SMITH L/T.- SUNOCO FRIDAY. OCTOBER 2g. 1956 The Reverend Gerald K. Smith is staging a sort of come­ back in his old stamping grounds - Louisiana. That’s where he once was a chief lieutenant of Huey Long^ in the Share—the— Wealth agitation. But after the death of the Kingfish* the Share-the-Wealthers ejected the Reverend gentlemen from their ranks. Whereupon he turned from wealth-sharing to old-age pensions and became an ally of Dr. Townsend, He likewise looked with favor upon social security, and spoke on the same platform with h Father Couglin, The Reverend Gerald K. Smith achieved quite a formidable reputation as a ’’rabble rouser” — he pinned that name on himself proud of it. But recently the rabble rousing struck a snag. The Reverend Gerald K. fell out with Doc Townsend, and the D0c chucked him out of the old-age pension organization —shouting that Smith was a Fascist, trying to start a Fascist revolution in the United States. 3o, the Reverend Gerald K. hiked back to Louisiana, to do a little rabble rousing down along the Bayous. In fact he put the rousing on the air, and it aroused trouble. Smith shouted into SMITH - 2 the mike in a lecture hall at Station W.S.D.U., New Orleans. The place was crowded with his partisans, followers of Kingfish Huey Long, who have trailed along with Smith ^ It was really a double barrel radio event. Smith speaking first and then being answered by Dr.* Clinton Wunder, an antagonist who used to be a Townsend Old-Age Pension organizer but now is campaigning for President Roosevelt. rousing it was! tfrBrragmTE-gia: First, Smith made his speech, and.some lusty rabble e ± xhm £% roared a blistering attack w against President Roosevelt and the New Deal. The roomful of A his partisans howled with glee. Then^'/under followed, but fefc spoke from another broadcasting esa** r . -i-v I-suppose the station manager didnft want to let the two factions get together in the same room, or there might be trouble* — and there wasj^ Sot Wunder fs declamation came .into fiwi wth’ tiuSBS&BSSZSB’ The air blazed blue with the loudly spoken words. %oUr With skin- 1 em-alive violence,^Wunder was takingA^*^rabble-rouser 15 k > 25>^tRAt apart. This infuriated «** assembled friends SMITH - S 7 and they howled their answers back <*£ the loud speaker At this tumultous moment, the door was suddenly thrown. open. Three men entered - and flung themselves upon the Reverend Smith. The rabble-rouser is a big, iKESisy^chap, whc’can handle himself. ^He put up a stout fight against the three. was hit in the face and in the stomach.. All this - before anybody could interfere^ the Smith followers swarmed td the defense of their Studio officials intervened, and the three »©» got away* The Reverend Smith declares the federal government the Jim Farley machine sent the three to attack him. The manager of the radio station tells of seeing several people stirred to excitement by the invective that^Wunder heaped on Smith. “——one man had a crate of aged and over-mature eggs, ready in his car outside, just waiting to throw-them. The egg tossing. however, did n These lively radio proceeding^ in Hew Orleans are a telling sign of how hot Louisiana political feeling is running, POLITICS All questions about the Landon vocal cordsM«2J|nswered this A A afternoon. Sent to bed yesterday with a sore throat, calling off rear platform speeches to avoid a chance of laryngitis^ a the Governor was faced with problem of voice. Something like the star gxri2±s£n=so3±c$(* tenor who gets a hoarse cold just as the crowning week of the operatic season is at hand. It would have A been a bit of political dramatics if the Republican candidate had lost his voice and had to stop making speeches right at the climax of the campaign! But thatrs out of• the picture^ after Governor Landon1s radio address at Oklahoma City this afternoon. on EeTs in fine voice - not golden^o^fcsa^ for that*s not the Landon vocal style. Just a regular baritone. o o He used it copiously in an exhortation, not to Republicans, but to Democrats. He urged the Democrats to take up pedestrian!sm, and join the walking club. Be called upon them to take a v/alk along with former democra/bic presidential candidates A1 Smith and John W. DavisJ flUso^-^"Alfalfa Bill" Murray, former Democratic Governor of Oklahoma. "Alfalfa Bill" was on ■'rhe platform in person. stroking his walrus mustaches and approving POLITICS -g of the Landon summons to a walk President Roosevelt.has been riding — '—~J A 'Washington. After his New England tour, he'll make a dash through New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Delaware. A speech at Madison Square Garden, New York — and^teefSt wind up his campaign 0 1 OREGON TRAIL Reminisences of old wild western days come drifting, when we hear that the Oregon Trail Memorial Association is commemorating the Seventy-Fifth Anniversary-of the