POLL Lov/el l Thomas Broadcast for Literary Digest . page_ Thursday, February 25, 1932. i 2 3 4 5 Lad i es and Gent!e me n: Qf onight .the Literary 0igest Pol I is big news. We have'more than three qu ar t e r s o f a m i I I i on voters an d 6 7 they come from seventeen states. New j * , * - ''I England, the South, the Middlewest. j 8 11 An interesting fact is the^wayl the dry vo tq, - i s “br eep i ng up and gaining on the wets .and in the office we are all asking - V/i M the drys keep forging 12 ahead, cutting down the lead of the 13 wets, perhaps overtaking them, following 14 13 that first scattering vote which was so very strongly against prohibition. For, natural ly# the votes from the rural communities are among the last to come in./ / 19 20 21 Nov/ for some figures. Connecticut comes first with 25 POLL ~ £ £ Page . 1 a total of 10,107 votes. The wets make a big showing. 1,528 2 3 are for prohibition, 8,579 are against. 4 But Georgia is not so wet, ltfs just a little over 5 two to one In Georgia. Out of 9, 187 votes, £,969 put a loud aiid 6 7 T emphatic O.K. on nrohibition. 6,2X8 are agaim t it. That's a wit 8 majority of course, but it* s the sort of majority that*s cutting T 9 down the big lead the opponents of the Eighteenth Amendment had 10 11 at first* \ 12 But the wets come right back in Illinois with a 13 1 four to one majority -- a total of 18,4£7 votes — 3,744 declare 14 15 that the present system is all right — 14, 683 register a 16 chorus of dissent. 17 Well, it's nip and tuck here. Strong dry indications 18 19 come froia Indiana, you know Indiana has about the strictest # 20 dry enforcement law of any of the states, £0,383 votes are on 21 22 23 24 25 record in our poll, 7,2£1 axe EQLL - 3 Page. 1) 2 3 1 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 impn oco i'v-e- ouppopt- for prohibition! (3,162 call kb for a change. That's less than two to one. There rnay be enough votes from Indiana in today's mail to turn that wet majority bone dry. (prom that familiar rockbound coast of Maine vie also have returns that tend to cut down the big wet lead. The state at large gives a majority of a little over two to one against prohibition - j a total of 2,135. 689 for the dry law, | 1446 against.^ But Maryland keeps up its emphatic protest against prohibit! on, by a majority of more than four to one against. The folks down in Maryland are represented by a total of 22,341 votes. 4,450 Mary I anders think prohibition is 0. K., while i 7,8$ I shake their heads and say no. The wet majority in Michigan is not as big as that. 3,874 votes come streaming out of the wintry weather in that northern state - 754 say yes to "•23-31. sm POLL - 4 Page 4. prohibition, 2,920 say no. Here are the new votes on these new states — Hampshire, New Jersey, New York. New Hampshire first. 855 are for prohibition, 1,808 are aginst. New Jersey -- dry, 14,616 -- Wet, 86,603. k New ¥ork, 38,144 dry — 255,662 wet. i But here^ another story. In North Carolina prohibitid] is so strongly supported that in these early returns the wets have only a slim lead. Cut of 15,350 votes, 6,480 favor the 13th Amendment. On the other side of the North Carolina fence 8,870 ballots are cast against the dry law, J Ohio gives us a big vote, 62.<39 Altogether. The dry showing is 17,584. 45,055 turn thumbs down, Some of these are states we didn’t hear from in our last statewide returns. The biggest not previously reported is Pennsylvania. Its total is 190,970, which expresses the size and importance of Pennsylvania in national affaire. Ihe Keystone state poes between three and four to one against prohibition, with 43,831 for, and 147,139 against. bet's see, Rhode Island never ratified the 18th POLL - _5 Page^!_____ Amendment. And tonight's returns from Rhode Islam are right in line with that,five to one against prohibition, total 2,073, of which the drys get 340 votes, and the wets 1,733. Vermont's total is pretty close to Rhode Island1 s,2,337. Ihe wet vote is pretty much the same. It's 1,707. But the dry vote is much larger. It's 630. Thatfs a little more than two and a half to one in favor of the wets. Here^ a good sized vote. It's from Virginia. The Old Dominion comes through with a total of 14,689, of which 4,493 are wet, and 10,196 are dry. Heref o another state that can possibly go dry before the shooting is over. The wets have a majority of less than a thousand. West Virginia gives us a total of 3,332 votes. The drys make a strong showing with 1,198, while 2,134 West Virginians register their votes against the present prohibition law. In the new Literary Digest, which came out today, these figures are summarized and interpreted by the experts who direct the Poll. They point out the significant thing that in POLL 6 6 Page________ the last state-by-state report the Drys couldn’t muster a percentage of more than 15.85, Y^hile tonight the percentage has risen to 19.28. ‘i'he tctal vote is 775,532. Dry; 149,526. Wet: 625,806. Well, that does dramatize the matter, and the whole country is going to be watching and waiting to see whether that increase of the Dry vote will continue cutting down and whittling away that present Wet majority. Now let’s take a few city figures. Bridgeport, Connecticut, one of the great industrial centers of New England. 