davidaulloa/AmericanStories huggingface dataset:
Evening star., 1952-12-21
Light and Power Co. issued warn

Light and Power Co. issued warn
ings against overlooking house
circuits through the use of electric
heaters.
The power company asked that
all Christmas tree lights be turned
off.
The break occurred near Beverly
Junction. Mo-. south of here. The
Gas Service Co. summoned all its
employees back to work and called
for 100 more from surrounding
cities.
Evening star., 1952-12-21
Milk Price Rise Ordered

RICHMOND. Dec. 20 (R.-The
State Milk Commission today or
dered l cent per quart increase
in the price of grade A milk sold
in the Covington-Cli Forge
area. It ordered the minimum
price raised to 2412 cents and the
maximum to 2512 cents.
Evening star., 1952-12-21

Loken, "a OF Byron, MINI. The
radar observed was I'd 1t. Richard
w. Barber of Anchorage.
Evening star., 1952-07-30
Chesapeake Bay Bridge

The Chesapeake Bay Bridge, dedicated to
service today, is major link in the network
Of highways connecting the Nations Eastern
Seaboard. Whether considered from military
an economic or merely recreational angle the
new span will be an important asset. It makes
possible hitherto infeasible bypassing of both
Baltimore and Washington by motor travellers
between New England, New York and the South.
But it also provides facility for accelerated
traffic between these cities and the Del-Mar-va
Peninsula. Eastern Shore vacation resorts are
bound to boom accordingly. The products of
tri-State farms coincidentally will have easier
access to the metropolitan markets. like
observation applies to sea food from the Atlantic
side.
OF course, further improvements of the same
sort are needed. Eventually other bridges will
be built, connecting the various arms of the
coast wherever need for them is found to exist
A glance at the map suf1ces to suggest long
list of potential developments. The example
which Maryland has set should be followed by
other States With careful planning the cost
can be met from moderate and reasonable tolls
That Is the way it should be.
Evening star., 1952-07-30
SemosioIogy in Platform Writing

Semasiology is that branch of learning which
deals with the significance of words and their
meaning 1t is particularly useful in writing
platform plank. For one of the chief problems
involved in the composition of such document
is to indorse an idea in manner that provides
q loophole for those who do not like the indorse-
ment
Wonderful things can be accomplished
through the magic of applied semasiology. For
example, it was possible to write civil rights
plank for the 1852 Democratic platform that
produced these reactions:
ID Senators Lehman of New York and Hum
phrey of Minnesota two leading civil rights cru
saders said it was stronger civil rights section
than the one in 1948, which caused the walkout
of delegates from four Southern States and
started the Dixecrat movement.
(2) Senator Sparkman of Alabama, the Demo-
cratic Vice Presidential nominee, who has been
opposed to civil rights legislation in the past,
said the 1852 document was one that his col
leagues could "live with" and use in their
campaigns.
60 Governor Stevenson, the presidential
nominee, described the platform as one which
sneither equivocates contradicts nor evades."
Such results are accomplished by the plat
form drafters mainly by the use OF certain words
and the avoidance OF others. In the civil rights
issue. the scare words to be avoided are com
Evening star., 1952-07-30
BY Charles E. TroceweN
Housewife.

humidity and iced tea. and there is no
knowing when the thing will stop.
One can feel reasonably sure here
that within few days or so the hot
spell, as we laughingly call it, will come
to an end. but not always; several years
ago we had q spell of 80 degrees or
better for more than 80 days. and it was
pretty terrific.
One gets so full of iced tea that even
a pitcher could hold no more.
But there is an end of all things, and
at last the weather moderates, and the
terrible thirst slackens. It is O. curious
thing about natural thirst, how there is
Just one place in the throat over which
the sliding liquid exerts relieving
sensation, and the moment it Is down,
it is as if it had never been. There is
a striving, and q striving, and an ending
in nothing, and no one knows what he
is drinking for. That is Washington
summer weather. What difference does
1t make that we seldom have hurricanes
here? (Hurican. by the way, was the
name Of the Mayan wind god)
Today all winds are alike in Washing
ton. They just aren't. Old-timers sigh
for O return of the real Southern
breeze" and wonder what has happened
to 1t. since the days when Teddy Roose-
velt. In his cutaway jacket and top hat
walked up Sixteenth street, waving to the
children as he passed. The wind has
vanished with those days. and win never
come back again. Now all we have II
the wind Of politics.
Evening star., 1952-07-30

