heros return, when all doors were closed by the jealous , king s command and the grieving populace had to do their silently from their windows after-the-flo- to work inland from the seacoasts. When the topsoil is lost the runBurgos, once the capital of Spain, does not rank as one of the major off from rains is very greatly incities of the Iberian peninsula, but it creased, floods are speeded, ,human is rrh in history and in architecsuffering1 increased and more rich tural treasures. Until 1087, when the farm lands lost. royal residence waa moved to ToHow Dost Storms Start ledo, the city was the capital of Old The cultivation of rural America ia In that hinted Castile. fact, it extends roughly over three centhe crumbling castle above the city turies. Within that time vast slopes is one of the main reasons for the once forested, with networks of inname of Castile, says terlocking roots that once retained the Los Angeles Timesr a large share of any rainfall, have Even after the transfer of the been denuded of their trees. The atiU was the it royal residence, coming of the plow brought with it scene of much royal pomp, splendor Hustings, a Court Yet and treachery. Several kings were Hustings is the name of a court of further careless destruction. e who can blame the early pioneers, crowned there and some were born limited jurisdiction which at sat in London. BeforetKeEng-lis- h scanning what, teemed limitless within its walls. Perhaps Burgos ballot act of 1872, this court horizons of verdant prairie, for failmost notorious son was King Pedro the Cruel, who was reputed to deco- waa the place where member of ing to grasp the effect their was to have upon genrate hie rooms with the heads of his Parliament were usually nominated, the method of nomination being by eration of the future? They plowed victims. Columbus, returning from his sec- a speech made from, the platform downhill instead of around the ond expedition to the New World, of the court Fr om this custom the slopes on lines nearly level. And was welcomed by Ferdinand and term hujt ugs'TSarne to be applied billions of new gullies were added Isabella in that palatial residence of to any stump speech or organized to (peed the flood waters on their old Burgos, the Casa de Gordon. canvassing for votes ia a political way. The building spreads its stone front campaign. d The cost of such ope--tim- short-sighte- ' TOW w rwyaw Wfawei waf Universal Newsreel From International) Some Idea of the great clean-o-p Job which remained after the flood may be gleaned from this pictnre of a street in Portsmouth, Ohio. "And then, says Charley, I knew we were gone. In another minute she had itruck again and the boilers let go at their tube Joints. I yelled: Abandon stations. Every man for himself. I tried to get to the air lock stumbled and fell into sea water that was coming in through the ship's bottom. Live steam was filling the room. I ripped off my jumper, soaked it and wrapped It around my head. dragged out some of those dying men Arid then Charley lost consciousness. He awoke TWO WEEKS later in the Naval hospital in Washington to learn that he was the only one of that brave fireroom crew of his that had lived! It was a whole year before Charley was out of the hospital. Now lie lives in retirement on a little inland farm in New England. A few years ago he was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor. Yet." says Charley, I have never worn it, for somehow 1 feel I am unworthy of it. Those men who stuck by me down there in that black inferno till the last they were the real heroes. THEY PAID WITH THEIR LIVES." Spokesman champion of labor in what one correspondent ealla-a-ne- w era in capital-labor relations in the United States is Philip Murray, seasoned, weathered labor bat tier, but also negotiator and pacifier for three presidents. Heading the steel workers organizing committee, he met Benjamin is F. Fairless, president of the corporation, in a conference which resulted in an epochal agreement between labor and the steel industry. At eighteen. Philip Murray punched the weighmaster in the nose and started a (mall civil war in Westmoreland county. Pa. At fifty, a powerful, mostly figure in the rise of the C. I. O., he talks it over. He bat (aid many time that, after punching thf weighmaster, he learned to keep his temper. That wa hi only undisciplined outbreak. As a bey, he waa a miner la hie native Lanarkshire, Scotland. The family removed to America when he was sixteen.' He was in the pit for the Keystone Coal A Coke comepisode pany. The led the 600 miners to make him president of their newly organised local of the United Mine Workers of America. This started his career as a labor letter. He educated himself by s correspondence coarse. He moved along up with John L. Lewis and Thomas Kennedy, now lieutenant governor of Pennsylvania, in both the strife and strategy of the organization. All three were vigorous foes of the and some of their stillest fights were in their own ranks. If vertical unionism leads to a reformation of American labor, for good or 111, this