L.T. .SUNOCO. rRIDAjf« MARCH B, ^40 GOOD EVENING EVERYBODY: The most startling rumor today is this:- fighting was stopped between tne Red Army and the Finnsl But -- let me emphasize the word "rumor". The story comes from Rome, where a Fascist newspaper declares that it has a report from Stockholm. This rumor from Stockholm via Rome uses these words:- "On the whole Russo-Fin ish front," it says, "all activities of large units have ceased -- including even inoffensive volleys of rifle fire." Maybe it is sensationally true — that fighting has stopped, or perhaps itfs just a natural slow-down of hostilities while the busy negotiations are going on. The latest war bulletin from Helsinki tells of continued Soviet attempts to get across the ice and establish positions on the coast of the Gulf of Finalnd. And there is mention of fighting along the Mannerheim Line . Still later -- just off the wire _ a Stockholm report that direct peace talks begin tomorrow. n.iwijaaMi* President Roosevelt declared today that the United States hai not received any request to mediate in the Finland Warj — not yet, at any rate. He was asked whether he sav« any probabilit of the United States taking a hand in the Finland peace efforts. To this the President replied that if anything like F1MJ.HD - 2 that were in prospect, it would be much better not to say anything about it. Publicity might spoil it. The Roosevelt statement followed reports from abroad that the United Stotes'jfeEgtajj be asked to mediate between Helsinki and Uoscow. As the biggest of neutrals and outside of the European tangle, both sides ask Washington to help in the discussion of a settlement. But this rumor later on cooled off ouite a bit, when suggestions came that the Soviets were opposed to any idea of American mediation. This was said to emanate from the London foreign Office, where it was pointed out that Moscow does not like the American sympathy that is being shown to the Firms. Consequently, American intervention w ould not be acceptable to Stalin. that United States But here1s the ts the latest. A dispatch from Moscow stating Ambassador Lawrence Steinhardt has just had a r;ith Foreign Commissar Molutov - a conference an hour conference v. long. the Finland pe gLce story has not advanced much further since last night. Both Moscow and Helsinki continue to Flr^vHD - 3 confirm the fact that discussions for a settlement waj’e in with progress, the Finns continuing to say that they will not Sweden continues to be the chief motive power, pushing the peace business with^busjr activity - and behind a dense veil of censorship. One story from Stockholm is that Sweden is trying to arrange a deal to guarantee the independence of Finland. If Finland would yield to some extent to Soviet demands, the independence of the little country would oe by-a formal thejsoviets want,\and later/if the\Red armyl were toiattack\again Lr-iii There's a report that the Foreign Affairs Co.umittee of the Stockholm Parliament decided more firmly than ever against allowing foreign troops to 4 v 7 „r i vr - •> ^ - cross S**'1 ish territsry to ail the ?i^s. Tie Swediai ?oreis-Q A::a.r3 -oaaittee is said to aare irated to resist tae passajc of a~“- '.... ^5 ~ c7 ^orce of aras. Tvat of course oeans tioe ?3-2-^i-*--’ey 0 * tfl€ Ales sending soldiers across Sweden to Finland Tae Aviles &JtA said to be iooaiin* at tne Finland peace ooTes *itn sooe arprenension, cased Dn tne idea tnat if tne war were coiled ci: tne ooviets woalc ce in a position to eiTe ncre aid to iaii Geraany - and would a-s^ be free to pusn m sene other cn-e ' ticn, tne Baiaans , fcr ex ancle. ? ■. . r: ott I »■: i- tne gracnio e 7 idence of the busy cip^natie actlTity , is a wnole series oi reports te^^ing ci —--s dipionatic figures rusning nnther and tnitner and yen. _ne runor stated tnat * inland 1 s coaaander, Barcn Ten iannerne-n, nas ^ cne to FliMjA-ND Stocithol.t tnere to confer with the Ace Soveit General,Bluecher. Nothing to it apparently. Tnen v.e heard that Finnish Foreign Minister Tanner is on his way to Berlin. Another story was that Finnish and Soviet emissaries were going to the Esthonian campital, Tallin — to hold a peqce conference there. A 1ormer President of Finland has arrived in Berlin and has just called at the Nazi Foreign Office for a conference. Perhaps the most important item in these hurryings and scurryings of statesmen, is a Berlin dispatch stating that Hitler’s Foreign Minister von Ribbentrop is going to Rome - tomorrow. A Nazi newspaper says that Ribbentrop1s mission is to discuss what the German paper calls - "Burning questions in world politics." What those burning questions may be is not divulged. VlfcLL^S T'VJ“' & striking atiswer was given to the