XitT. ~ SUNOCO - THURS. , JTJL 'I 22^1.937 GOOD EVENING* EVERYBODY: f j The court change plan is dead. This afternoon the Senate voted - to recommit. Recommit the hill to the Judiciary committee. Send it back, and have the committee work out something else. And that means - dead. the issue had been decided earlier in the day at a session of j the Judiciary coimnittee.^ Three men attended who are not committee members. They were - vice-president Garner, who has taken the role of peace-maker in the bitter court fight among the Democrats^ Senator Barkley, the new floor leader who represents the Administration,* and Senator Bertram K. //heeler of Montana, the leader of the President’s opponents in the Court battle. so you see - the committee meeting represented the concensus of opinion among the Democrats. An .here it j The vote by the Senate was the formal action, but good EVENING, KV..RYBODY: - 2 was decided that the hill should be recommitted, a decision ratified by the senate vote a few hours later^— Yes, the committee is to work out something else as a substitute for that bitterly debated measure, and the new bill will be an important one. but not so controversial, not so savagely in debate. Because the Supreme Court will be left out of it. It will call for a reorganization of the lower Federal Courts, the Inferior branches of the federal judiciary - the Supreme Court will be omitted from the program. The speeding up of the lower courts is an important problem, but it lacks drama. Nobody will is ? b oppose so violently, and thereTs little reason why it shouldn’t all be worked out with comparative coolness and good temper. Important, but not so fascinatingf^i'hey’re calling it all compromise, because / there’ll be a court bill - minus the nine justices. That’s the sort of compromise with concessions on both sides^ in which you / concede to me everything but the thing the fight was about. fact is President has lost out on the grand and ^ dominant issue of his seoond administration. The supreme Court pr0OP EVENING, EVERYBODY: -3 s/ w y / is too strongly placed in the system of American Government, too powerfully defended by the leaders of political opinion. One belated voice still cries out, calling for the court change. It’s Secretary Icki&s, and he coined a new word today, a new expression of speech, secretary Ickes said that the f yht to restore this Supreme Court will go on. He refuses to give up hope, tie says there is plenty of life in the opinion supporting the President. And he describes the power of the h ± k nine justices as courtocracy. well, we have aristocracy and democracy, bureaucracy and plutocracy, and now - courtocracy. bo 1 suppose we can pick up the new Ickes word and say this evening - the Courtocracy has won the battle, ^IDER This evening the news sounds a repeated theme of mysterf, unsolved detective cases that might be subjects for a series of stories in a mystery magazine. First of all, there's the strange elder case at Greenville, Massachusetts. A most respected former Dean of a Boys' School, today faced judge and jury. The case is creepy with vague and sinister intimations. The trial began today, in a tiny Court Room that seats only eighty people. The proceedings got under way swiftly. Superior Judge Hammond ordered the selection of a jury and in sixteen minutes the panel was complete. All is set for the evidence to be heard - evidence of a most baffling sort. Three years ago, the hand of murder struck at the Mount Hermon School for Boys at Greenville, Massachusetts. Dr, Eliott Speer, the young and brilliant Headmaste"', was killed in his own home by shotgun slugs fired through a window. At that time, the Dean of the school was Thomas Edwin Elder, The school cashier was Allen Horton. Both were close associates of the murdered Headmaster. SDLER - 2 Now, against that hackground. is set the present puzzle, three years later, S,chool Cashier Norton charges that former Dean Elder, at night in a strange scene of threatened murder, menaced him with a shotgun, and said he*d kill him. The School cashier is completely positive about this, and has pressed the trial - for assault with intent to kill. Dean Elder just as positively denies. He declares that at the time he was in a Hotel at Keene, New Hampshire, there A for the night. He offers this as a complete alibi. So, jfckay the key witnesses will be a hotel chambermaid and a filling station attendant of the New Hampshire town. The mystery of the Boys* School s murder and the charge of murderous menace three years later* KUggER At Providence» Rhode Island, today the police were busy investlgating a new stertiing clue in tbe mystery of the murdered society doctor. It's now two weeks since Dr. George ytebster, -s> practiced medicine among the rich, was shot in his own home^ and died without revealing the killer. Since then the affair has remained a blank mystery. Now, ksKXKX? however, the story is told of how shortly before the crime, the doctor, in a strange scene, talked with a man, who may he the one that shot him. And the physician remarked and commented upon a pistol, which may