LOWELL THOMAS - SUNOCO- THURS., JULY 5, 1934 STRIKE Out ou the Pacific coast they are talking about a new kind of gas, fighting gas* They call it nauseating gas. They say its the worst non-fatal vapor ever devised for war, or civil disturbance. It knocks people unconscious. They stay unconscious for a couple of days. The Governor of California has given the National Guard orders to be ready to use this nauseating gas. The National Guardsmen are all equipped with a special type of gas mask. And the reason - the strike. Merohanside detained by the Pacific coast longshore­ men strike has piled up so high they are going to try to ship it out - east, north, anywhere - over the state owned railway lines, to get it delivered. This is expected to provoke still farther the violence of those striking dock workers who are in an exceed­ ingly belligerent mood. That's why the governor telle the National Guard to get ready with the nauseating gas. BORAH America's Public individu&list-Humber-One is Just as individualistic as ever. Senator Borah, in attacking the Hew Beal attacks pretty nearly everybody - that is Democrat a and Republicans* He is still the same one-man show - and still the same old master of sharp pointed controveray. A couple of months ago he announced that he was going to take the stump on a nation-wide tour and preach his attack on bureaucracy, tils first adcress is shrewdly aimed and powerfully thrust. The dig at the Hew Beal is rather cruel when Borah denounces - "the arbitrary treatment of the little fellows who are in no sense responsible for the Depression." He declares that fear and confusion are retarding recovery* Let's look at this public individualist number one, not as he stands in the limelight of politics. Let's take a more intimate glance. They say Bill Borah would have been a scientist If he has not gone to the Senate. He is inclined to the more thoughtful things. His only luxury is a saddle horse which he rides in all kinds of weather, and he wears the big BORAH -2 Black hat of a western sheriff • He carries his tooth Brush in his rest pocket. His wife is known as "Little Borah", He keeps her on the lookout for new recipes for onion soup, his farorite dish. In the campaign of 1924, with the insurgent Senator La ?ollette running as third candidate. President Coolidge thought he would like to hare a Western Progressive running with his as Vice-President. Borah was just ideal. Coolidge went to him and offered him what Cal called;- "a place on the ticket." Borah looked Cal squarely in the eye and asked," Which place Mr. President”? Maybe its the onion soup that ' VALLACS You know how it ie when a patient man gets mad* All the suppressed wrath, all the endured wrongs of a lifetime may flare up in one supreme, supernal outbreak, I suppose you'd oall it a supreme outbreak, also a supernal outbreak, when a Secretary of Agriculture hurls a summons right back into the face of a process serfer* I don't know what the United States district Court should say when one of its sacrosanct summonses gets chucked about in people's faces. Maybe the Court will agree that it is cruel and unusual treatment of a cabinet member when a process serrer sticks a summons in on him while he's asleep in a Pullman berth* Anyway the Secretary was roused to wrath, A patient man can be a demon when aroused. Secretary Wallace has a face of serious and even melancholy appearance* When he walks along his head is bowed low In profound thought, Ms is deeply religious. He is so abstemious that he rarely eats meat and practices total abstinence from liquor and tobacco. He indulges in ns luxuries, Every day he walks the four miles from his home to his office WALLACE - 2 and when he makes cm out-of-town trip he trudges to the station with his suitcase in his hand. He Is a man of patience, forebearance and Christian humility. He almost newer gets mad, yet when he does they say that his eyes practically strike sparks. The marshall who served the summons on him in the Pullman berth, and the summons came flying back in his fans, dscalrss that hs thought fire crackers were exploding in the Secretary’s eyes, Fourth of July firs crackers no doubt. h PRIKGE Every year has its crop of Fourth of July accidents. This year1 a list Includes one of the most renowned, distin­ guished names in all the world — Hie Royal Highness, the Prince of Wales, heir apparent to the crown of Great Britain. Falling from a horse is just a little tiny fraction of a mishap compared with the calamity that befell the royal prince. He was making a speech at the historic English public school, famous old Rugby; and H.R.ti. got all mixed up in a most royal and imperial way. Ha spoke of Tom Jones, the celebrated American pirate. Ouch! He meant John Paul Jones. Ouch, again — for he called our own John Paul Jones a olrate. There's a Fourth of July salutation for us Americans, the heir to the British crown dubolng our favorite sea hero a buccaneer, sea robber, a bully boy sailing under the Jolly Roger, a Captain Kill, a Black Beard, a pirate. So, 1*11 say ouch for the third time. Yet, there’s an interesting point here. The British commonly classify John Paul Jonss as a pirate. Is there any