triumvirate will figure in the history books as its founder. President Wilson made Philip Murray a member of hie war labor board. In 1921, President Harding used him to sidetrack a civil war In Wlngo county, W. Va., with 10,404 miners in revolt. A big. bulky, deliberate man, with a bit of the old Scotch burr in bis speech, master of flawless Carne-gie-Illino- off-ita- s, STEAM. WNU seeking permanent relief by the construction of many amaller reservoirs. Lying along the headwaters of streams they may be employed to lessen the impact of flood waters on the lowlands by leveling out the rate of flow. Often they are also useful in the manufacture of electricity and benefit river navigation. Flood control was first attempted along the Mississippi more than 200 year ago. La Salle in 1684 told of seeing the Father of Waters at flood YORK. struction continued to mount until in the last three years the superfloods arrived. Annually, the cost of levees and dams rose, without effecting per; manent relief. The first federal government flood control work started in 1824 after constitutional rights of the federal government along interstate rivers had been established. This early work waa largely supplementary to improvements in dams with navigation, such a canals and locks. Soon the federal bureaus found themselves . with itate and local agencies in flood control, and several billiona of dollars have been spent. Yet as the levees were built higher and higher, up to 60 feet and more near the larger cities,' they failed to reduce the annual flood toll. Flood prevention turned to reservoirs, and in unusual case a single great reservoir, such as that behind Boulder dam could be built to protect a gigantic erea. Reservoirs like this one ere usually out stage, but the floods were held back In those days by the heavy vegetation along the stream. These for- ests and grasslands have since been rendered far less potent by Cultivation. Early records place the first levee at New Orleans in 1717. Within a year it had become a mile long and 18 feet wide. In these early day the king of France would grant river lands only on the condition that the receiver of the grant agree to build levees. It was the custom to require that all persons living with-in- g seven miles of the river be on call to furnish labor for their construction. By a time shortly after Uncle Sams purchase of Louisiana, which then stretched along the entire lower Mississippi, levees flanked the river on both sides for a distance of 340 miles. Now most of the lower Mississippi and the rivers which contribute to it are banked by them. The federal government was shy about mixing up in river and harbor work until a decision by Chief Justice Marshall in 1824 cleared up the situation. Within a short time afterward, army engineer were charged with most of the details of flood control and have continued to exercise authority over a large share of them ever since. Preventnon Va. Control. Great names were connected with pleas for a more attitude toward flood control in tlrose days among them Abraham Lincoln, Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun. Appropriations in that time bordered about $50,000, but occasionally ran into the millions. Despite all. this early attention, it has been only in recent years that the government has been seriously thinking of laying the flood menace by preventing floods rather than attempting to control them. The year after the record flood of 1927, congress enacted a plan which had been submitted by Lieut Gen. Edgar B. Jadwln, chief of the army engineers. It called for an outlay of $325,000,000. Extensions and modifications added another $313,000,-00Balances on hand left an additional $272,000,000. The full program extended the 1928 plan six years in the alluvial valley of the lower Mississippi, where levees are being strengthened and raised. In some cases, as much as three feet But these things are only a beginning of the prevention movement Added to them must be the appropriations of the present congress and of other congresses to come, which may aa well make up their mind that the ante for flood prevention has to be raised and kept up tor tome time to come. An Important recent application of a device of considerable aid to both control and prevention Is that of the floodway. Dramatic Illustration of this was the use of the New Madrid Birds Point floodway, with Its fuse plug. to save the city of .Cairo. 