broadcast for the Sun Oil Company. February 21. 1954, GOOD EVEHIKG EVERYBODY:- The Senate today decided that uncle Sam as an employer sould set an example td other employers. It was a close decision. By a vote of forty-one to forty, the Senators passed a bill restoring the fifteen per cent cut imposed upon government employees. This will be good news for any people in consular offices abroad who may happen to be listening in by short wave. Of course the bill is still to be aoproved by the house and by the ^resident. me BAILKOADS Everybody is still wondering whether the railroad chiefs are going through with their proposal to make their employees take a still further cut in wages. The suggestion was received with a storm of protest. The President sent a message to the railway magnates, asking them at least to postpone any such reduction. He suggested that as a compromise the present rate of pay for the workers should be continued for another six months. The reply of the railroad chiefs was received at the White House today. It is described as a decidedly cagey non—commital response. The railroad heads refuse to promise anything either one way or the other. But they inform the President that there will be a conference between the railroad '--a - managers and the heads of the railway labor unions in March. BBC MEW HAVEN Here1s a question;-¥1X1 the railroads leave the tracks and go up in the air? Mot flying locomotives, but railroad lines going into air transport. Some are In it already. Now there is a rumor in Boston that the Mew Haven is considering putting on a line of planes between Boston and Mew York* The officials of the road so far have declined either to confirm or deny the report. Nevertheless, sound authority declares that such a step has been considered. They say the only question is, whether the Mew Haven road will set up a new line or buy one. NBC PRICES I'he Presidential haul reached out today and pointed an accusing finger — at a bottle. "Mr. Bottle," exclaimed the President, "You cost too much. And wha^s inside of you is not so good, either." It is an ironic fact about prohibition repeal that almost everybody ±x is dissatisfied. Prohibitonists have been distressed, and saddened. On the other hand, the wets are just as disgruntled. They complain that legal liquor is just as expensive as the illegal stuff was. Th^r growl that the good liquor is worse than the bad liquor was. John Flynn in Colliers gives voice to the charge that the prices are exhorbitant because most of the wet goods is controlled by two huge firms, virtually a monopoly. Todayfs Presidential pronouncement declares that "the prices of legitimate liquor are so high that they encourage bootlegging." Mr. Roosevelt added that the problem is being seriously considered by the Administration. And something would be done about it. NBC TRENTQM SHOW X was in. Trenton and Philadelphia today and found that the recent hlizsard didnft mean anything to the Trenton Automobile Show. It opened at the Trenton Armory Monday night with the intention of continuing only two days. But in spite of the blizzard and everything, it has been such a spectacular success that they are going to keep it going all week. Sun Oil Of all the blizzard stories that have come through as the aftermath of th«^storm of snow and icy wind, the most tragic concerns the catastrophe of two empioyees of the New York limes. They set out fortheir homes in Mineola, Beverly Sparks, fifty-five years old, and John Hutchingson, age thirty-five, his foreman, a They had parked their cars in Long Island City. They- finirgfaed--woyk At midnight started to drive through the falling snow and howling wind. It was tough going. Sparks* car stalled. Hutchingson, the younger man, pulled up behind to help him. '-^hey tried to get a rope around the -rearT rear tires of the stalled car to act as skid chains. It was exhausting work in the raging snowstorm; andpresently Hutchingson was all played out. Sparks got him into the car and closed the door. Then hejclimbed into his own machine and started for a telephone to summon help. He came upon a policeman. Patrolman Edward McLaughlin. The cop got in the car with him. They drove along but soon were stalled in a deep snowdrift. Sparks was so far gone that the policeman left him in the car and ERAGEDY - 2 himself started out afoot to summon help. He trudged two miles to a police booth and telephoned for an ambulance. Dr. Lewis Stone of the Mary Immaculate Hospital in Jamaica responded. He came along in the ambulance, with the driver, Frank Collins at the wheel. Patrolman McLaughlin got aboard the ambulance and they started out. The ambulance had not gone far when it bogged up in a snow-filled ditch. The three men floundered back a^oot to telephone, . They called a police A emergency truck. An hour passed before the truck was able to l battle its way through the blizzard. Aaactefchai