change seem unavailing. In fact, many
persons who ought to know firmly pro-
claim there has been no change.
But that the Washington weather
has changed, and not for the better,
is a firm conviction of others, among
which number we like to be counted.
Now, one looks in vain for breeze,
from the South or any other direction.
The leaves on the trees hang lifeless,
except when stirred by an oncoming
thunderstorm, or thunder squall, the
latest preferred term.
Whatever these late afternoon dis
plays are called, they mostly help lower
the temperature somewhat, and, more
important, lower the relative humidity.
Everybody here says 1t is the humidity,
not the temperature. The best tempera-,
ture for warm blooded mammals is 80
degrees. with relative humidity of 81.
This is ideal, but too often we have
30 degrees with humidity reading Of
81 per cent. This is too much. It does
something to one, both mentally and
physically. ~
Every sensible person should be. on
guard against lowered morale and de-
pressing thoughts, churlishness and
plain crossness.
It Is not only little children who
suffer from the heat. The older one gets,
the more one minds 1t. The sweat runs
down. and the temperature up. The
shorter ones hair. the more the gnats
get In it. Everywhere there u heat and
Evening star., 1952-07-30

pulsory Federal FEPC," "anti-poll tax laws" and
"anti-lynch legislation" In their place are sub
stituted such phrases as g.. we favor Federal
legislation effectively to secure :. !. the right to
equal opportunity for employment" "The right
to full and equal participation in the Nations
political life, free from arbitrary restraints and
''The right to security of person."
For the first time in political history party
has come out in its platform against the Senate
flibuster, which has been used in the past to
block civil rights legislation. But nowhere do
we find the troublesome words "f1libuster" or
"cloture" What the platform calls for is action
"to improve congressional procedures so that
majority rule prevails and decisions can be
made after reasonable debate without being
blocked by minority in either house."
This is not to argue that anybody has been
fooled by what the platform really says Skilled
platform writing requires informed equivocation
which leaves room for argument as to what the
platform really means.
Evening star., 1952-07-30
This and That

What has become of Washington's
famous old Southern breeze?"
When we first came to the city, away
back there in the '90s. house hunters
sought a place on an east and west
street.
In this way, particularly in the row
houses, one had the full benefit Of the
Southern breeze.
In those days the wind, evidently,
never blew backward.
1t always came from the South. and
was not just an imitation, but the real
thing.
It was the day of the palm leaf fans.
and fly swatters.
Perhaps people today never saw either
one, but at that time each was famous,
along with the breeze.
The palm leaf fan suited old ladies
and others; they rocked and famed.
and rocked and famed.
The fly swatter, Of which many thou.
sands were given away by The Star
every summer, was wire gadget with
q long wire handle.
There were improvements in the
sWatters over the years.
At first they were all wire. with the
killing part about by inches. or there
about. but improvements came along.
as the seasons rolled, and In time the
swatter part was made Of rubber.
In those days, the wind really moved.
Efforts to find out what made this
III
Evening star., 1952-07-30
No Freedom for Working Man?

After hearing a news broadcast to the
effect that Philip Murray will not
tolerate anything but union shop the
following thoughts have been racing
through my mind:
Please. please, please! Somebody or
some steel company have the backbone,
the good old American courage and
stamina. to stand up against the union
demand for closed shop. I can't think
Of greater violation Of mans free
dom than to force him to join q union
In order to secure job. A man should
be given q job solely on his ability to
do that job. not because he is the puppet
of some all powerful union.
Certainly, man should have the free
dom to belong to q union; he should
have the freedom to make a spectacle Of
himself in a picket line. he should have
the freedom to let union boss do his
thinking for him, and he should have
the freedom to hand over portion Of
his hard-earned wages in union dues, If
that's what he wants. But for goodness
sake let the nom union man, the indi-
vidual, have the freedom to which he too
is entitled.
Housewife.
Evening star., 1952-07-30
Carver OF Birds

