butler L, T. - SUHOCQ - FRIDAY, FEB. 15. 1935 It loolfB as if the hold if riot had Marine were right -- General Sme^ley D. Butler, His story about the proposed Fascist inarch on Washington still has a eeeming of high improbability, but the House of Representatives Committee on Un-American Propaganda has put its seal on the General's account of how he was offered the post of American dictator in a putsch to overthrow the government in Washington. The committee in its report today declares that evidence brought before it has indicated that certain persons around Wall Street did cherish ideas of a Fascist coupe d* etat. Apparently all they needed was the money. Maybe some money men were interested, but cash was not laid on the line. The Committee's report continues with a denunciation of various sources of un**d emoc ratic agitation in the country —— Fascist and Communist. It points to Germany, Italy, Russia and Mexico as doing a bit of propaganda nere in favor of their own political ideas. And the committee accuses Russia o Communist plotting in violation of the Soviet agreement with the U. S. A And now the Cube Root, Square Root,and Elihu Root. We're reminded today ol the reason why America^ distinguished eldest statesman never got a niclcname. His father was a professor of mathematics and was affectionately called "Cube" Root. An elder brother went to college and was promptly baptised "Square" Root. appropriate, for the younger Root boy* was never called anything but Elihu. Well, that was a long time ago. 'Today Elihu Root is celebrating his ninetieth birthday, distinguished in years and honors - the first citizen of the United States^ He sat in his Fifth Avenue home today, reading and musing - about the world in general and the United States in particular. He knows more about this country of ours than any other man. He watched it progress from stage coaches to speed planes.' As a lad he heard about the Mexican war. He lived through the Civil Y.ar, Spanish American Car and the World War. Vvhen he was born &x John Tyler was just Apparently the collegiate wags couldn't think of anyting else A finishing his term at the White House. So Elihu Root has seen the administrations of twenty-three presidents. He has been United States senator from New York, Secretary of V.ar, Secretary of State, American representative at the World Court, Ambassador Extraordinary to Russia, Chairman of a series of Republican National Conventions, and in nineteen twelve he won the Nobel Peace Prize. And ^Tnlyadoes make the ninety-year old statesman the first citizen of this Republicl Remember the talk about higher prices as a result of last summer’s drought in the Middle test and the South 'best? The predictions have come true. Figures issued in Washington indicate tnat food has gone up all al ng the line with increase^ r inging from a one percent rise for wheat a fourty-four percent boost for butter. There* s another side of the picture tnough — in the x case of produce grown in regions th^-t were not affected by the drought. In these instances prices were even a bit lower. People are pacing i.ess for potatoes, cabbages, onions and bananas than they did last year. Washington says no. J. Edgar Hoover of the Department of Justice declares there is nothing t> reports that Hauptman had an accomplice in the Lindbergh kidnapping cmd that police and Federal agents know who this accomplice is and are on nis trail./ That’s denied. J. Edgar Hoover explains that so far as the United States government is concerned the case is marked ’'closed" on the government books, and the Hew York Police have also marked the word "closed" alongside one order recording the kidnapping, and 1 muraer. Meanwhile Bruno Richard aauptman will s^on bg on his way from the Flemington jail to the otate Prison at Trenton — midnignt^^^^^is the hour scnedu 1 fo Lzdt _________ A ! "P i i ^ world's most famous prisoner. Hauptmann made an appeal today to the public in the State of New Jersey. He signed a petition to Judge Trenchard, asking the state to pay the expense of printing the record in his case, so that he can use the record for an appeal to the higher court. Hauptmann's defense hasft no money to pay for these formalities of preparing documents for his appeal. SLEEP The American sleeping beauty is going to have a permanent wave tomorrow. Patricia Maguire, who has been in profound slumber for three years, will have her hair curled by a beautician. Medical science is still baffled by the strange case. Every known device has been used to awaken her, blood transfusions, serums, artificial fever produced by electricity, even hypnotism. But still she sleeps on. Last June she raised her hand and moved one eyebrow, almost the only si rn of movement the girl has made since February, mLneteen thirty-two. Kept alive by nourishment through a tube, she has slept through the Lindbergh tragedy, the election of Roosevelt, the N.R.A., the_.Dionne quintuplets.