L • * ClUiliUvO UXjJ U J. . W i •. j _/' _ 12 / 15/52 Good Evening, Everybody: I am sorry to have to start with, such serious news - that is, serious for all &**ssa± Xh Business reports today indicate that there*s likely to be a^shortage e* Jr Christmas trees. Last year there was such an abundance of them that there were localities where almost any time after six o'clock on Christmas Eve you could have any dps ouht of them, and of almost any size just for the trouble of carrying them away.T£g_ YVV^S v 4^L&^ *'***■**»'*• , TlCc^l "fcp n ^ .the growers and dealers of the Old Santa Claus firs, i . It t-»- .kaar ihis year comparatively few of them are being shipped. Of course, this applies principally to large cities. In the smaller towns and in the country, if you are lucky you can get your Christmas tree about as reasonably as ever, and if you are real active you can go and cut it yourself. The Wew York herald Tribune points out that > 2 another factor in the Christmas tree market is the early €t)id weather, ^wing to the froat the branches of the trees freeze as and break off when they are wrapped up into bimu 1 es/xsoen they have tO' be for shipping. It interested me zo learn that balsam firs have nearly put their brothersj the spruce, off the market. This is because the balsams have a more fragrant odor and after they have been used for the Christmas aterx&xa*, the needles can be made into pillows. Incidentally, the balsams are cut mostly in Canada and northern Maine. Consequently they have to be Christmas. jjn-.DXO Just for a change^ heres s something on the European debt situation. Monsieur Edouard ^erriot,in response to the urgent plea that he resume the Prime Ministership of France? said politely - no thank you, <JjL, At the same time Monsienn Harriot prophesied that France eventually would pay her v/ar debt to Uncle Sam. Six nations today paid installments to the U.S.A, John Bull was the first with his ninety-five and a half milliorls Then Italy with 1,245,437. Czecho Slovakia with one and a half million, Finland with 186,235. Latvia with 148,852, and Lithuania vvith 92,586. The defaulting nations are France, Belgium, Poland, E s thonia, and Hung ary./ A / Incidentally, Uncle Sam found John Bull’s instalment came In Tfessy handy. He used it o nay off obligations of his own which fell due today. And now an item for the ears Kmt 01 h rr-r iii i ti > ■ v ^ - nn "i ri i taxpayers. An item from the Ways and Means Committee of the House of Representatives. 3.2 per cent by weighty r 2 tesfc is going to be the substance of the bill which the Ways and Means Committee will offer to the House. The tentative proposal drawn up by Chairman Collier of the Committee was for £.75 per cent beer* but the Committee raised the percentage. Another important point, says a dispatch to the Brooklyn Times Union is that Congress is invited to levy a tax of five dollars a barrel on beer. ‘i'here was a Kiwanis luncheon in Wew York g&ea±aEi±ay wnicn i an! sorry I missed. The r-uest of honor was Ur. i'eter Buck, Exchange Professor in Antnropology at Yale. What makes it interesting is that when Dr. Peter Buck was born his name ^T£trvn. was Te Rangihiroa^ Dr. Buck comes from Wew Zealand and is by birth a Mowry. They spell it M - a - o - r - 1, but they pronounce It Mowry. The Maoris , as you may know, are4the same race that inhabits Tahiti and other Polynesian groups noth artists and anthrolopogists maintain with reason that the Maoris are physically the most beautiful race of human beings that inhabit this globe. Dr. Buck told the assembled Kiwanians many interesting thin • s about the traditions, legends, and poetry of his people. He chanted several examples of the poetry of his race- first in the beautiful tongue of the Maori. kuExxhx He then translated thorn into ln *11sh with a Maori accent. Earl t&@Jl Hrfz&n Jellicoe, former Governor General of Dew Zealandnr nfi 1 rl f^fifirt* A. U U O-i'v 2 English with a -aori accent is the most beautiful English spoken by any people anywhere. Irishmen from Dublin will dispute this vehemently. Just as it used to be the boast of the Bostonese that they spoke the best English, the Dubliners claim that the purest pronunciation of our tongue is to be heard on the banks of the &- 2 ~) ” 2 ^ ^ . on a liie war between the law and the underworld took new aspect today. Something occurred in New York which shows on "as ;ington ^eights, got away v,rith thirteen thousand dollars in cash, and blocked pursuit by the use of tear gas bombs. ‘the description in the ^ew York Sun says that the robbers had taken precautions to cut the telephone wires leading to the Bank.keasea^ ^ Owing to the acrid fumes from the gas bombs, it was several minutes after the crooks had left with the cash before the authorities pronounce It one of the most daring hold-ups that that thecrooks have learned from the police what the police learned from tne military. a, A