Lov/ell Tho!..c*i 1 Broadcast
for the
Literal^ Digest,
ho ad ' :y , J .-di^u ar,/ t, 15 51.
Just aoout now the full moon ought to be rising way
ov-r cn the west coast of Africa, md as that moon gleams d c v.ti
on the tropic .1 sen fv.elve giant airplanes will ce taking off
fro-m. the shore rm/ winging their way out over the Atlantic. They
will be doing that poetic thing if the weather propitious.
f 1 c ti 1 . a h 1 c t has ben w t iting ii. I ortur,uese Gui
n e
a will start
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on ip.' * for South Ax nc four squad rons of three machines each
will tike ofr, one if*e. another in + he light of the full moon,
L _ ‘ ' s hope: thej av e bet *er luck than Captain McLaren
•md hrr. Beryl Hart -.vho started for Paris las* Saturday and wound
up in .I'orfolk, Vir inia. It looked for a while as though the
MTrade Wind" }.od been forced down at sea, but luckily they managed
tc put in at Norfolk,
Accc rintr to t •.e In * ernationa 1 li ews Serv ice they expect
The United press infci"' s us fhat *e big Italian air
to take of*' ag- in at six C 'clock tomerrov/ morning
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ext co^eB wore1 cf a mutiny on an American ship in
Rus-ia, The ship is the He pat
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on g. She was lying in the harbor
of Odessa, The crew went ashore. Pretty soon they came storming
baclc shouting that they had been converted to Communism, They
raised general cain and even staboed the captain. Then, accord
ing to the Associated Press they went ashore again, and stayed
there. The captain was in the hospital for ten days, Finally
he and his officers navigated the ship across the Black Sea to
Constant inopl e.
There they took a Turkish crew aboard and now
are on their way back to the United States,
^ews flashes fror across the Pacific are beginning to
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reveal t.r*at all 4i|i-s trouble in Burma has really been serious*
A
Trie revolt against the British seems to have been suppressed finally,
' ut for a while the rebels put up a surprisingly stiff fight.
You’d think that British troops in Upper Burma would
have nothing more to encounter than villagers and tribesmen armed
with primitive weapons, and that’s what they usually have. But
apparently they ran into rebel tribes with modern fortifications,
sniping posts, modern weapons, and organized by a mysterious
blend le-Y’er who wanted to make himself kin-. They called him
the man who would be king. He had a stranue fortress-1 ike palace
in the depths of the jungle.
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M.eanwhlie in add if ion to this rebellion they hav e been
havin more riots in Rangoon and the struggle raged fiercely
all day j esterd ay and today. It started as a race riot between
♦ he Burmese and the Chinese. They went at each other with stones,
whips and iron bars. mhe police of the city Pagodas finally
had to fire on the mobs.
I call it the City of Pagodas because there are hundreds
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of pawfas ir. Harpoon - running all the way from tiny ones to the
vvcrlc1 famous Shwe Dagon, covere<< with gold clear up to the tip of
its spire.
The Burmese claim that the Chinese are pushing them out
,.an.-so
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.n.
And
they are right. Chinese emigrants come there
penniless and in no time they are prosperous. For example, just
cut tide Eangocn is one of the most extraordinary palaces in the
world*
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was built a Chinese coolie, a coolie who came to
Rangoon not so long ago and who curing the war quickly became a
multi-mi11ionaire,
I went '„c call on him. It was midday and blistering
not. As we drove through the great gateway to the fairy-like
palace - not a soul was stirring. So we wandered around, and we
even took a look at the kitchens, and there we saw the great
millionaire and his wife - sleeping. He on top of the kitchen
table end she on the floor under the table. The coolie had been
used to sleeping on hard boards all his life. In dozens of rooms
were the luxurious beds fro- Paris, but he and his wife preferred
the table and the floor.
SUBkAHII.K
An^ now co-es the British Admiralty, "1»C, IT WAS LOT A
’IUrr,INyiM say the Sea lords, Bu4- they lave had some 4 rouble in the
British lavy nevertheless,
1 o rty-two '..embers of the crew of H,II. S,Lucia, a mother
ship for submarines, are under arrest. Hay be it wasn’t mutiny,
but these sailors did a bit of protesting in a way that was not
according to the rules. The whole affair is being kept secret,
but the Ini ted Press informs us that the sailors of the Lucia
made 9 demonstration protesting because their lew Year’s
leave cf absence was postponed and b cause they
vie re ordered to
prepare for an immediate voyage.
