L.T. SUNOCO - March §6* 1933 'J- Good Afternoon, Everybody:- I ve been spending the weekend in Cleveland, and Cleveland has been spending it in the middle of a riproaring old-time March snowstorm, the kind that brings f^aa^btee^merc Among the variouc things tharb Cleveland has joy to the hearts ofmerchants*i«to^s«±a*<©oifts3aaft% boafet about are three of the best newspapers v«v's. of- the—Bn.lt od I' the Plain Dealer, the CAwelaai News, edited by Earle Martin, and the Cleveland Press. I had lunch with some friends and *• talked over and solved the affairs of mankind, as newspaper men can do to the queen1s taste when they get together. Louis Seltzer, brilliant editor of the Cleveland received Press, asked me if I had rstfitxiSESt letters from any of you calling me down foi mispronouncing the word c—o-n—s—e—r—v-a—t-o- •r. II L-b * s— a wor d —that—ha s ^been - in—the news —di-s patche s —a-great—deQ't INTRO - 2 Ifve been pronouncing it conservator, and Editor hsw&a Seltzer explained to me tbat th.e correct way is conserve^ tor* As you know, in various cities they have been appointing conservators fc^tearpoo^aapiijr take over the affairs of certain banks. And then he gave us the legal definition of the term. Conservator means — "An official who manages the affairs of idiots." And I suppose plenty of you will think the definition is absolutely pat, if your bank is one that didn*t reopen. Louis Seltzer also asked me about the Tall Story Club. He^ a tall story fan himself, "But he wanted to know if I had discovered. whether there was any particular group of people who enjoye# the tall stories more than other folks. I told him that we had discovered that women them less, than men. "Well," snapped back the Cleveland editor, "you canH blame the women for that; they have to listen to them all their lives." / 'Hi INTRO - g certainly looked as though happy d^s were here agai^ for somebody. Folks doirt tramp around in snow and ^lush up' to their/ankles ana crowd department stores lusjc to do/window shopping. chat with a distinguished American who came within a hair’s breadth of being President of these United States Mr. McAdoo hadn’t turned the tide at the last Democratic Convention, many people thought that the Convention was going to swing over on the next ballot to Cleveland’s first citizen, a man who is universally admired by the American people, y Newton D. Baker. Mr. Baker told me that he was just back from a long holiday in the Hawaiian Islands, out at Honolulu on the Beach at Waukiki, riding the surf, drinking cocoanut Before leaving Cleveland I also had a few moments milk under the calm trees, and maybe watching the dusky - \ INTRO - 4 maidens do the hula hula. At any rate, the famous ex-Secretary of War said that he found Hawaii a real Paradise on earth WASHINGTON tAJ . p<uJh A Events iiiA'tashi'ngtoik during the^week were still atit the^gallopf Although they.shov/ signs of slowing down — maybe. One report is that President F.D.R. is dusting off the big stick made famous by T.R. As you know, the Lower House went ahead and passed the presidential Farm Relief Bill, but the solons in the Senate are taking their time. So, they say Mr. Roosevelt is now contemplating sending a pointed, pithy letter to the halting Senators, urging them to nurry up. The New York Herald Tribune, in summarazing the third week in office of the new administration, makes the comment that the President has been piling up huge powers too fast to use them. He has been so busy having Conjress grant him authority that he hasn’t had a chance to act upon it to any great extent — piling up powers to use from now T till next fall. Jumping from Washington to a lot of state capitals, the state legislators spent the week swimming in a sea of beery oratory WASHINGTON - 2 One curious angle comes to the foaming surface in Nev; York State where the regulations approved by the Governor forbid the selling of beer at bars. This is in line with the familiar idea of keeping the barroom-saloon from coming back. But now a protest has been registered by a group of citizens — from Erie County — who indignantly demand beer without tips. It is pointed out that if a glass of beer is served at a table yo^ve got to tip the waiter. If it’s served across a bar, obviously there*s no tipping. Itfs strange hov; those small practical matters come popping up In the middle of broadly ethical and idealistic consideratins. % MOONEY Let’s be clear about this. Yes — Tom Mooney T.