question so often asilfrd - "V'ny (:id President Roosevelt send Sumner Welles on that peace tour in Europe?” In the British House of Commons, Alfred Salter, a Labor member, declared that the Welles mission was Uiidti tbivcn — because President Roosevelt bad. received a secret document from Germany. This document, declared the Labor member, was given to the President by the Swedish Ambassador to the United States. In it were outlined terms on which Hitler was prepared to discuss peace. How authentic was the document? How genuine were the terras? The London M.P. said that the supposed statement of the British government a week or two ago.. "The document", asserted the Labor member, "was similar In all essentials to the one which Lord Tavistok obtained irom the German legation in Dublin." Later, the authenticity of that document was denied in Berlin, and it still remains a source of mystery and doubt. ■J.ieru 1 a n& F uoesinp-wn®i. truth - ITALIAN COAL To^ay, the Italian Ambassador to London had a long conference *ith the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Halifax. And n.aybe^«^«j settled the trouble over the British sain seizure of Italian coal snips. This is suggested by^statement earlier in A the day, that an agreement was likely. Italian diplomatic officials in' London said that there would probably be a compromise based on the sailing time of the Italian colliers that left Holland loaded with coal exported from Germany. The british deadline for stopping contraband coal was midnight of March First. The order applied tOy4 hips that sailed after that time. The Italians claim their ships were ready to sail before the deadline hour, but couidnft do so because of what they call - Xkix "hazzards of the sea.” They were forced to delay sailing. Evidence to this effect is being presented to the British, and the inference is that if the evidence is satisfactory, London will release the Italian coliiers,^^ <^crt^* A compromise seems to be all the more likely, because of the way the british-Italian coal dispute After Mussolini’s first strong protest, whisper. has been played down, the row was hushed to a CETH31T Detroit's big political scandal continues to make headlines. Today Governor Dickinson of Michigan suspended the V.ayne County prosecutor, tunc;in McCrea. The. prosecutor is himself nirtm^Uthe grand jury was hearing testimony concerning & miilion dollar baseball pool Wihich operated in Detroit's. for three years - until Nineteen Thirty-Nine. One of the big shots of the gambling game had paid onocent on every lottery ticket, paid that cent a ticket to the police superintendent^t hen in office. u. tidy sum, considering the amount of tickets they'd sell in a million dollar baseball pool. The big shot explained that he had given the money to the police superintendent because, as he said - "because he was a friend of mine." H oy . muc.hnof a friend appeared in another part of the testimony. The lottery pool operator told how he had been threatened by a man named Abe. It appears that Abe demanded protection money from the gambling gang - or else. The pool manipulator reported thetiireats to the superintendent of CAHDS T.,e latest large story about card sharping at sea has one unusual angle, yesterday, when the Holland-america liner NEW iUSTEKDA.4 docked at New York after a West Indian cruise, the police arrested four men, and charged them with swindling at gambling. They weren’t pikers, according to the story, they won twenty thousand dollars from half a dozen of the passengers - taking large iat sums irom each. The card sharps had all the air of prosperous and distinguished business men, and as the luxury liner sailed under tropical skies,'they inveigled other passengers into games for high stakes - and cleaned up. However, most of the twenty thousand dollars thty won was in the form of I.O.U.s, not likely to be paid after today’s arrests. The four apparent business men of large affairs came to grief, because a certain rich Philadelphian was aboard. He recognized one of them as a gentleman with whom he had played cards in New Orleans. lost thirteen thousand dollars in that A Louisiana game. So he passed along a tip to the authorities. At first - five men were seized as card sharps, and one of them had a hard time explaining, but be tinally CAivDS - 2 convinced the c )ps that he was in the game, not as a slicker, but as a sucker. X turns out that he is an official in the apparently knows more about symphonies and sonatas than kings, queens and aces. He lost A — six thousand dollars at one sitting last Wednesday night, after which iJwxi he talked the sharps into cutting down the sura. They rEJfoxEsi reduced it to three thousand and took I.O.U.s, payable in