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IMlilQaiALlII
VWx? KM? c?.-,- vvvC
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example of how many
different kinds of opinions people can
have about the same thing. The subject
happens to be one in which
of
us are i nterest@d--name I y , when we leave
old Mother Ear tip, where do we go from
here?
q
Professor Helder, a teacher of
9 philosophy, wrote to a number of important
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people and asked them what they thought
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11 about immortal i ty of the soul. He wrote
12 to both bel i evers and non-bel Severs.
is
Lorado Taft, the famous sculptor,
i4 decfare^ that he was an agnost ic--t hat
is| he just didn't know. Said he:- "HOW CAN
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I BELIEVE
IN
THE IMMORTALITY OF THE SOUL
i71 WHEN I HAVE NO INFORMATION ON THE
is SUBJECT?"
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The cynical Mr. Mencken, our caustic
20 critic, who, as we all know, is not
21 orthodox about anything--weI I, Mr.
22 Mencken says that he can't find any
23 evidence of immortal ity, and that he
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24 doesn't desire immortality anyhow.
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Or. Raymond Fosdick, pastor of
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mmziLLin
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New York's magnificent new Riverside
Drive Baptist Church, thinks that it
cannot be that man's struggles and
aspirations are obi iterated by death
That wouId be
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irratior.al say
b
he.
Dr, Abraham CronbacV of the Hebrew Union College,
declares that without immortality there is a paralysis of all
t he u ht and imag in at 1 on .
mhe Her, Father V.'codlocV of the Jesuit Church of London,
holds that the heart's hunger for survival Is a natural appetite
and will be gratified by immortality, just as the hunger for food
is gratified by food. He doesn't think that immortality can. be
convincingly established by reason, but he declares that Christian
rev elation guarantees it.
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These are only a f ew of the ideas and op in ions g iv en
on one side or the other. You'll find them in an article in the
current issue of the Literary Digest. The Digest sums up the
conflicting arguments in a way that gives us a fairly compre
hensive survey of man's views on the hereafter. It’s an article
to make us sit back and think a bit, I wonder what your views
are?
Here* e pood news for f-arrr.ers. The House of
Representatives passed a bill today authorizing the President
to distribute forty-five million dollars to the farmers for
d rough! relief. Tors is to help them buy seed for the next
crop. The bill then went to the yen ate an s was promptly
passed there , with tt..e Senate add ing a provision fo r f ifteen
million to be riven to needy farmers to buy food.
According to the Associated Press, this addition was
made on the motion of Sen.- + or Carroway of Arkansas. Senator
Carre way declared there was distress, among the farmers in his
s t a t e w'h o n e ed food .
"he Senate also passed a motion asking President
Hoover to rive the Senators full information concerning the
s i tu at ion in b i c a. r agu a,
SKXl'V/liECK
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i sp a t c h cone
e rn
s mi sund er steed si. rial
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^h't seems to ee tlie explanation of the big accident in Hew
Ycrk harbor in which the army dredge Raritan had a- collision
with the he? York Savannah liner "City of Montgomery." The
government dredge sank like a rock, but the crew managed to get
to the lifeboats - that is, all but two men. They found themselves
on the deck wit - the water rushing upon them. According to both
the International News Service and the United Press they climbed
up the rigging as fast as they could and the water kept rising
beneath them. Finally they were away high up cn the mast, and
they sat there fo r a while. The water was shallow and the mast
stuck up above the surface. Finally they were rescued -and both
declared they had no ambition to become flag pole sitters after
this thrilling experience.
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headaches
Here's an unemployment itan that
tel is about a man who
a job--and
none of iis are going to envy him.
Although in a way it!s a good job. He
gets 850.00 a month and room and board
free, and he doesn?t have to do much of
anything.
there are some doctors out at
^hospital who wantAto study
They wanted to give a job to
a man who had the right kind of headache.
750 applicants came looking for that job.
The lucky one, or perhaps the unlucky one,
was Theodore Roberts. He has what the
doctors enthusiastically call* "the most
perfect headache in the world". He has
had it for years. It's a wonderful
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headache. 3o he gets the j°bA and,
according to the International News Service
al I he has to guarantee is to produce a
first sxfc class headache once every two
weeks,
orctI’SSu And Theodore
says optimistically that he'll have no
trouble doing that.
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Now we cone to the old idea that
international sport helps to create
friendsh ip between nations - that is,
maybe.
They had a tootball game down
in Peru between a Uraguayan team and a
Peruvian team, and a few people were
killed in the riot. According to the
associated Press the Uraguayans won
and the Peruvians didnTt like it. There
was an
uproar. A soldier tried
to cross the field and a policeman
tried to stop him. Other soldiers
charged in to help their comrads. The
police star tea to shoot. ihe fighting
spread through the crowd. Stones flew
and pistols were fired. Five people
were killed ana many more hurt.
