w? SUICIDE U. J _ $.e>f) f£<f c of SsiE=tf£±gisfc^=± The of theCaptain of tiB GRAF SPEE eap^*. the climac ,____ <73 astounding dramaA^^y. uf ajJ^S^ dramas 'V , ( A * then the,liner ( g dR pocket battlesh: ^wiiw-‘ ----- ..iiv.w.c survivors reached New York today^ and finally. Captain Hans Langsdorf, coinicanding officer in the most spectacular naval battle of this war* uia^miTt utt gffiBig ,FrMgl 1 1,w 'Tyw Almost as spectacular is the story that comes to light as an aftermath of Langsdorf's aalrL¥g hari-kari, ^rdleft behind Q three letters, one for his ftife, one for his parents, and one for the Nazi Ambassador at Buncos Aires, End it is that third letter which seems to reveal a strange tale. For what the Ambassador made pUDlic about it, indicates that it was true tnat (Lmgsdorf destroyed the GRAF SPEE only under orders from Hitler at Berlin,^) And it appears j tha^those orders cut him, to the quick. Apparently he had signified his xxjex intentions of killing himself then and there.But further orders from Berlin led him to postpohe the destruction of himself until he had accomplished his task end brought ail the men under him to safety on land. The announcement from the German Embassy at Buenos Aires SOICIDE - g talks about Langsdorf's suicide almost as though it were one of the greatest naval victories of all time, for the statement reads:- I QUOTE "The Commander of the glorious crusier GRAF SPEE sacrificed his life for the Fatherland by taking his life voluntarily .*1 ihat*s the way the Nazis look upon that suicide - an act of naval heroism to be celebrated for the glory of the cause. Before he shot himself, Langsdorf asked the permission of the Argentinian authorities to address his men, the officers and crew of the scuttled GRAF EPEE. As he put it, 11 a heart to heart talk .11 Therequest was granted, and the men were mustered in the hotel grounds. Everybody left the grounds except the crew of the SPEE and officials of the Argentine Republic. The sailors formed a hollow square around their Captain, and kept a dead silence as he spoke to them in tones of profound emotion, and gave them his last command. Just what he said to them, we don't know. So far it has been kept secret. Butevidently it did not indicate that he intended to kill himself. For when the news of the suicide reached the crew at first they feftfsed to believe it. Some of them repudiated the news and shouted: "That’s a lie!" And others SUICIDE - 5 said:- ,,Do you think we would be laughing arid joking if our Captain were dead?” At home. In Berlin, this final dramatic act of Captain Langsdorf was reported without comment BRITAIN British newspapers today were busy drawing conclusions from the sinking of the GRAF SPEE? AND also from scuttling of the German liner COLUMBUS. The principal conclusion seems to be that & m the neutrality plans of the American republics, for a neutral zone, has gone up the flute. Just as many of us have been saying. Spokesmen for British officialdom pointed out today that the Allies could not accept the Declaration of Panama unelss Germany alsoaeeepted It. And it has been highly doubtful all along that Germany woudl accept any three hundred mile neutral zone. Newspapermen asked White House Secretary Early, what about the British claim that the neutrality zone is a flop? Early referred the newspaper men to the speech made by Under­ secretary Welles last night, in which he prophesied that the twenty- one American republics would take action to compel respect for the Declaration of Panama, At the White House today, the Secretary, Early, said that the scuttling of the COLUMBUS had not violated the neutrality of the safety zone. The Navy Department and the State Department are convinced that the Germans3^ the COLUMBUS because of that British destoyer which had overtaken here. COLUMBUS [ l-dow. tTGCicLcni* up~-tte^r-fe±g,~pTn!ES±e s-—14-t-s-t-ae. qunnti^n r^^tng tndny-i \What’s the meaning of ^ "JL- L*^£-%* this whole COLUMBUS business anyway? W'hy was ahe ever taken out Z' of Vera Cruz, with British men-o-war known to be patrolling the North and South Atlantic and the .Caribbean, on the lookout for German vessels of any kind? yThere^don jp seem to have been any rational purpose in taking her to sea except a somewhat forlorn / hope of repeating the exploit of the BREMEN^ \ ■ ■■■■ ■ I I : COLU-^OS *— Uncie Baia s ship TUSCALOOSA st,earned into New York Bay today The entire crew of the COLUMBUS^ bar two, were landed, first at Bedloe1s Island, then taken to the immigration station at Ellis Island, and the Captain of the TUSCALOOSA reported to the Navy tii&t all the survivors of the COLUMBUS were in good spirits. Only "two firemen are listed as missing, ‘^tyf Observers couldn’ t help seeing fcx with their—own eyeo- that the rescued German sailors were indeed in good spirits, laughing, chatting and singing. A few of—thew had overcoats, but most only what they stood up in, for the last of them A ^ a were picked off the blazing German Luxury- liner not long before she.plunge^=fag±uw U4i wurfaufr* A They were allowed to land on Uncle Sam* s territory A as distressed seamen. As such they can remain at mllis Island sixty days. But the German, Government pay the bill. A * Tlll thfT —• after-aaatinu^d dis^ufiaions^s^ng-t^p flig nt ■ - gov e-wMaant-^of.