mo i a li, f » StlHQCO - THURS,. APRIL 25, 1936 Way off in India there* s agitation and heart search* ing these daya - on the subject of religion. Several tiroes I*ve had occasion to tell of the breakaway of the depressed classes from official Hindu!amt the religion which has depressed them. The last we heard was of a conference to decide what new religion the scores of millions of India's outcasts should embrace. The gatherings and debates thus far have decided nothing • except they intend to decide on something. Mow they've callet a new Congress of the tJntouchables9 to roeet at Lucknow in the near future. Leaders of other religions will again be invited to appear and plead the cause of their respective systems of belief - with the prospect that the vast millions of Untouchables will decide upon some one of the creeds and embrace it en masse. Of course, the idea of such a vast body of humanity joining one religion as a unit is almost fantastic in scope. If it happened, it would be the most stupendous mass conversion in history. So no wonder religious leaders are thinking hard - !H 1 1 I: i II and hoping U3B1A - 2 What about Christianity? That’s the first thought to strike us* Suppose some 54 Millions of people should become Christians in one conversion! Christianity in India has hitherto worked through the medium of teachers - missionaries - scattered in many communities, teachers gathering small groups. That method seems to be dwarfed by the magnitude of the Outcast religious problem* one British religious leader says: "The situation is too big for any but united and bold strategy, not only in India and in the West," Dr* Azariaii, Chairman of the Indian National Christian Council, calls for united action by all the Christian churches. He says the outcast movement has become too great for isolated efforts - the churches must pool their resources and work together. Ah, but there’s the rub. The anxiety of the Christian leaders is all the more acute because of the activity of other creeds in India - the Mohammedans, for example. Islam is out to win the Untouchables* They have organized "The Moslem Mission for the Emancipation of the Depressed Classes." And have put up a fund of a million rupees, three hundred and seventy-five thousand dollars, to bring INDIA - 3 the Outcasts to the faith of the Prophet, And, they are recruiting a thousand Moslem Evangelists - each sworn to give twenty years of his life to spreading the doctrine of Allah - of the Koran - among the depressed. That is the program with which the Moslems will appear before the Congress of the Untouchables, That will be their way of trying to turn the parish revolt to the greater glory of Islam, And another program will be placed before the Congress of the depressed - not to bring them to a new religim, but to bring them to no religion at all. Communism, From India come reports that Communists are saying to the outcasts: "Ihy turn to any religion? Why not take Bolshecik Atheism?1' Already in southern India an organization is at work - called "The Self-Respect Movement,^ It is understood to be backed by Communist interests. Such is the situation - a situation without precedent in all history - that faces the Christian leaders* A thousand years ago or more, the problem might not have been so difficult, Then there were great mass conversions to Christianity, whole IliPIA-4 nations accepting baptism en masse - Germans, Magyars, Slavs* But today the tendencies are different. Christian leaders are making it clear to the depressed classes that\in their revolt against Hinduism they must not think that Christianity is kx something that can be embraced in a formal, half political way. Conversion, they point out, is - "a purely spiritual change of the heart of the individual*1, as they phrase it* Yes, individual belief - but the problem concerns 54,000,000 individuals. What will they do? animals Ihis is "Be Kind to Animals Week", sponsored by the S.P.CUA. I don11 know of any better way to emphasize the appeal than by referring to animals that are kind to human beings called nThe Seeing Eye”, which trains German shepherd dogs to striking instance of a dog bringing a man back to happiness^ And hero1 a- what frhey -me--- abotH a man oho now tv the soul of cheerfulness, content with his dog. let he suffered as bitter a blow as any human ever endured. came when the nurse took off the bandages. One by one she removed the strips of cloth. When she was through, the man said: "Take off the last one." ^ut she had taken off the last one. Then he knew he was blind. You'd think there could be no happiness after a blow like that. But from "The Seeing Eye" the dog that leads the