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^ow C o r«e ss one of those yam s that remind us o T the eld
line a tout ~xh,L l* TO SV/EEKEY. A burglar in Brooklyn was
arrested as he was trying to break into a house. The New Yc^k
Telegram inforr.s us thst he said he was no burglar at all,
merely a victim of a burglar. He was x in - af+ er medicine for
bis sick wife when a robber held him up .and took his money. The
robber gallantly said;- "Sorry, old man, but I'll tell you what
you do. Here's my gun. now, go ahead and get yout money back -
from somebody else. ** Which he did. When he gets into court
the judge probably will say;- "GC TALL THAT TG SWHkNY, "
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PQDUNK
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Now that Christmas and New Year
have gone and the hoi id ay season is over,
let's turn to the subject of Podunk.
There j[s a Podunk--and surely that
ought to be the News Item of the Day.
In fact’, there are many Podunks.
Ore evening, not long ago, I made
the rash statement that there was no such
town as Podunk. Whereupon I plunged
myself into a maelstrom of trouble.
I—ttre
lin4t-ed—-f^o ot-a-l—Gu tide—wh-4o h I \trts-'
fittMtiP—mHyhe—as- -Podunki-—lloTre ver
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—av-a I arve-he-erf—bett-er-s—he-s—doGoend-ed-
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i4ri.Qn
t-e
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Lng ma—h
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W-VJr-On
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=£_a-p-e—-a-e merrry—Puuhriik—letiret’S—p~o
ut
i ng
4-n—that—-I——e-ve-n—'tT3n3 tiiTO t^—ea-ged-
t-tvaai—a4-4-T-
L. W • Ripley, of Glastonbury,
Massachusetts, writes:--
"V*1 hat? no Podunk? Tut, tut. One
might as v/ell say No Heaven or No New
England."
Mr. Ripley goes on to say that
there most certainly is a Podunk up in
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Connecticut, and he concludes his letter
with these scathing wordsThe colonial
records of Connecticut contain many
references to Podunk and its claim to
renown are fixed for alI time. No Podunk?
Well, well, we I I .11
Henry If. Fletcher, of Haeardville,
Connecticut, tells me that Podunk is
about five miles northeast of Hartford,
and is a part of the town of South
Windsor. Mrs. Frank H. Lee, of Revere,
Massachusetts, mentions the Pddunk River,
which flows into the Connecticut River.
Yes, but that's not even half the
story. It appears there's a Podunk in
New York too. Mrs. Jack it. Lynch, of
Ithaca, sends me a clipping from the
Ithaca JournaI-News, and about a hundred
others have sent me that same clipping.
Well, the Journal-News certainly takes
me for a ride. It assures me that Podunk
is a mile west of the village of
Trumansburg, up in the Finger Lake
country. This New York Podunk has a
population of eight farmers. It even
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has a school house, although nobody goes
to school there any more. The children
of the eight Podunk farmers all go to
school in Trumansburg nowadays.
Oris 0. Ryant, of New Field, N. Y.,
sends me a clipping from the Syracuse
Post-Standard. The Post-Standard also
gives me a beautiful razzing for saying
that there's no Podunk.
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Mrs. Anderson Bowers, of Barden
City, Long Island, comes forth with the
news that there'^m a Lake Podunk too.
And Earl Shepherd, of Richville,
N. Y., makes an excel lent suggestion.
is He says I ought to apologize to the
is people of Podunk for tel I ing them that
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they don't exist.
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0n the heels of a flood of
letters from Connecticut and hew York,
now the folks in Massachusetts are up
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on their hind legs howling lustily. Dr.
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Berry, of East Longmeadow, Mass.,
23 says that the real Podunk is just south
24 of Spencer, Massachusetts. He tells me
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that the Massachusetts Yankees for years
^rackec t.ckes anri 1-hed at that, kassachu sett e Podunk,
Bu t Penn sy 1 y ani a jump s into the controversy too. J • B«
P ro u s e, o f Phi I a-"7 e 1 pii i a, s ay s t h. ey ha\f e a P c d u n.k d o wn in h is neck
of the woods.
And ev en the kiddle !’est has its Podunk» Husse 11 .Bernd t
t e 11 s m e ^ h e t * h e g r ea t u i d e ov e r i gn St a t e o f innes ta h a s a
Podank just eo.st of t;. e town of Blu e Earth, where he lives. It
has three hou ses,
What? ilo Podunk? Ho wonder folks are writing in
s ay in g, * T u tt u t, "
11 m go ing to end th i s m enin g * s broad c ast wi th a spec i al
salute to all the Podunks
and
to eight inhabitants of each
separate one, I was wrong* There is a Podunk, There are
several Podunks. In fact, I hope there are a million Podunks.
Long 1 r*e Podunk!
And, -- GO PC.,G UiriL TOLORROV/ LICPT