LOWELL THOMAS - SUNOCO - WEDNESDAY. AUGUST 22. 1934 WEATHER Howdy Polks2 How's tHe weatlier out your way? Historians are recalling the year of 1816, the famous year of freak weather, when farmers wore overcoats planting cotton. They waded through dnow in July and August, and Spring came in December. Of course, it isn't that bad this year, but after the disasterous heat and drought a cold wave is on, with low record summer temperatures of forty-five and fifty recorded in the drought area. And this morning it was 42 degrees just outside Hew York City. Well, they may be wearing mufflers and ear-muffs amid the sun-burned fields of Hebraska before it's over. STRIKES Early in the day the weather seemed fair, and sky was clearing nicely -- X mean in the strike situation. Then later on clouds drifted over and tonight the sky of that strike situation is over-clouded again. Of course the principal fair-weather bit of news concerned the strike in Minneapolis, The truck drivers have gone back to work after one of the most violent outbreaks of labor trouble we have had. Both sides are claiming victory, and that can be taken to mean — both sides happy! Fair enough! And then At seemed as if the textile dispute was on its way to being settled, with heavy conferences on in Washing­ ton and optimistic bulletins issued. The President acted to ease the tension in cotton textiles. But the textile cloud grows gibber and blacker with the report that the American Federation of Labor has formally endorsed the plans for a walk­ out! Threatening a huge strike of six hundred thousand workers on or before September first. The second stormy weather item comes in the form of decisive action ^THI a K 2 by tbf* Aluminum Company of America. The employers have bluntly rejected the peace oroposal suggested by the government. That1s a definite set-back for the arbltration proceedings, and means that the eighty-seven hundred aluminum employees will stay out on strike for the next few days at least. However, strenuous efforts toward mediation and arbi­ tration In both textiles and aluminum are still going on, and stand a rood chance of succeeding. ROOSEVELT President Roosevelt vras at Carrollton, Illinois, today attending the funeral of his friend, Henry T. Rainey, late Speaker of the House of Representatives* From there the President will not go to his home at Hyde Park, as he had originally planned* He will return to Washington instead* The reason they say is that the reorganization of the N. R. A, has become so imperative that the Chief Executive can not leave Washington until it is settled. The Blue Eagle is due a for^grooming, with a few straggly feathers trimmed and a general smoothening down of the azure plumage* Mr, Roosevelt may also take a hand in the skirmish that is developing over the Speakership of the House* Some of the Democratic strategists are in favor of having a Northern or Western man succeed Speaker Rainey, this <rr political appeal to the North and West, although according to rules of precedents the job would naturally go to a Sout;.<a3ier. Anyway, tomorrow President Roosevelt will be back In the White House, studying reports and conferring with leaders, amid a din of hammering and sawing as carpenters work away remodelling the executive offices* LEWIS Senator James Hamilton Lewis of Illinois is an elaborate personality, elaborate in his haberdashery, elaborate in his whiskers, elaborate in eloquence. Senator Jim Ham, as the boys call him, as Chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Committee, is out on a debating tour, battling against the Republican enemy. He has just sent a challenge to the Chair­ man of the Republican Senatorial Committee, Daniel Hastings of Delaware, Z don’t know what Senator Hastings' haberdashery is like, but his use of the English Language is almost as florid as Jim Ham's. He declines the challenge to debate. He admits he would get licked - - because, as he tells Senator Jim Ham: - "Your keen wit and pure English would overooms the weakness of your argument." And that’s the retort courteous, all right* But Senator Hastings gets a little rough when he adds that Senator Jim Ham and his fellow Democrats would probably stack the house full of Democratic Government employees, who would have to attend as a part of their jobs and would be instructed to applaud only Democratic arguments. As they say on Broadway LBWIS - 2 it would oe a "cold houae.» ataoked in favor of the pink wiskers* ' ...............* .................. —- ---- --------------------- ------------ 1 8 l i ! __ __ __ __________________ BOOK Now for a closeup look at the book that made Wall Street jump. The market went up as brokers crowded to get copies of that latest volume, "The Coming American Boom.