He sits ,Uithtn his shop and carues
SGndpfper. gull or tern with our
stretched tDingS,
Whiting GaOGy the ioood;: no sound is
heard
Except the 1Dind outside that softly
sings
Through saCeeping pines that brush q
tDt7tG0io frame. .;e .
Small chips tau on the floor; his head
is bent .
AboDe his ,Dork:: a striped claipmunk,
As any cat. comes in: the fragrant
scent
OF lDood is all around; how skilIfully ~
He fashions n1Gllard, quail or graceful
loon.
The knife noves sWiftly no,0 and we cdn
see
bird begin to take It's shape ana
soon,
Emerging from block Of scood there
stands s
A Utnged voyaoer carved By de,t hands.
Louisa Darcy ..- u
Evening star., 1952-07-30
The Unexciting 'Soucers'

Whether or not there are such things as
flying saucers" (the Air Force prefers the more
precise phrase Unidentified aerial objects"). the
American people seem bound and determined not
to be excited by them At any rate although
some OF the reports about the phenomenon have
been atrociously sensationalized, the general
reaction thus far has been one of monumental
calm, If not complete indifference. BY and large,
1t is wholesome, common-sense reaction-a
mark of maturity-and it deserves three cheers
Actually, the calm is altogether understand
able After all, wholly apart from the somewhat
exhaustng televised proceedings of the recent
political conventions, the American people have
lived through great many alarms and excur-
SionS since that October night in 1888 when
Orson Welles made large numbers of them half
panicky with his radio broadcast of fctional
invasion from Mars. Between then and now
lot has happened to the wells of human excita-
bllity. Wars, multiple crises, revolutionary in
ventions, the atomic race, persistent interna-
tional tensions host of astounding actualities
and potentialities, and the clinging presence of
abnormalities that have grown to seem normal
these have so upended the world that most of us
have become rather Injured to shock and lost
much of our capacity to be surprised or agitated
by anything, including flying saucers."
Maybe these objects really exist. Maybe they
are new Super-SecreC weapon, eltner our own
or another countrys. Maybe-perhaps-
bly-they are interplanetary machines operated
by visitors from outer space. Whatever their
true nature, however, the fact remains that the
American public at large seems quite unmoved
and unimpressed by them. And this indifference
is the stronger because of findings by the Air
Force that only small fraction of the saucer
reports have yet to be explained and that all
the rest have been accounted for in terms of
optical illusions, mild form of hystera, hoaxes.
natural meteorological phenomena, and misn-
depreciation of various conventional things like
weather balloons and radar- "blips" caused
by flying birds. In the circumstances the whole
business fails to lend itself to the sort of excita
ton that the Marian broadcast stirred up in
1885,
This non-excitable frame of mind is good
thing for Americans to have. Except to the
extent that it seems to be creating difficulties for
civil defense authorities in recruiting volunteer
observers for Operation Skywatch," it is a frame
of mind well suited to these days of explosive
world tension-a kind of sensible middle ground
mood between panic-breeding filters and the
folly Of complacency. It is a mood worth culti-
waiting, for we are living in time that calls for
steady nerves and level heads regarding matters
far more substantial than the elusive "saucers."
Evening star., 1952-07-30
Rebuild Our Archaic Electoral Co||eqe?