ten days. All this was sad enough for the music school official - and then to be apprehended as one of the sharpers! Well, symphonies and sonatas are a lot safer than kings, queens and aces. DUCnS a wild game reservation Touay at^jtMiXKBijam^on the hiver Potomac in Virginia - a party of men toon eleven wild ducks out of cages, and turned tnem ^ ....... . : *■© ducks do? The men watched with profound ii: eivst. ■ ‘*ey v.ex’e scientists making an experiment, an experiment sponsored by tne Department of the Interior and Secretary Ickes, in connection with V«ild Life Week*. In the observation of the migration habits of wild fowl, one thing is commonplace - ducks in their periodical travels north and south, always fly the same route. More precisely, students of wild-life nave never ascertained a case‘in which a migrating duck ever took any otner fiyw'ay save the one on which it was born and bred. ways proceed on their ancestral flyway - and no other. And it was for the purpose of testing this observation that today’s experiment was made. Dr. Ira Gabrielson, Chief of the Biological Survey, took eleven Pacific Coast mallard ducks - birds born and bred on tne Pacific Coast flyway. H k He brought them by airplane across the continent, and today those mallards were released - on the Atlantic coast flyway, the route taken by the eastern flocks. pring is approaching in Virginia, and the ducks are on their way DUCKS - 2 to Canada. So the question was, would the eleven birds from the Pacific join with their Atlantic cousins and adopt a new flyway? Here are the results:- When the eleven mallards were turned loose, ten of them acted utterly 'bewildered. They flapped and flew at random, and didn’t seem to know where to go. After a few yards, they settled on the water and swam around this way and that. Later on, they mixed in with their Virginia cousins, swimming about. Tne eleventh.duck behaved in a fashion quite different. This one, a hen, upon being released, cut out in a beeline as fast as she could, flying west, the direction from which she came by airplane - as If heading out for her native Pacific coast. Then, while still in sight, the mallard hen turned for no apparert reason, and headed south - though this is the time of year for n ducks to fly noth. The duck was going in the opposite direction.— Sweir woo tho pri. llmi bhc Each of the ducks bears a leg band with the inscription - "Notify Biological Survey, Washington, D.C." Notification of Hie place where one of these Pacific birds is found will tell the story of whether or not it has taken to the migration route of the Atlantic flyway. RING Here’s a story of a lucky lady who certainly has been blessed by Lady Luck. She’s airs. Anna Briggs of Sacramento, California. Some months ago, Mrs. Briggs was walking along, when two things happened in quick succession. In the sky aoove, an airplane appeared, flying high, a big sky-liner. Then something cracked the lady sharply on the head. A ring bounced off her cranium. She picked it up - a valuable piece of jewelry of gold, gems and a signet. She assumed it had fallen from the tf^plaue, and gave the odd story for publication. As a result, the ring was restored to its owner, a Chicago physician who had been a passenger in the plane. He gave Mrs. Briggs a three hundred and twenty-five dollar reward. That was the first smile which Lady Luck bestowed upon the lucky lady. The story was a natural for the newspapers, jewelry falling out of the sky. It was printed all over the United States, and was picked up by European newspapers, including those of Germany There the account aroused the quick interest of German ofxicisls who were trying to dispose of the estate of one, Andreas Sobbe, 0 RING - 2 Wh° had died ' c‘lld left a large fortune. His only heir was his nieoe, Anna, who was in the United States. The marriage name of this niece was Briggs. That much the German authorities knew. They’d been trying to trace Mrs. Anna Briggs, but they had been Uiiable to locate her. Maybe this was she, the woman in California who had been hit on the head by a ring from tne sky. They started inquiries, and today the news is made public. Yts, the lucky lady gets another smile from Lady Luck. Mrs. Anna Briggs of Sacramento, is the heiress to the fortune in Germany, and quite a bundle of wealth it is. wazi inheritance taxes are mighty heavy, but even with all deducations the estate amounts to a hundred and ninety-eight thousand dollars. A But can the lucky lady get the money out of Germany? Thatfs the moot question. The Nazis have drastic restrictions against letting money out of the country. So to get it the lucky lady will need another smile from Lady Luck. U-CcJin vv^j-w) fceH L zrv^ oJ2CP cT~^- ,