gang of five gunmen held up Branch of a big bank could get out and notify the police. The ever took place in New York City. Ipw ' iiV X oun an interesting air traffic ^ u item in this week*s issue of Automotive Industries. The news is that cioain of aviation landing fields is being planned by the Dominion of Canada, reaching from coast to coast. Survey parties are now at work establishing the sites of the fields under tne authority of the Dominion^* Department of National Defense. LETTER George Bernard Shaw sailed from London today. He said he expected to sail around the world without xii giving a single autograph, even when he touches America. I*ve been getting a number of letters lately, all asking the same question. Here Is one from Henry Kohler, a banker in Cincinnati, 0.; he wants to know whether, if he promises to use Blue Sunoco, can I spare the time to autograph one of my books that he intends to give some one for Christmas. That’s easy, I sure will, no matter what Bernard Shaw does. I*11 gladly autograph my books for any one. If any person does that much to help me pay my mortgages, why surely I ought to be willing to return the compliment by autographing one of my books. —o— I also have been receiving letters from many postmasters; one came from hr. Walter Brown, Postmaster General, Here is another that mx just arrived from John Kieley, Postmaster of New York City, and still another was handed to me as I came into the studio from Mr. Weimer, Postmaster at Dayton, Ohio. LF.TTI1# - Z All make the same request: That I ask you to mall your Christmas packages early, wrap them carefully, and don’t write the addresses either in Chinese, Japanese, or secret code. The Postal employees have a tough enough time around Christmas without being compelled to decipher heiroglyfics. XJ ij i C-1.U a dramatic human interest story i** in the pages of A, newspaperman Amor Lea today. Perhaps some of you have seen a movie &a±^d^=r^~gm a Fugitive from a Chain Gang.y ’Well, this real life human interest story concerns the author of the book from which that movie was made. ^ere briefly is the story of that man's life - his name is Robert Elliott Burns. He was born and graduated from a A Manual Training High School in Brooklyn, and became an accountant. When the war broke, he enlisted and went overseas. He was wounded, gassed, and suffered shellshock. The war over, he returned to the States to find his job gone. For months he wandered around and became more or less a derelict. In fact, he admittedly became a criminal. He robbed a small shop in Atlanta, the proceeds of the robbery being six dollars and eighty cents. For this the State of Georgia gave him a sentence of from six to ten years in the chain gang. He escaped from the chain gang and wentjto Chicago. There he rehabilitated himself, and for seven years lived an UUiU'iO _ g honest life, hut he became estranged from his wife and she turned him in, as the saying is, to the Georgia authorities. He was arrested and according to his own story, waived extradition becausetne Georgia officials promised him a pardon within sixty days. After they got him back inside Georgia, the officials of that state - so Burns says - reneged on tneir promise. Burns escaped again. For two years he lived in New Jersey making no attempt to hide, he worked on a newspaper in Newark and as a dynamiter in a copper refinery. Then he wrote lees* book *T■--^»’»r-rna—_f;Viair. Gang. Some of A ^ ^ the facts he told in this book indicate that extreme cruelties are practised in the prisons and chain gangs of states, (2-wJt j 2« uu > xlaa 'Suw fan i-tv riser'by th e court r e C 6rd^ in oth' r cases ."^■Uncidentally, I am told by_ penoidsists, thou n I don't know it of my own knowledge, that tfe^-penal institution —mp-ny southern states are extremely cruel. mov i h±s- -be-efe^—dryew~-~&ae&--a 11 eatl-e«— trttf-a-E' 'o nft-t— 'uh'—-ix-tytra r» Be arpe-s-^—k4r»>. The question is now up to Governor Harry Moore of Hew Jersey, whether he will allov/. Burns to be seized by the Georgia authorities and taken back to the chain gang. It is pointed out that if New Jersey auafeiioyiMeaMlgi grant? extradition. Burns will have tola aoout the methods A Iw -th** ■^gEmaJae^ ^hat marriage war in licion? Marylanci, America1 s Gretna Green, is not over yet, though at oresent there is a truce, the Baptist Minister who had cornered the cream of the marriage industry in El.tton and whose roof was bought over his head by a taxicab company, has made a temporary strategic retreat. But he says he'll come back. This Baptist minister, according to a dispatch to the Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, is the Reverend Edward Minor, seventy-four years old. He gives an interesting explanation of this war to control Llkton's marriage industry. it seems thatthe taxicab company likes to control the business because it wants its hackmen to steer candidates