this manner would have cost them the
election but still would have left Presi-
dent Truman with an edge of over 2
million popular votes. The complete
popular vote for the President was a.
104.836. Gov. Dewey received 21 ,969, 500.
The $4,000 odd additional votes that
were necessary for Republican victory
through the electoral voting procedure
represent approximately one-tenth of
per cent Of all voters who exercised
their franchise in 194S. Such relatively
small number could be affected by
weather, illness. disinterest or q host of
other reasons that keep voters from
the polls.
Another way to consider the returns
is to ignore the possibility of mastering
additional votes and instead split the
Democratic majority in each of the three
States. OF the 7,107 voters who favored
the Democrats in Ohio it would have
been only necessary to WOO and induce
1854 to change their opinion in order
to secure the State for Gov. Dewey. Ap-
plying this same principle to all three
States indicates that less than 10000
voters decided the final outcome.
If space permitted, there are other
possibilities that could be explored with
the election figures of 1948 but even at
this point it is unmistakably clear that
the electoral college has become
menace to the American form of democ-
racy. The figures given for these three
States demonstrate the peculiar and
tragic turn that an election in the
United States could take. In modern
politics, appeals are made to racial
groups, religious groups. veterans, farm
ers, labor unions and other factions
that have primary interests that may
not be consistent with the general good.
Under the electoral college system the
influence of small, organized groups
can become tremendous and the weight
of ones vote is no longer equal to that
Of his neighbor.
It is not difficult to visualize the con-
fusion and dismay that would run ram
pant in countries outside the Iron Cur
tain If we should elect a President who
was clearly not the choice of the ma
jority. Therefore, as an obligation of
our world leadership in addition to fair
ness to our own citizens. the archaic
structure Of our electoral college should
be destroyed or rebuilt on truly repre-
sentative lines.
William c. Sohr
Evening star., 1952-07-30
ObsoIescence and the B-36

There is nothing surprising about the Air
Force announcement that no more orders are
being placed for the production of B-36 bombers.
Now that these craft have been surpassed by
new models in the making, the last of them
as already contracted for-will be delivered in
1854. Meanwhile, as work goes forward on their
all-jet replacements, they will continue to act
as one of the great deterrents to the kind of
aggression that could precipitate third world
war;
This Is an example of the process of obso-
lescence in field of rapid scientific change It
does not mean, however, that these giant inter-
continental bombers-the worlds biggest and
most far-ranging-have lost their usefulness. On
the contrary, although they will be completely
outmoded in due course, they stu are the main
stay of the strategic arm of our Air Force and
they will have prime significance in that sense
for some time to come. In short, even though
they will be museum pieces eventually, it is far
too early to write them off as key instruments
safeguarding the security of the United States.
Long a target of criticism from many quar-
ters-criticism that reached peak three years
ago, when the Navy attacked 1t as slow-moving
mammoth highly vulnerable to jet dghters-the
B-36 actually has rendered excellent service. It
has not been in combat, nor has 1t been seen
much in public. But the mere fact that it exists
in formidable numbers, and in state of readi-
ness for instant action, undoubtedly has exer-
cised an important restraining influence on the
men of the Kremlin. For this plane, with its
range of 10000 miles, its six conventional engines
and four jet pods and its extraordinary bomb
carrying capacity, has been a constant reminder
of Americas ability in the atomic age to strike
back swiftly and over vast distances should
Soviet Russia unleash world war-a retaliatory
factor that certainly has played large part
in preserving mankind's uneasy peace during
the past four or five years.
The planes that are to replace the B-36 will
be entirely jet-propelled, much faster and prob
ably equipped to attain even higher attitudes
On some tomorrow, moreover. these newer craft
in turn, by fabulous atomic driven bombers.
AS far as the Air Force is concerned, there
is no end in sight to this process. There will
be obsolescence as long as there are advances
in inventiveneSs and design. and the fact is-aS
Defense Secretary Lovett has declared-that we
are in veritable ferment of such advances.
But this process of change, though con-
tinuous, is gradual and relatively slow-not
abrupt enough to cause an overnight revolution
in which things like the B-36 become suddenly
worthless. Far from being worthless, this rather
vital American security asset for considerable
period ahead In relation to the Soviet Union,
which has nothing like It, 1t still serves to pro-
tect not only our own country but the rest Of
the free world. Without It, the dangers Of our
time would be greater than they are. We have
invested wisely in 1t.
Evening star., 1952-07-30
Growing Water CONSUMPTION

