HEROES: Tooks Takes A Trip

The Senate passed a bill last week which 1) made sense, 2) overjoyed a lot of people (and one pint-sized algebra teacher), 3) cost a mere $20,000,000. This sensational measure, which the House is expected to approve speedily, aroused no controversy at all. The paragon bill simply permitted the U.S. to pay two-thirds of the construction cost of unfinished sections of the Inter-American Highway between Mexico and Panama. The Governments of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and Panama will pay the other third.

Of all the men who have dreamed of a Pan-American highway, happiest dreamer last week was probably Richard Albert Tewkesbury, 34, skinny, frail, 112-lb., 5 ft. 3 in. algebra instructor at Harding High School in Charlotte, N.C. “Tooks,” as he is known to the students who tower over him, is mild, puny, deep-voiced and bashful; he has peanut-sized biceps, and looks wan. Any critical Southern mammy would describe him as “peaked.” He is also lionhearted, stubborn, iron-nerved, grimly determined, and a hero.

The scheme of an 11,350-mile Inter-American Highway goes back to 1924. By last week many sections had been built: some 8,000 miles of it were all-weather roads; 2,150 were usable in dry weather; 1,200 were still bullock-cart trails. Only one section was hopelessly blank: between Panama City and Colombia stretched 186 miles of impassable jungle and swampland, with head-hunting Indians lurking behind each tree. Belief was that the highway would have to break off at Panama; that cars would have to be ferried over 1,000 miles around the coast to La Guaira, Venezuela.

Schoolmaster Tewkesbury got the highway fever in 1937. In 1938 he made his way by train, bus, airplane and on foot over the proposed highway route as far as Panama. There an engineer told him that the jungle section to the south had a reputation worse than any bush country in Africa; that a dozen explorers had tried, but none had gotten through; that no white man had ever made the trip; that this jungle was an insuperable barrier to the highway. To Schoolmaster Tewkesbury the word “insuperable” was an affront to Americanism.

In 1939 Tooks went to Washington, called at the office of the Pan American Highway Confederation, asked to see Director Stephen James. He and Director James had a set-to. At last Director James gave up, wrote this letter of introduction to a Panama friend:

“This will introduce Richard Tewkesbury, a reckless stubborn young American who is ambitious to make the trip overland from the Canal to Colombia. I urge you to dissuade him from this mad adventure. If, however, he will not be discouraged, will you please give him such assistance as you reasonably can? . . .”

“What about money?” asked James. “Oh, I’ve got plenty,” said Tooks, who in two years had saved $1,000 out of his $1,350 salary. Stunned, James gave him $50 for color films anyway. As Tooks left, James bet a staff-member they would never see him alive again.

Tooks went into the jungle, armed with colored post cards and bead necklaces. His Indian guides deserted him. He waded knee-deep through streams thick with evil-headed snakes. Malaria got him, pulled him down to 97 lb. He had to quit, go home.

But next summer he was back. At once he was arrested as a spy by Nazi-conscious Panama police. After eight days in a foul jail, he was freed and darted south into the brush. Three weeks later he emerged from the jungle at the Colombian border. Having done the impossible, he presented his notes and films to the Highway officers, returned to his classroom. As reward he asked nothing, and got it. Last week plans were going ahead for preliminary surveys of the Panama-Colombia link.