Lowell -i-homas Broadcast for
Literary Digest
Saturday,
October 25, 19-30.
I envy a lot of you tonight. I mean about a
million of you who have been out watching football
games. Sitting here catching the news flashes as
they come spiraling in from all corners of the globe
is exciting too. But on a snappy October Saturday
afternoon there1s nothing in the world that sends
the blood jumping thru one's veins quite so furiously
as watching your favorite eleven trim the daylights
out of an old rival. Vvell, I hope your team won.
Ki Phillips in his famous column nThe Sun
DialH in the New York Sun,, remarked that the Army battle
cry up at the Yale bowl today was an Americunized
version of the old biblical battle cry of "An eye for
an eye, and a booth for a booth.,,
Evidently Army had a booth zor a oooth, because
as you know the game ended in a tie. -o Albie Booth
failed to run wild like he did in the dramatic Yale-Army
If
you
have been listening in on this
afternoon1 s games you already know that Notre
Dame walked all over the Pittsburgh Panther,
but no so completely as over ^arnegie Tech last
Saturday. Dartmouth won from Harvard by a
small margin, and Michigan outscored Zuppke*s
Illinois team that has been having a disastrous
season. And down at Princeton Mrs. Hoover saw
the Navy trample savagely on the body of a somewhat
enfeebled tiger.
Girls1 Voices
I wonder whether the girls at these
football games were cheering in baritone and bass.
Because girls' voices are becoming lower. According
to the New York Evening Post this is the opinion
of Professor William Haddon, head of the music
department of the College of St. Elizabeth, down
at Convent, New Jersey. And the cause of it,
says the Professor, is smoking and cheering at
football games.
Well, well, we11.
Anyway, Society was out in force
at the "ootball games, and here*o a society
note from the Potomac.
Sassietv
Down in Washington, there seems to
be almost as much interest in the new social
season as there is in the coming elections.
Washington society, with its foreign diplomatic
corps, is of course the most colorful and
brilliant in the country. According to the
New York Evening Post everyone down there is
waiting to see what functions are planned by
the President and Mrs. Hoover.
At present many Washington women are
out stumping for their husbands back in their
native states. For instance in Rhode Xslano.,
ex-Senator berry’s wife, who used to be a
Vanderbilt, is campaigning, and down in
Pennsylvania Mrs. Gilford Pinchot is averaging
—«_____
seven speeches a day.
Arkansas
Politics has taken time out down
in Arkansas—at least in the Fourth Arkansas
Congressional District. For 18 years, Otis
T. Dingo ran for Congress on the Democratic
Ticket, and hs was always elected. He was a
fixture, -^tit recently Congressman Wingo
died, and following his death two letters have
been made public. They were written by him
a few hours before his death, and they asked
that his wife be elected to Congress as his
successor. The Democrats are ready to
nominate Mrs. Hngo, on Monday, and today an
Associated Press dispatch from Little Rock tells
us that the Republicans, too, are going to
yield gallantly to Congressman Jingo’s dying wish.
The Arkansas Republicans announce that they will
not put up a candidate to run against Mrs. ^vmgo.
Italy
Over in Europe, of course, the
gala event of the day was the wedding of
King Boris, of Bulgaria, and Princess Giovamia,
of Italy. And apparently things can
go
wrong
at a royal wedding the same as at any other.
In the first place, the royal trains bringing
the wedding party were an hour and a half late.
Just as th Princess was entering the ancient
church, a violent downpour of rain burst over
the town of Assisi. As the Princess gathered
up h r train and ran into the church, the rain
turned to hall, thousands of spectators had to
rush for shelter. Nervousness also caused the
Princess to drop her bridal bouquet, but after
that the stately wedding in the ancient church of
3t. Francis proceeded with impressive ceremony.
The Princess was escorted to the papal altar
of St. Brancls by her father. King Victor Emmanuel.
The little Italian Princess now becomes Giovanna,
Queen of the1 Bulgars, the youngest reigning queen.
in Europe,
mu m______
Flash
Here's a flash from the International
News Service, and It tells of another
terrible mine disaster. The Maybach mine in
A1 snco—Loraine has been wrecked by a terrific
coal gas explosion.
94 miners are known to have been killed,
?S seriously injured, and 240 others are
believed to be still entombed. Rescue crews
were rushed to the shattered mine, and 94 bodies
were recovered by 10 o’clock tonight, German
time.
