LOWE)IX THOMAS - SUNOCO - SEPTEMBER 3, 1936, Thura GOOD EVENING EVERYBODY I Twenty-eight years ago, la nineteen eight, there occurred an event which is called to mind because a similar thing happened today. In that year William Howard Taft was running for the presidency against William Jennings Bryan, Taft and Bryan met in amicable conference. That was the last time two major candidates shook hands in greeting • until today. In Nineteen Eight, the campaign wasn't quite as hot as it is this year, not so charged with tense feeling. It was Bryan's third try for the presidency, and the enmity and angry excitement once stirred up by the great commoner had cooled down. So this year, (with the bitter New Deal controversy \ raging, it's rather a more striking thing for the two candidates to meet. President Roosevelt and Governor Land on. The high temper of politics this year was indicated LEAP - 2 today by the absence of politics mt Pes Moines. President and Governor Land on, attending the drought conference, declared for a non-political atmosphere as the dry calamity of the West is under diecuaaion. Lo public speeches, no statements to the press — the two mam candidates photographed by newspaper and news reel cameramen in friendly greeting, that's all. Governor Herring of Iowa, host to the conference, passed out the word that nothing in Pes Moines should give a hint that a Presidential Campaign is in action no pictures of the candidates displayed. Governor Herring went so far as to remove from his own office a bust of the President, which has been standing there* ?h6 only political hint today was the color of yellow and the flowery shape of petals. A number of Landon enthusiasts couldn't refrain from wearing their symbolical sunflower. (3 Both the \ -t-Xr Governor Landon was^late for the luncheon^ , , Ho waa help up by traf fic ^andrir*drove to Pes Moines. But mwt% the two candidates^ There was a smiling cordiality as they shook hands. The President introduced his son John to the LEAD - 3 presidential rival, Then^remarkedf Governor Landon must have had a hard motor trip to Dee Moines. The Republican candidate smilingly admitted that was true. Then they went in to luncheon, with the other members of the drought conference. After luncheon the serious business began and continued all afternoon — planning how to help the stricken farmers. The proceedings of the conference were secret. The one flashing thing of public interest was the personal elant - the meeting of Roosevelt and Landon in the midst of their struggle for the presidency,. Here's an intimate, personal description that ha. just come to me over the wir^from Arthur DeTitta of Fox Movietone, Arthur.^is always on hand for ^events like the one today. He wlfes me as follows: President Boosevelt arrived at the fifty-two-year* old BEX State Capitol at twelve-forty-five Central time followed fifteen minutes later by Land on. A crowd of more than two hundred thousand greeted both candidates. There ar* more than A two hundred news and newsreel men here to report the conference. Governor Land on arrived with a new light-weight felt hat, given him by Mayor Mitchell of Independence, Kansas. Luncheon was held in Governor Herringfe reception room. Alf Land on sat three seats to the right of h* Roosevelt, They ate fried chicken, lettuce salad and ice cream. Both TO ^ smiled and chatted across the table. P re si d en t Roower e 1% an d ^ r Presidential Candidate iafedo*.posed for the newsreels, with the N ^ other governors. Mr. Roosevelt seated and Mr, Landon standing right behind him ADD LEAD - 2 Asked if they would shake hands for pictures they declined smiling* Then the conference got under way. The corridors of the Iowa State Capitol remind me of this Summer1© big political conventions, jammed with newspaper­ men, telegraph services rushing stories, rows of tables lined with typewriters, photographers dashing here and there. ^ A queetion came up during the drought conference. Mae* Roosevelt turned to Mr. Land on and said: Governor, you Ml A ~ have trouble like this when you get to the Waite House. RXCHMAN - Today, the twenty-ninth non-stop Trans-Atlantic flight was completed. That’s how often the North Atlantic has been conquered by the rings of man. Of course, to Harry Richman and Dick Merrill that twenty-ninth time is merely one-half of a red letter first time. For their ambition is to make theirs a first the first round trip Trans-Atlantic flight. And so far they haven’t needed those 41,000 ping pong balls. They were forced down all right - but it was on land. On the European side they ran into stormaand fog, so