1IL 0. Western Newspaper UnSsn. a verbal punch, but restrains his powerful fist, although he ia an eager boxing fan. He is married and has an ear-old son. His salary as an official of the U. M. W. A. is $9,000 a year. eighteen-y- Kings Pants-Putter-O- abdication of BEFORE the the British court of wigs claims, sitting with and mediaeval court uniforms, settled some pretty difficult business, naming, among other coronation dignitaries, the official pants-p- u Heron for the king. Then, when Edward quit the throne, they had to go through it all again, preparing for the coronation of George VL Britannia rules the waves and sometimes waives the rule. The crisis is past, as Lord Ancaster it awarded the king's pajamas, instead of the legally stipulated night robe as part of his cut in the coronation ceremony. He will also get the kings bed and 44 yards of crimson velvet priced at $7.44 at the time of King Rich-ard- a decree touching thereon in 1377, and now worth $281.60. The lord great chamberlain, Lord Ancaster outranks Prime Minister His counsel Stanley Baldwin. pressed bis claims .before the court, winning all of them except the traditional box in Westminster abbey and accepting gracefully the obvious! necessary compromise on the The founding fathers pajamas. hadnt foreseen pajamas, but it was all interpreted in the spirit of King Richards instrument. Lord Ancsster wins the right to carry the king's coiffe and to dress him In shirt, stockings and Here he wins out ever drawers. the marquis of Cbolmondeley (proof unced Chnmley), the former lord great chamberlain, who, by ancient custom, had to resign along with King Edward. The marquis of Lincolnshire Is the third great peer to share the above honors and emoluments, the office rotating among the three families. In 1905. Lord Ancaster, who had not yet succeeded to his title, married the strikingly beautiful Elolie Breese of New York, daughter of the late L. W. Bieese. She became the chatelaine of the ancient castles of Drummond and Grimsthorpe. Of the Tuxedo aristoi, she was ths possessor ef a large fertone, a sportswoman and n flag member el the New York Yacht dub. She livened np the eld castles a lot, with her blooded horses and dogs, later a fame la aalmoa fishing. taxes compelled Lord Ancsster to sell his principal estate is 1924. He is sixty-nin- e. Re-ineu- Nows Faaturee. WNU Barrier. a spider aa insect? In what country 1. Ig f Scotch Miner New Power la Coun cils ef C. L O. JEW A. General q, Bog 8ywBcotoWwpju Parton nose-punchi- DEAFENING ROAR OF ESCAPING steam-twiste- Control 200 Years Old. The answer would seem to lie in years. There were about a million persons chased from their homes by the rising waters. They have to be returned or resettled somewhere. The layer of mud and refuse which has settled over the entire area is rapidly being washed away by an army of workers using mops, brooms and hoses for weapons. During the twelve highest days of the flood some 400,000 homes were damaged. It will take until the middle of the summer before all of those homes not beyond repair are even given a thorough cleaning at an estimated cost of. $250 a home. Washington Seen Necessity. The terrific cost of such a flood In actual money as well as in loss of life and morale demands that its recurrence not be repeated. Floods in the United States have been setting new high water marks year after year and the progress they have made in 1935, 1938 and 1937 is at last effecting a change in the flood control agencies so that they are beginning to think on long range construction lines, rather than planning simply to stop the gaps here and there as they manifest themselves. The real necessity for flood control is nowhere made more apparent than in the records of the soil erosion service at Washington. Annually, these records show, losses of rich topsoil have in recent years reached three billion tons, or enough every year to fill a freight train 925,000 miles long! Most of this loss can be attributed to floods resulting from careless or unintelligent use of land ever since the days when the first pioneers began Fe ttTT IVVVVV9IMHMIMVT d and the widespread havoc left have all but disappeared from the scare newspaper readers outside the flood area turalding tha cause by, Citrzens-alo- ng itself are -- rapidly- forgetting- huge mountain reservoir providing the Ohio and Mississippi valleys probably wish they could, walls in location! where it la posabout it for some sible to make use of them for flood too, but they are destined to keep think control. time. BECAUSE When the Sea Came By Lemuel of the question, because the greatest need for reservoir protection more often lies In areas where farm lands are of high value, where the cities are built close to the rivers. And it Is not very often that you . O THIS WEEK... 2. anti called 3. What do stage by 4. -- serfs? , peoois prop? What is a catamarsn? 5- - ' w.hat name for was Jerighol 7Tnerr conun I trefoil? helped the Greeks sgit Turks? 9. What Is an Isobar? 10. In what mythology a goddess? 11. Of what system is the hi mountain in the world a nar 11 What is sarsenet? u Answers 1. The spider Is not an w, but a member of the class An nida which includes also mfe. scorpions etc. Insects hsv body divisions and four win while spiders have two body sions and no wings. Insects haw three pairs of walking fee ' spiders four. 2. Russia. 3. An article used in a play. 4. A long narrow raft. 5. An English lexicon! (1709-1784- ). 6. The Dead Sea. 7. The clover. 8. Lord Byron. 9. A line connecting points til ing the same barometric sure. 10. The Egyptian. 11. The Himalaya (Mount 12. A W I . thin fine silk. Short-Live- d Government. 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