From South America, too, there is word
of a bad mishap.
Brazil
V.hen the revolution ended down in
Brazil yesterday, 1 thought the cables might not
be so busy with news flashes from there for a
while. But now Rebels holding one of the forts
commanding the harbor of Rio de Janeiro, fired
on a German passenger ship yesterday and 27
people were killed. The ship was on its
way out of Rio harbor. According to a late
dispatch today from the United Press
correspondent down there, several officials
of the deposed federal government were
supposed to be trying to escape on the ship.
Russia
hell, Russia is always having complica
tions and here is a new one.
he have been hearing quite a bit about
the Soviet scheme for dumping products on the
world's markets and selling them below normal
price. Here's quite a startling item on this
subject. The Associated Press cables from
Brussels that Russia has undertaken reprisal
steps against Belgium. The Belgian government
had adopted anti-dumping regulations aimed
against Soviet Russia and now Russia comes back
at her by wirelessing orders to 22 Russian
grain ships that were bound for Antwerp,
Belgium, ordering them to change their course
and take their cargoes to Rotterdam in
Holland.
From Moscow there comes a bulletin
today with the information that the
Communists now claim to have four million
members in their organization, the Communist^
International; three million five hundred
thousand of these being in Russia. The
announcement states that of the 500,000
supposed Communists scattered over the rest
of the world, 124,000 are in Germany, 55,000
in Czecho Slovakia, 58,000 in France, 8,585
in the United States, and only approximately
5,000 in England.
Well, after all those Communists, we
might as well have a word about a man who is
definitely not a Communist.
Mitsui
You probably have heard of him. He
is the richest man in Japan, and an almost
legendary figure. In the Orient many people
kowtow in awe when they mention his name.
He is Baron Mitsui, head of the richest and
most powerful family in the empire of Japan.
V.ell, here comes an Associated Press cable
from Japan telling about the ^aronTs income
tax assessment for this year. Last year his
income was two million eight hundred thousand
yen. A yen, adds the dispatch, is about
equal to an American half dollar. So in our
money the Baron1s income would be one million
four hundred thousand dollars - which is quite
a few yen even as incomes are estimated on
this rich continent of ours. Did you hear
that growl over the air just now? hell, it
was from Mac, who runs the control boards
here at my elbow. He was muttering about his
income. But don’t worry, Mac, you’re a lot
better off than one particular Japanese
millionaire today who’s in jail. The dispatch
states that thirteen men in Japan have incomes
of over half a million dollars a year. One
Ox thoss is oliinbsi Inui, a. inoiisy
Isncisi*
of Kobe. Shinbei Inui has just fallen
afoul of
the
Japanese
law
and has
been
locked in a Tokyo prison for fraud.
Hoover
' ‘
Jobs for two hundred thousand, is
the latest announcement from Washington.
According to the New York Evening Post
President Hoover has authorized the Post
Office department to take on £00,000
additional postal employees for the two weeks
before Christmas. Civil Service lists are
to be temporarily disregarded, and the idea is
to give jobs to men who ne^d them.
The Post also tells us that Administration
officials are considering a plan to pay off in
cash the soldiers bonuses that are still due.
All over the country municipal employment
bureaus have been formed — just a part of many
things that are being done to relieve the
unemployment situation. Here’s an
interesting item on the way they’re
tackling things dov.-n at Irvington, New
Jersey. It comes to me in a letter from
Mr. H. uothe, Jr., who is connected with
f\
the Department of Labor.
<-------J
In this week’s issue of the
Literary Digest I read an article which
made me stop and wonder. ^e were all
raised to the idea of thrift, but the new
idea is, not to save, but to spend. And
many business leaders tell us that the way
to fight off the present depression is to
spend more. Here’s a conflict between an
old idea and a new one. Well, that Digest
article is headed:
"Shall v/e save, or shall
we spend?” It quotes the economist William
Trufant Foster as saying:
"we have been saving
for a rainier day, and all we need to do now
is to continue saving hard enough, and the
rainier day will arrive." On the other hand,
the Digest article tells us that President
T. i1. Wallace of the National Association
of Mutual Savings Banks holds a contrary
opinion, and that Mr. Wallace in the New
York limes says that ’’The basic structure of
business is savings.”
une expert says "no” and the other
expert says "yes." And what are we to think?
Well, that Digest article sums up the puzzling
situation and analyzes it clearly. It shows
the reader what is behind these conflicting
opinions.