have been the one that later took his life. The story is related b}*" a friend of Dr. Webster's to whom it was told by the doctor himself. There was a fashionable beach party, and one of the men there was a local resident of note - a former army officer. Dr, Webster was chatting with him in a dressing room, when he noticed that the one-time military man had hanging on a chair a holster and a pistol - a big forty-five. "What are you carrying that for?" asked the doctor. "There»s a man who has been Braking a play for my wife," MURDER - 2 replied the former army officer, '’And I'm going to get Mm." "hat was there in that brief colloquy? Was the jealous husband indirectly referring to the doctor? Did the doctor understand that he was the mar, referred to so threateningly? The scene of the husband and the doctor is packed with implications of melodrama. The -.Mc-Army officer it described as inclined to go into a fury at every attention to his wife and prone to outbreaks of violence, especially when drinking. And now the Providence police are inclined to susrect that the blonde with whom the doctor made an automobile trip was the wife of that same jealous husband. Such are the intimations of melodrama that flash in the Rhode Island murder mystery. HOTTA Sven the Japanese in the Far East are troubled with a detective mystery, as if the problems of Chinese Generals and^imperial expansion were not enough for them. The Nipponese Police in Shanghai are engaged in a manhunt - a search for Massao Hotta, surnamed "The Fox." It *s a bitter thing to the Japanese Police, They*ve lost face out there in the east where face counts for so much. The fox broke out of jail, flew the coup, escaped from the Japanese Consular Jail at Shanghai. Not only that - he broke into the police strong box, and stole two hundred and seventy-five dollars. And that has caused the Japanese Police to lose so much face, that you might call them - men without faces. They hunted for the fox but couldn't find him. A Russian Detective with the police force of the trench Consulate, informed them that he had seen the fox on an eastbound street. The Japanese went in pursuit, but no fox* Then they got word that he was aboard a ship that had just sailed from Shanghai. The Japanese cops grabbed a motor launch and rushed in pursuit of the vessel, overtook it, EOTTA - 2. boarded it, and made a search - but returned to Shanghai without the fox. An informer, a i?ar Eastern stool pigeon sold to the Japanese the information that the fox was hiding at a temple at Lunghwa. A force of detectives hastened to Lunghwa, searched the temple, did two days of sleuthing - and came to the conclusion that the stool pigeon who sold them the tip was a bigger thief than the fox himself. The latest is that the Japanese have consulted a Russian crystal gazer^ and seer named Mainchini. This mystic gazed in his crystal and told them that the fox is hiding outside ## Shanghai, but will return to the City as soon as he has scent the two hundred and seventy-five dollars. By this time the face of the Japanese Police is - - something that only a Mother could love. INTERNATIONAL follcky hqtta It loo a s more and more as if china were backing down in the i*ar eastern tan 1 report today that the Nanking government has agreed to a settlement that the Nipponese Generals have worked out with the northern Chinese officials, Tokio has been demanding this jail along, Nanking has been snJtx stubbornly refusing --"|he ^entj%\ Chinese Government not wanting to be left out of_the settlement. But the Japanese today insisted that Nanking has yielded on this crucial point, and ratified the local settlement -- a settlement granting the demands of Japan* The Spanish situation is aboutsthe seme, the battle west of Madrid has come to no decision. - The Nationalist® counter-attacks are making progress, but the whole thing is confused. A stalemate seems a likely outcome. Therefs another report of a Spanish rebel attack on a British ship, but there's nothing certain about it. A burning vessel was spied. It may be the British Tanker "Sturia" or maybe not. It may have been attacked by the franco Cruiser "Canarius" or maybe not. The story is largely maybe and mostly not. There»s no explanation tonight about the mystery plane that was reported to be flying out over the Norlh Atlantic. Just two guessi- trans-oceanic flight or suicide. Sometimes they’re pretty much the same. And there’s further mystification in the reports about the perplexing aircraft. A wireless message was picked up telling that the plane had been sighted f iv-s- hun­ dred miles east of Newfoundland. The message is supposed to have come from the British Merchant craft '’Ranee”. A check up of the shipping records shows that the "Ranee” is in southern waters - the Atlantic in the latitude of the West Indies. So how could the Ranee down near the tropics get a glimpse of a plane flying the ocean between Newfound- O land and Ireland? The supposition is that the wireless was not from the "Ranee" but from some other ship - names balled up. It’s all a mysteryJ There’s no explanation tonight about