n. QliLxAAJ j ik) \<jW. MUSICA Tv.j> prominent political figures ^ere today mentioned in the trial that harK.s back to the dramatic story of Coster-Musica. >^Ar T jdayT s v.itness vas a brother of the »ist>t^k*3^^-time sv^indler. who managed to rise to be the head of one of the biggest and most respected drug concerns in this country. Then was unmasKed for if. giant frauds, and Killed himself. Coster-Musica*s brother was telling the story in a full confession, and he named two important Connecticut politiciansone - a former state senator who was Democratic National Committeeman for Connecticut from Nineteen Twenty-Nine to Nineteen Thirty-Six. he was Chairman of the State Advisory Board of the P.V^.A. and fc* a friend of President Roosevelt fs. The other politician, is a Connecticut Republican leader, now serving a prison sentence in connection with a political scandal at Waterbury. Tnese two prominent figures today were said to have received money from Coster-Musica# The brother of the arch swindler told a story of prohibition time alcohol. His brother, alter having worked a giant fraud with the purchase of human hair years ago - turned to hair tonic. From hai to tonic, related^ideas. He formed a small S - r r r ulUbICA _ 2 manufacturing company, and played the simple ^ame of buying a lot more alcohol than he needed for the manufacture of his hair tonic, then selling the excess alcohol to bootleggers. That was so profitable that he bought into a small but exceedingly old and respected company - McKesson and Robbins/^TaKing charge of the firm, he proceeded to specialize in the manufacture and sale of a mouth-wash. The mouth-wash had a high alcoholic content and was chemically so devised that the alcohol could easily be taken out of the concoction. Bootleggers bought the mouth-wash in huge quantities, --- i&LW taking it away in truckloads - processing it into alcohol for their A illicit fl^igni nffod thr 1nrgr m-i jirnfitr^rrir ^ * * r»m to falr&e—bODkkeeprtttg— *rh 4 oh showed ±gfnments ef motttn-wftfrh- to ht«fcbe^n a - t^- •imrrftrlnary—k q " cox.c ct ^SB^ Tnat was the beginning of the huge and intricate system of^£s?£^ bookkeeping by which Coster-Musica created imaginary assets of millions - non-existent millions. He maintained a slush fund, a secret budget out of which to pay money for dubious purposes. The v.itness expressed it in tnese terms today:- "J-his slush fund," said “e> "covered a multitude Of JAUSICA - 3 sins." -‘'nd this was covered by false bookkeeping. lAoney spent by the slush lund route was entered on the books with various disguises. One item of twenty-five hundred dollars was marked down this way - ^Mailing cost re cod liver oil.” Another entry specified two thousand dollars for - ”Cod Liver oil advertising.” It was the kind of cod liver oil that had more than vitamins in it. The story of the slush fund today went on to the sensational statement - that Coster-Musica, while operating his giant swindle, paid large .sums of money to .two political THIRD TLKM otrav, votes are an important phenomenon these days - polls to-ken on this subject or that. And today the straw vote idea assumes a new iorm - almost official, a straw vote ballot tacked onto a regular legal vote. This is scheduled to happen in Hamilton County, Tennessee. the heart of Tennessee Valley, site of one of the biggest New Deal projects - the T.V.AI Down there Democratic politicians have on a third term experiment^ in connection with the regular Democratic primary. The various local candidates have got together and are paying for it - a straw vote ballot to be attached to the regular primary ballht. The straw vote issue being - "Do you want President Roosevelt for a third term?" An unofficial poll in connection with the regular poll - something new! JOE LOUit Philadelphia certainly must love a fight - v.ith all its brotherly love. YouTd think the Republican National Convention would be enough, the battle for the G.O.P. nomination - which is certain to produce a lot of fireworks. But, right along with tne convention - Philadelphia may have a Joe Louis fight. T^atTs the gist of a report today which relates that a group of prominent Philadelphians had made an offer to the bomber - a hundred thousand dollars if he’ll defend nis title in the city of rvwv ^ VL g -— William Penn at convention time. His opponent? Tony Galento* A Tony the battling beer barrel - or any other suitable antagonist. idea is of course^tfiat convention crowd«^would be likely build up quit^x^gate for a heavywe>gfit championship bout. It isn’-^difficult to imagine^^stream of customers pouring from Convention Hall to the pifigside to see Deviating Joe and »-Ton Tony in ac‘ The juxtaposition of pugilism and presidential politics suggests interesting possibilities. They might reverse things,and have the rival candidates battle it out in the ring. And they might J3?