IQ WELL, THOMAS BROADCAST FOR THE LITER^yRY DIGEST SATURDAY, DECEMBER 12. 1931 GAKPHI Good Evenlna:, Everybody; In Rome today two interesting men nad a meeting Mahatma Gandhi paid a call on Mussolini. The little holy-man of India and the Blackshirt dictator of Italy had a long talk. both Gandhi and the Pontiff would like to have arranged a meeting, but there was a slight sartorial hitch. It was felt that it wouldn’t be proper for Gandhi the trouserless to call at the Vatican clad in nothing more than his usual loincloth*^ At the j same time, adds the Associated Press, the Vatican authorities felt that it would not be tactful to mention the matter to Gandhi. in his column. He attributes it to Edgar Wallace, the English writer of detective stories. Wallace asked the question;- "How can Gandhi be a Saint when he walks around London without any nu andhi did not call on the Pope. It appears that And that reminds me of a line which O.O.McIntyre had trousers on? i 0 s h i p brS ^ off T h ere T s a Pan ama^n d a lot of officials are senate hi ng the i r headaemb try* i ng to figure a few things out. 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 15 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 The Internat i ona I News Service has a cable,that for the first time in history the Panama canal is unable to accommodate, a, ship that wants to pass through. i 3 th e giant liner, A the Leviathan. The trouble lies in the fact that the water in the Harbor of Cristobal is only forty feet deep while the Leviathan draws thirty-nine feet. That leaves a margin of one foot, which is not enough xo< for safe navigation. The experts have their doubts as to whether the Leviathan will be able to get through the Canal. The big ship is on a tro pi cal cruise and wants to s I i de through from the Atlantic to the Pacific railroad This evening at Plainfield, tfew Jersey, they are celebrating the glory of half a dozen young heroes* They are six boys of ages ranging between twelve and fourteen. well, the gang of kids was out wandering along the railroad track* They came aeross something that looked mighty funny tc them, A steel rail was Droken. It was broken at a switch* That caused a gap, right at the switch* Those kids knew that this was all wrong and they realized that a fast passenger train might coujc thundering at aa any moment. And that was when six pairs of boyish feet started doing some rapid travelling. The gang ot kids raced as fast as they could to the police station ten blocks away. The excited youngsters burst into the station among the cops and by the time the breathless yelling was through the police had the story. They instantly notified the railroad authorities who gasped. A crowded commuters * train was due in ten minutes. The signals went out and the on rushing train was shunted over to another track RAILROAD - 2 The railroad employees declare that if tae train had passed over the daraaged switch it would have jumped the rails sure as fate* If it hadn't been for the six youngsters there would have been a serious accident. MEM Page___^l 2 3 4 : 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 1 23 24 25 11-23-31.’ m On th© o c h e r siciG o"f h© world ci x Tokio t he shake-up of the Japanese government has resulted in what appears ----tzi^ £ to be a victory for the Sei-Yu-KaLi party. This party has been in opposition to the Ministry that has^res igned, and hk seems to more the military element. The Mikado has called upon Tsuyoshi Inukai, an 80- year-old statesman, to- form a. ,new government. And Inukai, the United Press, promptly went to work to get up a list of cabinet mmmkmmm He plans to form his administration solidly out of the members of the Sei- Yu-Kai party. The Tokio correspondent of the I nternat iona l News Service had an interview with t he P r i me tvi i n i s t e r this afternoon^ in which he declared himself in favor of th-r=eean immediate embargo on gold. No gold v/i I 1 be allowed to leave Japan. The next step will be the abandonment of the gold luyv . >■ ft nk‘- Hdu y7A,oc4v£t£i - - v... ) 1? 2 ^ . n? rfS).^ c ~°k~ ~ TUTRQ TO MIKE FIAS^HETTI 6 mow let’s see what Mike has to say. I mean Big Mike Fiaschetti, the crime-sleuth. Mike is sitting here with me as my bodyguard tonight, and I wish you could see him. he looks every inch the crook-chaser and black-hand buster that he is. For years he was the head of the Italian Squad of the mew York Police Department. Mike and his hard-boiled assistants conducted a hard- boiled warfare against the black-hand and gangs in general. Mike looks as though he wanted to step right up to the * •mike* and give it a sock. Alx right, Mike, what h&ve you got to say for yourself? MIXB FIASCKETTI Well, Lowell, I *11 tell you. I»ve got something on my cheet. A month or so ago you had a few things to say about a new novel called “Big Nick". It shows what real detective work is like. There's no Sherlock Holmes stuff in it. It gives the low-down on the cops. Well, that's 0. K., but listen:- The novel tells about a tough detective called Big Kich More. Big Hick is really Big Mike, and that's me. The fellow who wrote the book is Prosper Buranelii, A couple of years ago we wrote a book together. It caused the Wickeraham Commission to give me a ride on the subject of the Third Degree, Then what does my friend do, but put me in a novel. You ought to see what he makes me say, and what he makes me do. There are some things a guy ought to keep to himself. Maybe they're true, but you got no business to put them in a book. It tells about stool-pigeons, I've handled plenty of stool pigeons in my time. And then this guy gets me mixed HIKE FIASCE^TI * .2 up with a dame. Bu$ you got no business to put something like that in a book, now have you? i Well, Mike, I guess about all you can do is laugh it off. But let me ask you a Question, Did you ever in your career as a policeman have occasion to raie a dice-game? I imagine this next hit of news should strike a responsive chord in your manly — I qjean your policemanly — bosom. It tells of a dice tournament. It appears that the seven come eleven hoys are not willing to let the bridge players occupy the entire spotlight. That big contract tournament to decide the merits