___ A dozen centuries a6o the confusion of raigr£tine peoples in Europe left a small section of Slavs almost isolated in central Europe - almost entirely hemmed in by Germans and Hungarians. And so Bohemia came into being. It was not one group of Slavs, but several, with the Czechs as the most prominant part. In the Middle Ages it was connected with the old German Empire - though it remained stubbornly Slav, After the World War, the Versailles Treaty created a nation combining the^several groups of Slavs. Two of these, the Czechs A and the Slovaks, made a partnership agreement - arranged oddly enough in our own American City of Pittsburgh. But,largely because of French influence^ the Czechs were given a dominant position as rulers of a highly centralized state, the Slovaks put in a jq J subordinate position .as a French Idea to include a hute lot T e.'-^-atSL of Germans in the France -nted^-^e A* Si? '>4rtP“«S. BJl anti-German stronghold in the heart of central Europe. +wo final collapse of that international Today came the linoi coj . j .« p = house of cards. The collapse began v/hen Hitler’s Germany took the A* German areas from Czechoslovakia. And that broke the control of the Czechs over the other Slavic groups. The Slovaks had long been discontent because they had not been granted an equal position with the Czechs. And then a third group, the Ruthenians, the Carpatho-Russians — they had hardly been considered at all. N ot / Slovakia has declared its independence - with the support of Hitler. The Carpatho-Russians have broken away - their Mi country is being invaded by the Hungarians. The final and formal gesture occurred today - the Czechoslovak government at Prague in an official act dissolved the Czechoslovak state. Prague recognizes the independence of Slovakia.^The government says in a manifesto; nWe always will have a pleasant memory of our association with the Slovaks." ?And Prague withdraws all Czech \ troops from Ruthenia - this after an ultimatum from Hungary demanding that they be withdrawn^ Moreover, the Prague Premier and his Foreign Minister are in Berlin tonight, conferring with Hitler. Taking orders from Hitler, is probably more accurate. V/hat are the political meanings of it all? It is FOREIGN - 3 difficult to say. Undoubtedly the newly independent state of Slovakia will become a dependency of Germany. They staged their independence movement with the advice and help of^H^l^^fhe land of the Czechs,iww^becomes a mere satelite of Nazi Germany, and may even be .annexed. Tonight German, troops ^ thregteningly on sits^bogdeg&. As for the Ruthenians, the Carpatho-Russians, tonight the invading; Hungarians are far inside erf their country. Hungary claims Ruthenia, and the word is that the claim is now supported by Germany. The latest is that ng a slice of R1 With all possible interpretations and speculations. even Roumania is claiming a slice of Ruthenia. -A the one dominant and historic headline tonight is this — Kxaxfeas Czechoslovakia is no morel What are the democracies doing about it? Nothing. Today's events leave Hitler all the more the arbiter of central ^ Europe. London and Paris say it's no affair of theirs - although they were supposed to make some sort of agreement guaranteeing X the frontiers of Czechoslovakia. .^Prirne Minister Chamberlain's to ^ the position that FQLLOV/ FOREIGN I -m I had a phone call today with a voice saying in emphatic British accents - "There will be no war." It was Douglas Williams, chief American correspondent for the LONDON DAILY TELEGRAPH. X asked Douglas why he was so positive there*d be no war over the C^ech crisis, and he replied with one word - "cricket," "What1 a —Caeoh crisis?" he aeksy "whon-fchey *rs playing till!' gieatr-toleiinlal ■cilcketr match between England and Oeuth AfiLiaT* There’s a monumental game going on right now. i It’s being played injBouth Africa, and the news dispatches have London in a fever. That game has been going on for eight days already, though it had been expected to last for only three. The xbkkx £ reason for the prolonged cricketing is - the heavy scoring, and they sure can score heavily in cricket! X* The South African team in its first inning compiled five hundred and thirty runs. England came back with a total of three hundred and sixteen runs; Africa in its next inning made four hundred and eighty-one. That made a total for the two innings of one thousand and eleven England seemed doomed to certain defeat, being six hundred and runs. / FOLLOW FOREIGN - 2 ninety-five runs behind. Then the British team astonished the British Empire by running up a score of four hundred and ninety-six runs for the first three wickets it played today. So tonight theyf re less than two hundred runs behind with seven players still to go to bat. That * s what is taking the British mind off the Czech crisis - and there won’t be ary war. SPAiN I bH-MERIC AN In these days haunted by the sinister terror of war it may be something of a relief