familiar in the British Isles. Their radio stopped working and they ran out of gas, which clipped their wings then and there. They were forced down in Wales, at the town - Llandilo. That begins with a double ”L". A hundred and seventy-five miles from London. They set a record for Trans-Atlantic speed. After RICHMAN - 2 their New York take-off, fifteen hours and forty minutes elapsed before they flew over Dingle Bay, in Ireland, the first point of European land they sighted, fhaffWmuch faster than Lindberghtime, over the same stretch — when he flew to Paris, The British government came to a decision today on a thorny point connected with the flight - those ping pong balls, Britain has a tariff, of course, which includes a twenty-five percent duty on what they call "sports requisites," Kow a ping pong ball is obviously a sports requisite. So, should the flying singer be made to pay a twenty-five percent duty on the forty-one thousand? This question was all the more pointed, because Hariy might do some smart and profitable business. He might autograph and sell a lot of ping pong balls. They'd make neat souvenirs. Today's decision is that he won't have to pay duty, so long as the ping ponging is merely for airplane buoyancy and not for profit. No tariff to be levied unless Harry does decide to autograph and sell ping pong souvenirs RICKMAN - # / they flew/over Ding: Lindbarghie * Today's exploit is a high spot in a gaudy career* Harry Richman was a drees salesman once, a drummer on the road calling on the dry-goods trade with his sample oases* When he went into a store to make a sale, they commonly had him sing a song. He had a husky baritone, bel4anto for a drummer* Singing songs helped him to sell dresses* and then he decided to sell the singing* In the gaudy Hew York days of prohibition and speakeasies, Harry Richman rose to fame and fortune as entertainer in his own night club. He had his voice insured for a million dollars, although he was a rather hoarse and bronchial sort of Caruso. Money rolled in so fast that he built himself a flamboyant showplace on Long Island, full of art, floodlights A illuminating the swimming pool. But the troubadour of Broadway was m hankering for headier thrills and a larger fame. He met RICHMAN - 3 up with Dick Merrill, veteran master of long distance flying* There was one thing Dick has never done, and that was fly the Atlantic* He didn't want to do it - just for the twenty-ninth time* So he and the^akate^aiagam^pf the night clubs decided rwucsJL to try a trans-Atlantic stunt that would be a.first tine - a first round-trip* They've done half, now all they have to do ^ "to C from London to Hew York - back to Mitchell Field \ from which they took off yesterday afternoon. Bight now Mitchell Field is a busy place, planes tuning up, ready for the Bendix Trophy Race. That Coast-to- Coast classical will be flown tomorrow* This time from Fast to West — New York to Los Angeles. OLYMPICS In any newspaper, - after the news section comes the sports section. The pages devoted to eport3 ; ve^ia in the hack of the paper. Tonight wt&SSB apply that familiar journalistic pattern to the radio. I—haere -m string of item© hera-about play and games* So let’s end with a radio sports page. One headline of course will be • Olympics, the return of the athletes from the German Games. Some of them got here a few days ago, but the bulk of them arrived today on the liner MANHATTAN. There was the usual greeting by the Mayor and the customary procession through the streets. But. today there was one unusual feature. It was the route the athletic cavalcade took from the Battery to the final ceremony at Randall's Island, New York has a well known section called Harlem - - a dusky region full of color. Solemn civic events commonly leave Harlem’s dark-town out of the program. Wall Street, Broadway and Fifth Avenue sound better. In fact, never before had one of those stately welcoming processions wended its way OLYMPICS - 2 through the concentrated color of Harlem. But the Olympic cavalcade did today. The automobile parade of the athletes went right through the heart of Harlem, amid the rousing plaudits of dark-town. For the first time in history, Hew York*a "Little Africa" was so honored. All of which is neither a surprise nor a paradox - when you consider the color of the American triumphs at Berlin. Those triumphs were distinctly brunette. And it would have been a false note if in today's celebration the procession that featured Jesse Owens and Ralph Metcalfe, had made a detour around Harlem. But it didn't, and Harlem had a big day. The returning Olympians were