£ icials —fffc— i ADD COLU-^ibUS i__ _ // N fferiAL Later tiros the Commander of the COLUMBUS **-**-*& sai^Oie^ha^ ordered the scuttling of his ship^after a British destroyer hs^ fired two s hots across his bow.^The minute he gave the signal, members of the crew rushed up and down tbe companionways, opening floodcocks, starting fires here, there and everywhere. Thereupon he ordered all hands abandon ship. A A As soon as the life boats were clear, tne Captain of the COLUMBUS slid down a rope himself, off the bridge, into the last lifeboat. He KnpdonEBEKBgKfcldtMgaaijaDdEjodfcK made public something A A else that was not generally known. When the COLUMBUS left Vera Cruz at noon of the Fourteenth, she was escorted by destroyers of the American Navy. And the German captain added that there were constantly one or two American warships in sight and tnat tne TUSCALOOSA had taken up the escort on the day before the scuttling. Still not a word as to his reason for leaving Vera Cruz, ^ tLjl ^ k FIi.LMD On iifteen miles of Finnish soil ^the Russian Reds have been launching the most ferocious attack of the whole campaign* Column after column of Red infantry, supported by tanks and heavy artillery tire, hurled themselves on the Finns entrenched in the Karelian woods, and up and down the hills. But the Finns were ready for them with a triple line of defense, and the communique A" from Helsinki reports that the Bolshevik invadersmowed down numbers,and? StalinTs men lost many of their tanks, j 4 A S' In addition to their well prepared and desperate defenses, the Finns had a new ally today. The Russians found themselves facing a new general, "General Winter.” 'af general who throughout the past centuries served the Russians themselves in good stead A more tnan once. I believe it was one of the Czars who declared that his most reliable officer was 3tS*ta "General February.” in their^report to the Allied Supreme War Council at Paris, the Finns announced that they could probably hold out provided the usual snows fell around Christmas time. The snows are on time, even a bit ahead of schedule, maybe in time to save the Finnish deienders, for this year at any rate. I FI j LA in D 2 Better luck than the Poles had against the Germans when they expected the autumn rains to bog down Hitler’s invasion. Arctic Finland had planned to drive south along the highway that runs parallel to the Norwegian border, drive south to Railhead and thus conquer the Finnish communication of the Gulf of Bothnia. But today the Red invaders were unable to advance in the teeth of the bt4»d±-ns' blizzard^w^ttr snowdrifts making progress impossible In northern Finland, the Russian* attackIwas The Reds in worse i &e- oe» A for any mechanized units. 1 SWEDEN A brief item from China, by way of London, cuiiUulirj,l,lj. The German clients of the German Bank in Peiping have received a word of advice. That advice is to liquidate all their holdings of Swedish currency as poon as possible. opens the way to much conjecture. Observers are wondering whether it means that the Nazis have information that Stalin intends to overrun Sweden shortly just as hefs trying to gobble up Finland, Illllllllllllll III HOOVER Ex-President Herbert Hoover is to be the principal speaker r\cJMy at a tonight^ rStaX=tx the ’’Let Us Help Finland” rally at Madison Square Garden* Neuu YuxdC^ Fifteen minutes of Mr. Hoover’s speech, from nine forty-five to ten P.M., Eastern Standard Time, will be broadcast over the Blue Network of the N.B.C. 9tm Other speakers at that mass meeting will be Mayor LaGuardia of New York, Senators Bgirfc Wheeler of Montana, and -ipCjL ^7 f? S&b Wragner of New York, tfa*|Finnish Minister, Dorothy Thompson, dx+J) m uMmWrTTT^ Vice-President of the American Federation of A Labor. VETERAN Only two men who started in the ranks of* the American Navy ever became Admirals. One of them was John Paul Jones. The other was a man who just died. Rear Admiral Reginald Nicholson. And His position was unique on the r etired list of Uncle* Sam's Navy. ^He was the last surviving naval veteran of the Civil War. Admiral Nicholson began his service for Uncle Sam when he was only eleven years old, as cleark for the captain of the U.S.S. STATE OF GEORGIA, in the Civil War. Rear Admiral Nicholson served through no fewer than three wars. In the Spanish American War he was a Lieutenant Commander, chief nagigation officer of the Battleship OREGON, in charge of