blind A guide the sightless. He was in the hospital, his eyes injured. The time he got a guide and friend, a dog, with whose help he has learned to make the best of his affliction, and be serene For days i 1 e the mine drama was dragging out its suspense we all wondered: wondered what a horror those men must be facing down there. And it was impossible for us in the cheery, gay light of day to imagine the ordeal they were under* going in that living tomb. How, Dr. Robertson and Alfred Scadding are rescued, alive and well — so they can tell, describe the ordeal - ten days. Were they tortured by hunger? They were in that black underground for seven days -- before the communication pipe to them was driven down to provide food. Yet they were not hungry. Because »• there was plenty of water for them to drink. That kept the pangs away ** so they relate. And of course, they were not thirsty. Yet the water itself was a chief source of their horror -- the dampness, chill• Any miner knows how dank and shivery an underground shaft can be. That was their principal danger. They slept locked in each others arms, to preserved the warmth of their bodies. They went seldom to the communication pipe, though it was only twenty feet away from the ledge where m I UINB -2 they lay — because to get to It they had to go through water* And they had to keep dry to keep alive. And the man who died? Herman HagilJi? He succumbed to pneumonia — caused by the deadly moist chill in the dank blackness of the underground cavern. Ho hunger, no thirst, only the cold shivery moisture - that makes any story all the more eerie and terrifying. But it makes the rescue the more jubilant and happy* They are alive and well eating, drinking, sleeping and rapidly coming back to normal - Scadding taken to Halifax to be treated for infected feet SNELL Here's a case where political Interpretations are amply born out by a personality sketch. The political interpretations are wiseacres have been making them all day. simple enough. The idea cf - The other evening we had the Republican National Committee nominat­ ing a keynoting temporary chairman for the Convention at Cleveland - b Senator Steiwer of Oregon, who represents the liberal western school of farm politics. The next thing - a permanent chairman, to take over the gavel and run the Convention after Senator Steiwer has started it going. Who has been selected for that job? Why, Congressman Bertram Snell of New York. That represents the balance. For, Senator Steiwer is1 a western agricultural progres- while sive. Representative Snell is an eastern conservative. Thatls his political record, solid, substantial, and it is amply borne out by his personality. Vte-tru^-H?g^4»--w3rttu--a typically Amei lean biography. The scene - a lumber camp A So there1s a youth spent Bertram Snell's father was foreman, amid the falling of trees and the f rolling of logs. You can see a distinct political omen, when SMELL - 2 young Snell worked hie way through Amherst, along with another whose name was Calvin Coolidge* Young Snell graduated a year earlier than the future President, then went hack to the lumber camp and rolled logs. Then he kept hooks in a pulp mill and worked into an interest in the firm* His business success was rapid. In every respect, he typifies the able man of wealth in large commercial affairs* Among the Snell enterprises is one that makes him unique in Congress* He is the owner of a cheese factory at Potsdam, Hew York* On Capitol Hill they sometimes call him "the cheesemaker of Potsdam", but not to his face* There’s a pugnacious look in that powerful ruddy countenance, under those bushy white eyebrows* Bertram Snell, after twenty years in Congress as Republican leader in the lower House, has been the hard fighting front TPan in the battle against the Mew Deal* Mow selected as permanent chairman in Cleveland* TORRIQ Tonight, the federal agents are hunting a dozen men, looking for them everywhere. These hunted individuals are by no means gangland hardened crooks with long records. None of them, they say, has ever been in the hands of the police, and several are of the most respectable reputation, substantial business men. Yet they're wanted as aids of the notorious Johnny Torrio, so famous a dozen.years ago in the blood-curdling history of the gangs. He created the prohibition gangster regime A. in Chicago, and was the sponsor and of Scarf ace A1 Capone. A Yes, the Torrio associates have a respectable and sedate appearance. But what about the former gang-lord himself? The G-men have arrested him. They got him at White Plains,.when he joes called at the post-office, for mail. He was expecting a passport, about to