The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1935-10-03
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BY Robert Bruce Q 100. NeA Service inc
by Robert Bruce
CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER ONE
A FTER a long browse, America
"A decides TO wake up A lanky
giant, carefree under the sun
as long and brown as the great
rivers that loop across its plain
and as Unexpectedly powerful, too
when its course is DISTRACTED
the giant yawns, stretches, looks
out over the contlnent-w wide piano.
rama of busy life, and begins sweep
ing the vermin that have been pes
tering it into the sea.
What is the giant like, and what
are the vermin, and how is 1t all
happening? To answer calls for a
moving picture camera with thou
sand lenses; a camera that can look
into every aspect of American life;
the good and the bad, the Spectacu-
lar and the humdrum, picking un a
myriad unconnected pictures and
displaying them in a pattern which
falls together, at the last, like a jig
saw puzzle when it is completed.
Pictures of America! America be-
ing needless and selfish. America
coming to its senses and girding for
a fight. America welding brain and
muscle into one gigantic job of
house cleaning-th worlds greatest
nation, displaying its raw strength
and its reckless vitality and its
salty. saving humor in a triumphant
struggle to show that Uncle Sam is
still the homely and admirable chap
he was in his youth.
A good-loOking girl, with maize
yellow hair and eyes that haven't
looked at the world long enough to
know how Seamy its underSide can
be. looks up from her table in a
night club she's thrilled to
death to be there and she thinks
she's being just a little bit wicked,
in a perfectly nice way she
looks up from her table and smiles
at the sandy-haired chap who is
beaming down at her, and she says,
How do you do, Mr.. Harkins?'
A clerk in an airy Washington
office yankS a green drawer out of
ceiling high filing cabinet, rifles
through it with practiced fingers.
and draws out a card. On the card
there is a mans picture, along with
ten inky SmudgeS and half a dozen
lines of type; and pinned TO it is a
smaller card. colored red. with the
word Wanted" on it in big black
letters.
A big automobile stops in a lane
by the veranda of a western ranch
house. and a hard-faced man sticks
his head out of the front window;
and a broad shouldered youth gets
up from the veranda steps and says,
"Okay, Joey" and puts himself and
his suitcase into the car. and it spins
of to the northeast over the rolling.
treeleSS hills where the famous bad
men of the old west used to have
their hide-outS.
A sallow, worried looking man
sits at a desk in a Chicago doc
tors Office. The telephone jangles;
he answers, says Yeah yeP
I'll be right over" and tai )
last. furtive look around the place
before he locks up and goes out. {.
A man in a Chicago apartment
writes down a phone number on
the vanished woodwork over
closet door. An ambitious
youngSter fresh out of college sells
a big sedan to a well-dreSSed
stranger. and goes home congratu-
latiug himself and trying to figure
how soon he'll have enough money
to set married. A politician
grinS as his visitor shuts the Office
door behind him, and puts a fat
Sheaf Of bonds into his safe. &.
A tired police detective drinks a
glass of beer and says to his friend,
'Y'See. Bill. it's like thiS-the big
Tugs got an in down at the city
hall"
And four very tough-looking men
walk into a Smal-town bank in the
middle west, swing gun muZzleS
menacingly, and walk out presently
with a small fortune in cash and