Cruiser Gone, County Back To Normalcy

This community got back to normal late today. Bosses reported they were getting a little more work out of their employes than they had been getting for the past several days, the editorial staff of The Vidette-Messenger looked forward to a peaceful night's rest and the office girls had time to powder their noses for the first time in several days. The reason for all this return to serenity? That exclusive snow cruiser which Admiral Richard E. Byrd plans to use in the antarctic finally got through the county. From morning until night every day since last Saturday-- Sunday excepted--the two telephones in the office of The Vidette- Messenger have been ringing almost constantly. "Where's the snow cruiser?" "What time is that big snow plow or whatever-it-is going through?" (One woman called up and asked if the managing editor could get Admiral Byrd's autograph for her when he went past in his house boat). Such questions as these, bombarding the newspaper for three days, finally led to a desperate decision. If the mountain wouldn't come to Mahomet, then it looked as though Mahomet would have to do a little traveling. So a reporter was dispatched to find the snow cruiser. He did. The monster had become bogged down in the sand near Grant street, about two miles west of Broadway, in Gary. At about 10:45 the juggernaut was dragged back onto State Road 6 and the procession began its torturous trek eastward. Thousands of curious folk--many of them from Valparaiso-- lined the roads at vantage points along the way. Many had been waiting hours for a sight of the big red vehicle, most impressive features of which are the mammoth, smooth-tread balloon tires. Finally, five days late, down Road 6 it crawled--at turtle speed-- its engines making a queer humming noise. If it takes as long to go from Gary to Boston as it did to get from Chicago to Gary, Admiral Byrd can celebrate Christmas at home. The folks around Gary, who witnessed the snow cruiser's ignominious experience in the sand, weren't much impressed by the machine's practicability. "I'd rather have a caterpillar tractor," said a young man disgustedly. "That thing won't go far in the snow if it can't navigate sand." But newsreel men--three of them perched on top of autos--were having a field day as they cruised ahead of the formidable-looking craft, grinding away with their cameras as a state police guard shooed away the curious and broke a path through the crowds. So unless a wheel came off somewhere between Hobart and Westville--or unless one of a hundred other little gadgets used to propel the cruiser down the highway went on the fritz--the lumbering behemoth is by this time well out of Porter county. We don't wish Admiral Byrd any bad luck on his trip to the south polar regions but we do hope that if and when he returns to the U. S. he doesn't send that thing back through Porter county. It's too hard on the nerves.