The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1936-05-26

from
Indiana
ERNIE PYLE

EDITORS N0TE-This rowing reporter
for The Times goes where he pIesses.
when he pIeases. in search Of odd
stories about this and that.
DALLAS, May Is. - Among sew
- eral thousand other things. the
Texas Centennial Exposition at Dali
las will have an oil well. A real,
honest goodness oil well, right on
the grounds. They don't expect to
hit oil.
A conceSsionaire has taken a
regular lease, is setting up drilling
rig, and the day the Centennial
opens he'll start drilling. 1t costs a
lot to drill an oil well. But the peo-
pie will pay for it, by forking over a
dime apiece to see how drilling is
done. And if the guy should by
some odd chance hit oil, oh boy
On June IL, six days after the
opening, $4,000 children will sing in
the big Cotton Bowl" stadium on
the Centennial grounds. They'll be
from every county in the state.
They've been practicing for months
in their home schools practicing
the same songs. in the same way.
So when they all get together and
the man counts lone, two, three,
CO." they'll all burst out into the
biggest song ever heard in Texas.
TT will take more than 5000 buses
l. to bring them to Dallas. All ex-
penSeS are paid. The Centennial
people, of course, never once thought
about the thousands of papas and
mamas who will come to Dallas that
day and pay their way inside.
June 19 is Negro Day. There1l be
10000 Negro children singing to-
gether that day. They expect more
than 100000 Negroes at the Centen-
NAL June 10.
The man in charge of the Centen-
malls historical section has had a
lot of fun.
He has dug out relics and docu-
ments that historians didn't know
existed in Texas. He has old surgical
instruments of 1843, and he says
some of those hacksaws and cleavers
really make your skin creep.
He has an invitation to- the San
Jacinto ball in 1913, printed on satin.
All these valuable old relics gath
cred up from all over Texas are
covered by blanket insurance.
They've had no trouble at all getting
the loan of authentic historical
pieces. But they've been flooded
with phoneys.
There will be 5000 objects in the
historical section, most of them
relics.
T ASKED the Centennial peeple
Il how they were going to depict
Texas disgraceful treatment of the
Indians. They replied, 1.-THE less
said about that the better" And
anyway, they said, it wasn't any
worse than what the rest of the
country did.
So there won't be any Indian ex-
hibits, except one put on by the
State of New Mexico.
It is about the same way with
Mexican stuff, too. There will be,
it is true, exhibits of Merican crafts
men-weavers, silver workers, pot
terry molders- actually brought up
from the interior of Mexico.
But there won't be any official
exhibits by the Mexican government.
Which seems shame. For al
though Mexico's part in Texas his
tory (the role of the defeated) is
unpleasant to Mexicans, still a good
big part of Texas is today Mexican,
and they're mostly good, American
lied, English-speaking people.
.VOUVE probably seen a lot OF
i pictures in the papers of
'Rangerettes," dolIed up in riding
pants and somberos. There's a
funny story about these girls.
1t seems Dallas is full of daz-
cling beauties who volunteer as
"rangerettes. They couldn't use
all of them as models so the book
keeping department said, Send
them down here. and We'll give
them regular jobs"
So, they sent them down, and out
of the first IL not single one
would take job. They'd rather
pose for nothing than work for
wages.
If you drive into Dallas for the
when you cross the
county line you'll see neat booth
with a sign saying something like
Official Free Housing Information.
This is just part of the Centennial
service. You stop and ask the boys
where you're going to find a room.
They look through the files and
spot flop for you.
They've been working on this
thing for months. They have
$4,000 rooms listed They've looked
at every one of them, too.
No charge for this little service,
folks. It's just part of the Centen-