6uoget eStmateS Tor improvement of the
Districts water supply system have been released
at an appropriate time. They serve to direct
public attention to the growing Importance of
Keeping Washington adequately supplied with
water in critical period. This is critical era
for the water system because constantly increas-
Ing consumption is outpacing efforts to expand
and modernize the intake and distribution facil-
tiles
The recent series of breaks in several major
mains has given evidence of the wisdom of the
water officials in pressing long-range program
OF capital improvements, with the aid of loans.
number OF new mains under construction
or are planned to augment the old distribution
system-a system which, in places, is nearly
century old. More important still are the addi-
tional facilities being built or which have been
planned in connection with the collection and
filtration of water
The construction program has been spurred
on in recent years by the tremendous increases
IN water usage recorded since the advent of
commercial air-condtioning Although WASH
ington's present filtration plants Dalecarlia and
Mcmillan, were designed to provide only 1876 mil
lion gallons day, the consumption in summer
rises to more than 200 million gallons day on
the average Additions to the Dalecarlia plant
Will boost the capacity to more than 230 million
gallons But as air-conditioning grows in popu-
larity, the load put on the water system becomes
ever greater It requires about so million gallons
of water day just to keep buildings cool The
air-cooling drain is heaviest in such hot weather
as we have been having lately, yet this is the
very time that conservation is advisable pro-
1onged drought could have alarming effects on
the water supply
There is need for additional sources of raw
water The old conduits from Great Falls to
Dalecarlia are carrying about all the load they
can handle. That is why the aqueduct engineers
are asking for funds with which to provide a
new, close-in source of supply above Chain
Bridge. feeder dam will be built near Little
Falls, with pumping station and tunnel to
convey raw water to Dalecarla. Another large
project is new reservoir at Fort Reno, urgently
needed to provide adequate capacity for the
high-level distribution system.
When this construction program is COM
pleted, the city relax in reasonable assurance
of a reserve supply of water for some years to
come During the transition period, however one
can only hope that there will be no combination
of scarce supply, increased consumption and
plant breakdowns to cause a serious shortage
this summer.
Evening star., 1952-07-30
Dogs Life

1t is an excellent thing to make rabies
shots available to dogs, as part Of the
protection supposedly given when IL
censes are obtained by dog owners. The
way the free administration of shots is
planned, however. is tribute to the un-
realistic quality Of the official mind.
When this system was first worked
out, the shots were available during
July-the hottest month of the year.
Veterinarians we're at the appointed
places, on certain days of each week, up
until p. m. Now the period has been
cut to two weeks. the last two of July
and the hottest weeks of the hottest
month. The time for getting the shots
is from 2 to pm. the hottest part
of the day in the hottest weeks of the
hottest month.
So far as the dogs 60, this. and not
in a slangy sense, Is murder. It means
taking them from spots as cool as they
can find at home, in q Car, to an open
place where the sun beats down. There
Is no water: they wait with other dogs
and go through a bewildering new ex-
Evening star., 1952-07-30
Our Shrinking Dollar

President Truman, in filing the mid
year report of his Council of Economic
Advisors with Congress, stated that "the
Nations defense and foreign aid effort
is not threatening less depicting
or impairing- strength of our do
mestic economy, despite many sincere
beliefs to the contrary"
The President charges his critics with
distortion of facts" and, while he made
this the theme of his report, he evaded
the real issues and the basis of the
charges that have been repeatedly made
relative to the dangers to our domestic
economy. ....,-
President Truman is challenged to re-
flute the charge that the housekeeping
and deficit financing methods of the
New Deal and Fair Deal in the past 20
years. during which period our Ma
ton has been burdened with $270-bil-
lion debt, Is a rather serious threat to
our domestic economy. Is it not true
that our Government Is now borrowing
money to pay the interest on the debt?
Does not this alone indicate that our
domestic economy is impaired? Or is
this distortion Of facts?
With the American dollar worth only
40 cents in purchasing power today, the
$340-billion Nations business that the
President predicts is in reality only $136
billion.
Let me refer Mr.. Truman to a quota
ton from Thomas Jefferson's works, in
which he states: II place economy
among the first and most important
virtues, and public debt as the greatest
of dangers to be feared. To preserve our
independence, we must not let our rulers
load us with perpetual debt-we must
make our choice between economy and
liberty, or profusion and servitude."
Federal Annuitant.