EUROPE ^-SlJI^cO ~ "UES. . MAT-OH 24, 1Q;\A Things in London took an unexpected turn today. All the world waiting for Germany’s reply to the proposals made by Great Britain and Prance. Every great capital on the qui vive for Hitler’s answer;- yes or no, and with what qualifications. The Council of the League of nations meeting in London to deal with the German problem. nut now the Gouncil doesn't wait. It adjourns, without action - while the German reply is on its way, while Hitler's representative. Von Ribbentrop, is bringing the answer by plane from Berlin, ^'hat seerns odd. Maybe the Council knew in advance what the German statement would be. A refusal was expected. Vcn Ribbentrop brings word that Hitler rejects. (He is emphatic in turning down the demand for a neutral zone in German territory along the Rhine, the zone to be policed by British and Italian troops.) What counter suggestion? None at all - as yet. It's a flat rejection - for the present. Hitler’s reply explains that he will make his counter-proposal after next Sunday. That’s when EURuP-H. - 2 national elections for the Reichstag will be held. Then he’ll Oifer hi & peace plan for a settlement of the question of the rearming of the Rhine. It is surmised that the League Council disbanded at the suggestion of Paris. France doesn't want to consider any proposals by .Berlin, certainly doesn't want them debated in the Council of the League. Today's adjournment was accompanied by the statement that representatives of the Locarno Powers would continue their sessions in London and try to straighten out matters among themselves. France, however, is so thoroughly opposed to dis­ cussing any German plan, that it is rumored Premier FI and in, now in Paris, will not return to London for the Locamo pow-wow. ITALY ’.Vhat about the nosedive of prices in the Italian Stock Exchanges today? Security prices dropped, some as much as forty points. This is all the more striking, "because Italian Stock Exchanges have been exceedingly steady in the recent past - steady because of the way Mussolini has controlled tjaus and stabilized prices and profits. ^‘‘oday’s security collapse in Rome and Milan was caused, of course, by Mussolini’s decree yesterday nationalizing all big industry.^ It isn’t that owners will be deprived of their property, but the assumption is that the new nationalization will tend to take the profits out of industry. Hence the wave of stock selling on the Italian Exchanges - people think they can use their money in a more profitaole way. At any rate - that's the explanation American bankers give. OUEKiT MARY Today was a holiday, along the River Clyde, in Scotland. A million people turned out to see the queen, the ■biggest queen of all, 1018 feet long — and a tonnage of 80,773. These are the official figures for the queen Mary. Row about the much-debate^ question of bigness between Britain’s new super-liner and the French ocean giant, the llormandie. According to dimensions given out by the French line, the Normandie is a shade larger. But, this conclusion, is denied. The controversy is still on. Today the queen Mary successfully made her first voyage, fifteen miles down the River ulyde. She is now ready for a series of trian runs in preparation for her maiden voyage to Hew York on May 27. Here are some figures fit for a queen! She has six miles of carpets and rugs, sixteen thousand pieces of cutlery, knives, forks and spoons, and two hundred thousand pieces of chin aware and glass. It took seventy thousand gallons of paint to coat her hull MG NEK ACT (A federal court in Chicago today passed on one of the most important measures of the New Deal - the National Labor Relations Act, the Wagner Bill. And the verdict is,*- unconstitutio l°ok at the dispute that brought the matter before the court. The Bendix Corporation manufactures automobile springs, Itufe^a big plant at South Bend, Indiana. union. there is a company there is Local Number Nine of the International 7 A A Auto Workers of America. Each oxm claims to be favored by the workers. To settle that, the National Labor Relations Board stepped in and ordered an election among the employees, to let them., decide which they preferred to belong to!