* It*s odd what a stir^ it made among the supposedly hard-boiled, cold­ blooded men of Wall Street. That word "boom" seemed to agitate them as palpitatingly as the word "love" is supposed to agitate i a sentimental maiden. But then, of course, "The Coming American Boom" is written by a British economist. And maybe it*s the old story of the impression a British author makes on an American audience. They just lap it up. Maybe it's a ease of saying something the boys want to hear. And when a voice with am English accent announces the advent of the coming American Boom, why that makes it jolly sweet music to the American financial ears. What? Eightho 2 SILVER SHIRTS The oilver Shirts picked an appropriate name for their publishing house, calling it Galahad Press, Incor­ porated, Sir Galahad was a knight in shining armor. I donn know that he wore a silver shirt, b.ut shining armor is some- thing like silver. Sir Galahad til.ted in knightly combat under a blue sky in medieval times,, while the modern lord of the Shirts has got mixed up with the Blue Sky in North A A Carolina — I mean the Blue Sky laws. He didn’t get much circulation for his Silver Shirt magazine, but he did sell some stock. And the buyers of the stock lost their silver A. That’s why William Dudley Pelley and three other aiorganizers have been indicted and may find them­ selves looking through iron, not pilver^bars * Brother Pelley was a Vermont newspaper man, who. later went into Spiritualism and then climbed into a metallic, gleaming shirt. tqkpedo The picture of a battleship dodging around t] ocean and chased by a torpedo is painted by reports froi Washington of a newly invented radio-controlled underwa projectile. below the water line and directed by radio in any desired direction, right, left up or down. At present, a torpedo leaves a white wake behind it on the surface of the sea, a give-away that often allows time for an imperiled ship to dodge. That would be impossible if the torpedo can be steered by means of radio. The new undersea terror is said to have a fcange of ten miles, and if it,s anything like they say, it* s going to change naval tactics in war. They say this torpedo can be shot out ten feet B&iDITS Every dey in N-w York City nineteen million dollars in cash are carried through the streets by armored trucks. That fact comes as a reflection upon yesterdays half million dollar armored truck hold-up. The ingenuity of the bandits is emphasized when we -look at the precautions taken against robbery. .Every truck carries a conductor, a driver and a guard. Neither of the three know the route the truck will take in coll ecting money^ until they start out in the morning. Then they are given sealed orders and follow different routes on each trip This system was originated by the Federal Reserve Bank of New York fop the r outine of nicking un cash from member banks and larger stores and factories. It was thought to be virtually burgular-nroof. But yesterday1s stick-up will change that idea and bring about nnew ways of beating, the crooks. After the ingenuity the bandits showed in staging that ^robbery, you would expect them to have la^ careful and cunning plans for a get-away. And that’s what they seem to have done, with a. get-away so careful and ^ cunning, th t today, th are up aeainst that nroverfeial stone vtfall » The whole affair remains just as dark as it was five minutes after the robbery, no olews, no leads. The bandits apparently transferred tneir loot to fa sir speed boat and went, da shim- away across the waters of Mew York harbor. The most intensive search by land and sea has failed to reveal a hint of who they were or where they went flysr There's a new pilot tonight on the London - Paris air route. She's -- yes she's a she -- Amy Mollison, one of the most famous of women fliers. Remember how Amy and husband Jim made the Tran a-Atlantic jump last year, from England across and cracked-up in Connecticut? Today Amy is taking her regular turn at the controls on the commercial run between England and the Continent, But, it's only practice, she's getting in trim for the London- Anstralia air race scheduled for the coining October, 3T RAT 0 SPHERE On@ tliFiXxlzig angle of tpliat lat> e st rat op slier e flight over in Europe is the fact that the real nerve-shat tar­ ing moment of peril came afterward. Hot while the high-climb­ ing adventures were trying to get to earth, but after they were safe and sound on the ground. The story is told by one of the daring aeronauts, Max Cosyns, in the Hew York Times, "I emerged from the gondola, * he relates, "and was about to open the exhaust of the balloon when to my horror I saw a peasant coming toward me with a lighted pariffin lamp. He was not more than six feet from the balloon, which contained something like six thousand cubic centimeters of explosive gas. Did that give him a thrill? Yes, an additional and unnecessary thrill for the sky voyagers who had barely saved their lives after a fabulous jaunt to the outer edges of the earth*s atmosphere. The astounded Balloonist