-ilo. be tried again but that doesn’t mean that he has been granted a new trial or anything like it. An odd development has come about in the bitterly debated case of the man sent to prison for life for that Preparedness Day bombing outrage in San Francisco back in 1916. Mooney’s lawyers made an appeal to the courts that the prisoner should be tried on one indictment that was never pressed against him. In accordance with familiar legal practice two indictments were found against Mooney when he was prosecuted seventeen years ago. Both were closely similar. Mooney was convicted on the first, so the second just stayed in the record. Now the California courts have upheld the contention of Mooney's attorneys that he has the right to be tried on that second tKgitt indictment. The defence lawyers are sure that he can’t be convicted under that old indictment and that the court proceedings will emphatically bear out their point of view that he was convicted wrongly in the first place. And that may help Mooney, or it may not. AIRPLANE The week in aviation ended, on a tragic note. One oi the worst accidents in the history of mechanical flight occurred last night in the suburbs of San Francisco. A huge transport plane crashed into a house, plowed Its way into a family parlor, and exploded in a blast of flame. The house was shattered to bits in a cataclysm of fire,and two other residences adjoining were burned to the ground. The New York Sunday News reports that fourteen lives were lost, the pilot, two passengers, and eleven people who lived in the houses* It would appear that the big transport plane had motor trouble, and the pilot was desperately trying to reach a small aviati n field nearby, when he plunged headlong into the parlor of that ill-fated house. BLDiD FLIGHT A bit of aviation news, important for the future development and safety of flying, comes in an experimental flight made last week* Newspapers all over the country are commenting on how James Kinney took off from College Park, Maryland, and flew to Newark airport in the worst possible weather. He was trying out the new bent radio beam that guides a plane through darkness, fog, or storm. The bent beam signalled to Kinney by means of a sensitive needle that moved and wavered and told him at what angle to set his controls. At Nev/ark he came down blindly. And sure enough, right in front of him the jauoqc runway suddenly loomed out of the mist and drizzle, and he made an easy landing. The big news of the week in sports, I suppose, came with Babe Ruth* s signing the contract with his boss. Mein Herr Colonel Jake Ruppert, at the rate of fifty-two thousand simC>leons. The Babe promises to hit a lot of home runs this summer, and his famous brewer boss also makes a promise, to brew enough seidels of beer to reach in a row from Hoboken to Hamburg, And the present plan now is to serve foaming amber with home runs. The Babefs home run activities started right away. He jumped straight into a game and blasted one over the fence. EUROPE The past seven days have seen what looked like a big important idea grow dim and pale, with quite a few people throwing cold water on it• Last Sunday we were all agog about that meeting at Rome between Prime Minister MacDonald of England and Premier Mussolini of Italy, that get-together of two of the world1s greatest statesmen, which resulted in proposals for what was called the Mussolini Plan, also the Roman Peace. Mussolini’s scheme was for England, Italy, Prance and Germany to make a four-power treaty guarantying peace in Europe, and also allowing for some revision of the peace treaties. The French didn*t like it. They are against any scheme of revising the peace treaties. The French newspapers denounced the MacDonald—Mussolini plan in acid terms. The French Premier was more diplomatic. He said it was a good nations idea except that it seemed to leave the smaller Rfel&RS out in the cold. French policy today is founded on a system of alliances with small nations such as,Jugo Slavia, Czecho Slovakia, Roumania, and Poland. EUROPE - 2 Now comes what seems like an end of the whole matter* The Prime Minister of Czecho Slovakia, speaking in behalf of the small nations allied to France, turns thumbs down on the Roman Peaca Their argument is that there is no need for the four big powers to guarantee the maintenance of peace since the League of Nations is already in existence for that same purpose* That’s an Idea v/eTve heard before. ITALY Here's a bit of news concerning a highly controversial subject, Mussolini has issued an appeal calling for Italy to increase her population by seventeen million in the next ten years. More bambini,says the Duce . And he doenn11 mean Babe Ruth. The city of Brindisi is offering fifty dollars each to the first ten couples who get married. At Brescia ex there is a similar offer except that it is to the first fifty couples who get married there. The town of Bari offers a crib and a set of blankets to every couple that has a baby during the first year of marriage. At Genoa the city is giving a hundred wedding presents of twenty-five dollars each, hoping more Christopher Colombos will be born. Well, that Italian drive for more population has odd angles. It has been generally supposed that Italy is overpopulated now. Most Italians agree to this, but their answer is — more population. They point out that the birth rates all over the world are diminishing. 