LOWELL THOMAS - SUHOCiO - AUGUST 21. 1934 ALASKA Three cheers and a roar of a motor for the Alaskan flyers in Washington tonighti You made a magnificent flight boys, and not a mere stunt. In military circles they are talking today about the defense of Alaska. The subject was brought to the front by the return to Washington of the American Air Corps fleet that has been flying over the bleak land of the northern peninsula. That sky voyage of ten big planes ranks as the greatest mass flight to date in the history of American aviation. With the coming independence of the Phlllippine Islands, our naval defense will be moved back to Hawaii, and you have only to lock at the map to see the strategic position of the Aleutian Islands and the tip of the Alaskan peninsula, which extend much further east than Hawaii, though much farther north, but on the main ship lane from Puget Sound to the Far East, The flyers in Washington tonight are witnesses to the ALASKA - 2 fact that It is possible to transfer air squadrons to Alaska at great speed* It1 s significant too, that the commander of the mass flight, Lieutenant-Colonel Henry Arnold is a to pographical expert, who did army survey work In the early years of this century, before there ever was an Army Air Corps* He made a military survey of the island of Luzon, in the Phillippines, when that was newly conquered territory. His job then was of course, connected with American defense on the Pacific Ocean. And that makes it look as if his latest exploit had the same meaning. Colonel Arnold is an old hand at flying too. He was making records away back in the old days when airplanes looked like egg crates. In 1912 he set a world's altitude record by climbing in a Burgess-Wright plane to the astounding height of six thousand five hundred and forty feet. That was astounding in those days. Aid in 1926 he parked me in a farmer's potato patch near Coffeyvilie, Kansas, when his motor went to pieces in mid-air. The report of Col. Arnold's flying survey party is in the hands of the War Department at Washington, with the strategists of the war college ready use it as a base for possible big guns, concrete fortresses, naval stations, and airplane bases on the frowning rock of the Alaskan peninsula and the Aleutians -- a Pacific Gibraltar perhaps, not so Pacific Gibraltar in the Pacific, 1 mean a HOIiP-UP Ipp most startling thing about the big hold-up in Brook­ lyn today v/:.s the elaborate way in which it was staged. Of course the bandits got away with four i&jsKxaanji hundred and twenty-seven thousand dollars* that amount of loot is startling too. But let* s try to visualize a oicture of what happened. It was like a cunningly staged scene in some ingenious melodrama. A quiet sunlit afternoon in th' Bay Ridge section* where Ck '.odesl; homes and small houses predominate. Theresa a big ice p] -'nt of the Rebel’s Company* one of the largest distributors in the city. AIon- the street a few casual passers-by sauntered. Across the way a tennis oame was on* with a waving of racquets and the bouncing or balls. A shabby push-cart peddler trundled his rag-tag^ cart along the street *in front of the ice plant. Several scene — really a clever hit of staging. A truck, an armoured car drove up * the usual kind for conveying big payrolls. It stopped* ready to unload its freight of money for the ice company employees. Then suddenly three black automobiles carae speeding down the street and pulled up/t^Jp A1 that instant the push—cart peddler whipped the bur­ lap cover f i om his cart and snatehed out a machine gun« and the idlers on the street drew sub-machine runs from under their coats In a flash the guards on the pay truck, faced with frown­ ing muzzles, were overpowered,Bnd swiftly the robbers, with pre­ concerted discipline, passed the packages of money from the truck into the three black cars. Then the whole robber gang, there must have been a dozen of them — ju iped into the black cars and stepped on the gas. In their haste tney missed almost thirty thousand dollars in cash. They also forgot one of their machine guns, which they left on the seat of the truck. One of the guards seized the gun and opened fire at the escaping bandits. The driver of the armoured truck jumped into his seat and tried to follow them. But the three black cars got away."