slip away to Italy. One story is that his passport negotiations had gotten into the hands of the G-men, and "TTlTt the notification that it was being sent was realljr from them. And they trapped him. What sorft of man did they find? Why, a mild, oldish looking fellow of forty-six, quiet, sedately dressed - something like a plodding merchant in a small town. TQRRIO - 2 TUotl. Trmi the formidable Johnny Torrio. The story behind all of this is the scarlet history of the mob. Jjiumy Torrio was a clever, fast-moving young mobster in the old days of the"Black Hand” in New York’s Little Italy. He displayed conspicuous talent for organizing rackets. His underworld fame reached to Chicago - to big Jim Colosimo, t oprietor of a swagger spaghetti restaurant. Behind the scenes Big Jim was a racketeer. He called Johnny Torrio to Chicago and made him his Number Two man. were death threats against Big Jim .Colosimo. Torrio imported a minor gangster from New York to act as a bodyguard, and that minor gangster was Scarface A1 Capone. But the doom of Big Jim could not been avoided. He was killed. That left Torrio in charge of his rackets, with Capone as his assistant. Just then prohibition came along, and the genius of Johnny Torrio bloomed in full flower. He was the mastermind in the organ! zation^ of Chicago’s gang rule system of bootlegging - with the help of Bcarface AJL. They were playing a dangerous game. And there TOBRIO - 3 But now the game was more desperately dangerous than ever* Early in the wars between the mobs, the enemy gunmen got Torrio, but not for keeps. He fell in a fusillade of bullets, and was badly wounded. That was enough for him. Too much danger. He vanished from the Chicago scene, and left the boot­ leg kingdom to Capone. For years thereafter Torrio, the creator of the system, was little more than a memory. And then he reappeared with some prominence in Hew York, as a partner of Dutch Schultz in the policy racket. Then Dutch Schultz was killed. .And once more Torrio, with his prejudice against danger, vanished into the shadows. The New York police hunted for him, but couldn’t find him. But in his obscurity he has not been inactive, - eo say the federal agents today. The accusation they now make against Torrio is - violation of the Internal Revenue Laws. A giant repeal liquor racket, - so they say. That is why the G—men arrested the mild, mousy looking man and are hunting tet for his highly respectable associates tonight. TORRIO. - 4 Totfrio was held today on bail of $100,000* If he is convicted, he stands an excellent chance of joining his late protege. Scarf ace A1 Capone, The American Devils Island* at Alcatrez, The singular and almost solemn part of tonight1 s war news is that it comes - not from Rome, but from Addis Ababa. And it's gloomy word - the approaching downfall of an empire. We hear of another Ethiopian defeat - Addis Ababa reports that too. On the southern front, Ras- Uasibu commands the only reports that his apaiy has been beaten in a fierce three-day A battle and is retreating. Graziani is driving at top speed on Harar. The defeat of Nasibu is confirmed by Rome, but in terras more brief and terse. Haile Selassie is said to be preparing for a last desperate stand north of h5.s capital, but therefs no indication of his actual whereabout. The measures of defense that can be clearly authenticated are - blowing up the road. Parties of Ethiopians with high explosives are blasting the highway that leads to the capital - to impede the rolling wheels of the Italian motorized column. There»s a picturesque bit of large Ethiopian army that has remained intact. He now A description in this - rain and fog helping the road destroyers. They can do their blowing up when fog and moisture hide them F.THIQPIA - 2 from above. But when It»s clear, the Italian planes swoop on them and. hri/e them away. And. this agrees precisely with today’s dispatch from Rome, which says that the Italian air fleet is doing the new fangled job of keeping the road from being destroyed, but is being •fcajns&sffr by rains and fogs, ¥fhich hide the ground. Addis Ababa continues to report mutinies in the forces of the King of Kings. Rebellions are springing up everywhere. Wild stories come through of bandits on the rampage. Every European left in the Ethiopian capital, believes that the game is up, the end is at hand - the downfall of an empire. This is also the opinion in Rome, where they believe the Ethiopian War is about at an end. This evening brings us a strange phenomenon, almost unheard of in the history of war news - the dispatches from both hostile capitals agreeing with an odd precision about^who won and who lost! jeWi wrvte <3—