^T. SUNOCO. TUESDAY. DECEMBER 14, 1937. GOOD EVENING EVERYBODY: Right now th^ survivors of that startling international incident have been taken aboard ships in the Yangtze River. And last we have some definite idea of the number of casualties that were caused when Japanese war planes bombed and sank the American gunboat and three American tank steamers. Tonight the number of dead is counted at three -- one a prominent Italian newspaperman who was aboard the gunboat PA«M. A nu.bet ate wounhe* - eight. Xt Xs l indicated that the remainder are safe/) In the ti..e of my experience with the news I have never known a story that remained so obscure for so long with reference to the main point — the number of casualties and survivors. The American boats were sunk on Sunday in an incident that startled the world. Yest last nighty a day later, little was known except unconfirmed rumors. Only now, two days later do we have anything definite. That seems to me unheard of — concerning the main fact in a huge and glaring headline. Trie reason — that's a great dramatic story in itself which ri^ht now can only be sketched. What's the Yangtze like — at the point where the sinking occurred? Twenty-five miles up the CHIM a river from i,enKintl I csked that uestion today of Upton Close expert on Chinese bifairs, who knows the country around hanking well. He told me that the Yangtze there is something like the delta Oi. the iiississippi, miles wide, with scuidgy islands and banks that are vast expanses of .nud flats. That* s where the survivors struggled ashore^ after the lOMX P^iDAY sank about a quarter of a mile out. easily have remained unheard of for days /VH in those empty desolate marshes. But the story goes further than that. ^Parties of survivors on the bank ..ere caught in the skirmishing and fighting that’s going on — Japanese gunboats firing at Chinese troops, snipers banging away incessantly. Bo the Americans pushed ini fid — to get to a safer placeLitole wonaer that no XKfni definate word .as heard from -them — isolated in a remote section which moreover is torn by war. but now they return the river bank at the town of Ho'sien_where an American gunboat and a British craft came t,o ^ thenTf-Tith Japanese v.nrcraft standing by. The report says ^ 4 that the Japanese have done all they could to help the rescue -S- axrnou^h in on« case they ..ere asked not to help, because the Chinese anon, the survivors are so bitter against the invader. On tiie diplomatic f'ron today is a duplicate of yesterday protest, and apology, ^The btate Department sent Tokio a stern remonstrance to back up and amplify the complaint President booseveit sent to the Emperor Hirohito yesterday^ Today's diplomatic note in vigorous language denounces the Japanese attack and demands the most formal apology and indemnity for the damage done and the lives lost, iiIso definite assurance that nothing like that will happen again. Tokio hastens to comply. ^Today the Mikado's government hands .<ashington a formal apology to re-enforce the informal regrets expressed yesterday. The Japanese note says;- "aorry, it was ...n awful mistake,) we111 pay indemnities, we'll punish the aviators responsible, and we promise that it won't happen s0ain." Trio re's an opinion in Washington that President Roosevelt will Insist on having an apology made personally by the Emperor Hirohito. b .t this afternoon the President declined to comment on th t point. There vr, s a bit of a furore when word came today that the - 4 - CEINA Ju.ps.n65S ac-/1 co.-iini ;nd had oraersd all foreign vessels out of the lanetze_, t. -.31 xC n include ) . Tnst idea was vigorously rejected. Then the Japanese stened to expl ain that their Admiral had ®ai meant no such thing , didn’t intend to order the foreign vessels out. He explained that he lerely ment to state politely that if they wanted to leicye the Japanese would do everything they could to help them on their way out. V.nat’ s to be the end o;' this incident — the of thinc that so easily' might lead to war? It loQks_as if it will dissipate in a cloud of apologies. The Japanese are falling over themselves to express regrets, saying — nwe ■ere wrong, excuse us.” ROBINSONS In the Moscow disappearance story, the question tonight is - Who are the Robinsons? Only one thing is certain - they are not the Robinsons. They are not what they pretend to be. And with this revelation a fantastic story comes to light. The question for days has been - Where are the Robinsons? That is^unanswered. The mystery of their disappearance in Moscow is as strange as ever. The State Department In Washington pressed the Soviet Government for information, but none has been forthcoming. But Meanwhile, the State Department has been checking up on the Robinsons in this country, and results that torn* come to light today are startling. They were traveling on false passports, procured with ingenious f.raud. I 1 4 : I The man identified