Trans-Continental telegraph. Samuel F.B. Morse completed the invention of the telegraph just a century ago, and twenty—five years later pioneering linemen stretched the first telegraph wire from the Atlantic to r\Le*tJl£-rv*v & the Pacific. Tomorrow, transcontinental messages by the same kind of antiquated telegraph Instruments that were used in Eighteen Sixty-One. And they will repeat the first message that was sent then, the same one flashed by the Chief Justice of California to President Lincoln. j hill IIII Itill HU Q i n I i I i of frontier times/- and here*s another. It*s always an odd combination when the Rodeo comes to Broadway * and today the cow-boys had. an inspection trip of the metropolis, an ultra-modern inspection - by airplane. d&wJyK aw&z Buckaroos sailed over the city, whooping^at the skyscrapers. ■- Jl SPAIN Planes over Madrid, not once but four times today. Squadrons of Rebel aircraft flew over the City at intervals of a couple of hours. First they dropped leaflets, which fell in showers — pamphlets urging the citizens to surrender and avoid bombardmentThey dropped small bombs on the airfield. And they flew lower and machine-gunned the walls of the Montana barracks. That was merely a gesture, Htactaaxi an obvious one. The Montana barracks was the place where the Fascist -aXeumiriM* of the Madrid * garrison rebelled when the civil war broke out - and^their revolt* suppressed by ma.ssacres and execution^. So the planes machine- gunning the Montana Barracks was a symbolical threat of vengeance. Today * s four air raids made no attempt to damage the city proper. Seemingly they were intended to terrify the population. Today, wireless communication was cut between London and Madrid, and that too seems like an aviation item. All through the civil war, London has been in radio contact with the Spanish but it was broken off suddenly today without explanation. SPAIN - £ The radio station is far out of the city, along theTiSes the Rebels have been attacking. And the supposition is that I the wireless plant has been bombed from the sky and put out commission. If . The battlefront itself roars with explosions, i i artillery shells and sky bombs. General Francois men have brought up their heavy guns, within sight of Madrid in many places - and are pounding at the last line of government defenses. nfl fciere was a naval fight, a flaming engagement in the Straits of Gibraltar. A Rebel cruiser^ stood off a government cruiser and two torpedo boats. Both sides hit the mark and shells crashed against armorflrf plate#. The fight lasted until the aviation touch appeared. Two Rebel bombing planes came to the aid of the Fascist cruiser. All the ships then limped back to port, Last night there was ominous word that the Rebel ii ill commander had given orders to sink foreign ships bringing supplies to the Left Wing Government. Today, there’s a rumor that this threat has been carried out. A ship was unloading supplies at the Left Wing port of Cardagenaj its nationality not mentionedj, 1 1 l I e |I ' : ■. : I II SPAIN - 3 Rebel planes circles overhead and dropped bombs. And, they hit the foreign ship; damaged|it badly. A still more serious international incident is reported in the sinking of a Spanish vessel by the Portuguese. This rumor tells of shooting at close range, with a Portuguese motor ship blazing away at a vessel belonging to the Madrid government. The shells hit their mark and the Spanish craft sank with all on board - a crew of forty. This is unconfirmed. This next is aviation - a report that fifty planes have landed in Left Wing territory. What kind of planes? Russian. Soviet military aircraft come to aid Madrid - and more on their way. If that rumor is true, it might fit in with the news from London today. It might be action based on the Soviet theory that if Fascist Germany, Italy and Portugal are allowed to help the Spanish Rebels, why then Red Russia has an eoual right to help Madrid. This thesis was handed in today to the non-interven­ tion commictee of twenty-seven nations. The Soviet ambassador presented it to the Earl of Plymouth, the Chairman. SPAIN - 4 The Russian declaration had been awaited anxiously, nervously. It \\B.s feci ed th^t Moscov. would toss the shole non-intervention agreement into the waste basket. Moscow, however, is not as drastic as had been feared. There’s no bombshell bust-up of non-intervention. Stalin’s government is merely saying: ”If they do it, we’ve got a right to do it also - tit for tat.” The Russians say they’ll send the same amount of arms and munitions to Madrid, that the Fascist powers are sending to the Rebels. That doesn't chuck non-intervention out of the window. It merely tends to make it dissolve into thin air. The Soviet delegate today called It a scrap of paper. And today Germany and Italy announced they’ve made an agreement for united action — meaning