1 III! ITALY - S The Italians believe ±kfc the modern world will experience the same thing that occurred in the ancient world — namely, a decline In the population of various lands. And they believe that the future belongs to nations that do not decline in numbers but go on Increasing. It isnft hard to perceive the Italian idea that if Italy becomes by far the most populous country of central and western Europe, why that will mean a good deal in the balance of power and the alignment of international forces. It is Interesting to observe that two thousand years ago, when, because of the overdevelopment of civilization population in Italy was declining, Caesar Augustus tried to check the trend by enacting laws to make people have children — laws that are strangely like the regulations Mussolini is now putting Into force. Imperial Augustus .ailed. All of his laws could not check the downward trend. It will be interesting to see how far Mussolini will succeed. Can wizard Mussolini wave his wand and produce babies? GERMANY The international news of the week gives us a picture of Germany arrayed against the rest of the world that is, so far as that anti-Seme tic campaign in Germany is concerned. Bay after day came news of new restrictions and impositions upon the Jewish people in Germany, And in other nations there was wide-spread disapproval. In the United States great me tings were held denouncing Hitlerf s treatment of the Jews, meetings attended and addressed by Christians as well as Jews, The week closes with loud denials from Berlin, Hitlerite government declares that the stories of-persecution \ J 1 are for the most part false propaganda. Herr Goering, one of Hitler*s most prominent lieutenants. declares that there is no oersecution of the Jews although he admits that in the disturbances that resulted from the change of ^vernment, individual acts of violence had occurred. Gne incident related by-the New York Herald Tribune, \ ( J J ^ 1 / tells how a group of newspapermen were taken to see the S S ! N ( Communist leaders who s^re being^icept in ^ail. The iaea l GERMANY - 2 to show that ''■the HiVtlerite goV'ernmeht^is apt bearing s4,owr ;s. Tlie new^apermen foZnd the DO top hard on opponents. newspaper! Communist leaders abbut as cpimf Datable''as on^i couli^ rea^ondhly expect to pe in jiail. The general inference would seem to fa*, that the Nazi government in Germany has begun to take some account of the opinion of the rest of the world and the indignant sentiment that has been aroused over the stories of anti-Semetic oppression. SUN TALL Last Sunday I told how a hunter was kicked to the top of a cliff by the recoil of his shotgun which was loaded with shells charged with Blue Sunoco. That seems to have given an idea to Ira S. Huber, an insurance man of Millersville, Pennsylvania. the s® shells of their rifles ids with Blue Sunoco and went hunting for deer. And all they got was disappointment. They opened fire at one feiiraig big buck and missed It, and then they blazed away at another. They fired round after round of that Blue Sunoco ammunition and couldnH hit a thing . scientist that they received an explanation for the strange affair. The Blue Sunoco was so powerful and gave the bullets such a terrific velocity that they melted before they reached . They melted in miaair^m we form of little drops brother Huber tells hov/ he and a friend charged It was only when they consulted a local the deer TALL * 2 One curious aftermath is that a local promoter who was out hunting observed these drops of little lead - (little drops of lead, I mean) on the ground, thought he had found a lead mine, and started to sell stock RESCUE t Kerens one of those rescue stories that always make one feel mighty good. The New Y0rk Herald Tribune tells how Fred 0f Donnell and two friends as small as himself, went on a hike to the Palisades where the sheer granite drops dizzily to form one of the finest cliffs in the world. Each had a nickel for carfare home. Fred dropped his nickel and it rolled off the edge of the precipice. The three lads stood helplessly watching the treasured five cent piece go bounding down the steep slope. It stopped just at the edge of a sheer precipitous drop of seventyfive feet. Fred was not a boy to lose his nickel without a fight. He started down the slope, clambering to the edge where his nickel lay shining, and where death lay waiting if he missed a step. He stepped into a crevice. His leg sank. He tried to get out. He merely wedged himself. Even if he had succeeded in iaShis leg out, the effort probably would have sent him over the edge of the cliff. RESCUE - 2 A party of men gathered at the top. They could do nothing. It was worth any man* s life to venture down that steqp, treacherous slope to the edge of the chasm. They called the Fire Department. And that was how Lieutenant Franlc Dorey got a chance to distinguish himself. A fifty-foot ladder was laid out over the cliff, so that itprojected out twenty-five feet. Lieutenant Frank Dorcy tied a rope under his arms, walked out to the end of the ladder and lowered himself. They let him da down by the rope to the place where Fred was trapped. Then he went to work to get the boy out. It was one mighty tough and ticklish job, but finally he extracted Fred's leg, and holding the boy he v/as lowered seventy—five feetto the railroad tracks kEk below. Fred was bawling his head off. The nickel — that exceedingly necessary nickel — was still up there on the edge of the cliff, and also Fred's pants were badly torn. One of the firemen gave him a nickel and the others assured him that when his mother heard of thenarrow escape she wouldn'& RESCUE - 5 s&y a word about the tom pants. So Fred and his two friends went home happy. And so will I. And so long until tomorrow