^‘Ti>vv7V /^s*=te=3=a^ run for president. have Joe Louis and^°J^yvT'tOA5*- OLYMPICS Tonight the story of Finland turns to a subject in which thaFinns have been so important - Olympic Games, before the blast of war struck that northern land, we knew the Finns chiefly as athletes, runners, skiers - who made Olympic history. Wow, with the war scarcely over, we have a proposal — "Olympic Games for Finland." The northern Republic was to have had them this year, scheduled for July Twentieth. The thought of athletics was banished by war, but Helsinki never really gave up the games. So why not go ahead with the former schedule and have -aiyaB the Olympics in the northern land that the world has come to admire so much? Of course, the war between Germany and the Allies mi^ht make it impossible, but stili the idea is being considered. Today, a member of the United States Olympic Committee spoke up and said - that if Finland decides to hold the games at Helsinki this summer, the United States will participate. However, that depends upon whether the State Department in Washington would permit an American team to go. The State Department hts.s oeen mighty strict about passports, but the Olympic committeeman tiday OLT^ICb - 2 stated he believed Secretary Hull’s department rni^ht relent. It is disclosed that the Secretary of the International Committee, a German, has communicated with the American group and outlined a route that the United States athletes could take and avoid passing tnrough any war zones. He proposed that an American Olympic ship could proceed to Narvik, in Arctic Norway, then east and south to southern Finland. That kind of trip, avoiding the war zones, might induce the State Department to permit American athletes to go. about It’s announced that whenever a decision is made the games in Finland, the A —* American Olympic Committee will immediately be called into session to consider the possibility of sending anAmerican team. FOREIGN The principal development in the European news today concerns tne possibility of a military alliance between Sweden, Norway and Finland. Tnis was hinted at during txhe time wnen the Finnish-Soviet peace negotiations first began - I mentioned it in this broadcast as one of the things that might be offered to Helsinki in return for coming to terms with Moscow. reports about a Scandinavian pact that would guarantee the independence of Finland. And what ifxkiiitx.XaYlslx have the Soviets to say about that? Tnere was comment from Moscow saying - the Soviets wouldn’t mind. Spokesmen in Stalins capital made the remark that a three-power alliance between Sweden, Norway and Finland might be oKay - if were not directed against -- A Russia. The Moscow informant pointed out that the Soviet-Finnish peace treaty specifies that neither ‘nation shall make any alliances against ejlk the other. If that clause were observed, the Soviets might not mind if Stockholm, Oslo and Helsinki signed a treaty. What would a Scandinavian guarantee of Finnish independence amount to? We!ve got to repeat that geographically—speaking, the Soviets FOREIGN - 2 have taken tae natural delense lines of the republic. It was admitted in Helsinki today that the new frontier will be vastly more difficult to defend than the old one. This especially applies to the Karelian Isthmus. By annexing that isthmus between the Gulf of Finland and La*e Ladoga, Moscow has got the strong natural defense area upon which the Mannerheim line was founded. Moreover, the Soviet territory now extends all around hake Ladoga. The boundary is continuous, not split up any more by the huge inland body of water So now^rrcra much easier way into southern Finland - the more so because of Hanko. A Soviet naval base at that domi i^re^point will provide the Red army with another route into southern Finland, a point of attack from the west. Moreover, a Soviet-Hanko-naval- base will control the mouth of the Gult of Finland, the body of Ttoz. s water tnat leads to Leningrad. E-t now become a Russian lan:e. And take that famous Finnish waistline;- By getting a strip of territory at the very narrowest part of the northern republic, the Soviets^wo±t±d=l^ in a better position to drive acrosj FOREIGN - 3 and cut Finland in two. imr?--r- the Soviet i dilroud line vv-ixc^ is to be built - would nxja£i£xii-x.&i&2iicji provide a highway for attack, to^sricti^ ^ direct uienace to Sweden ooimee-tr-wi-th the SifOd4gn Fiiii*ii3n rgi-lro?d bybluia^ i*1»y-=g»Soviet route to the Scandinavian peninsula, ^uzot, in tne Arctic north, the S/\ territorial concessions that Finland had to make bring the Soviet power all the nearer to Norway and Sweden. So one may well ask - how much might a Scandinavian guarantee amount to? How far could an assurance of military help compensate Finland for the loss of its iwtt4^»?a4 boundaries? Maybe -v A ----- - a good deal. It might tie Finland in with the general fate of Scandinavia. And Scandinavia would be a pretty big slice for Stalin to bite into. 1* so essentially concerns Nazi Germany, £©r—exssp^fceat A itee( -^i and that There's talk that Hitler may give Finland a guarant would be important, considering German-ooviet relations. Moreover, Scandinavia is much more accessible to tne Allies tnan unfortunate Finland ever destiny of the heroic northern republic m^y well be involved in the large complexities of European war and politics 05 bt i^tficate that hardly anything can be foreseen. Look out for the cold vtave, you people in the north Atlantic states! 