nagivation on that famous full-speed cruise around Cape Horn. Then he became Rear Admiral in Nineteen Nine when he was Chief of the Bureau of Navigation. When Uncle Sam got into the World War in Nineteen Seventeen, Admiral Nicholson was recalled for actice service. ! J bo here's a salute to the last naval veteran of the Civil War, a seasoned, gallant and distinguished officer. I mpgnmmmmmmmmmmm. . WEATHER i ;'X | I;- And the weather man reports winter overe here. A storm from the Missouri Valley, moving northeast. Parts of Wisconsin, Minnesota and Michigan are already buried under six inches of snow I I cats Five years ago a lady in Milwaukee left a fortune forty-one thousand dollars*and eighteen cats. '~&er v^ill provided that the money should be used to support the cats. The lady also had eleven nieces and nephews.^ut they were not to get any money until the cats died. The consequence was a rather complicated series of legal a HA) 0 o Qfeir Thirteen of tl^^ cats did die, whereupon the court ordered that sixteen thousand five hundred dollars of the money <3«^vvWV»-51 ~b£Lp should be taken and divided.among the heirs, imd ywotci'day the "T^^unty judge decree^ that nine thousand, nine hundred more should be given to the heirs, even though five cats are still alive. Nine dollars a month, says the judge, should be enough for each cat. iuji»4.ri(, towKitr-iicrl ^ "1 ^ r>i tt s»^t? 1. But, there's still a joker in tl» order. If any of 7 th&fe cats become ill, the allowance will nave to be increased^or ^^inedical attendance. A APPLE A small boy walked through the front door of the City Hos ital in Boston. ue was a sturdy little five year old, and in his hand he nad a bright red apple, Solemnly he walked up to the desk and asked for Santa Claus. The hospital what made him think Santa Claus was there? And the little To people^asiteeeraiafc S& m X c C ~££^ l — lad explained that Mommie had said in was sick so he^brought Santa an apple to make him well. I Later on, the hospital folks learned that his pretty young mama, who is a singer out of a job, had ♦^ood reason.1*01' vliatyihe- She had told &SM. the Saint of Christmas a was ill so Ronnie wrould understand why he and his rein come to their house. FORTUI m E I The hero of this one is a seventy year old negro, Joseph Johnson of Kansas City. Joe had a job cleaning bricks for a firm I 1 I of nouse-wreckers. His wage, seventy-five cents for every thousand j While on the job, a tin box came tumbling out from between j some bricks of a house. Joe opened the box, and then you should have seen him roll them eyes I Lo and behold, it was stuffed full of gold certifiates, five hundred and tnousand dollar gold | certificates, and hundred dollar notes. So what did Joe do? j He just stuffed his pockets full of them notes and then he beat it | home. B^it he couldn't keep his secret. He just had to tell about his good fortune, fes suh, he even called in a neighbor to help him count all them bills, and they counted up to twelve thousand, nine hundred dollars l WTowi The two of them called in still a third party, a thirty—four year old negro woman. And they told her to take the roll and hide it. Put it in the bottom of an old trunk. But the I negro woman was religious and she went ba straightway to tne bishop - Ohi Oh! and the bishop? He decided that the Metropolitan Spiritual FORTUNE - 2 Church of Cnrist of Kansas City would be a better receptacle for tii«t fortune than an old trunk. So the bisnop and the Vvoman went0 down into the labyrinthe underground passages below that Spiritual uhurch of Christ and there they hid the bills in an old Swiss musiQ \)0X. All unbeknown to old Joe Johnson, who found the twelve thousand, nine hundred. But there wras another circumstance which was also unknown not only to Joe, but unknown to his neighbor, unknown to the colored vtoman, and even unknown to the bishop of the Spiritual Church of Christ. When Joe found that old tin box, the man living in the house next door saw him, saw him open the box, saw him take the money out. And he had telephoned the police I So the Kansas City cops came to J0e and Joe had to tell !em he didn't have the big stack of dough any longer. Whereupon the cops went to church. And there they found the old Siriss music box. But they found only sixty-eignt hundred dollars of the money in it. After the officers had exerted a little pressure, the negro woman coughed up six hundred she had held out, =, . -rt tfiven ail the rest to the bishop. The bishop vowed and said sne nad given an FORTUNE - 3 he had shown tne police the hiding place of all the money. But later in the day the nolice found five thousand odd dollars more - tucked away in a cedar chest in which the bishop stored the sacred robes of his office as the spiritual head of the Spiritual Church of Christ of Kansas City! P.S. Twenty dollars is still missing I