L. T« SUNOCO, WEDNESDAY. AUGUST.-^1s7r'1954 How goes it everybody? How goes the world tonight? ,<3. The world — twenty years later! The newspapers this week are reminiscing, looking backward. Along with the up-to-the-minute events of the day, the.y are reminding us of those other events in the summer of 1914, Xe live in a post-war world. And this is the twentieth anniversary of the beginning of it all, lust what day should be considered the precise anniversary? Austria declared war on Serbia on the twenty-eighth of July, but then the Austro-Serbian rumpus was not necessarily a major war, England declared war on Germany on August Fourth, But, by that time the other giants of Europe were already in it. So, I should think, the real beginning would be — INTRODUCTION -2 when the first two great powers came to grips — when Germany declared, war on Russia --on August First*. With that the die was cast, and the tremendous thunders of battle let loose. So I should say that today should be reckoned the anniversary precise anniversary, the twentieth/of modern Armageddon, HIUDEaBUnG And today Von Hindenburg is dying. Of all single characters of the World War, he bulks might^in boldest relief. Xes, on the twentieth anniversary of the outbreak of the war that was to hurl him from obscurity intofame, his <3 doctor declares there is no hope. The old field marshal can Y live only a few hours more. We have all heard how he was^i«£enis2^general in retire­ ment, obscure, virtually forgotten. Then in the first days of the war, the Russian horde came bursting into East Prussia. Well, there was one thing that the retired general knew well — his own native East Prussia, It had been a hobby with him to work out military strategies against an invading Russian army. He had studied his maps, yes, he had studied the country in minute detail, its hills and valleys, its streams and lakes. So the Kaiser called him from his farm and gave him a chance to fight the campaign he had dreamed. We know the result, how he smashed the Russians with daring, brilliant strategy. Tonight all of Germany, and the whole world, look in ill ii Dari .bUi\G 2 somber bewilderment to the old campeigner as he struggles doggedly, Nobody can guess what his death will really mean. Perhaps it will only lead to an orderly succession, with somebody else becoming president of Germany. Hitler? Vrhy the President of Germany is scarcely more than a figurehead. Still a suspicion flashes. Suppose itfs in the cards for Hitler’s present power to fade away. It may be that he will become Just a bit of front with others doing the real ruling. And might not the Presidency of Germany be just the ornamental place to which Hitler might be relegated? That’s just a guess, a wild surmise, based on the idea. Hitler succeeding Von Hindenburg as Germany’s president. Anyway it’s a dart, tragic coincidence, the twentieth anniversary of the war and Field-Marshal Paul Ludv/ig Hans Anton Von Beneckendorf f Von Hinderf$urg^ on his death-bed RAIDER And now another coincidence — a small one, an unimportant incident which strikes all sorts of reminiscence. Tonight in Northern waters a ship is limping home to port. She’s s salmon ship and a big one. Her name is the Otsego, and she has a record-breaking lot of salmon aboard, one hundred and twenty-five thousand cases — also between five and six hundred passengers. She struck a rock off the coast of Alaska, sprang a leak. But there’s no serious alarm. The interesting point is that this salmon ship, the Otsego is really the old German sea raider -- The PrinccEitei Friedrich. That was %^ ds name of adventurous romance in those old World War days. She was one of the crack German ocean liners and went raiding as a converted cruiser — one of that famous flock of raiders that included the daring, destructive Emden, the Karlsrhue, which so mysteriously disappeared, and that slippery prowler of the seat, the Wol^f. Yes, and also jolly Count Luckner’s gallant sailing ship raider, the See AdAIer, which went buccaneering in the good^way of canvas and the wind. POFg This year*e vacation of Pope Pius the Eleventh would seem to have little to do with those events of twenty years ago. But really it has. A precedent of sixty-four years standing is broken with Pope Pius transfering the Papal Court to Cast el Gandolfo high up in the ancient Alban Hills, outside Rome. It is another Instance of the Pontiff leaving the Vatican, which is a direct result of the Treaty of Peace between the Pope and Mussolini. And, of course, Mussolini and his black shirt Fascists are typical post-Var products. Until the year 1869, Castel Gandolfo was the favorite papal vacation place. The next year came the break between the Vatican and the Italian Government and the Pope became the Prisoner of the Vatican. The Castle is a magnificent old place built in 1629, surrounded by acres of marvelous gardens. J Ajeiiii Therebeen a lot of shipbuilding out in the Far East. Since 1922 , when