^Tt was all over before the police came on the sc^ne, but then a few minutes later radio police Cars had thrown a cordon around Brooklyn. All bridges nnd loads he HOLD-UP - 3 were guard ed. It was New York’s biggest, boldest and best planned robbery on record, one of the biggest pay-roll hold-ups in the history of the country -- probably in the history of the world. The careful and elaborate staging was the real novelty. The idlers, the white aprons, the push-cart peddler, the three swiftly appearing black cars. In a way it’s a tribute to the precautions against robbery these days, when a hold-up is put on with the technique of a Belasco. t? VETERANS The Stars and Stripes flew in Berlin today. A party of American war veterans are in the German capital visiting their old friends, Fritz - the enemy. They*re from Milwaukee, where hahssenpfeffer has been known to flourish. They are guests of the German war veterans organization. So today the Berliners saw the Stars and Stripes on paraoe for the first time since the war led by the hassenpfeffer brigade von Milwaukee ITALY Now for a glance at a scene that combines all sorts of beauty, magnificent pageant, dramatic stateliness -- and you can combine all the spectacular adjectives you can think of, and then add a touch of romantic mystery* It begins with one of the most famous bits of lovely and historic country in the world, the city of Florence, the River Arno, villas and gardens and groves of cypress trees, where the nightingale sings. Tonight the Italian Army is camp­ ed on the Tuscan hillsides and in the valleys, where it has been holding its annual maneuvers. There1s one particular villa, beautiful and old, with gardens and cypress trees and maybe the nightingale is singing there tonight. But anyway that villa is under heavy military guard, and the curtains are drawn. Two men are talking earnestly inside, one Signor Mussolini, who has been directing those military maneuvers. And, in the midst of his army he is receiving as his guest the Prime Minister of Austria, The official reports are rather prosy. They relate ITALY - 2 that the Duee and Premier Schuschnigg from Vienna are discuss­ ing what Is called the DanuMan Plan, a scheme for an economic line-up for the nations along the T>anuhe, This includes a possible vision of the peace treaties. It also deals with the fact that the nations of the Danube, because of political rivalry are routing their merchandise thru Hamburg instead of through the more convenient port# of the Adriatic. This official business hardly fits the spectacular stagecraft of the scene. The rumors give us something better, something romantic, something mysterious. They say there's a woman present. Joining in the confabulations of the two heads of government. She is dark and handsome. She's an ex-empress. The official statements deny it, but insistent underground reports affirm that Zita, former Empress of Austria-Hungary is there. It has been discovered that she is living at another villa nearby. Doctor Schuschnigg has been for years the guardian and protector and trusted friend of the ex-Empress and her family They say he wouldn't be in her near neighborhood without seeing ker. At the same time, Zita was born an Italian princess, a ITALY - 3 sympathetic negotiator to deal with Mussolini in her unceasing labor to restore her sen, the Archduke Otto to the throne of hi s fo r©fathers, So tonight in the midst of the modern Roman army camped among the ancient Tuscan hills -- who is meeting who? The mysterious stage play goes deeper. Remember how the young Archduke disappeared so unaccountably from his home in Belgium, right after the Nazi revolt in Vienna? And nobody knew where he went. All sorts of rumours. And he finally turned up most strangely in Scandanavia -- just on a vacation jaunt. Well, there are now persistent reports that he actually made a secret dash to Rome and there saw Mussolini, who granted the interview on condition that the Archduke should immediately head north again for Scandanavia -- as a disguise and a blind for the secret proceedings GOLD In London they are worrying about gold. Something seems to have dammed up the golden river that pours in from the South African mines. Until reeen^iy gold from South Africa averaged forty-five million dollars a week. Now all of a sudden it has fallen off to a million a week. The South African Reserve Bank insists it is .sending along all the gold it gets from the mines# So London financiers believe that the mines are holding out on gold, hoarding it for the price to go up. t C. JE'wS Many of us have wondered about the reasons for the wide snread anti-Jewish flare-up in North Africa. I supposed it had some connection with the rivalry between the Zionists and Mohammedans in Palestine, but here's another explanation. It co es from the World Jewish Conference in Geneva, where a French delegate explains it this way:— The North African * Mohammedans are making the Jews scape, goats for a wide spread ill-fefcl ing against outsiders in general and the French in over-lords^are taking it out on tne oewisn population to their French OFI i UEHZA a There is h influenza epidemic in Puerto Rico, but it's mild. No deaths renorted*«?