111 s vote!- For continuance of the 18th Amendment, 326. For repeal, 2,376. More than 7 to 1 for repeal. Let1 s see how the tide is running down in Delaware. The total count for Wilmington so far is 2,995. Of these 644 say: "Let the 18th Amendment standi We're for it.” But those who don’t agree send in 2,351 votes. Here's a nice little battle of ballots in Michigan £52 for prohibiten, and 601 for repeal. The total number of ballots from Newark, New Jersey, is 11,119. Of these 1,055 are for the 18th Amendment, while POLL - 7 Pd.ge_7l___ 10*064 are marked the other way. 9 to 1. 4,525 votes from Albany, Hew Xork, have gone through the Literary Digest tabulating machines. 70S of these are for the law as it is — 3,888 don’t want it. What1 s the matter with Kansas? Ohe's all right. At least so say the Drys, From Emporia, Kansas, made famous by William Allen White, we have 175 votes against prohibition, and 895 for continuance. Springfield, Illinois, where Lincoln lived and where he was buried, incidentally the capital of Illinois. From Springfield we have 1,549 votes all told. 3,800 of these are for the 18th Amendment — 1,S£9 are for repeal. Almca t 4 to 1. Jacksonville, Florida, comes through with a total of 888. 189 of these are for the Amendment — 693 say it ought to be removed. And I’ve a report on 7,647 St. Louis votes 685 for the Amendment, while 6,968 are tor repeal. And that’s the Prohibition story tonight. It's mighty cheerful to be able to re -’ opt s om p r e a ! 1 y go o d f inane i a I news« The new Banking law and the reconstruction measures just enacted at Wash i n gt on are a I re ad y h av i n,g t he i r effect. *-e learned from the American Banker t h a t b a n k f a i Iu r e © a re get tin g fewer and fewer every week. There were only sixteen last week, as compared with twenty-four the week before. * That means that we are down to the average for the last eleven years. In other words , we are comin g back to s om e t h i n g I i k e n o r m a I c y i n t he b a nk i n g bu s i n es s. And speaking of banks, here^s a new one. ^1^-0 pTUrv/u Chic a 9 t !* e Roosevelt Trust and Savings Bank decided to close up s ho p because deposits w e r e n 11 b i g enough to make banking profitable* In this Chicago suDurb of Forest Park’ deposits had shrunk down to only 10# of So the what they wep,e in 1928. director^Asent a letter to A every depositor asking him to come and take out his money so the bank could shut down. But our of 1400 depositors only 100 turned up. And whatTs the bank going to do? Here T s one case where the people have too much faith in their bank instead of too little. 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 2 Page. /Z- Tomorrow morning we're all going to read in the papers that money is easier* Well, that's because the Federal Reserve Bank ot New York has cut down the.discount rate from 34 to 3 per cent. I haven't time to explain all the ins and outs of money rates, but in general this tends to keep all interest rates down, and therefore makes it easier for people to borrow money. It also tends a little to draw money away from New York and Wall Street to other financial centers, where people can get a better return on the money they lend. Probably this is all part of the big program that the government and the •b,i 3 banks are co-operating in to loosen up credit and make it easier for business men to increase their activities. 1 IAX / 3 Pa^e F 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 It looks as if we are going to have a sales tax, all right. Speaker Garner of the House of Representatives declared today that the new tax bill, which wi II be ready in about a week or .ten days will orovide for,*- tax w_h i o h w i l T b e levied A- A on sales made by manufacturers. 