the treaty limiting the size of the big navies went into effect, Japan has built one hundred and three ships. That’s more than the figure for any of the other five nations that signed the treaty. Italy built one hundred and forty-five, France one hundred and fifty. Great Britain one hundred and fifty-one and the United States, h'iftyfour. ITIt's expensive business, 4 ^ launching new war-ships, and Japan is none too rich. Maybe that’s the real reason behind the latest statement of the government at Tokio* All along we have been hearing Japan’s arguments that she should have a bigger navy, second to none. But now Premier Okada makes the formal declaration that Japan doesn’t claim volk naval equality. She doesn’t expect or even want to have a fleet as big as Uncle Sarahs or Great Britain. And the Nipponese premier went further in Lis declara­ tion: he called for limitation at once — "In order,'1 he JAplkM explained, ,Tto ease the burden the world1 s people." And that may seem to indicate that Japan is feeling the burden - the expense. Another one of those terrible affairs of Russian Communist industry, ltd s a Red fashion to conduct business with a firing squad. Fire important officials in the Ural Machine Plant hare been sentenced to death for sabotage. One is the assistant technical director of the plant. The Communists claim the doomed men set fire to the factory. One stubborn fact seems to be clear — that secret opposition persists; an^ undercorer, obstinate resistance to the planned economy of the Soriets. Another thing the World War gare us, planned economy* mjeua ICI) The Lord of Health has been saved. He is being held in a government office and everyday many of his devotees can be seen kneeling in the street outside, begging him for health. The Lord of Health is a kind of idol down in Mexico, one of those ancient pagan deities who have lingered on, Christianity or no Christianity, in the remoter parts of the old land of the Aztecs. For generations the Lord of Health was glorious in his shrine away off in the province of To- basco. Recently the governor of the state, in a drive against the superstitions of the people, ordered the gaudily bedecked image fco&a* seized, arrested. Ihe Lord of Health was condemned to be burned at the stake. But the people were faithful to their olddprotector. Ho?/ could they enjoy health, if the Lord of that precious quantity were burned in a bonfire? They took the image one secretly away. They hid it. They passed it along from/group of peasants to another. The peppery attjthorities of Tobasco hunted vainly for thekanitary deity. The Lord of Health was conveyed secretly out of the state, through ««» the city of Vera Cruz and across the mountains to the capital. There the devotees got a federal injunction from the Mexican Government, protecting it. So now the Lord of Health is saved, for the time at least, in the custody of the government. OCTOPUS Maybe the anniversary of the World War is the proper time to tell of a battle ttFW* fift certainly the weirdest of all — . hastly, fantastic fight to the death between an octo­ pus and a shark, A party of fishermen saw it off the Pacific Coast near Bellingham, Washington, Both the shark and the octopus got into one of the fish traps of a canning company. And there, prisoners both, th^rlocked and grappled in fiendish battle. Which one was the winner — make your guess — the ferocious saw-toothed oaws of the shark, or the soft, winding, snaky tenacles of the octopus? Well the eight armed octopus was the victor. That eerie unearthly battler got a grip with its snaky arms around the sharkfs gills. So relentless, so powerful a winding grip, that the shark was suffocated, smothered. But the tiger of the sea had gotten in its own licks with those slashing jaws. It had ripped the octopus almost to shreds. The eight armed monster was nearly dead when the fishermen intervened and finished it off STRIKE The California strike situation is so far a thing of the past that the dook workers are returning to work in a cheerful mood. They even called a jolly r,Good Morning" to the policeman on duty* In Seattle, too thousands more were back at work today. So the Pacific Coast where the big troubles began is in better shape so far as labor conditions go, than it has been in some time. The center of strike disturbance still remains in the Minneapolis section, with all sorts of tension drawing tight. The same story at the Minnesota city, although there were no € casualties, not a shot fired. As the National Guardsmen put down that strike uproar they took over the strikers 1 headquarters and arrested the head of the truck-drivers union NEW JERSEY Here^ another instance of the migration of the Negroes from the South to the North* But the State of New Jersey is sayingi- "Whoa there. You all jest have to turn fround and go on back." They’ve been bringing Negroes north by the truck­ loads to work on the New Jersey vegetable farms and potato fields* The