L.T. - pUTjQCQ - , DA- - rl BRUAPY 16. 19-^7. SPY That sensational spy case ends without sensations — and today the navy v/as pleased. Fifty-two witnesses, including officers of high rank, were prepared to give testimony to prove the guilt of John Farnswpnth, accused of espionage. But today the naval authorities were glau because they won*t have to do all that proving. Farnsworth, formerly a lieutenant-commander of the TJ. S. Navy, entered a plea of — nolo contendere. That means — he won’t contend, won’t try to dispute the proof amassed against him. He doesn’t plead guilty. He just won’t argue. And that’s the equivalent to a plea of guilty, and carries a maximum of twenty years in prison. If this case in the federal courts had gone to trial the navy v/ould have produced witnesses to testify that Farnsworth had got twenty thousand dollars of mysterious money, when he had no visible income, i-e live in high style for two and a half years when he had no visible means of support. He paid bills with hundred dollar bank notes* The Navy didnft Blind I proving that; didnft mind a bit. 1'hey were ready to bring fo^rd testimony that Farns­ worth had sold some twenty navy secrets, includingaahts data about the gunneries of every American warship, secrets of the constructions of the aircraft carriers, SARATOGA and RANGES, as code books, signal instructions, and so on. The navy did not like the idea of spreading th^s^ testimony on the witness stand. Some of the navy secrets involved were so important that the command of the fleet refused to allow them to be discussed in the trial. It was intended to have experts swear that the information was important, Without saying what the information was. The evidence brought forth in a. trial woulcl have put the limelight on the International phase. It would have indicated that gxra Farnsworth had sold those navy secrets — to the Japanese. It would have brought into the court argu­ ment the names and doings of the two high navy officers with whom Farnsworth dealt — Commander Xsximk Yosiyuki Itimiya and Lieutenant-CoEmiander Okira Yamaki, who have since returned to japan. The navy didn't enjoy the idea of having such a delicate international affair as Japanese espionage tossed into publicity, with the possibility of agitation and bad feeling* Today Farnsworth, on trial as a spy, said nolo conten­ dere, I do not contest* That puts a silencer on the sensa­ tional affair of espionage and the navy is pleased* SUPREME COURT The other night we had % prognostication that the Administration was intending to delay a decision on the Supreme Court - to see how^opinion was going. That became official today, when the House Judiciary Committee postponed action. The Committee is called upon to take the first step in the Presidents plan to increase the court. It held a session today and decided to put the question off for a week. important voice. Senator George of Georgia, a ranking Democrat. He declared himself against the court plan, and attacked the Another voice was heard in the opposition today, an whole idea of reorganizing the supreme tribunal. President Roosevelt sent to Congress today a special message on toe farm problem. Simultaneously, the Department of AgriculttfPe releases a survey It haamade of farming conditions in the twenty-nine chief agrarian states. The Department report may serve as a background for the presidential message. Both deal with the old American agricultural ideal, which is this - the farm family living on its own land, owning the fields j I! it cultivates. The Department report shows that this idea is being | fulfilled less and less. Nearly three million farm families, con- {. |i I sisting of fifteen million persons, are tenants today. They donft it own their own land. They rent it. Each year forty thousand farmers 1 lose their land, and become tenants. They cease to own their fields. and have to pay rent. In the twenty-nine states covered by the survey, less than half of the farmland is owned by the farmers who cultivate it. The figures for non-ownership are highest in Iowa and Illinois, two of the chief bread-basket states. The report draws the conclusion that the old American system of agricultural life is in danger of breaking up, the system based on the farmer owning his own fields. lith that as the background, the Presidents message stands in the foreground today. He asks Congress to enact a program to help the nation's tenant-farmers acquire ownership^ •f" tteeii* •I'ffliKi.y and, likewise prevent farmers who do own their own fields, from losing them tenants. This to be done by providing them liberal credits, small loans, technical advice and the retirement of land on which farmers cannot make a reasonable living - give them a chance to get better fields^ \ Improve the leasing system under which tenant-farmers rent their land^ "^elp share-croppers and laborers, who are at the bottom of the agricultural ladder, w improve their education and A standard* of living. The President spoke of the agricultural ladder on which our forefathers climbed, the ladder on which they ascended - from hired man to tenant-farmer, to farm owner. He said the ladder nowadays is getting kludge shakey, not so much -(U. climbing up, more faiing down. Fifty years ago, said^F -Thim TTlitil, . m. one out of every four farmers was a tenant. FABM - 5 Today the figure is two out of every five, and in some of our best agricultural lands, seven out of every ten fisnacov are tenants, non-owners. LABOR T—y sraited General Motors and the Union ■ in those conferences specified in the agreement ending the auto stride. Nothing much happened today, Just preliminaries. Each side approved of the representatives of the other. Word from Detroit describes the proceedings as most friendly, good feeling all around. SPAIN / Saturday at midnight - that's the deadline. The stroke of twelve will put an end to the going of volunteers into Spain to fight on one side or the other in the Civil War. Such was the decision of tine .Non—Intervention Committee meeting in London today — a settlement of that long quarrel about Soviet Russians and French Radicals streaming to the help of Left Wing Madrid, while Fascist battalions of Germany and Italy do battle in the armies of Franco^ The nations involved came to a sudden decision to stop it all, a decision so precise that today the deadline was named. Reports tell that volunteers in France are streaming to the Spanish border to get into Spain on the Left Wing side, before the clock rings twelve on Saturday. ^After February Twentieth, comes March Sixth^ second deadline — the time when a blockade will be slapped on to Russian and Mexican munitions for Socialist Madrid, and German and Italian battle equipment for Fascist Franco. The blockade will stop the nations from sending war materials to Spain, like be put into effect by an international patrol along the Spanish coast. SPAIN - S The February Twentieth ban on volunteers the okay of ail the nations represented in the conference today. The March Sixth ban on war supplies ha^ the approval of all - except Portugal. With its Fascist kind of government, Portugal sides ardently with Franco^ Fascists. And the Portuguese delegate in London went only half-way today. Yes, Lisbon agreed to February Twentieth. But Lisbon failed to concede March Sixth, refused to promise that it would declare a munitions embargo on that day"^^That Portuguese attitude was countered by the Russian delegate, who demanded the international embargo of Spain to be extended to include Portugal* He said it wouldn»t be of any use to blockage if war supplies for Spain could be landed in Portugal and sent ■frke Portuguese-^ •eo-a'8t~"a5 s—the, -gS-p'&Jl£5h^——ir 9 “-feke ommuni-s emanu ** TodayT s naming of deadlines follows a sudden decision by Germany and Italy, who spoke up abruptly and said - "Very well, we111 stop our people from going to Spain and we*11 embargo * munitions." This abrut* decision, in turn, followed a warning given by France to Italy, a warning that France would not tolerate SPAIN - 5 what amounted to an Italian invasion of Spain, So naturally^ the talk was that it was the French protest which caused the Italians to agree. That was denied at the Non-Intervention Conference today, with the Italian and Qerman delegations protesting i! ® i that their action was not forced by France. The French delegation agreed, saying the whole thing was friendly and voluntary, nobody forcing anybody. JSf, Today seeras to bring to an end the perilous controversy about the nations taking sides in the Spanish Civil War. If It had happened some weeks ago, it would have been a red letter event. the solution of a perilous world crisis. Today the excitement is a good deal milder among the statesmen of Europe. The word from London Is that the Non-Intervention-agreement doesnTt mean so much, comes too late to affect the issue in Spain because Franco has as good as won the civil war. The British government is said to have had. extensive reporta survey which shows that the Socialist resistance is about to collapse, that 1 1 L i i: ! Franco will soon take Madrid, and then g«& all a# Spain. kteipowes* That, they say, is why non-intervention won out today 4 ! HI ] \ SPAIN 4 with such decisive action - because the nations feel they cannot affect the issue of the civil war any longer - it's as good as decidedcT^h%L'r~X*. fight Theie1 s a lotto, interna."tiortcil sotiabble in tlie beligerent world of boxing. Hard words were exchanged across the ocean today, with shouts of