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 UfJ-JUSM J2ANU1I 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 1 An interesting detective story comes along in the capture of Cleveland's public enemy Number One. Smiling Joe Filkowski, one of the most desperate bandits of the Middle West, is in a prison cell in New York this evening. He is being held for a murder committed in C I eve I and. 9 10 11 12 The New York Evening Post tells how the credit for the capture belongs to Police Chief George Matowitz, of Cleveland, who did a clever bit of IS detect i ve wor k . He learned the name of 14 one of the bandit's friends and started is a correspondence with him, pretending to is be a crook. He wrote, suggesting a job to be done, and succeeded in palming 18 himself off so well that a plan was 19 25 arranged for a supposed robbery. SmiIing Joe Filkowski was in on the job. An appointment was made in New York. A squad of detectives were on the scene, and the next thing you know, the Cleveland desperado was safely under arrest* In a room which he occupied, the 2 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Page, U detectives found several books. The pages had been scooped out, and stolen jewelry had been hidden away between the covers. 13 i* 1£ 1(1 It 1 $ Vi 2 ) 2 L 22 23 24 25 The bat el e at Shanghai entered its most violent stage today and once more the Chinese did a surprising thing. All day long the Japanese surged forward in a terrific assault. The New York World Telegram tells how under the cover of devastating gun-fire the Japanese launched one attack after another. Masses of green uniformed troops surged against the Chirese positions. This afternoon, the Japanese Commander i ssued a report claiming that his regiments had driven the Chinese back in a wild retreat along a two mile front, and now comes the surprise. A late dispatch tells how the Chinese being hammered unmercifully all day, back with a smashing counter-attack, -d-P-©44£- the Japanese back. af tei c am an d / The Chinese claim to h ve regained nearly all the ground they have lost^, ^The whole world is amazed at the that the supposedly inefficient army of China is putting up against I Page, 12 13 14 15 10 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 -m the magnificent military establishment/ of Japan.y In the diplomatic f i e I c! ^ the Japanese came back with a counter-attack oirectec. against a statement made yesterday^loy Secretary of State Stimson' in which the Secret/Bi" y-^—sp'oalc ing Fep- t-f ha—Hn i ted_^ t fdt-o o bovc rntiUjnt dec 1 ared that the Kellogg Peace Pacts and the Nine Power Treaty were being violated in the Far East. The United Press quotes the spokesman of the Japanese Government as declaring that the Nine Power Treaty did not guarantee the sovereignty and integrity of China because there was no sovereignty or integrity to protect. He points out that China has o e e n in ft pos j t j or —©-f- chaos for ten years and claims that when the Nine Power Treaty was negotiated^ the diplomats were thinking of Chinese sovereignty and integrity whenever China happened to get any real sovereignty and integrity* Meanwhi I e other nat ions have L . on n rov a I Of Secretary' been exprosstrig then appr statement. A Un it ed °f State 31 im s on T 1 AyiAifiiis 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Page. U n c 1 0 S am 1 s diplomatic k b § ps & p 6 p r s s © n l ci t i v 0 s at S h an q h a i h a v © b © © n trying to find out how many Americans are mixed up in the fighting. This comes as the result of a Japanese protest over the fact that Robert M. Short, an American, was shot down in a Chinese airplane during the course of a battle in the sky. A United Press cable printed in the New York Sun tel Is that the Arnsrican Consul General’ is notifying tkiKx American aviatbrs at Shanghai that there is an American lav/ which forbids any American to take part in a V/ar in x which the United States is neutral. 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 1 . 11 23-31 -5M ^ AIhe Japanese fighters at Shanghai a^r-e wearing green uniforms, and Col. Kosuda, a Japanese army officer in New York tells the New York V.or I d Tel egram that they are wearing green uniforms in Shanghai because in that country of trees and green fields,that color gives low v i s i b i I i t y • In Manchuria during the fall they used khaki. Another reason is that just now it is easier to get green cloth than khaki in Japan. SLQaLMS Page_ Well, it's getting toward my dinnertime, and while I enjoy talking to you, I also li'^e my meals. Probably if I were over in London just now and wanted to keep in - -V fashion, I'd be going out to dine on tripe and on'm because the Prince of Wales sets shions in London, and just now His Royal Highness' favorite food is tripe and onions. But it will not be tripe and onions. Goo dnight. And so, the dinner bells are calling, and I can no longer stay.