—— They say she has become prettier-all the time, 1 . 1 - be—th-j f by on Aprirl——* hoy—oeiy ^he has gained weight, a phenomenon often observed in sleeping sickness. Her color is healthy, Her black hair is glossy• Lhe has had two permanent waves already. and tomorrow will have her third. -»igh zy- zli ?ee ..'ears ago tomooroL, fiv- crooners smarted ouixalng buegies ana ..agons at tooth Bend, Indiana, ana a^ixt ;.e_. a;.e na-ae 02' 020aetakar cecaiss a bv- ard across t.'.e troaa lands nere the farmer* s ragon was a cnaracteiistic sight on the road. ihe renarhatle thing is that ..-n tne net, auto era cate, .then autos and trachs superseded buggies and •..agons, the great cuggv ana wagon name aid not t" any means gr.,.. din and pass out of tne picture. Instead, ^tuteba^er t-O/C its lace _tne ;.a_- S 02 sue r.e- i ono • rov. ts.ere uill be a sir tuna., celebration at South Bend, . _ sn .xany a pat on tne bach :'o: nat is oelieve to be the -_t veuicle ...a .ufacturin con., .-ny in tne . or Id. But Studebaker has all the vigor of youth!— Depression or no depression, -urit; tne .act tte years tne ecu. ny has been A for^i:.g a neat. r (^AAA^xi^tCf ■■crm 3d,* 7 f | • f , '’: AIRPLANE X have been aa^ed tne question — what type of plane was used in that isjw® Eunoco experiment, with the winged sky craft carrying an automobile underneath its cabin? The answer is _ a new type of plane, the broad cabin Uppercu—Burnell! transport, But I brought the designer himself here to tell us some of the aircraft aspects of thKhOvel experiment, Vincent Buranelli, who for years has been developing the t.yn ' rr’T n'T What’s the theory. Vine? VINCENT: Well, I have been figuring all along that the aircraft Tfce. aJ!#— of the future would be v/ing. Up to now an airplane has been a fuselage fixed between two wings,1 a dead weight cabin. with two win*s to carry it. So we’ve been working along the idea that the cabin itself should have a lift, shaped w-i ri tf-q 1 That's how we're able to broaden out the cabin, until now in our ships it has something of the pxspsxtinn proportions of an ordinary room. Thatfs the type of transport that flew the automobile in the hlwa Sunoco test flight. My idea is to carry on our principle of the ,ralT wing lifting luselage’ , further and further, make the cabin wider and wider, until we have ana-a airplane I have been abided the question - what type of plane was used in that Sunoco experiment, with the winged sicycraft carrying an automobile underneath its cabin? The answer is __ a new type of plane, the broad cabin Uppercu-Burnelli transport. But I brought the designer himself here to tell us some of the aircraft aspects of that novel experiment, Vincent Buranelli, who for years has been developing the What's the theory. Vine? type. VINCENT: Well, I have been figuring all along that the aircraft of the future would be^grarf 1 yiwing. Up to now an airplane has been a fuselage fixed between two wings,* a dead weight cabin. with two wings to carry it. So we've been working along the idea <z | ! that the cabin itself should have A lift, shaped «£&*= A* w 1 n aT That's how v/e're able to broaden out I the cabin, until now in our ships it has something of the pxsapExilan proportions of an ordinary room. That’s the type of transport that flew the automobile In the tiitia. Sunoco test 1 light, hy idea is to carry on our principle of the "all wing lifting fuselage". further and further, make the cabin wider and wider, until we have tlnsr^llieffing HrpVinn-r AIRPLANE - 2 £•TIhat does sound futuristic when planes in the sky will be just graceful wings. VINC: Yebj and it will increase safety* We had a crack—up in one of our test flights a few weeks ago with broad A cabin ship)*. She hit at a terrific clip. But the pilot climbed O* out without a scratch. And fellow in the cabin was just A jarred a bit. The impact crumpled the wings, but the cockpit and the cabin were hardly damaged. The ordinary long splindly plane fuselage wl"lir‘~:hrFhk mlike a match stick, whaA the broad square cabin will take the shock. I think we111 see the day when cabins like that will bf lined everywhere with deep pneumatic cushioning to laKEaLkocfchEX^axx protect the passengers inside. And that will push airplane safety a long way toward the ideal hundred per cent. L.T.; That automobile carrying flight proved the quick starting of Blue Sunoco motor fuel, in extreme cold and at high altitudes. And of course it does suggest future possibilities for the airplane. AIRPLANE - 3 VINC: Yes, if we can tly an ordinary roadster below our plane, it means that a big broad cabin transport could carry an armored car for war, or a whippet tank, L. T. : War planes launching tanks behind an enemy line in battle - squadrons of tanks out-flanking the enemy by the sky route. And it also suggests exploration possibilities. In inaccessible deserts you could fly a scouting