himself as Donald Louis Robinson of New York. An investigation of the New York City records discloses that Donald Louis Robinson was born on March Twenty-Fifth, Nineteen Hundred and Five, and died five years later in a New York hospital. identified hersel^as Ruth Norn,a Birkland. The woman lammmmmmmmm,:: ROBIiNSONS - 2 The records show that a child of that name was born in Nineteen At- Nine and died a&ea about five years of age. The Robinsons were traveling on passports issued in the names of dead children. It turns into a weird scheme, which seems to go like this;— They couldnft get passports under their own names - not entitled to them. To get false passports they procured duplicate birth certificates issued to other people. For this they had to have dates of birth that would be on registry slnd this information they acquired by searching in New York cemeteries, reading gravestones marked with the familiar Inscriptions:- name^and dates of birth and death. And so, with the identities of dead children, they applied for duplicate birth certificates and with these got passports - which took them to Soviet Russia. £ Vv-cr-vO —— Who are the Robinsons? Nobody knows. What were they doing in Soviet Russia, having schemed so deviously to get there? Nobody knows that either. Some under-hand scheme? Plot? 3.11 invo-Lvea m a ywcrcx “v j 1 ^ Espionage? It's all Involved In a queer mystery. v / \ BLUEBEARD In an office of the French police a man sat and drew a map, methodically, skillfully, coldly. He was George Weidmann, the mass killer. He was confessing his sixth murder - the slaying of a woman. He was telling where he had buried the body, drawing a detailed map to show the place, fie sketched it with cold-blooded precision and detail - £nd_perfect accuracy. Fontainebleau, so renowned in French history and romance. They went to the vicinity of Barbizon, where the Barbizon School of Impres leir vivid canvase ey came to a cave - known as the "Cavern of the Brigands", because of tSft old notoriety as a hide-out for robbers. They entered the gloomy grotto. They had lights with them, which they switched on - turning blackness into brightness. They consulted the map, and they had no difficulty in finding a pile of stones - as indicated on the sketch the murderer had drawn. The stones were blackened, evidence of a bonfire - the signs showed they had been recently used by Boy Scouts as a fireplac The police took the map and went to the forest of minor jamboree In the "Cave i of the Brigands" and cooked a campfire feast for themselves BLUEBEARD - g The murder sketch indicated - dig under the rocks. They did they dug under the Boy Scout fireplace. And^they found the body, the sixth acknowledged victim of the present-day Bluebeard. In the forest of Fontainebleau, near Barbizon, in the ^Cavern of the Brigands" - Boy Scouts had built a fire and had a feast with frolic and laughter above Bluebeard’s victim! A good Joke goes into the discard today - the story we had the other night about a G-nan trap that went wrong. The crime chasers laid in ajnbush at night for an extortionist and out of the darkness came a man - as expected. V/hen they tried to arrest him he opened fire with a shotgun, wounded a federal agent, and got away. t C c Q. ^The Joke^ came in the report - that it was a hunter, a nimrod citizen returning home with his shotgun, who had opened fire thinking he was being held up. The next day the local sheriff issued a blast against the G-men, poking fun at them, laughing at the comedy of the yxxHxani hunter and his shotgun. I noticed at the time that no answer was forthcoming from J. Edgar Hoover1s headquarters in Washington. The G-men v/ere What could they say? j|Was natural surmise. f"- Today they said it. At Independence, Missouri, they —i». A arrested Woodrow Wilson Price, and flashed the word that he has confessed. They say the man with the presidential name is the extortionist they were looking for trsq> -»no mere home-going hunter. -£xJi \ It was he who walked into the red it was he who shot his way G-MAN - 2 out - no mere case of a town nimrod and his rabbit-killing shotgun. Today on the long distance phone, J. Edgar Hoover told me grimly: nIt was a good joke, that yarn about the G-men and the hunter. It was merely circulated to make fun of the federal % agents. No, we didn’t answer it - not with words. We had our say today - with an arrest.” That’s repartee a la G-man! WAGES AND HOURS Wages and hours were a stormy theme in Washington today. In ohe lower House, the lawmakers put on a burst of verbal fire^orKS concerning that measure to regulate pay and work. administration bill, saying he thought the White House would oppose it. How come? To which Congressman Sam declared: "I dare say the President has not read this bill.0 And that does seem odd In the case of an administration measure. that one of the original introducers of the Wages-and-Hours Bill was Hugo Black, then senator