OCR Text |
Show WHO'S NEWS THIS WEEK By LEMUEL F. PARTON "NJEW YORK. In the village of ' Woodbury, Ky., the son of a Czecho-Slovakian immigrant was commended by his teachers for his excellent draw- Churned Butter ings of ships at And Latin; Now sea. He had Churns Oceans never seen an? big ships, but liked them and had a good idea of what they looked like. Today, tooling tool-ing the United States fleet of around 300 ships down into the Pacific, Admiral Ad-miral Claude Charles Bloch has converted con-verted his youthful artistic urge into a vast and precise knowledge of ships and their behavior particularly particu-larly fighting ships. Erect, ruddy and vigorous, Quietly emphatic, the 60-year-old commander-in-chief of the fleet is a rarely spotlighted personage of tremendous responsibilities technical, naval and administrative administra-tive as he quietly moves from Norfolk, not only his vast array of battle wagons, but 60,000 officers offi-cers and men, nearly 1,000 planes and all the gear necessary neces-sary for maintenance, operation, communications and fighting requirements. re-quirements. On July 3, 1898, not long out of Annapolis, he was an ensign on the Iowa when Cervera's squadron of Spanish warships made its historic dash from Santiago harbor and was destroyed by Admiral Sampson's blocking forces. He was cited for "meritorious service" in rescuing Spaniards from burning ships of Admiral Ad-miral Cervera's squadron. In the World war, he commanded the transport Plattsburg and won the navy cross for distinguished service. During his 42 years' service on land and sea, he has held many high posts in the navy. As a boy, the churning was his household chore. His brothers, broth-ers, now Louisville physicians, recall that he used to study his Latin book while churning and that he paced the "amo, amas, amat" to the beat of the plunger. plung-er. They teased him about that and always found him ready for a fight if the provocation was sufficient. At any rate, studious, reticent and artistic, he followed his boyhood dream over far seas. THE title of this particular article may well be the effective slogan of the modern world and the end of war if the words of .Dr. Robert A. Millikan are to Not Too Proud, he taken at But Too Scared their face val-To val-To Go to War ue- Addressing a dinner of the Merchants association in New York recently, the famous physicist said: "It was the fear of the bombing bomb-ing of London and Paris that prevented the beginning of another an-other World war last September. The peoples of all countries, including in-cluding the dictatorships, are coming more and more to the realization that such another war can only bring death and destruction to everybody the end of civilization, not the world domination which the demagogic demagog-ic leader promises." All Greek mathematicians to the contrary, Dr. Millikan believes that Achilles will overtake the turtle. That is, fleet-footed science has just about caught up with human stupidity, stupid-ity, in spite of the latter's long head-start, head-start, and, with its command of new energies will romp on by into the "world of tomorrow," where there will be no war or rumors of war. Dr. Millikan is possibly the world's most persistent champion cham-pion of the social salvation inherent in-herent in scientific advance, and believes that his runner will break the tape ahead of "international "inter-national wickedness, stupidity and folly." He believes that machines ma-chines make jobs, rather than destroy them, and that the only way out is straight ahead. Every once in a while he parachutes para-chutes down from the stratosphere companionship of Einstein, Planck, Heisenberg et al, to bring a message to the market place always hopeful, hope-ful, and usually a roundhouse swing at the demagogues and meddlers who cramp the scientists' style. He leaves wide open a zone of Divine Di-vine intervention if anything goes wrong in the laboratories. A Nobel prize winner, chairman of the executive council of the California Cali-fornia Institute of Technology, Dr. Millikan is an active liaison between the lay and scientific worlds, assuring assur-ing both that everything will come out all right. Garnering many medals med-als and prizes, enjoying world fame, he would have a lot to lose in a world crack-up. Eut his optimism is doubtless no mere "wishful thinking." think-ing." Released by Confo:id.-:trd News Features, t. Sei vjte. |