- the Company union or the A National Auto Workers* Calling an election like that is part of the mechanism under the Wagner Labor Relations Bill. The Bendix Corporation went to Court,-and asked for an injunction to keep the Labor Board from holding the election. Today the injunction was granted - on the grounds of unconstitutional!tyff^Eederal Judge John P. Barnes in Chicago was emphatic in decreeing that WAGNER ACT - 2 // 4J0 ^does not square with the Constitution, This of course is only a preliminary £& a long legal fight. Just as with those other important New Deal laws, the affair will be battled all the way up - the Supreme. Court to hand down the final verdict. INDIAN TocL^ la^^yers were laboring over documents and talking aoout appeals lo higher courts^ People interested in odd stories were rehearsing once more the strange tale of Jackson Barnett. It all comes about from a two line decision handed down by the United States Circuit Court of Appeals,at San Francisco. The decision reads: "Petition of Anna Laura Lowe Barnett to appeal annullment of marriage to Jackson Barnett - denied." She married him, but the authorities had the marriage annulled - and the stake at issue is half a million dollars. The story of Jackson Barnett has been told again and again. "Crazy Jack,"he was called. He was a Creek Indian. Way back during the administration of President Benjamin Harrison, the government was paying the Redskins for some of the le d the "pale faces" had taken away from them. .In the course of this. Crazy Jack xAuJb was given a hundred and sixty acres of land in Oklanciaa. A Barnett's acres. A Nineteen Twelve, they struck oil on Jackson document was drawn up, and Crazy Jack put his He couldn't, read or write. The oil derricks thumb-print on it. INDIAN - 2 the government appointed for that simple-minded ward of the nation. altfc? with hinip The government declares she took him across one state line after another, ^tting married to him several times in different states, to make sure tfesefe the marriage would stick. They claim she kidnapped him. On that ground, they had the marriage annulled. Nevertheless, Anna Laura Lowe continued to keep house for Crazy Jack. thirty thousand dollars a year. They had a palatial estate. Crazy Jack suent most of his time .in front of his stately and monumental front gate* directing traffic. His ambition was to be a traffic cop. He died at ninety-two. And at once the legal battle began for half a million dollars in oil royalties that were due his estate. Anna Laura Lowe sued to have the annulment of the marriage revoked. That would entitle her to a. widow* s * share. But now the court says - Then, the old Indian got married. Anna Laura Lowe went to the They lived in Los Angeles. -The government allowed him f,Petition denied.1' ^ GANGSTER This is the story ©^downfall -- gangland downfall* In Chicago there were six sons of a policeman, Touhy, by name. Nice mannerly fellows who lived quietly in respectable style. Their neighbours never dreamed of calling them gangsters. Yet in the world of crime they were known as — the Terrible TouShys.* Sensational news Ifiyes^alliteration* And one of the brothers TsSr was alliterated still further as - * Terrible Tommy Touhy. The brothers ran a big beer racket on the West Side. That was during Chicago’s lurid era of prohibition and the gangs. ^The Touhys rode high for a long time. Then Jim 1^4 se^ 'i,: was killed in a gang shooting in a roadhouse*; rival mob­ ster was wiped out. The police called it retaliation for Jim, and Joe Touhy was sent to prlsp^. Then Brother John died in a pistol duel with a beer joijat owner. An underworld sensation broke, when Jake th. Barber, a night-life character, was kidnapped and held for half a million dollar ransom. The police got on the trail of the Touhys for that. There were spectacular law trials and a gang s^ueler 'll P I I was killed Mobsters were sent to prison, including Roger, GANGSTSR -8 another of the Touhy brothers. ^1/fvO Tb© power of the fraternal clan was broken. ^With A the end of prohibition their beer racket money vanished. They turned to other forms of endeavour. Aa*That brings us to the last step of downfall, in today*s news »— the strange case of Terrible Tommy Touhy. He was the boldest and most flaunting of the brothers^ A swaggering, paladin of the gang wars. Courtney Riley Cooper, in his book, "Ten Thousand Public Enemies," tells us how once Terrible Tommy Touhy boasted openly that he was going to rescue a brother mobster sentenced to the chair -- wourd get him out condemned of his death cell. A little later, Tommyfriend, with a pistol in each hand, did make his escape from prison. Terrible Tommy Touhy bragged about it openly. Nothing was done. Today there was a melodramatic courtroom scene in Minneapolis. ^Terrible Tommy Touhy was brought up to be sen­ tenced for a seventy—eight thousand dollar mail robbery three years ago. He was wheeled into court in an invalid s chair, ghost of a man, shaking with palsy. They say he is incurably m GANGSTER -3 ill t sinking slowly. The judge imposed sentence a maximum sentence of forty seven years in prison for the shaking, quiver­ ing wreck that was once — Terrible Tommy Touhy 'P DEVILS ISLAND People who were familiar with Paris years ago may perhaps remember the name of Henri LeClerq. He was a Parisian