technical, legal Justification for this? John Paul Jones was ____ __ ___________ 1____ PRINGB - 2 a Britisher by birth* Was he a naturalized American citizen? Was there any naturalization in the United States during those early years of the Revolutionary War? He sure enough sailed the seas as a privateer. The British considered the Americans all rebels, — which Indeed they were. So what legal status did a rebel privateer have? X wish some learned illuminatus of history and the Law would enlighten us about this. Ouchl GERMANY > S r / A significant word from Germany. We*ve been supposing that the frightful downfall of the Brown Shirt lords of the Storm Troops might lead to a smoothening down and easing off of the Nazis severities and suppressions. And now, listen to this: Hitler has called a meeting of Storm Troop leaders at Flensburg, on the Danish Frontier, The purpose of the conference is not to devise new ways of attacking the Jews. It*s just to the contrary. Hitler and his leaders are confabulating on curbing and checking anti-Jewish riots-. This follows on reports of new anti-Semitic outbreaks in which four people are i upuitvft ,A YWfW- killed. This is what the government at Berlin wants to stop. Hitler, the arch anti-Semit, taking measures to protect the Jewsj 1 . thatfs news; Here's another sidelight on GermanY&s weekend of terror**- They say that many of those lightning-swift executions may be laid to a pale, young man, who heads the Nazi secret police. | f His name is Hfmmler. He is described as Goering's man* He is f thirty-three, very blond, aloof and exceedingly cool. Yes, cool I Of indeed, they say he holds human life cheaply. I Of the reserve and pallid Hemmler, Goering once said:- "He is an instrument that will GERMANY - 2 strike lightning*fast at any and all foes of the state** And he did strike lightning-fast this past weekend He struck down the revolting Storm Troop leaders* Holding human life cheaply* he held their lives too cheaply for a moment of hesitation -* or of mercy DEBTS When Germany, declaring a moratorium said:- "We're not going to make any more payments on our debts" -- England replied: "We insist on collecting our debts," In answer to this Germany back-paddled a bit and said:- "Okay, John Bull, In the next six months we'll pay you interest on the money we owe you," How, into the conversation steps,Cordell Hull, Secretary of State at Washington, He puts his oar in to this effect:- "Look here, Germany, if you're going to ,pay England interest on her debts, you'd better pay us interest on our debts. We demand the same treatment," And now it’s Germany's move. That bit of dialogue isn’t so witty or brilliant or scintillating, but it's about the way the debt situation has been going GENERAL VILLAREAL This is the story of three Memican musketeers. They have just got out of a perilous scrape. One was a dandidate this past week in the Mexican presidential election. General Antonio Villareal has been trying to be the president of Mexico ever since the old days of Rancho Villa. He started out on his presidential adventures with two pals, three Mexican musketeers. They fought•agains Villa Caranza, Obregon, and nearly everybody else* Always when things got too hot they streaked across the border Into the United States. And they they became familiar figures down in our southwest. In any drug store or at any hot dog stand along the border, General Villareal was always willing to tell anyone who would listen to him, how he was destined some day to become president of Mexico. He was a dashing figure, slender, athletic, with dark bushy hair and a fiery eloquence that would talk a cigar store Indian into joining up with his various revulutions. Once, he talked a California woman, a young music teacher, into putting up money for one of his presidential revolutionary campaigns. He lost the campaign and she lost the money. Fair enough^* GENERAL VILLAREAL -2 At least she seemed to think so. He found himself in jail; she found a way to get him out. She smuggled to him in his dungeon a fine-tboth saw concealed in a cherry pie. Whereupon he sawed his way out. During the weekend Mexican election the three musketeers were on the presidential job once more, with General Villareal a candidate once more. He lost, but he was -used to that. He found himself under arrest, but he was used to that also* And now word comes along that he has made another escape. The Mexican government suspected him of plotting one more of those every real Villareal revolutions.