South Bend news-times. (South Bend, Ind.) 1913-1938, 1914-12-15
Statesmen Real
and Near.
By Fred c. Kelly

WASHINGTON. Dec 15.-No bug.
or insect or worm is 50 lowly or
humble that Dr. L. o. Howard cannot
call it by its first name He gives a
bug or a mere insect a single glance
and knows its family history, heredi-
airy traits, and minor vices The fact
is that DR.. Howard knows practically
all the things about the average bus
or moth or worm that there are TO
know. He is the governments chief
entOmologist, or, to use a lay term,
bugolOgist. For more than 90 years
he has been studying about all man
ner of creeping things, and today,
while house flies and boil weevils and
winged ants and June bugs and a lot
of things like that are a good deal of
q nuisance, yet they are nothing like
the pest they would be if it were not
for Dr. Howard. Except for Howard
and the bureau of entomology the boil
weevil alone would be just as great a
pest as the man who buttonholes you
and persists in telling the latest Ford
story.
Before proceeding further with this
learned scientific discussion, one nat
urally pauses to inc Jire what sort of
man Is lie WHO utNOlcS nearly Ills
whole life to bugs. Bugs and insects
have to be handled and understood. of
course, but many OF US in casting
about for a life work say TO the
world Get somebody else to study
your bugs. Unless it would be dane
ing the modern dance steps, there is
probably nothing that most of us
would care less about doing than to
start in and spend 90 years learning
me main facts about our leading bugs.
Yet DR.. Howard has elected to do
that and he is not a queer person
either. He IS not at all like the pro-
fesSOr one sees in farce comedies with
specs, golf pants and a butterfly net.
To the contrary, DR.. Howard looks
rather chunky and prosperous and just
like regular folks. He has small,
notwithstanding, general purpose set
of brown whiskers. which might lead
one to take him for "A consulting pill
doctor or surgeon; but one would be
more likely 10 pick him for a captain
of industry--the head of railroad or
bank.
When Howard was youngster
seven years old. in Ithaca, y. Y, his
mother took him on a trip To a point
on Long Island. If he had not gone
away from Ithaca that summer
chief inspector today. While visit
:ng on Long Island Howard fell in
with a gang of playmates who
amused themselves hunting cocOOns
and watching them hatch butterflies
He grew SO intensely interested in
that sort of thing that when he got
back home he went into the cocoon
business on his own account. His
parents bought him books containing
Of los md
pinching bugs. and he read them
while other boys were busy with their
Nick Carter or geography. Yet he
was not a queer boy. He played base
ball and other sports with the boys
who did not know about bugs as he
did. and he was the best player OF the
bunch. Today he is a good golf
player. doesn't lie about his score.
and at night reads the most frivolous
kind Of detective stories. He is thor
oughly human and likeable.
An. yes. but we were telling how
he happened 10 go in for bugs as a
life work. All through the public
schools, the teachers made him write
essays about his favorite insects and
he was regarded as a youthful au-
thOrity on the ways of the insects
that buzzed about his home locality.
When II came time 10 enter college
Howard's mother. a widow. told him
ii was time he was quitting his but
terfy chasing and thinking about
something serious She persuaded
him 10 study engineering. SO Howard
entered Cornell university and set out
10 become a mechanical engineer. He
liked the engineering course fairly
well. all except the mathematics. All
his life he had been a rather poor
mathematician and figures annoyed
him. He could do ordinary addition
and subtraction. but when il came TO
higher algebra and trigonometry he
wished lie were somewhere else.
Without saying anything TO his
mother he switched over into the
scientific department OF the university
and began 10 take all the courses they
had which dealt in any way with
bugs.
Commencement day came and meIl-
bers OF the graduating class were
iight-hearted and gay, all except
Howard. He sSnew that he would
have to confess at last 10 his mother
about the wicked way i'm which he
had let her believe he was making a
mechanical engineer OF himself. when
ne was really associating himself with
strange insects and becoming a scien-
tist