Evening star., 1941-07-08

LTl6 IlTSt IQl1lR
Henry McLemore. shown me was
not photographer tearing his hair
over Hitler changing boundary lines
faster than he could get boundary
lines down on paper, but file OF
humor poking fun at the map busi-
ness.
The veins on an executives neck
stood out like arterial highway
markings on a road map as he un-
folded scrapbook and said, Take
look at this"
There was a cartoon showing
salesman offering a customer a per-
fectly blank globe and saying: You
can draw in your own world"
In another a junk wagon was
shown piled high with globes, with
a man on the street remarking:
Its tough on the mapmakers.
There goes the second load today"
4
In still another a semi-delirious
photographer (mapmaker to me, up
until few hours ago. was pictured
at his drawing board above a cap
ton that read: ''I think old Snod-
grass is beginning TO crack up. Hs
has been trying to complete China
for our new world map"
Then there was one Of sales
man explaining TO customer that
his company could only guarantee
the Wesern Hemisphere, and one
in which another salesman. in de-
scribing a globe TO a prospective
buyer, said that he could only guar
antee that the globe was an oblate
spheroid.
Funny perhaps" the executive
said, but harmful. Things like
that have so influenced the buying
public that it has come TO expect
maps TO change as quickly as dress
styles. You can't DO that with maps
and we wouldn't If we could, be-
cause 1t isn't proper"
AS the Rand McNally man ex-
planned why it wouldn't be proper.
great sense of security swept over
me. The more he talked the more 7
felt that there were bigger forces
in the world than Hitler and that
even if Churchill and Roosevelt and
! Stain couldn't lick him. there vas
the chance that a bewhiskered old
cuss with knockknees and a scythe
might turn the trick.
| &k
That's right. I mean old Father
Time, the tough cookie 10 whom
years are but a heart beat and who
holds decisions over such main bout
sluggers as Alexander, Napoleon
and Wilhelm.
who are we, a bunch Of map
makers, 10 set up ourselves as UNI
pires or prophets?" the Rand Nc
Nally man asked. For US to come
out with new maps accepting the
Hitler triumphs as final would be
the same as a sportswriter sending
out the fifth inning baseball score
as the final one What right have
we to put an okay on a boundary
line that free men are still contest
ing? The war is still going on, and
it is being fought by men who don't
want Hitler to become the worlds
official mapmaker. Even if We had
the facilities to draw in the changes
he makes day by day. we wouldn't
do 1t. Not so long as there was one
man with a rife contesting that
line finality."
Listening to the Rand McNally
man talk Che was Howard Spencer,
commercial sales manager, in case
you care for names learned that
mapmakers have great philoso-
ply. They know that shading a
country with yellow chats Ger
many's color scheme in the Rand
McNally map) doesn't necessarily
make that country Germany's.
"Just because Hitler had seized
Poland, Denmark, Belgium and
many other countries" he said.
doesn't mean that mapmakers can
go ahead and smugly hand them
over to Germany. People aren't
like cement; you can't just run
them through a mixer and have
them come out ready to be set in
any scheme the mixer has for them.
We must wait until it is all over,
until the last shot is fired, until the
last name is on the treaties, before
we put down in black and white the
arrangement of the world"
Rand McNally takes the long view
Their viewpoint is that you don't
make a boundary line out of q
moose.
Not a permanent one. anyway.
They figure that blood is not only
thicker than water, but thicker than
ink as well and that there is not
much use in bounding a country in
an atlas before it is bound In its
soul.
If it's any discomfort to Hitler I
would like to have him know that
before he can make any of his VIC
tories in Europe stick he has 10 HEX
Rand McNally.
distributed by McNaught Syndicate, Inc.)
Prince C1eoroes Added