MNOCO - Janunry 1, I9sg Good Evening, Everybody:- ■for ail its dignity, the Supreme Court of the United States can create more sensation in less time than any other body in the egrrrrbry* The nine black-robed gentlemen were in session A* only ten minutes at noon today. And in those ten minutes they said enough to provide Page One headlines for any two ordinary days. Of course that new AAA decision they delivered today was more than another sock at the New Deal. It leaves open a question just crammed with headaches for the Administration. i>ij|iisy==aA concerned the case of .the Louisiana Rice Growers. A They had brought suit protesting that some two hundred million dollars in processing taxes had been collected- from them illegally. To that complaint the answer of the Court is,."Yes, certainly it was illegal." That means those two hundred millions have to be returned to the Rice Growers from whom It was collected. ItSca I ivu ----'A t <7v\x / But the real headache conies In the question which the >ii Justices did not answer. That is nn n.. LEAP - 2 the question whether the other funds collected in processing taxes must he returned to the people who paid them. That affects a little matter of one billion dollars -- money paid to the farmers. It stand s to reason that no Government is go ing to try to get that money back from the farmers. If the manufacturers and others who paid that billion should sue the Government jb ± and win their suits, where would the Government raise that billion? Aye, there’s the rub. The decision from the Court was not unexpected. However, the Justices threw one surprise into the Washington scene. They declined even to consider the Constitutionality of the Bankhead Cotton Act. That was by way of being a partial victory for the Administration. The case was brought by a cotton planter of Texas named Lee Moore. He asked for an injunction to keep the Government from trying to plant as much cotton as he liked. Though today's decision was a partial victory, it was a hollow triumph i 01 the Mew Deal. Lee Moore's case w'as thrown out on technical grounds. The result undoubtedly will be that a new action will be brought, tody--4;ho ek1 o~ xx deeiai-onr- in se-y—-hath beyond t^'Bn Banlchoad-ec-t-eventually-w-i-Il alco—be thrown qut—along~w-l th—thgz Suff ey-^ Cnydor ^onl -A<rt~^anti~-^»tgnatev Dorgh^s^otgS5iia<S4i4 The Bankhead act was designed by Senator John Bankhead and Representative William -kankhead, to restrict the production oT m 2. cotton. Its fundamental idea basically the same as that of A the AAA. rn one important respect the Supreme Court leaves us all still on tenterhooks. That is, about the TVA, the Tennessee Valley Authority. It was rather expected th^t this decision might be forthcoming today. But evidently the Court decided that two Page One stories were enough to give out in one ten-minute session /I'SG . . 14 # « IMTBQ TO GENERAL Ai^DHF^ I’m broad casting tonighc with a r al, swagger military escort, a Major-General and a Colonel, bitting beside me is Major-General Frank Andrews, Commander of the G.H.Q. Air Force at Langley Field. With him Oolonefr^frigh J,, l£»'Oi*r|Coiimiaiiaur*''^f Colonel Walter H. Frank, Commander of Mitchell Field. The General was promoted from Brigadier to Major-General only last week. He is the flying general who commands a division of our military establishment that was created only last March. Hefs a pilot with three records in the air. * as a matter of fact, he flew up here today from Langley Field, Virginia, to Mitchell Field, Long Island, in an hour and twenty minutes gin , amdrews akp l . t . ^^* General, the news is full of colossal military pre­ parations being made oy other nations. Today we hear of the Soviet preparing to spend billione of rubies; and so on, on the other hand we have also been hearing that Uncle Sam is woefully unprepared in the air. Is that so. General Andrews? GEN. AKDREWS:- It certainly Isj L.T. What are we doing about it, or going to do about it? GEN.ANDREW’S:- According to the recommendations of the B&kei committee and approved by tbie Secretary of War, we should have a minimum of twenty-three hundred and twenty planes all together. Of these, nine hundred and eighty should toe assigned to the General Headquarters Air Force for the Continental Air Defense of the United States, My baliwiek, L.T. :- To what extent have the recommendations of the Baker Board been carried out? Of course, we all know that the General GEN. ANDREWS AMD LT. - 2 Headquarters Air Force was established last March, But is its present strength up to the recommendations of that Board? GEM, ANDREWS:* HoJ It’s composed of only one hundred and sixty combat planes, plus one hundred and ninety that are obsolescent* However, recent purchases when delivered will bring it up to three hundred and fifty modern combat planes. About one-third of what it ought to be. L. ?,What about mobility? GEM. ANDREWS2- Well, the Army has just demonstrated its ability to assemble its air newer, promptly, anywhere* Our recent con­ centration of air force units from different parts of the United States to Southern Florida was done in twenty-two hours and fifty-two minutes. But we need landing fields. Without a base organization to support operations a dig concentration of planes is useless am. ANDREWS AKD LT. - 3 1-* 0u find the public at large interested in our air defense? $ SEN. AMPKEWS_:_- Yes, I think there is a realization on the part of Congress and the Public of the necessity for adequate air defense. L. 7.:- I hop© you are right. General. And happy landing when you get to Virginia tomorrowt HAUPTMANN hext to Washington the American town that figures most importantly on page one today is Trenton, New Jersey* From what I hear far more people are interested today In the fate of Bruno Richard Hauptmann than in the fate of the A. A. A, Rumors by the dozen are emanating from Trenton*y But of real news there’s preoioust little except that the case becomes more and more the focus of political controversy* governor Hoffman of New Jersey is admittedly on thin ice. He has repeatedly stated that his only position in the matter is that he wants to be sure that no act of in- justice it done in his state* And collaterally is anxious A A that all the doubts, questionings and suspicions that have been