Spain. And the danger of the clash has Europ^s teeth chattering. SUBWAY There were weird doings in the New York subway today. The trains were roaring along as usual, when suddenly they stopped — everything. A rush of Investigation found that soae- bod^iad pulled a switch — a safety switch that cut off all the power. Traffic started again and went roaring, and the same thing happened once more -- everything stopped. Another switch had been pulled — tying up the subway. It happened a third time. Somebody was creeping along in the subway tube and pull­ ing those safety switches. It might have been some crackpot jokester. But the one who did it knew plenty about the subway,^so the police suspected a disgruntled workman. Twp hundred policemen and subway workers made a long search, but_thjy didn’t catch the culprit. He had slipped out and escaped, HOSTESS r Somebody has reproved me for using the word "hostess," saying it * s taboo, chain of restaurants And that somebody is head of the Long champs I in New York, which employs beauties — artists? J I models, show girls, as hostesses. But X mustn’t use that word. Because hostess has come to mean a .ten-cents-a-dance 11 ;1 girl. What word should we use? Why, receptionists, I thought a receptionist was one who receives you at a dentist's office. But then cookery and teeth go together. The dentist's receptionist presides when you get your molars and incissors fixed up. The restaurant receptionist gracea the occasion when you go ahead and use them# Also — when you go to a party don't say to the lady of the house:- "You're a splendid hostess," You should say:- "What a wonderful receptionist you are," EARTHQUAKE Here’s something that would have been a stupendous disastei - if it had occurred in a densely populated part of the world. An eartl'iqua:ve — and the reports describe it as a long drawn out terror, the ground undulating^ rising and falling in waves, wrenching, twisting. It hit at midnight, and then kept on and on. The temblors had been shaking the earth all day. Imagine what that would mean in New York, London, Paris or Tokyo! But luckily, it didn't happen to any great metropolis or even a medium sized town. It was in Alaska - no giant cities there. A frontier town called Anchorage in the midst of a volcanic region. Not so far from the "Valley of 10,000 Smokes." The casualties in this violent Alaskan earthquake are - none at all. Nobody killed. Chimney's crashed and buildings fell 3 own, the people were scared almost out of their red flannels. And they’ve been staying out in the open all day along - be­ cause the earth is continuing to tremble. WEATHER It's warm these days, so let's talk about snow and skiingi Dudley Harmon and Dan Roohford of the New England Council tell me that all signs point to the greatest skiing season on record in this country: The New England Council figures that there are more than a quarter of a million ski enthusiasts in the New England states alone. And Dan Rochford tells me that New England xtxtKsxajssatfi now has the greatest network of down-mountain ski trails on earth — over three hundred miles of them. Also, hereVs an interesting sign. Hosts of people are splitting their vacations into two parts; half in summer and half in winter, so they can enjoy the snow. Sig Buchmayer, the ski pro from Beckett's on Sugar Hill, the chap who is called the "Najinski on Skis," spent the summer on a ten thousand mile tour of the U.S.A. He says the ski fever is spreading from coast to coast. For instance, the Union Pacific Railroad, this month, completing a million dollar hotel fot ski enthusiasts in the mountains at Ketchum, Idaho. But, strangest of all was a bit of information given to me by Tony Frissel, camera wizard for Condi East — for Vogue. WEATHER -2 She tells me the government of Switzerland, in cooperation with a great New York Fifth Avenue department store, is arranging to run a ski cruise across the Atlantic — not a ski train — a ski ship, the big liner Paris, lor skiers only* According to chief Charlie Big Knife. It's going to be a heap hard winter - declares the weather prophet of the Chippewas, in the Huron Mountains of Michigan. Chief Charlie Big Knife has the reputation of having prophesied the weather correctly for forty years, never wrong once. How does he prognosticate? Well, here's Ms diagnosis for this winter. "Goose fly south two weeks earlier," say Chief Charlie. Ugh I "Muskrat build house in hurry. Bear him dig in fast for place to sleep. Frog him bury self two feet in mud. Ugh I" According to Chief Charlie Big Knife's meteorological science, if the goose, the muskrat, the bear and the frog act in that, fashion - we'll need heavy overcoats. J-he signs are so chilly that Charlie Big Knife himself has bought a blow torch for the first time in his life - to thaw out his fur traps. Ugh Uhl and SO LONG UNTIL MOBDAY.