to look back at a war that had a lighter side was nearly all lighter side. I»ve just been reading a book called ’'Remember the Maine," by historian Gregory Mason. It tells about the Spanish American War which was something of a newspaper war. Greg Mason vividly depicts the capture of Santiago aid the solemn moment - the raising of the flag. While three hundred pound General onafter ana nis staff watched in the courtyard, a party of soldiers climbed a ladder to the roof of the Governor's palace. TSere they hoisted Old Glory - cameras clicking all over the place, oylvester Gcovell, famous correspondent the tU ' old NEW YORK WORLD, thought he should get into^pictures. He started climbing the ladder. General Ghafter roarcdj "Throw him down." War Correspondent Lcovell scrambled down, just as a a squad of husky troopers came running to obey the General's order. The indignant correspondent stalked over to the ponderous General and took a punch at him - took a sock at the Commander in Cuba'. The punch missed, but Geo veil of the United States army jf ■ w m. SPAlUbri-A^LBICAM __ •• -<L- was instantly arrest d. They could find no calaboose in which to put him. There was a tall monument, from which the statue of a 04 bpanish general had been hurled by the Cuban insurrectos. They A hoisted the unfortunate correspondent to the top of the pedestal, and there he stood — while riuged around him was a cordon of soldiers with up-pointed bayonets to keep him from jumping off. t>o he stood like a statue on the pedestal, until scouting parties found a jail in which to incarcerate him. 8 'L- DEFENSE The Administration today got behind the proposal to give government help in the sale of armament to Latin-American republics. In the Senate, there’s a bill to have the United States Army and Navy cooperate in providing the southern nations with weapons of war. Today Acting Secretary of State Sumner Welles declared that American armament sales to Latin-America would, in his words, nfoster the growing spread of solidarity.” He said that in the past South America! countries had to go to Europe to buy guns and warships, because sometimes private firms in the United States didn't feel free to make the sale. TherfcrtingSeeretarjrTJOiTrfee^ t thaty the southern r^publit^s often would^prefer bo buy fr^us if they ;ould get; government cooperation - soVlet1 s co^erate. said he,^ Meanwhile, a Committee of the House of Representatives was hearing some alarming things about possible dangers to the Panama Canal. The alarm about Panama was sounded by Representative Izac of California. He's sponsoring a bill to construct tfcfr & DEFENSE - 2 Nicaraguan Canal - the long debated idea of building a waterway- through Central America at Nicaragua. ' Sabotage of the Panama Canal," he declared, "would be a very simple matter. An innocent looking tramp steamer, a tanker or a freighter, could do it. It would be easy to load them with TNT and ram the locks." Thus, said he, the locks could be blown up and the canal disabled. "Or a well-aimed bomb could do it", he added. "Therefore," said Representative Izac, "we should build flL tfte Nicaraguan Canal." To this other Congressmen pointed out that a Nicaraguan Canal could be blown up in precisely the same way. So the logic seemed to come to a deadlock. RELIEF President Roosevelt today renewed his request for a hundred and fifty million dollars - sent a message to Congress in which he stuck to the figure he has named all along. Congress cut the regular relief appropriation by a hundred and fifty million, and the presidential strategy is to demand that this sum be handed over in the form of a special appropriation. The need is as great as ever, the President says* His statement to Congress puts it this way:- "Since my messages of January and February, a careful check-up shows that there has been no substantial change in'the conditions of unemployment* On the contrary," the message asserts, "recent data have become available, substantiating the need for an additional appropriation of a hundred and fifty million dollars." The message goes on to say that if the money is not appropriated^ relief rolls will have to be cut by over a million that many taken off the W.P.A* - v^.^hington opinion is that Congress will come through-wife f that} the money - jpxjfck, the economy forces which made the original cut will not be able to .block the special appropriation. GRAFT The political corruption trial at Waterbury, Connecticut brought mention today of some young ladies. The Mayor with a lot of city officials, are on trial charged with graft. The naif million dollars. And today the chief accountant of the Waterbury Comptroller^ office was on the witness stand. He might be expected to know a lot about the entries on the books for money paid out, se he talked about some young ladies. A. theme Always an interesting^kk^iK - young ladies. The chief auditor related that^upon bhe~a»bi«et—of- aTpamnT marked on the city books, he decided —net—to be— responsible^ Re didn t want to take it on himself to okay the records of expenditures. So he shifted the responsibility — shifted it to whom? Y/hy, to those young ladies. Without looking at the financial accounts, he passed them along to be okayed by subordinate women officials, yun08=ae*I^« This -the chtcf accountant related on the witness stand today.