crookery, unfairness, phoney decision, robbery! It all concerns the championship fight in Paris between Marcel Thil, the Frenchman whom Europe recognizes as the middle­ weight champion of the world, and Lou Brouillard, the American. And they say the squabble may jeopardize the art of sock, slam, smack, and slug in the fair land of France. That would be a cal­ amity, because the prize fight business in Frnace is something special. It’s name is Jefferson Davis Dickson. This renowned Parisian, Jeff Davis DicKson,comes from Natchez, Mississippi. He went to France with the Seventeenth United States Engineers. He went in the automobile bumper bus­ iness. And he thought he’d promote a few bumps in the Prize ring. rXur.T Qe staged some fights, but the French didn't go into ecstacies— over thi?**4^!3roi.iig 94 —r-nd. bealt- bncfing^ — a fiasco, a flop. In the automobile bumper business, Jeff knew a lot of French motor mechanics, a tough att£-hard-boiled lot__who enjoyed seeing somebody get bumped around. AJeff staged another prize fight show in Paris, and papered the house with *asPIEEw^fesS3w mechanics. They were enthused. From that time on, boxing flourished, and Jefferson Davis Dickson was the French Tex Rickard, He created the career of Primo Camera, tall tower of Msaegsg Gorgonzola. Once he promoted a bout bet we en^fiSSHaaSfc^and the Basque wood-chopper, Paolino Uscudun — in the bull ring at Barcelona. To tive the right touch of sensation and ..'Ublisity, ^eff^rs^a Davis Dickson became a matador. He fought the bull, and killed it. Maybe *gfc==*ra» a weak bull, or an old one. had a hundred lions running and roaring around. He put on another one called "The Jungle at Midnight,, - Wj-th <^1- sorts of lion-hunt in a Paris amphitheatre. He FIGHT -5- wild oeasts leaping, snarling and fighting under the glare of floodlights. The Parisian authorities stopped that one. They said — it made the animals nervous. They didn't say how nervous It made the customers. He there you have the Mississippi maestro in A fighter knocks his antagonist out with a smash to the chin, and loses the fight on a foul^ That's the peculiar thing which happened in Paris. Thil of France and Brouillard of the U. o . a ., fought at a fast clip for five rounds - the Frenchman peppering the American^ face with a slashing left jab. In the sixth, the boy from Massachusetts swung a left-hand body punch - a hefty sock to the bread-basket. I'hll the champ, let out a yell of "Foull11 the crowd it looked so too, ordered Thil to go on fighting. Thereupon the scrapper from Worcester, Massachusetts, cracked the ch«.mp -»ith a What’s the trouble? left hooK to the chin, on the button. Thil hit the floor, and was counted out. Brouillard of Massachusetts was the middleweight FiuaT -4- champion -- but only for a minute. The Belgian referee walked over to the judges, two Frenchmen and a Spaniard, and asked them about that body blow, b&id he hadnTt seen it. was it a fair punch? The judges declared it a foul, and therefore the knockout smack to the chin didn ’ t count . They awarded the fight to The crowd let out a wild howl of protest, although the French commonly don1! kick when their own champion wins. The customers stormed and raged —- and today the controversy spread across the ocean. Along the prize-fight alley they're saying that the only way an American can beat Champion marcel Thil is If you were travelling in an automobile at sixty miles an hour and you hit a stone wall or anything else stationary the effect on you is equivalent to falling off a hundred and twenty foot cliff* At sixty your car is travelling eighty- eight feet every second* "While your heart makes one beat the auto shoots ahead five times its own length. If you see obstacle^aheaS^your car speeds for sixty feet before you can fAiis is the picture of motor hazard given by the New York State Bureau of Motor Vehicles. What do motorists say about the enforcement of traffic laws* Do they want stricter enforcement? Yes, they do — at least in Connecticut. The authorities there have just tabulated a huge series of questionairs to car owners. These show the motorists saying — put teeth in the law* They want a campaign against the use of pull and influence in squaring violations -- fixing tickets. They suggest that drivers re-examined every five years, when renewing their licenses. They propose that the age limit for licenses toy be 1 I! 1 I move your foot to the brake^pedal. ftii I ! fcl ll : 1 ! I I i rj: IIP 1 I raised from sixteen to eighteen years. They are in favor of a forty-five mile an hour speed limit and of having speed-govern­ ors on all cars, governors that can*t be tampered with. And Gov. Enslen says it’s time for me to move over and give him the driver’s seat. So SO LONG UNTIL TOMORROW.