beaming with smiles, happy to be home, delighted to see God's Country once more. There's only one lugubrious note sounded in the Olympic "Home Sweet Home". The triumphant athletes admit the sad fact - they're broke, most of them. It is the same impecunious complaint that we heard before - not_enough expense money, Olympic runners, jumpers and swimmers down to their last dime. So they sing “Home Sweet Home" with sentimental feivor and then groan - "But we»re broke." TYPEWRITING Q Here*a an item that tells us how the athletes went into training^kept a strict schedule of diet, exercise and^nours of sleep. That certainly; sounds like,^ a aporting= ( theaeir^^tyou consider working the typewriter to=bg a playful sport. Ask any stenog about that. Anyway, a legion of perfectly trained typists took part in the World's Champion­ ship event at the Canadian National Exposition, Toronto. The Champ? He's George Hossfield, who has been crowned as the world's fastest on the rattling keys on eight previous occasions - now the ninth. He smacrdd hie trusty Underwood around at a rate of a hundred and thirty-one words a minute. BOATS Just to keep our sporting page complete, let’s moisten it with the rippling waters. The boatmen of South Jersey are staging three big regattas of racing, a week-end of racing at Stone Harbor. This year they are putting on the biggest combination of erents that has ewer been staged along the Atlantic coast. One will be for the national In-Board Championship of the United States — with Blue Sunoco roaring in the motors, while the water churns white in the wake of the speedsters. TKHHI3 FOLLOW OLYMPICS Sporta headline Humber ia — Tennia. At Forest A Hills this afternoon, the rhythmic ping of racquets hitting halls. The National Singles Championship. Fred Ferry has two legs. Of course he has — hear# of/one-1 egged tennis player^ But Fred wants three legs — to give him permanent possession of the United States Lawn Tennis Trophy. He has won the championship twice over here, hut he^ got to win it three times to have the trophy for keeps. The last time he tried for that third leg he was foiled by Wilmer Allison, the lanky Texan, who beat him. But this year Wilmer is not playing at Forest Hills, which makes Fred*s chances all the better. His principal obstacle is Donald Budge, the modest freckle faced lad. They say that modesty has handicapped Donald's game, lack of confidence. And he's so freckle-faced that some­ body once remarked to his mother hm that if Donald wasn't the best tennis player in the wo rid, he certainly was the homeliest. He started playing in the public parks in his native city of TENNIS FOLLOW OLYMPICS - 2 Oakland, California* His tsemis costume was a pair of blue overalls, a khaki cowboy hat and a lot of freckles. His father was a laundry wagon driver. This year he has his chance dm of climbing to the heights of tennis glory. He^ the chief obstacle for British Fred Perry. But at the same time Fred Perry is Donald’s chief obstacle. We’ll see who will out- obstacle the other. j // TTS l a£t ^ ^ PtfcjX MOUNTAIN CLIMBING The daring sport of mountain climbing gets a place on onr sports page -- because it is getting so much space on the sports pages of Japan. Right now it*8 mountain climbing season in old Nippon. The Japanese scale summits in mass formation - - Fujiyama in particular. The top most pinnacle of Fuji twelve thousand five hundred feet above sea level is about as secluded as the comer of Broadway and Forty-Second Street. The news brings word of a record day for Fuji climbing this season. Eleven thousand three hundred men, women aid children toiled their way to the tip-top of the sacred mountain, a difficult climb. The traffic up other favorite mountains in old Nippon is almost as heavy. We hear of a six months-old babe carried up the steep slope of Mount Halcuba. Here*a an astonishing thing — eleven blind men, eleven sightless mountaineers climbing to the summit of Mount Tate, and they were led_ hy a blind guide. v ^ 7F&Q you don*t have to see to climb mountains in Japan. ! I MOUNTAIN CLIMBING - 2 r„. It1 u whiskers that are the handicap. In Tokyo there is a Whisker Club, which goes in for the longest of beards, full, bushy, voluminous spinach. The Whisker Club planned to sally forth for a mass assault on Fuji, They would carry their trailing beards to the utmost height of the sacred mountain. But that's out -- vetoed by officials. Condemned as too dangerous. The whisker cohorts might trip over their beard So the Whisker Club must be content to stay at low altitudes and just keep on straining soup ...._____r. ,vv1^ ~t - y \ a K< m )