car and make a landing, and then go exploring around in the car. And if a plane can fly an auto below its fuselage, why not a boat? That certainly might help in the exploration of vast jungle lands as in South America or New Guinea, where there are rivers and lakes, A plane carrying a motor launch could land on a river or lake, and then the exploration could be carried on by boat. You build a plane to fly a boat Vine, and 1*11 use it for a flying-motor-boating-trip-along up the sources of the Amazon. flake The theme ox greater safety in airplanes is appropriate this evening - with the news of an air disaster in Europe. A great sky ship crashed in dicily today, an air liner. It was a new type, a combined land and water plane, recently put into service by the British Air Force. The big transport took off from London for a flight to Singapore, with nine passengers aboard. It was winging over Sicily, near the City of Messina, when the crash came, followed by fire and explosion. No survivors. &XS3dS±E A couple of days ago the British government expressed regrets to our Secretary of State because of the loss of the dirigible Macon, and now in return our Ambassador to London will reciprocate by expressing our own regrets for England’s air tragedy today. baseball A feeling of spring vmm in the air, a warm balmy foretaste o - l the coming season# I suppose we v*Tili have another cold snap or two, but it is appropriate that the weather seems like springtime as the preliminaries of the baseball season get under way. Tomorrow Ford Frick, the new head of the National League, starts south for the baseball training camps. Hefs going to swing around in a circuit to inspect and get things pepped up at every training of the National League. ' A Meanwhile, the hold-out season this year is embellished by batsman the two champion hitters, the star ^xiEjpstsca^of either League. Lou Gehrig, who hasnrt missed a game since June, jaineteen jbwenty- five, and led the American League with forty-nine home runs last year, hasn*t signed his contract,, holding out for more money. And in the National League Chuck Klein of Chicago, who has a lifetime batting average of three hundred and fifty-two, the highest evei , is still bickering about pay with his boss. OPERA Last night I made mention of the renewed plight of the Metropolitan Opera House of Hew York, deficits and shortage of finance, with the management hoisting distress signals. Today I had a call from the opera house, telling me that at this afternoon * e matinee the S.R.O. sign was displayed - standing room only. The big house sold out to the last seat for Friday matinee, - and the opera was MDie Walkuere", one of Wagner’s heaviest, by no means a favorite of vivacious entertainment. This time a new soprano has come to inflame the enthusiasm of opera goers, a new Norwegian soprano, Madame Flagstad. She was discovered for the Metropolitan last year by Gatti-Casazza and Maestro Bodansky at St. Moritz, Switzerland. She had just sung at the Wagnerian festival at Bayreuth. Before that she had never been heard outside of Scandinania. She’s exceedingly modest and is now bewildered by her triumph in New York. The wife of a lumber merchant at Oslo, Norway, she is OPERA - 2 tall, slender and dark. Her favorite sports are skiing___ and knitting behind the scenes at the Met. She knits incessantly between acts. At the end of each performance she drinks a pint of champagne and then goes on knitting bqrk I hope I won't bore you that thie boreaome topic. A newspaper over in England staged an unpopularity contest to pick the celebrities who weary the public the most. So a wreath of British raspberries - rahsberries I should say was placed upon the brow of Public Bore Number One. Who? You could hardly guess. George Bernard Shaw! I thought he was world * s Entertaining-Wit-Number-One. What did he say when he heard about getting the tire­ some prize? The unshaved Shavian chuckled in his beard. "I am deeply grateful for the honor.'' quoth he, "because publicity about me has become an obsolute curse. Perhaps editors will now realize that it is possible to give their readers too much of a good thing." Shaw admits that he is the good thing, but concedes that there may be too much even of him. So much for the first yawning "Ho Hum" prize. There's a whole list of bores acclaimed by the British newspaper readers as prodigies of the wearisome* Next to Shaw for un-populatiry comes Hitler, then Amy Molliscn, the lady flyer. BORE - 2 I wonder wliat Amy - a really swell gal - has been doing to make the British public tired? Fourth on the “Fed-up List" is nine other than the British Prime Minister, Ramsey MacDonald. And finally - Greta Garbo, Maybe Greta has been giving the British too much of that surpressed ecstacy. But, 1 guess I*d better look out, or I may go on somebody’s list as Public Bore Number One -- unless I hurry and say — SO LONG UNTIL MONDAY.