11*5 due here tonight - a belated blizzard sweeping from the west. The weather man predicts icy cold, snow and driving northern part of Lng ^leet^Hnnff tm The northen ~#U? /J the middlewest is having blizzard right novv^ c*^**-&t L-Q- i^vv () ^ A ACCIDLi«T A frightful truck and train disaster in Texas is one ol tne viorst on record. A final check reveals a death list of twenty-five, and seventeen injured - when a passenger train crashed into a truck crowded with citrus fruit workers, wlost of them Mexicans, the driver a Mexican. Ttoe truck was so loaded with the workers that they were jammed in the front seat with the driver, hanging on the running boards, and wssw perched on the roof, of the truck. The route lay along a railroad track and ahead was a sharp turn. It was flat country without obstructions, and itfs hard to understand why the driver didn’t see the train. But he didn’t. He turned sharply across the tracks, right in front of the locomotive. How frightful the crash was is told in the words of an eyewitness, a woman who was in a building nearby. ”1 heard the roar of the approaching train,” said she, ’’and then I heard a tremendous crash. I looked out of a window and saw a sheet of flame in front of the — i ~' i:-rT-4T^a» engine. Through the flame,” she adds, ’’bodies were pitched in all directions. I guess the truck’s gasoline tanks must have exploded,”^aid Ti4e worst»5p^^3Ts5?ter in the history of Texas! PLANK Today in a New York harbor a snaali passenger plane was c 1 V'1- '' alonj,, everything in order, no apparent danger, caz& t.^en suddenly plunged downward and crashed into the water. There were two men aboard. 0ne, a passenger, was drowned. Tne pilot tonight is in a hospital - injured, dazed, incoherent, telling a strang Yet not so strange, though always frightening - an air passenger suddenly making an attack upon the pilot. It has happened more than once - some v anp» attack of frenzy, an outburst of crazy violence.-(PTne pilot, Joseph Rosemarin, A relates that as he was piloting his plane, for an easy jaunt across the bay, he received a sudden, stunning blow. The passenger behind him, for no apparent reason, hit him on the head with a pair of pliers. The half-stunned pilot tufned, struggling with the man. And as they fought crazily up there in the air, the plane, out of control - took a plunge. The crazed passenger was tossed out into the water and apparently drowned, but the pilot hung onto tne plane, and was picked uo — too dazed iroin his experience to tell who tne passenger was. ui - ho IC T —y.t ^ T mystup^i and mirtir:—fa? f’i i c □ ofturtrd h ^io1111 cmgn —Gtoi id i ^ hr —iir^oofc ttic tc o t p ^CHiXrHr-tTr* W.M V >%4J^li±ll_»lM|^l|^7?H-]'i iiruri*-;- mi.... ♦ T h '+ ty » * Qki .^■io —I-tiJ s one 7if tho-^hin-g-y on-display-at lia exhibition a T1 tiii'!■ - m nri-ciuart no?^ being staged at the Museum of the City of YU-oV^, Oiir old soccerer friend, Wizard Joiin Mulholland, has assembled for the Museum k & x I xhx a copious collection of documents and paraphernalia to iilustate the history of pulling rabbits out of plug hats, sawing ladies in two, vanishing elephants and otner masterpieces of legerdemain - the old presto-chango. There1s one fascinating bit of history illustrated in z %5 l 3= y ?? h Mulholland^ show, the history of one of the most famous of magical tricks. iMearly a century and a quarter ago, in Eighteen x Seventeen, the great Ramo Samee appeared in the United States, the first Hindu magician ever to display the miracles of th e Orient in this country. Ramo Samee had the Americans of that period gasping _ tthen he put in his mouth first some Deads, next a loiig string. Then, with plenty of presto-chango, he'a take out of his MAGIC - 2 mouth - the beads neatly threaded on the string. hamo Samee had a smart American manager, who suggested, why not do it with needles and thread instead of string and beads So Ramo Samee changed his trick to a magical threading of needles in his mouth. He returned to India, and thereafter America saw nothing more of the needle and thread trick. In India, Ramo Samee taught that bit of magic to his pupils, and so it was passed down the line in the East. At the Chicago WorldTs Fair of Eighteen Ninety-Two, one of Ramo Samee1s successors appeared in'the India exhibit and -s* did the needle ajnd tnread trick. And once more the Americans were astonished by it. He struck up friendship with a young American magician and tcught the stunt to him, - Harry Houdini. And later on Houdini made a hit with it all over the United States. After a hundred years the Oriental thread and needle magic, which had originated in the United States, came back to this country from India. V/orld travel magicl