*.The fiu> i? spreading_ seven thousand cases thus far. The government offices renortirtl as high as twenty five percent of their employees on the sick list. SORT The explanation today is that the soldiers of Paraguay waved their rifles and shouted "Viva, Viva,, Huey Long. The fighters on the battle field of the Grand Chaco yelled loud bravos for the Kingfish. This elucidation comes in response to the wonder expressed up here in our innocent land over that new fort with the odd name. It1 a -- Fort Huey Long, The Paraguayans captured the strong hold from the Bolivians and then renamed it in honor of the Kingfish. Those fighters in that obscure South American war know more about our own Huey Long than we do, and are strong for Huey because some months ago the Bayon Senator wrapped hi a toga around him and uttered a few denunciations of Bolivia. He declared that the South American War was a matter of oil and Bolivia was to blame. Most of us fellow citizens of Huey's never heard about that speech, but the Paraguayans did -- hence the King­ fish glory and Fort Huey Long SPEAKER There are more rumors about a successor to the late Speaker Rainey. The bets favor Representative Eyrns of Tennessee, but other names are mentioned, including Sam Rayburn of Texas, Congressman 9&n.khead of Alabama -- Tallulah*S father — and ^A1 Smith. T that's the surprise. No, A1 isn’t in Congress. But ingenious cross-word puzzlers have discovered that according to law and the Constitution the House of Representatives has the power to,go outside its own membership in picking a presiding officer. The Speaker doesn’t have to be a Congressman* And so AX Smith could legally be drafted to run the legislative show in the Lower House 0)1 Yes. could be, but will he be? I’d like to get a bet in on that I always did love a sure thing TATTOO 1 An official answer has come from Washington on a vital public question -- is the President tattooed, and if so, how? A letter from the White House tells us ail about it. This political and patriotic information comes to me from Sherm Shalley, Sun Oil Executive, I mean pump operator in a Sunoco filling station, at Buffalo, New York — Buffalo Is headquarters for political truths, patriotic sentiments and the other facts of life. The great public question, or the mystery of the tattooed President all began when Sailor Ted, Buffalo’s leading tattoo artist jumped into print with a salty, nautical argument* The President is a sailor; all sailors are tattooed; ergo, the President is tattooed* r i i So Sailor Ted was certain that Franklin D* Roosevelt had a big battleship tattooed across his chest, probably a United States flag on his back and possibly a beautiful girl on his arm — you know, the kind of damsel a sailor has tattooed on his arm, so that when he wiggles his muscles the damsel starts to shimmy TATTOO “2 All of this was printed in the Buffalo Times and was read by a sixteen-year-old boy who always did want to be a sailor* He decided to find out, so he wrote to the White House something like this:- '’Dear Mr. President:- Are you tattooed? If so, how and where?” In a couple of days he got an answer on White House stationery as follows:- ”In reply to your letter, I wish to say that the President has not been tattooed*” If was signed by Miss LeHand, Mr* Roosevelt’s secretary* The boy took the letter to Sailor Ted, who snorted scornfully:- "She says the President ain’t tattooed. Well, how does she know?" The sailor is not convinced, but goes on to remark that if the President isn’t tattooed he ought to be* And Sailor Ted is willing to do the job free, gratis, and for nothing just out of patriotism. Just give him the word and he’ll tattbo the Chief Executive of the United States with anchors, a light­ house, a stein of beer or a girl’s name, and make him look like a Fiji Island war-chief. But, before I go too far witn this tittle-tattles about tattoo, I better say - SOLONG UNTIL