the mystery plane that was reported to be flying out over the Norlh Atlantic. Just two guesss- trans-oceanic flight or suicide. Sometimes they’re pretty much the same. And there’s further mystification in the reports about the perplexing aircraft. A wireless message was picked up telling that the plane had been sighted five hun­ dred miles east of Newfoundland. The message is supposed to have come from the British Merchant Craft "Ranee*. A check up of the shipping records shows that the "Ranee" is in southern waters - the Atlantic in the latitude of the West Indies. So how could the Ranee down near the tropics get a glimpse of a plane flying the ocean between Newfound­ land and Ireland? The supposition is that the wireless was not from the "Ranee" but from some other ship - names balled up. It's all a mystery1 DIVER Tonight in a New York hospital, James Quinn is doing as well as might be expected, after so harrowing an experience. Doing some deep sea diving in a home-made diving suit, he descended to the bottom of the Hudson River. When they got him up, he was almost dead — and no wonder. Diver Quinn had had plenty of trouble. He’s a motion picture projectionist by profession, a motor boat enthusiast by way of sport, and an inventive genius by inspiration. The other day, he lost the fly-wheel of his motor boat, which fell splash into the River. It was worth twenty-two dollars, and Quinn wasn't going to lose it. He was too much of an inventive genius for that. He decided to descend to the bed of the River and rescue his fly-wheel. So he Invented a diving suit to do it in. He built himself a submarine contraption. For a diving helmet, he sawed off a milk can, patched and wisniaiei welded it in secure form, and attached to it an air hose. The other end of this air hose he connected with a large air tank, which he equipped with a pump. He went to the Fiver, with a couple of friends as assistants, put on his home­ made diving suit, and was lowered DIVER - 2 into the depths. His friends pumped air to him from the air tank. The trouble was - it wasn»t air at all. For a tank he had used an old gasoline can and it was full of gasoline fumes. So Quinn, at the bottom of the River, was getting a concentrated dose of gas vapor. And it almost killed him. Presently, the friends at the surface noticed no signs of life at the other end of the life-line, so they hauled Quinn to the surface. They found him more like a dead man than a live one, and .hurried him to a hospital. Today the doctors were busy getting the gasoline fumes out of the lungs of Quinn, the inventive genius. DIVER - 2 into the depths. His friends pumped air to him from the air tank. The trouble was - it wasn’t air at all. For a tank he had used an old gasoline can and it was full of gasoline fumes. 3o Q,uinn, at the bottom of the River, was getting a concentrated dose of gas vapor. And it almost killed him. Presently, the friends at the surface noticed no signs of life at the other end of the life-line, so they hauled Quinn to the surface. They found him more like a dead man than a live one, and .hurried him to a hospital. Today the doctors were busy getting the gasoline fumes out of the lungs of Quinn, the inventive genius. FOLLO. ■' DIYEE Ana there was a diving sensation at Newport, Arkansas, today. A man in a diving helmet descended into the depths of the Ydiite River, looking for the sea serpent about which I told the other evening. It*s the monster which the local inhabitants described as " A varmit as big as a box car." The folks of the Ozarks down there firmly believe in their sea serpent. Many claim to have seen ii^since it was first reported a couple of weeks ago. Planning to catch it, the town first had the idea of a giant net to scour the sixty foot deeps of the White River* But today they resorted to deep sea diver, Charles Brown, an undersea expert of the United States Engineering Corps. Diver Brown said he didn’t believe in sea serpents, but anyway he would go hunting for the monster on the bottom of the River. So today there was a half holiday at Newport. The wooded banks of the Ozark River were crowded with farmers. The local Chamber of Commerce, while claiming that there was no publicity angle to the sea serpent hunt, roped off a space and charged two-bits a head for the best view. Hill-billies with FCLLOV/_ DIVER shotguns and riiles formed in battle-line to blaze away if the monster should appear. In this kaix impressive setting, Diver Brown donned Mis helmet, and descended into the River - he doesn*t believe in sea serpents, but he took with him an eight foot harpoon - just in case. The crowd held its collective breath. Diver Brown was at the bottom of the River for some time, and then emerged - without any sea serpent. He tried it again, made another descent. He was under water still longer this time, then came back with the report - there wasn’t any sea serpent, no monster at all, no vVhite River Leviathan. So it seems to have "been all a dream - the sea serpent mystery of the Ozarks vanished into thin air, just as this broadcast vanishes off the air* And, SO LONG UNTIL TOMORROW