state authorities claim that the imported laborers are being kept in camps, amid dirty and most unsanitary conditions —unsafe for the Negroes. And aggravating the unemployment problem in the state* So they’re putting a stop to it, halting the trucks as they enter the state, sending regiments of imported laborers back to the South, MISSISSIPPI Here's another record, a new all-time low — and it's scored by old man river. The Father of Waters is down lower than he's ever been before. At Winona, Minnesota, people A. River. able to wade through the mein channel of the Mississippi It looks as if old man river were staging his low water show In preparation for the President’s visit. When Mr. Rcjsevelt lands in Oregon on Friday he will start on a tour of inspection, principally to look over the P. W. A. water projects, of which the Mississippi development IS one. The government is spending fifty million dollars on the Mid-Western Water-Wayf a channel connecting the Great Lakes with the Mississippi River, and on to the Gulf of Mexico. Huge locks and dams are being built to control the river flood. So the greatest river on this continent is setting its record for low water, just as if to show how useful all those locks and dams will be. LOMG This World War annlTf eraarj is made all the more dram­ atic by the booming, aa of cannon, trench mortars, machine guns, hand grenades and rifles. Loud sounds of shooting from the direction of Louisiana. Just a few state amen shooting off their mouths. In other words, shouting not shooting. Of course, it all coneerne that great battle of Mew Orleans. Not the one Andy Jackson fought, but the one Hyghey Long is fighting; throwing his cohorts of National Guardsmen against the city, while machine guns poke their threatening black muzzles out of the windows of the City Hall and the Municipal Building, to repel the Kingfish attack. There*8 plenty of artillery in evidence, but I don't think there'll be much shedding of blood. An appeal is being made to Washington, asking the Federal Government to make the Kingfish stop getting so frisky with his National Guard. As for Hughey, he's burning up the English language describing conditions of vice and crime in New Orleans, which he intends to remedy at the head of hi a soldiers. "When you see the black circles of sin around their eyes boys -- fire2" LONG - 2 Mayor Walraaley of &ew Orleans who is Hughey's most rambunctious political enemy, chimes in with a few pleasant words of his own. Xn a statement that raised blisters on the paper in which it was written. Mayor Walmsley compares the King- fish to Caligula, Nero, Attila, Henry the Eighth, Louis the Eleventh and "dozens of other blood-mad tyrants." Huey, Huey2 You NeroI Heady to fiddle while Mew Orleans bums! FARLEY ■Ci The honor of the United States Government is saved — at fishing. The President with all his devotion to rod and reel never seems quite to make the grade as a mighty fisherman. But here’s Postmaster Jim. .Farley, now declared to be the greatest fisherman who ever flipped a fly In Yellowstone National Park. He caught ten black spotted trout In no time out there, and would have still kept hauling them in, only for the legal limit of how many you can catch. Careful there, Jim. It's sometimes not so wise to excel and outdo the boss. Just imagine some ancient Roman getting up there and out-fiddling Nero. But then who called our President a Nero? The Kingfish is the hoy they are calling the modern Nero HMRSE A hearse fibred prominently in a large bit of police melodrama at Long Beach. Long Island, lew York State troopers raided thirteen gambling houses. In order that the gambling' !flook-outs11 might not be alarmed, they got up a mock funeral. The gamblers had no suspicion of the long gloomy line of black automobiles with drawn curtains until the troopers jumped out and were on top of them, % ■ BIHSTBIM The radio has on© particularly attentive listener- in at Watch Hill, Rhode Island, He's always tuning In on the Hitler broadcasts, the Nazi propaganda programs that come by- short wave from Germany, You'd never guess who he is, Einstein I Yes, Professor Albert Einstein, the Inventor of relativity, the world's most famous scientist, driven from Germany because he's a Jew, — There he sits on the veranda of his Rhode Island cottage. In one corner stands a radio set, a bulletin board beside it. On the board is marked the name "Hitler, " underneath which Is written the time for the next Nazi broadcast, Einstein, the exile, listens to them all, to every word. He wants to keep in touch with what the enemy is saying and thinking. Maybe some homesickness too. He's one of the tragic figures of this post war era Well, we have been looking back to 1914, looking back twenty years. Letfs take a glance into the future, twenty thousand years into the future. Letfs hope that if they ever have another World War, it will be twenty thousand years from now*-- % MD SO LQftG DU TIL TOMORROW