but now a member of the Supreme Court. T,Who wants this bilx passed anyway?” demanded the Ohio lawmaker. "Senator Black has a new job with better wages and shorter hours than he had when he Introduced bill. And that takes care,” he jeered, ”of the ambition of one simon-pure New Dealer.” And so the Wage-and-Hour debate went on as they waged verbal war for hours. In the debate, Sam Reynolds of Tennessee opposed this Representative Lamneck of Ohio referred to the fact - ' ...... . i." r* REPUBLICANS There's a bit of news today that recalls vividly to mind a talk I had with Ex—President Hoover some weeks ago. We were discussing his ideas for the rejuvenation of the Republican Party - particularly the plan for a G.O.P. get-together to thrash out principles and platform. Herbert Hoover told me about the sources of opposition to the ideal— y possible candidates, for example - the ones that believe they have a chance for the nomination in Nineteen Forty. Each wants to be able to take a distinctive personal stand of his own - opposing his opponents for the nomination. Each wants to be ready to take an individual position In accordance with the way he figures the drift of public opinion. they oppose a formal — /\ ^ declaration of Republican doctrine In advance, a doctrine which would make them all stand for about the same thing — making it hard to distinguish one from the other. Republican office-holders too - they are the chief source of the opposition, especially the congressional group in Washington, They, humanly enough, are interested in their own elections, an REPUBLICANS - 2 want to run their campaigns on local issues — according to the mood of their own communities. They 1'ear being tied down to a declared national platform of Republican policies* Some office­ holders take the determined stand that there shall be no policy declared before January of Nineteen Thirty-Nine. That of course would put it over until after the congressional elections next year. With that Hoover analysis in mind, let's take a look at today's news from the Republican National Executive Committee meeting in St. Louis. They made a decision concerning the Policy committee that is to draft G.dJ.P. principles. It is to consist of one hundred political leaders. What kind? The National Committee ruled today on one main point — no office holders. No party leaders who are taxisdc® now in office to sit on that committee of one hundred which will decide the stand the Republicans are to take in tne coming elections, ^et they say that the committee members, in suggesting names, are going right ahead ana suggesting office-holders. The no -office-holder rule squares with the recent declaration by Governor Aiken of Vermont. That Down-East YanMee . .: .■ ....... , REPUBLICANS - 3 called for a G.O.P. shake-up, with emphasis on new blood. Let the y oung er e 1 emerit s of the party have their say, says he and Mr. Hoover FIGHT Heavyweight Champion Joe Louis is going to have some tune-up flghts^Today he agreed to step into the ring in February, and bat tle it out with the winner of the forthcoming scrap between Buddy Baei and Lddie Hogan. After that, the Brown Bomber will fight at Detroit and then at Chicago - three tune-up bouts in all before he meets his conqueror. Max Schmeling, next June. Champion Joe figures he*11 need tuning up after witnessing last night1 s brawl betweei^Schmellng and Harry Thomas. It must have been painfully reminiscent for the Brown Bomber to observe how Max went to work on his opponent - no instant flurry of vicious attack, no sailing ±n to knock him out In a hurry. There was nothing inspiring about the Schmeling technique. He Just plodded along in methodical fashion, and proceeded to take his antagonist apart - something like a carpenter taking down the old barn. Knocked him out - in about the same way he hammered Joe Louis down in the fight that astonisheddl£f*OTld. ijf' 'sc no wonder the Brown Bomber thinks he needs tuning up*. AMNESIA i ItTs odd what one remembers and forgets _ the thingthat sticks In your mind and the event that just slips out Ox recollection. There1s an odd story along that line today in the case of an amnesia victim in Chicago — a man who for two and a half years forgot h^s own identity. Now his memory is coming back — a bit at a time. What is it that returns to him out of the ffwyg fog of forgetfulness? He remembers his wedding,day. Well, I suppose thatTs something hard to forget. But, he still can,t recall that he served in the World War in France. Maybe there1s something about war that a man*s unconscious mind might gladly let slip. > i He remembers his white dog. "Didn't we have a dog when I left?" he asked bkx his wife today. But he can't recall the profession he followed in nis former life. He was a comedian in vaudeville. And I suppose an obvious joke is to say that a comedian might gladly forget the bad jokes he's told. f\ , indeed, memory and forgetfulness,