Journalist and playwright^ a swagger fellow of the boulevards — acclaimed as a man of talent. Tonight, Henri LeclerQ is in a boat, with four companions. They^h»v#^B«='43tr'the oars, out to row a thousand miles in tropical waters, in the Caribbean^j* where the •Ip* hurricane is the king of disaster at sea.71 Those years ago, Henri Leclerq, ruined a gay.and brilliant career - ruined it with a deed of blood. He committed a murder. So .tonight he and his four companions are rowing ist a boat in the Caribbean. The answer is easy to guess - escape from Devils Island. Now let1 s go to Great Britain*s Isle of Trinidad, to Port s»-.in-juica^ The British authorities there a hard proolem to solve, a A problem of legalities, proprieties. Four months ago, Henri Leclerq and his boating party arrived in Trinidad. The escaped convicts of Devils Island had rowed across eight hundred miles of nerilous water. The British didn’t want to send them back to theirotate prison. But what to do witth them? No ship leaving port would take them aboard. They couldn’t stay at Trinidad forever. DEVILS ISLAND - 2 The British authorities solved the problem this way. For four months they took care of the fugitives, bringing them back to health and strength. They had been pretty badly-aiilfc^by th terrific row boat voyage from Devils Island.^Some days ago. Henri Leclerq and his companions were put back into the boat in which they arrxv had arrived,’were towed out of harbor, and \ were told: "Good-bye and good luck* , Let them go the way they t camel" But their boat was in bad shape. It was leaking, filling with water. So, back to port they wpre towed. There thei was put into drydock, overhauled and made water-tight. Now we hear that they have . gain. Vi!e are told that the heart of Trinidad has been touched. The auth­ orities stocked the boat with food and clothing. Charitable Islanders gave the fugitives money.. There was a procession of craft of all sorts as thep boat were towed out to sea once more, seven miles out. , There, the row boat was cut adrift. Cries of good-bye and good-luck echoed - as the escaped convicts of Devils Island got off, tugging at the oars.^ intend to make for French-speaking Haiti -a thousand milejoyaee in a row boat, for the one time brilliant journalist of Paris and his four companions! BANDIT In fapain, the land of sentiment and romance, people are sighing and saying: "At last the Cucumber will see his daughter again." Yes, the Cucumber. The police are remarking with a tone of relief - that the celebrated bandit has got a job, an honest occupation, as a watchman. Thirty year ago, among the hills of Andalusia, the Cucumber ; : was a legendary figure, meafeav of a bandit gang that lived the ^ A free and lawless life among the mountains. Why they called him the Cucumber I don’t know. Maybe .it was because be finally got into a pickle. He got into trouble because of a familiar reason - true love. He courted a pretty peasant girl and became engaged to her, 1 No harum-scarum marriage for the Cucumber, however. Everything had to be done with proper ceremony. As a local Robin Hood, he was to**™**# beloved by the poor villagers. So they arranged for L his marriage to be held with all due SLKXjad formality and all needful ; secrecy. On three successive Sundays, the marriage banns were read in the village church, secretly, so the civil guards, the highwat police, wouldn't know. Then the wedding was held in a little chapel high among the peaks in the bierra de Cabra. But tne civil Si BANDIT - 2 guards had found out. They raided the wedding. The Cucumber and his band of brigands were barely able to fight their way free. True love was still to be the Cucumber*s undoing, and His bride lived in the village, in disguise he visited her. The trail grew hot* hot as Spanish pappep. The civil guards were after him. But once more he went to his wifeTs house In the village - to see his baby girl. And there the civil guards caught him. That was back in Nineteen Six. The Cucumber got a sentence of a hundred and fifty-four years in jail, and was put in the Granada prison to serve that century and a half. He turned out to be a model prisoner, a model prisoner for thirty years. So now he has been released. The first thing he did was to go to the daughter, the daughtei he had gone to see when he was caught. The next thing - he got a job, as a watchman. The Cucumber now guarding the law! In Hungary the police arrested a housemaid for stealing her mistress» false teeth. "Why did you steal the false teeth?" demanded the police. Whereupon the housemaid replied; "She never gave me enough to eat so I v/anted her to know what it feels like to be hungry." And now, perhaps you*d like ts. me to know how it feels to stop talking, and SO LONG UNTIL TOMORROW.