for marriage to its own minister and collect a percentage on tne fees. Bays the Reverend Edward Minor: "These taxi fellows wanted to give me fifty dollars a week and put a girl clerk in 1117/ office to watch my accounts. Everything over fifty bucks was to go to them, and the gal was ladiiraAxiiLUxj _ g i supposed to keep account of it. "But", adds the pugnacious hevoretrd, "they can’t lick me with a scheme like that. I'm coming back and give them a run lor their money." I : 1 ________ —— I our Maybe some of you newspaper readers have heard the classic illustration of rhatis news^ You might re-define this proposition by saying that if you’re out late without a penny in your pocket and a cop lends you carfare home^ that is not news. If you pay the copper back, that US news. V<ell, I saw an illustration of that in todayTs papers. Patrolman Joseph Beddy of tne Astoria Station in Queens, Long Island, has been lending nickels and dimes to belated wayfarers for upwards of twenty-five years. One day last week a young women came to him, as have many others, and borrowed carfare to Manhattan, he gave her a dime an:' paid little attention to her promise ~o return i;. But i seems she took note of his shield number. Yesterday morning Patrolman Beddy almost jumped out of his uniform when he received a letter addressed to O.tiicer Mo i RIO. Astoria Police Station, enclosing a dime* and a graceful Pw lu LlJI t'TT a man, Wa3hrh*»--Tm aBags -•— A a man cites a dog* bna The other night we happened to have an item about various things Europe has gotten from America. One of these was the well known and justly famous potato. Well, I have just received an interesting letter from a former Inspector General of the Air Forces of Peru, General Harold B. Grow, who writes me from the Book CadillacHotel in Detroit, reminding me that the potato originated, not in Worth America, but in South America, in fact in the Peruvian Andes, amid the lofty mountains- where Commander Grow, as an American Naval aviation A officer, loaned to Peru, laid out some of the most important airways in South America. Commander, or General Grow I should say, tells me an interesting thing about potatoes. He says that in Peru the yellow potato^is not swee$” but is exactly the same as the whitepotato, only better eating and slightly more mealy. Here's the curious thing. Many attempts have been made to transplant that Andean potato to North American soil. These efforts are successful in that the potato flourishes. But after the second crop it is no longer yellow, it is white. - HOBBY In Baltimore, Md. there is a young lady with an * » unusual hobby. That is to say^ fc&vfeasddK&fr unusual in a young lady of 15 for that is her age. A story in the BaiCimore Sun relates that Nancy, which is the young lady's name, jaxapqgBiiBBjcwT has a private museum in her home In which she collects everything from spiders to alley cats. This collection in­ cludes chicken feathers, a complete set of pictures of mickey mouse, pictures of the world's most celebrated scientists, a collection of spiders and almost every­ thing that you can think of. It is just as well for Nancy that her en­ courage her in this hobby. One time the spiders got loose, hundreds of them, and they had a time getting them all back in their cage again. Nancy's father used to be a scientist at John Hopkins University, Her scientific career started when she was four years old At eleven she started to HOBBY - 2 use a microscope. The microscope was given to her by no less a celebrity in the scientific world than Dr. Simon Plexner, head of the Great Rockefeller Institute of Mew York City. Little Miss Muffett sat on a tuffett Eating her curds and whey; There came a big spider and sat down beside her And frightened Miss Muffett away, Well, in Baltimore there is one little Miss Muffett who just losr es her spiders A » A thrilling rescue story comes from Fair Haven, Hew Jersey, It*s hero is a dor called Scotty. Hew York Evening Post relates that Scotty was usually a well behaved Scotty. He seldom barked at night. Early this morning he began howling*. ^TEe family coulfl^tubt understand it. His master v^ent downstairs to scold him. But his master soon found out what was the matter with Scotty, The whole rear of the Ms house was in flames with the mistress and three servants asleep upstairs. The mster of the house rushed uppfeas^**^, aroused his wife, and the servants on the third floor, which by was thick with smoke. By the time the Fire Department was summoned the .OUS However servants unconscious, ^ A _ MA. 'to they were revived after the E firemen carried them the open air. During the excitement nobocy thought much of Scotty. It was not until everybody was safe and streams of water were playing on the house whaw they found Scotty on the lawr^ dead r ^ i , from h3axt*^£aK smoke. Well, here1s hoping that Scotty is having good hunting go UKxixj iUMOxinUki •