- expenditures of nearly two and a xt seems like a great idea. Wouldn't it ce im S3 our monthly bills along to some young ladies Wouldn* t it be fine if we could pass our GRAFT ~ 2 And when somebody has a lawsuit against us, just tell them to sue a couple of blondes. FRAUD One of the oldest swindles is the kind of game in which the victims are persuaded to Invest their money in an attempt to get possession of some huge fortune. Again and again in the past t±X it has been the case of some fabulous estate in England - waiting to be claimed and won* But times progress, and crockery keeps up with the times, new wrinkles, new twisters. Here»s something up-to-date - a fifty million dollar bootleg fortune. Today at Danville, Illinois, a mother and son pleaded guilty of swindle and were sentenced each to ten years in prison, -rec-ent—legend-ofprohlbUxoTT, the-htrge-hootleg wealth in.the dry-era. They told of one Max Orendorff, described him as a bootleg king, a monarch of the alcohol racket, who amassed a fortune of fifty million dollars. That fabulous wealth was now in^courts to be claimed by the proper heirs. All that was needed was financing to press the legal battle. Invest some money for this financing. and you get a cut of the fifty million. FRAUD - 2 Such was the scheme operated by the mother and son - and they hooked a lot of investors. The case was important enough to bring to the trial such witnesses as winthrop Aldrich, Chairman of the Board of the Chase National Bank of New York. The United States Supreme Court Justice Harlan F. Stone was also someone to testify, as was Paul Lockwood, Number One aid to New York District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey. What about the vast prohibition-made-wealth? It was all a myth. There was no Maxtor end or ff- bootleg-fortune, no fifty million dollars - not even fifty cents. Just an old threadbare scheme dressed up with a modern angle. FLOWERS At the New Y0rk Flower Show, I heard about orchids, it inevitable sublet*, amid masses of those gorgeous blooms. In times past, collectors used to risk their lives in tropical adventure, hunting for rate types of the jungle flower. But not any more. I was talking to Edward Manda, the orchid fancier, who has won a lot of prizes at the show, and he told me that nowadays all an orchid collector has to do in the tropics is to sit on a hotel porch in a South American city. And the forest roaming Indians will bring in all the orchids he wants. ^Adventure-romance has departed from the strange blossom of the equatorial forest. ) / There was talk about the tree planting here at Rockefeller Center — a row of giant elms set up along the busiest part of Fifth Avenue. Trim.I '■loofted Mlto er-jThX-. a huge truck was bringing the trees — it broke down in an isolated place. II I ft 1 1 ill 11 I * i When they got it fixed up, five inches of snow fell in Westchester, v \ jsj ^£ sl J with deep drifts in some places, and the truckload of trees^ww- I I j I l i 1 use-eompllcratod' t COOGAN A settlement was reached today in the Jackie Coo6an case. Jackie, the one-time kid star of the silent picture days, was suing his mother, Mrs. Lillian -Bernstein, for the money he made when he was the hit of the nation as the mTXBfte'fravwsaBiiv mischievous, loveable kid of the screen. The boy of that period took in earnings amounting to five million dollars. How much & left for A his mother and him to quarrel over? Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. She claimed that legally it was hers, and he went to law about it. ^ Today they came to an agreement —^they divided it* ^They have listed the property each is to get, and the net result is that^ they111 split the two hundred and fifty thousand dollars equally between then., each getting about a hundred and twenty-five thousand. FIGHT The New York Boxing Commission today okayed Tony Galento - with an "if". The Commission ruled that Two Ton Tony he allov.ed to fight Champion Joe Louis in New YSrk — if the Two Toi^is found to be in perfect physical condition. How perfect is that? The Commission had a bit of argument about VT ttSW^and decided that perfect physical condition meant - organically sound. I wonder whether they’ll consider Tony’s extra tonnage as perfect condition. What about the organic soundness of a ponderous waistline, a big bay window out in front, a few double chins and rolls of fat where the back of the neck is supposed to be? When fight-time comes, the Athletic Commission doctors 7t&£ will examine Tony, and he’ll have to show them^both tons of him n j __ £ ~ u. ^ . are the picture of health.