unceremoniously snatched the lighted lamp from the peasant's hand and put it out, just in time to prevent an explosion that would have blown them, in pieces, back to the stratosphere. might club The stratosphere seems to be all the rage. I suppose there must be a song about those upper regions of the cosmic ray. Come with me dear to the stratosphere, where we will play, with the cosmic ray. And now comes the stratosphere night club. You would expect it to be high up in the air. It is. It's the latest development in Radio City. Away up at the top of the towering RCA building. That*s about as near the strato­ sphere as you can get for dining and dancing. I don’t know if the stratosphere room will be flooded with cosmic rays, but there will be plenty of high-lights and leading lights, and I suppose a light of love or two. It’s all very ultra-modem. So, to balance things off, here’s something old and archaic -- the first telegraph office. Tomorrow will be Western Union day at Rochester, where the Western Union was founded in 1856; and one of the foremost exhibits wil]}be the original office room, number twenty-two, the beginning of the great net work of wires that interlaces continents and oceans. 1 PAST As I looked througli the newspapers today I saw several items that seem to take us out of this present time. back to a day pale and fading, although it was not so long ago. The mother of the Russian revolution lies ill in Prague, in CzeckoslWakia. Babushka, the Russians call her. For many a year under the Czars, she was an arch­ revolutionist. Her writings and plottiftgs had a great share in overturning the autocracy of the Russian autocrats. When wild revolution blazed victoriously in 1§17, she was acclaimed to the Red skies. And she had her day of glory as the mother of the Russian revolution the celebrated Babushka. But she fell out with the Bolsheviks. Revolutionary as she was, the extreme crimson of the Communists left her old- fashioned, out-moded, and she went into exile. How she’s eighty-five and desperately ill in Prague, in another land almost forgotten. Now not so much the rqother. as a ghoat of the Russian revolution. At her bedside, is another figure that seems to belong to the pale shadows of the half—forgotten —— Kerensky, 1 I PAST - 2 who flared eo high as the genius of the Russian revolution. It was he, who in his brief day of greatness, glorified her as the sainted revolutionary. Babushka, And now he too is like another ghost of tm« Bussian revolution, A second reminiscence of another faded day comes in the brief note from Paris that the widow of the composer, Debussy, has died. His music is the delicate inspired dream of an exotic genius. His life was just as exotic. He was a bizarre composer, living the wild Bohemian life of the older Paris, bearded, shabby, carefree and melancholy — the complete Bohemian, She was wealthy, stately, socially prominent. Her circle was at the elegant top of the Parisian aristocracy. He was married. She was married. They eloped. There was a sensational scandal, divorces and remarriages, in that old dimly remembered time, Debussy abandoned his Bohemian existence. He lived in the elegant opulence of his wife*s social circle. But all of that has grown misty and indistinct, like 111 II fi ii u I J a faded old print. What remains is the strange beautiful music 3 - 0 -- Ah, a*id here's ajaother lingering echo of music. "Hark, Hark, the Lark." sung sadly. — And, remember the glorious meolodies of "Blossom Timet" Yes, It's all about a brief item in & Vienna news­ paper, the notice that read: "Franz Schubert's grand-niece, 52 Bluemengasse will deeply appreciate even small help." Franz Schubert himself, lived in poverty and died at thirty-one. He wrote his inspired melodies for a pittance. Hublishers seldom gave him more than twenty or thirty cents a song. And now his grand-niece, old and penniless, advertises a pathetic call for help, which tugs at the heartstrings of sentimental Vienna* Yes, she lives at 52 Bluemengasse. That means "street of flowers, street of blossom time", but the flowers haven't bloomed gayly for the grand-niece of Franz Schubert, lord of song. And, here's still another bit of cloudy reminiscence. In the Hotel Gotham, in Hew York, they have been reframing some PAST - 4 fine old pictures. On the hack of one of the old frames they found carved, the following:- "This frame ie part of the Yale football fence". That^ the way the inscription reads. And now they are trying to find out what event this refers to. Probably some archaic football game of the days of Ted Coy and the battering ram -- or, was it some early Harvard victory, a wild Harvard celebration, the Yale fence torn down, a memorial picture frame made out of the pieces -- and then forgotten. Remember the old Latin phrase, "Sic transit"? Yes, all time and glory pass — my fifteen minutes too — and, SO LONG UNTIL TOMORROW