- Perhaps it was unreal this time. Anyway he was imprisoned in a house together 1 With one of his fellow musketeers. They were guarded by a flock of secret service men. But they cut a hole through the wall, and got away. Fast work for a presidential candidate. We don’t have presidential candidates like that. The. latest report is that the three Mexican musketeers are on their way to thdir old haven of refuge — across the border, to the U. S* A,, to the land of the Gringos; where all good Mexicans go when they are in trouble FLOWERS The flowers have won — down In Argentina* The flowers have carried off the palm of victory* Bon Tomas was an enemy of the flowers* He fought against blooms and blossoms He waged war against the roees* was at strike with lilies, struggled with a mortal hate against violets, dahlias and chrysanthemums* He swore a deadly vendetta against the flowers But the flowers have won* Tall, gaunt and stately, like a hidalgo of old. Bon Tomas did not believs in saying it with flowers* ue said it with words* He was a professional deliverer of eulogies* He was the last speaker of beautiful words for the dead in the Argentine* The modem idea is that flowers at a funeral are enough* The older Argentine idea was that the deceased should have words of great praise spoken in their memory* Hence, the "official end professional eulogist", of whom Bon feme* was a Ciceronian example -- the last of Ms tribe* Me stationed himself at the Chaearito Cemetery, and whenever a funeral entered, in solemn, hispanic dignity he approached* Tenderly he spoke words of sympathy* Benevolently FLOWERS- 2 he offered to make a speech at the grave, a solemn and be­ fitting eulogy. All he needed to knov was the name and pro­ fession of the dear one. With these he was able to make an oration of praise, by the hour. He could tell of the virtues of the deceased, the grief of the family, the misfortune of the community -- all in the most high-flown Spanish, and embellished with Greek and Latin quotations. And the cost was little, Senor, A mere pittance — one dollar for each ten minutes. Six pesos for an hour; and for a eulogy of six hours there might be some slight reduction, Senor. Of late years, things did not go so well with Bon Tomas, the last of the eulogists of the Argentine, People got new ideas. They came to think that flowers were enough, flowers, wreaths, floral pieces. They no longer thought it necessary that great words of praise should be spoken. They said it with flowers, which made business bad for Bon Tomas, That is why Bon Tomas was an enemy of flowers, fought against blooms and blossoms, waged war against the roses, was at strife with lilies, struggled with a mortal hate against violets dahlias and chrysanthemums. FLOWERS - 3 Ah, hut he fought a losing battle. A Bon Quixote tilting against the flowers* Funerals came with heaped up flowers, and in rain did Bon Tomas offer to pronounoe his eulogies in the most high flown Spanish with Greek and Latin phrases* It got so had that he scarcely delivered one eulogy a month* The flowers, the hated, loathed and despised flowers were winning* Now the battle is over* Bon Tomas has died and been buried* There was no eulogy at his grave* Eis coffin was banked, with heaps of flowers* Well, Tomas is Spanish for Thomas* And I'm a sort of professional eulogist myself* Only I have no quarrel with ^ the flowers RESCUE And now the story of the prizefighter and the colored baptising. Everybody got baptized, whether they wanted to or not. Hike Ballerlno is one of the toughest lightweights in the ring. He was a champion too, title-holder in the junior lightweight division. He's a slugging, rip-snorting, bonebust­ ing battler, the hero of a hundred slamming and banging slam- bang battles. But, he never thought he's be the hero at a color­ ed baptising* The Grand Street colored Holy Mission was having a Si- grand hallelujah — baptism by emersion. The breathem and si stem were being ducked in Newark Bay* They were getting religion, they were being saved. The other members of the church were gathered - not "by the river", but on a pier jutting out into the bay, watching and praying, with many a loud "hosanna*, "glory be, " and many a lusty "amen* — "Amen Brother* as the spirit moved them* We're saved,” they chanted in a resonant Spiritual. Yes, they were saved. They needed saving. Just as a fat mammy was being immersed, and being RESCUE - 2 saved, just as a loud hallelujah rose from the brethern and sistera on the pier — the pier collapsed. There was a wild yell, and It wasn*t any hallelujah, as the deacons, the deacon­ esses, the ladies auxiliary, the Sunday School, in other words the entire Grand Street Colored Holy Mission was dumped head first into the water. That was some immersion. And thatfs when they naeded to be saved. And they were -- by Mike Baller­ ina * Mike, the prize fighter, was swimming nearby when he saw the Grand Street Colored Holy Mission precipitated into Hewark Bay, Mike didn't pay much attention to the brethem and sistern. It was the children that took his attention, a whole batch of colored children, floundering in the water, yelling gasping, sinking. Those God's chillun didn't have water wings, Mike struck out to the rescue with limbs toughened by long years of punching, left-jabbing, and right-hooking. He grabbed two of the colored kids and beat his way to shore. Then he splashed in once more and returned with two more. He made a third trip and fished out another. Meanwhile, members RESCUE - 3 of the United States Volunteer Corps came hurrying from nearby and completed the rescue job. Everybody was saved; and then they proceeded to get saved some more, as, nothing daunted, the Grand Street Colored Holy Minion of Jersey City went right on with the baptizing, while Mike Ballerino took a rest for himself, and shouted "Amen i " And , SOLONG UNTIL TOMORROW,