Coulee City dispatch. [volume] (Coulee City, Wash.) 19??-19??, 1942-08-27
WHO'S
NEWS
THIS
WEEK
By LEMUEL F. PARTON


idea to turn Glenn L. Martin
loose on this cargo plane job and let
him see what he can do. We once
Clumsy Looking t fam ll1il' p0i a
Kite Opened Eyes doubtful en-
OF Public in 1912 w sG p wasn' +
nearly so good a short-end bet as
making cargo planes in hurry.
1t was at Avalon Bay, Los Ange-
les, in 1912, when aviation was fasci-
mating outdoor vaudeville, with it's
hall mark of world destiny still hid
den. Bleriot, the French flier, had
out-stunted our lads by flight over
the English channel.
On this golden day in 1912
there appeared at the waters
edge clumsy looking kite, pre-
cariOusly poised on single
wooden pontoon. Word got
around that this Martin, who
ever he might be, was actually
going to fly this thing over to
Catalina island, 20 miles away.
Young Martin had been ramming
around with transforming troops,
with homemade planes, known to
fiers as daring innovator, but
with the public in general not quite
sure of even his first name. Lin
coin Beachey, Art Smith, ST Christof-
ferson, Bob Fowler and others had
found in the California skies a clear
field of operations and Martin was
one among many there, having a
good time in what seemed then a
sport, rather than a business. At
any rate, bankers of the day so re-
garded it.
He had built his Catalina Clipper
in an abandoned church, with such
material as he might come by, with
out benefit of bankers. We recall
that it had quaint, homespun look.
1t seemed that it might do almost
anything except fly. Getting ready
for the take-off, young Martin wasn't
paying any attention to the skeptical
crowd. He frightened up some bolts,
put an inflated rubber tube around
his neck, and strapped compass
around his leg. Then, to state it
precisely, he flew to Catalina.
Just in passing, when he reached
the financial, as apart from the tech
nical, stage of his operations, he
wore most elegantly tailored black
flying suits, and no more messing
around in dungarees. His flying
mates called him dude Martini"
but this get-up achieved an effect
of safe and sane conservatism and
it was not surprising that he got
backing from the bankers.
THE last time we saw Waldo
L Frank was in the summer of
1899, on our terrace in the country.
1t was month or two before the
S. America Chief war ed and s'a Mr
Interest of This Frank was
Prolific Writer deeply trou-
dead-end conversation, every way
we turned. War was coming-of
that Mr. Frank felt sure. We would
be pulled in, and we wouldn't be
ready, either with arms or under
standing.
The mood of the conversation is
more clearly recalled than just what
Mr.. Frank said. However, we do
remember that he was sad because
continental America had not shaken
loose from dying Mediterranean
civilization and built a proud and
safe and cohesive civilization of it's
own.
A short, stocky man, with loose
tweed suit and neat black NOUS
tache, he moved down a trail in
the dusk to dark cave of inter-
locking forest trees. The dark trail
led to Buenos Aires where he lies
today, casualty of war of ideas
which he has been Waging for more
than 20 years.
Six Fascist thugs beat him
with the butt of revolver, after
the Axis inclined Argentinian
government had found him per-
soma non grata.
His book, "Our America" pub
lished in 1919, was both an exalted
declaration of faith and disquiet-
ing appraisal of our complacent and
slovenly failure to realize what the
gods had bestowed on us, and to
measure up to this endowment. In
this and many later books and mag
azine articles, he preached a some
what mystic philosophy of "The
Whole" with such earnest faith and
Flooding persistence that it is not
surprising that he carried his chal-
lenge to the dangerous political front
of Argentina.
During the decades in which he
wrote nearly 40 books-he is one of
the most prolific of American writ
ers-Mr. Frank was profoundly in
terested in South America, in his
conviction that North and South
were interdependent, in their cul-
tural and economic destiny. When
he first was in Argentina in 1929,
the president provided him an air
plane for his tour of the country. It
was in that year that he visited
the principal cities of South Amer