of Lena: and the Culbertson system may be all right, but here's an African domino carnival that tonights newspapers tell us is oeing held to decide the merits of rival systems of the galloping wories. The Associated Press wires from Grennell, Iowa, that two barbers are engaged in an African Golf contest. One is Ld • Janssen, The ether is John Ditsler. Both boys shake a wicked razor as well as a mean game with the Congo cubes. And they play d If rerent systems* One barber champions the Abyssinian twiat. The other abides by the meri + 3 of the Alabama cotton roll And so to decide this tremendously important matter they today embarked on a ten-day tournament. So it»s seven come eleven at Grennell, Iowa, with "Snake Eyes", "Ada from Decatur", "Please me, dice, come on and bring the baby some 3 new shoes," Not momentous news, but ludicrous news V 5 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 1? X8| 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 a H Page The Army & Navy waged war with each other at Yankee Stadium, New York’ this afternoon. 76,000 soectators yelled their heads off. Gridiron dopesters had been tel I ing us for the past week that the Army mule would kick the daylights out of the Navy coat. /.nd that's exactly w! at happened. The final score was 17 to 7 in favor of The I e at he r-he I meted fiqhtino gentlemen from West Point. ,*estbrook Peg I r,who writes that s p a r k I i n g sport column f or t h e N e w Y o r k Evening Post, calls the nrniy & Navy game the greatest football show of all. And he reminds us that today was only the second moot in g > f 4" h e t w o t e am s on t n e gridiron, since they broke off footbalI m relations in 1927. ihe disagreement is over but they buried the argument today order to pI ay f or the unemployed and ■»e s t b r o o k i- e g I r s 4 - atc: s hat the game may yield' 5400^066. for that worthy cause. ULL^IQ-Kl 1 2 3 4 5 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 KA 17 fy 18 21 22 23 24 Page Let's see if I can give an impression of dignified formality. A large group of important men were present. They were advertising executives from all over the country. Serious matters of business and finance were being discussed. I was very much interested because here were men who could tell important things about the state of affairs and the problems of business. The occasion was a luncheon of the I Advertising Club of New York City. It was a—gart-her t n g o f -s ciH-etrs—me n- w-i-t-h—a- sar i otrs pu-Pj^a-fre-r I was sitting solemnly at the table when a solemn gentleman approached me with a solemn air. He was Charles P. Murphy, president of the Ad Club. I thought he might have some important bit of insight to convey to me, so I listened attentively. He began by mentioning those heroic days of wartime, more than a dozen years ago. He remarked that the doughboys of the A.E.F. had indeed accomplished their valorous tasks. Mr. Murphy also gravely remarked that the Engineering I TALL STORY • 2 - Corps of the United States Army had performed its miracles too. For example, during the Meuse Argoune offensive, the Americans brought up a big gun which went into action with tremendous effect. It fired an enormous shell, declared Mr. Murphy, admiringly. It fired a shell 50 miles, and on the recoil brought up rations for the company. Well, the solemn fact was that the dignified president of the Advertising Club of New York City was doing nothing more nor less than tendering me his application for membership in the Tall Story Club. UARCQMI This is December 12th. 1931; but let's suppose it's not that at all -- let's go back thirty years. Let's imagine that this is December 12th 1901, and that we're on the bleak shore of Newfoundland, A wild storm is raging, a bitter North Atlantic gale. Near the water there's a rough shack. A couple of men are the inhabitants of that shack* They're up on that dark tempestuous coast performing some strange antics. They're flying kites. They've got a lot of Iku electrical apparatus rigged up in their shack too, and they're waiting. One of the men is a young Italian. He was unknown to the world at that time. He was Marconi. Well, the young Italian waits. He listens patiently with a telephone receiver at his ear. He's a calm, self- possessed chap. He displays no wild excitement. But through that telephone receiver at* come three sharp clicks -- the letter "s" in Morse code. Marconi wants to make sure it's no illusion. He turns the receiver over to his companion, who listens. There's no MABHOai - 2 doubt of it. Three sharp clicks are he^rd, repeated again and again. That's the signal. That means that one of the greatest scientific events of our time has taken place. The Atlantic has been spanned by wireless. For a long time young Marconi had been working toward this epochal climax. As a mere youth he had become interested in the problem of using those strange vibrations called Hertzian waves, of harnessing them, of turning them into a means of communication. He hac partly succeeded. He had transmitted signals by wireless for a short distance. And most scientists were of the opinion that he would never do anything more. So Marconi decided jut upon a supreme test. He would send wireless signals acros s the Atlantic, In Cornwall, England, he left assistants with a sending set and bade them signal the letter "S" on certain days. Then he went across to Newfoundland ann put up his receiving set. He flew kites to carry the aerials aloft. But along the coast of Newfoundland the weather was stormy. Bay act after day Marconi MAftCOKI - 3 flew his kites, but the violent gusts of the storm blew them away* Cnee or twice he thought he caught the signals, the three clicks of the letter "s*, but he wasn’t sure. Then came that wet and windy day of December 12th, thirty years ago, and the three clicks sounded repeatedly and unmistakably, and the great art of wireless was launched on its dizzy career. The United Press reminds us today now swift has been the progress since. Within a few years wireless had become a guardian angel for ships at sea; and today -- well, here we are with spoken words streaming out across the unlimited ether. So here * s to Marconi, and SO LONG UNTIL MONDAY