At any rate, the aviation business
is on the up grade, doing a sort of power climb,
I suppose the boys would say.
Lindbergh
The first all air transcontinental
mail and passenger service got under way today.
The organization is known as the transcontinental
and Western Air Express Incorporated. Charles
i'indbergh is the technical advisor. The
first three planes left the Metropolitan Airport
at Newark, New Jersey, at 8:10 this morning.
Lindbergh was on hand and according to
the New York Evening Post he broke his
autograph reTusing habit for the sake of
eight small crippled boys who hobbled out
on crutches to ask him for his signature.
He gave it to them.
Parachute
Bob Yvest, a parachute jumper, of
Hoseboro, bj-egon, is willing to pay a
thousand dollars, says the United Press, to
anybody who can beat his time record in
floating down in a parachute from a plane
4,000 feet up. I don't know how much this
Oregonian stunt man weighs, but surely there's
a circus fat lady somewhere who can give Bob
a run for his money and beat him to the ground,
Coste
The wildest demonstration that Paris
has seen since the visit of Bindberg/i occurred
today when the French transatlantic fliers
-
14
-
Coste and ^ellonte flew back to LeBourget
airdrome in their historic plane, the
Question Mark. French aviators carried them
on their shoulders and then motorxd cars
whirled them through the gates of Paris to
the boulevards where it seemed as though
the entire population of the city had turned
out to cheer them.
R1Q1
Following that comes another echo of
the R101 disaster. The Associated Press
carries a story today concerning the mother
of C. A. Burton, one of the engineers and
designers of the dirigible who perished in
the disaster. His mother died today in
Bedford, England, of grief and shock.
As this panorama of the news went
speeding by today, there were stories gay
and stories sad. There was one that pleased
me a lot. Here it is:
News Item of the Day
The News Item of the Day is about
jails. ITve seen a number of jails in
my life—including jails in Palestine.
You might expect the jails of the Holy
Land to be a bit better than jails elsewhere.
But they1 re not.
The Associated Press correspondent
out in Palestine cables a story straight
from Jerusalem. It concerns the future
status of gentlemen who are to take vacations
at the expense of the government in Palestine
jails.
He cables that the British Prison
Administration has just given out a definition
of what the term "gentleman” means when used
to describe a jail-bird. Here's the definition:
"A prisoner who by his status, education, and
habits -ccustomed to a superior mode of living."
In other words, there'.s going to be class
distinction in jails out in Palestine from now
on. The British ordinance explains what the
privileges of a gentleman in jail are to
be. For instance, he is not to be thrown
into a oungeon along with the general
riff-raff of ungentlemanly x^risoners.
Palestine jails are to have separate
quarters for men who fall in the category
of gentlemen. Also, they are to have their
food brought in from the outside, and if
they haven’t any money with which to buy it
themselves--that is, if the gentlemen are
broke—then it will be given prison fare
prepared only for gentlemen, and that will
include bread, potatoes, rice, sugar, beans,
milk, tea, salt, and pepper, and meat without
bones, and vegetables without the outside leaves.
Furthermore, gentlemen will be
permitted to wear their own clothes and will not
be forced to suffer the indignity of donning
prison Uniforms. Furthermore, they will not
have to sleep on the proverbial prison cot.
j^ach gentleman will be Tirovided with a regular
bed, and three blankets.
00
j
from now on, it certainly
is going to pay to be a gentleman in
Palestine.
Lit, big.
That funny page, the Spice of
Life, in the Literary Digest gave me another
laugh. My wife used to study singing, so
this makes a special appeal to me. The
Digest quotes the Altoona, Kansas, Tribune
as saying that a man out there walks onto
his front porch every day while his wife is
singing, just so the neighbors will see that
he isn’t beating her.
Oddities
Russell Crouse, who conducts the
"Left at the Post", column in the New York
Evening Post, tells us that a Texas preacher
gives us a guarantee that there will be no
automobiles in hell, but, aods Columnist
Crouse, there’ll be plenty of bad drivers
down there.
Divorce
Then there is Charles Kinkle, of
Warsaw, Indiana, according to the United
Press, he has sued his wife for divorce
because she owns th family cow and charges
him five cents for every glass of milk he
drinks.
It’s about time for me to reach for
my overcoat and hat. Yes, I've got an
overcoat. But where's my hat. Yes, that's
it.
Goodnight.