The midland journal., 1944-01-14

NEW YORK.-For this new year
of pell-mell war traffic the In
terstate Commerce commission has
elected to its Craftsmanship William
Took Railroadins SON, ;; passst, Who
By Mail as Call knows the
Boy; Heads ice n 4ransno,1a a ! Q ms =
tion system and its problems in war
or peace from the ground up. He
began studying them nearly half a
century ago as call boy.
Patterson became an ICC
member in 1889, but he has been
ON its payroll for 30 years. He
was hired as an inspector Of ap-
pliances in 1914 when there was
considerable stir about safety.
The job expanded until q score
Of years later 1t turned into the
assistant directorship of the
commissions bureau Of safety.
Next Patterson went onto the
mechanical advisory committee
Of the federal coordinator of
transportation. Finally member
ship on the commission itself
came from President Roosevelt.
Patterson made his first connec-
tion with railroad in Neenah, Wis.
He was born there, where the Fox
Indians used to hunt and do a lot of
fighting, only seven years after the
town was founded. A little while as
a call boy made him want better
job. Correspondence courses were
new then, and well recommended
for kids who couldn't get other
schooling, so he studied air brake
and train operation by mail. That
started him up the railroad ladder
and finally he became conductor.
At the peak Of his rise he married,
fathered a son, a daughter. Later
he switched to the ICC. He is So
now.
TT ITLER'S legions fall back and
- the little kings whose little
countries lie just beyond the smoke
Of battle turn more boldly toward
Gen. Royce Talks mics. Mai.
OF Oil, Transport Gen. Ralph
Rights, Weather royce A,,;na ana q
military commission sit down to 10
sheep served on heaped up rice by
shrewd warwise Ibn Saud, master
of the best of Arabia. The talk,
after chins are wiped, is of oil and
transport privileges. But once, at
least, the general certainly asked
about the weather. An airplane pi-
lot who has flown his own ships
more than a million miles, he is
always a little worried about wind
and clouds and rain.
Royce is American command
er in the Middle East, big, wide
jawed, with his military cap usu-
ally cooked at Beattie angle.
He gets on with kings. A while
back Egypt's Farouk piloted
him ON an aerial sightseeing
trip, though Royce could have
pil0ted FarOuk even more skill
fully. He was one Of the first
30 army officers to qualify as
fliers and in the last war led
squadron Of fighting planes in
France.
In this war he began by fighting
the Japs in the Philippines and won
a DISC and the DFC there to add to
the Croix de Guerre he earned a
quarter of a century ago. Con-
vinced that Germany can be beaten
from the air, he has commanded
in the Middle East since Septem-
ber. Like most Of the army's top
men he went to West Point.
A THIN, tireless Englishman
helps make the fiiers of the
Eighth air force safer than Milton's
"helmed cherubims seen
OF a Long Line of ranks with
Tailors, This Son wings dis
Makes Steel Vests = Ra : q y coyar. q,
more than the Americans heads
with steel. They fly cap-a-pie. Well,
nearly! If they aren't armed from
head to foot they wear, besides a
helmet, an armored vest. And it
turned blows like Lancelot's shield.
This war makes less and less
sense. 1t uses every invention of
history's most mechanical age, but
the best protection for its cham
pions is copied from the days Of old
when knights were bold.