they all climbed aboard and went to the place where^^^Ss^^^^^^^Sf^ o2JUsi "' kvk Spark^jwas^^ssr car was still there. The man was In it. The physician examined him. The diagnosis was, one grim word — dead. They took the body on the truck and went started back. They six hundred feet and the skid chains of the truck snapped. The wheels churned in the snow'. The truck was stalled. It was dayb reak now. TRAGEDY - 5 Th.ey abandoned the truck and went trudging through the icy gale* They were almost done— in® Finally they came to a house, a laborer's shack* There they thawed out with hot coffee* Neighbors hearing that a doctor was around drifted in to receive treatment for frostbite* At ten o’clock they were about to start out again when several men burst in excitedly. They were carrying an unconscious man* They had found him in his stalled car, almost completely buried in snow. They had dug him out. It was Hutching son, the first man to collapse, and he was barely alive. It took the doctor half an hour to bring him around. And he's okay now. It all happened in the suburbs of Hew York. Prosper KOTRE DAME Western Union has Just delivered to me a courteous telegram from Dp, John £.0* Kara, acting president of Motre Dame University. Dr. 0*Hafa wants me to correct the impression that his university made four million dollars profit out of football alone. Says he: "Those four millions came from all sources of revenue, not simply football." And he continues: woefully "We are stillshort on athletic facilities. That is A why we are pushing the Bockne Memorial Project." Dr. CMHara passes out some additional courtesy to Dr. Pritchett of the Carnegie foundation. He says: "Wre like Dr. Pritchett. We have no quarrel with him; but we think he is in error when he concludes that football is overshadowing intellectual pursuits out here." Then he continues: "Ask the boys who burn the midnight oil and wear out the tables in the library." Motre Dame : nORRECTIQM Last night on the air Mayor LaGuardia of Mew York spoke his mind as follows!— *fX have just listened to my good friend Lowell Thomas and for once I caught him in an error." Right you are. Major. I said that the Mayor was going to open the Municipal Art Exhibition in the R.C.A. Building last night. 1 was a whole week too soon. It doesn*t begin until next Huesday. So I’m wrong again, and the Major’s right again. It seems like an old story. L.T OPERA I think I * 11 borrow somebody » s high hat and go to the opera tonight, to the Metropolitan to hear Salome, she oi the Seven Veils and the seventeen kinds of controversy. And concerning seven veils — or rather one veil, Charles Hackett, the Metropolitan tenor, tells me how over in Italy he was singing the role of Faust, in the opera Mesfistofele, In one scene he went on stage wrapped not in seven veils but in a voluminous black mantle. Underneath only his BVDs. He was in the wings, waiting to dash on stage in grand operatic style, when some Italian jokester, unknown to him, took a thumb tack and tacked the end of his black mantle .firmly to the floor,so that when Hackett made his grand operatic dash onto the stage the mantle was dragged off,and before, he could check his dash he was on stage before the astonished audience clad in nothing The audience howled. , but his underwear, ffllyirglftf Ifcy Wiwyri n In IB ff'ft'1* ^1 ",rF Poor Hackett fled like a frightened rabbit — Faust in his B VDs. Prosper / Fjl^^ *>'' 7 P^ryxref /S^x~t ■Jy M H?6/- IMTRQ TO TOWNSEND And now we come to a headline which reads:- BECCHI REPLACES CATTANEO; and that sounds something like an opera too. But there is a gentleman here in the studio who tells me it isn’t operatic at all. He is Commodore George Townsend, President of the American Power Boat Association, and he informs me that the musical headline "Bakey replaces Cattaneo" concerns motorhoat racing. It means that the Italian motorhoat-racer Antonio Becchi will represent his country -- mayhe I should say Mussolini’s country — in the motorboat races in Florida shortly, 1 don’t suppose that bit of news will send the stock market skyrocketing or will boom the price of hogs, but it means a lot in the life of Commodore Townsend. It seems that just last year he drove a thrilling race against that same Italian who is coming over here. It was at the International Races on Lake Garda, ffnifunDOBE TQWKSEND « 2 Captain John Wanamaker of the Philadelphia Wanamakera was there with hi a speedboat, the American entry Loulsa> He asked Commodore Townsend to drive that nautical girl Louisa in the race* And that reuse was a wild extravaganza ©f churning water and flying spray. Am I right. Commodore Townsend? *• “ ** 0 *»•••* COMHODORS TOWHSEMD:- Yes you are, Lowell, We knew we were in for a tough race — and that's what it was — tough. We knew we'd have Becchi to beat. His boat was speedier on the straightaway but our fast---! mean our good girl Loulaa was unbeatable on the curves -• I mean the turns, L,T,;- So I suppose the race turned out to be straight lines versus curves, COlfurronRB TOWN-^^That sums it up exactly. Becchi and I fought it out between ourselves. On the straightaway he gave me an awful headache. When we came to the turns my giddy Louiea gave him a swieh of her ekirt. nniniQDQRE T0WK3EMD > 3 If that rac« had haen alx turns and no straightaway Louioa would have shown Antonio a thing or two. But, unfortunately there were straightaways, long ones, and that made the difference — twenty-two seconds difference* Antonio Becohi beat me by twenty-two seconds in a thirty-six mile reuse. And now hevs coming over to flash hi a speed againet our American boats in Florida. He*s one of the great racers of the world. But this time we hope to beat him. —. 0 — L.T.:- Here*s hoping. Commodore. So let the motors roar and spray blow high. JAPAN Textile troubles in Asia. There is an argument flgglil going on between John Bull and Japan. It has to do with the \ cotton and rayon industries. For several days delegates I ' ji from Nippon have been in London trying to come to an agreement ! with delegates from Lancashire, heart of the cotton and rayon trade in England. There have been two. meetings so far; each failed to get anywhere. The Britons and the Japs have been unable to i agree even on what territory should be covered by their discussions STAVISKY (a) There has been an addition to the already long list of tragedies in the Stavisky affair in France, The body of a French judge, a judge of the Court of Appeals, was found on a railway track near Di^on. The death of this judge occured acsxhsxiexx just as he was to have testified in the investigation into that Bayonne bank scandal. interesting description of thai"" so-called mystery man Stavisky^ STAVISKY - £ the man whose knaveries were one of the prime causes of the overthrow of the French Government. He was known as Handsome Serge, and his life story makes an interesting chapter in the catalogue of famous rogues. He was born in the Ukraine, in kxxsx Russia. His father, a dentist, moved to Paris when the femi* boy was ten. One of his first achievements was to become mixed up in jewel thefts. However, he was not arrested. Handsome Serge met a rich elderly woman who financed him in the running of a dance hall. One night there was a violent quarrel and he slashed her face, dis­ figured her for life. But she didnTt complain to the police. When the Big War broke Handsome Serge got six months in prison as a slacker. A year later he served another sentence for his skill in handing out rubber checks. Still later he went to jail again for the part he played in a huge fsts&RX forgery. Once out on bail, in some mysterious fashion the papers concerning him disappeared from the office of the Magistrate. STAYISKY - S After this he led the life peculiar to these big scale rogues. He floated companies which flopped. He bought race horses which ran in such fashion as to attract the un­ favorable notice of the Jockey Club, He became a professional gambler, and for months was winning huge sums at one of the big casinos in France. He was caught using marked cards. But the legend hus it that by the time he finished explaining he had the authorities apologizing with tears in their eyes. His father committed suicide, supposedly because of young BtaVisky1s behavior. His latest and most spectacular venture, as you know, was the Bayonne Bank affair into which he contrived to drag high government officials, deputies, and newspaper editors. One of Stavisky’s tricks in this case was to issue bonds twenty times over the value of his assets. And there we have a thumbnail sketch of the man ■ 1 ; who nearly brought about another French Revolutions. BANDIT CL) It isn*t often that we get a bandit story with a comedy touch* But see what you think of this one* It happened out in San Francisco* An instructor in a gymnasium returned to his apartment early this morning. The moment he opened the door he was confronted by a Yillianous looking fellow who waved a revolver in his face and said: fork over.tt The gymnasium instructor looked at the gun curiously $nd said: "You got that off the buffet, didn*t you?W ”1 did" replied the bad man, "and you better watch your step.” To which the gymnasium instructor replied: MI certainly will* ThdJ*gun xx isn11 loaded." With that he parked a left hook neatly on the jaw of the hold-up man, who promtly took a long nap, afly-infl-. BANKRUPT Here’s a bit of news from another part of Hew Jersey that is not a prosperity item. My frieids on the Jersey Jouimal tell me that a Jersey City gentleman has filed a petition in bankruptcy, listing over two hundred thousand dollars in debts. The bankrupt gentleman is a street car conductor. Laugh that off. In fact it laughs me right off the air — and SO LONG UNTIL TOMORROW. Jersey Journal