expressed over that verdict shall be allayed before the execu­ tioner twists the wheel that turns the current»oa j U jt A The New Jersey Governor’s poli­ tical adversaries are virtually daring him to grant a reprieve or a stay of execution to the condemned man* A** ^ ia T^T TClpPLlKG FOLLOW RESCUE ^The news is that Rudyard Kipling is at death's door. Only a few days ago we had occasion to talV about him when the world celebrated his Seventieth birthday. And today he lies in a London hospital unconscious after an emergency operation. First reports favorable but now sinking HQXY Are there any radio listeners to whom the name of Roxy is not familiar? Precious few, ;pll wager. With his, death, one of the colorful figures of both screen and microphone, vanishes from the scene• His name of course was Samuel-Lionel Rothafael, though the radio and cinema public knew him as Roxy. That was the nickname toiiart his associates gave him and that he adopted as a professional name. All his life he was an adventurous sort of fellow. In later years he looked for adventure by way of starting new enterprises, new theatres, new tricks of showmanship, new ways of getting the public to the box office. But his. first adventures were more of the blood and iron sort. He enlisted in the Marines at the age of eighteen. There was no press agents exaggeration about Roxy*s fighting days, He was with the Devil Dogs in China during the Boxer Rebellion and he also served in Santo Domingo. When Uncle Sam got into the big War in Nineteen Seventee9,he joined up again. This time he was given a commission, but the Marine Corps used his A services at home, recruiting, and so fortn. I know of few showmen who had such interesting beginnings i i! i. t : i * lifjp ROXY - 2 He started his career as a pioneer exhibitor of movies, while he was a bartender in Forest City, Pennsylvania. If I am not mis­ taken, the bar was owned by his father* Back t'f the saloon was a room which was empty. Roxy decided to fill it. Without any­ body to teach him, he learned to manipulate a projector. Then he started up in business for himself. For a screen he used one of his mother^s bed sheets. The chairs for the audience he borrow­ ed from the town undertaker. His price.of admission was five cents for a three reel show. He printed his own handbills, swept out the theatre, annouswed the program, sometimes explaining the pictures, and. operated the projector himself. Probably everybody remembers the story of his progress. When the hughest and most magnificent of them all, the R.K.O* Music Hall, was opened to become one of the show places of the nation, it was Roxy whom the Rockefellers chose to become its impressario* Unhappily, by that time his appetite for lavishnese and display, had grown beyond all bounds. He got to the point where the word expense just meant nothing to him. ROXY - 3 That turned out to be the end of the road for Roxy# The lart time I saw him was in Philadelphia where he was trying to put across a big theatre. He told me rather sadly that things were not hreaving right, Roxy, King Of Theatrical Gargantua, now bound for infinity which is bigger than gargantua SHIPWRECK It’s an old but always harrowing tale that comes to us today from the coast of Oregon. brave vessel, who had, no doubt, some noble creature in her, dashed all to pieces,” a* It's a tale to remind us that even in Nineteen Ihirty-Six ndeath lurks for them that go down to sea. in ships, that do business in great waters.” The particular spot where those thirty-four sailors perished is known as the"graveyard of the Pacific.” It*s the treacherous Peacock Spit that lies in wait at the mouth of the Columbia River, as a constant menace to all seafaring men. It is known as one of the most dangerous hazards anywhere on the Seven Seas. Appropriately enough, it lies in the shade of a promontory known as Cape Disappointment. We are tempted to ask, "How comes it that such a danger spot is allowed to exist right on Unple Sam’s shores?” The answer is that spent millions trying to make the A A entrance to the Columbia River safe for navigation In all weathers. In spite of all those millions, the menace of Peacock Spit remains. It is significant that in the master marinersT manual, ”The United States Coast Guard Pilot”, there’s the SHIPWRECK - 2 warning, -No directions of any value can be given to any strange pilots who have to hazard a crossing of^the shoals^ ^/oaptam ^ates, who was lost along with his crew of thirty-three, was a veteran of those deathly waters. To make the tragedy more complete, it was his first voyage in command of the now splintered freighter IOWA. Veteran as he was, he was helpless on those shoals with a ninety mile-an-hour gale lashing the waves on the bar. Maybe something could have been done had the IOWAfS radisrest radio not gone out of commission. As it was, summoned by flag signals of distress, the coastguard cutter ONONDAGA tried again and again to reach the sinking. IOWA. Each time the fury of the gale drove the cutter back. The latest is that there- seems reason to fear that another ffungg-irfr freighter may have shared the fate of the IOWA. Among the wreckage £±H3tibig floating around the place where the IOWA was smashed up, the coast guardsmen found a lifeboat from A a schooner called the LUMBERMAN. So perhaps the un-pacific Pacific Ocean has exacted another RESCUE FOLLOW SHIPWRECK X have another story of peril at sea, but it,s a welcorre contrast to the grim tale of the XOVvA. T v,r haarh—4i —tr>t4 —^reQH^fttly^^«-1-t----iaoro draiaa i-n—a happy end-in^ •Uaan ~ia a da,sa^%o^ Polish schoolteacher was operating his home-made radio set. His name was Erwin Schaber. The set with which he was tuning in was a two-valve affair that had cost him exactly Four Dollars to make. Young Schaber was listening to music from America and to the chatter of amateur operators all over the world. As he was turning his dial, his ear caught a faint sound. Though it was hardly audible. Sakhalin.*1 To the young son of a Polish school teacher it seemed a trifle incredible. The place where he was listening is almost Okhotsk. Schaber listened further. In five minutes came another message, in the international code, "Soviet ship LENA calling/ Over in Poland, near the German frontier, the son of a he could hear those asRnxxlHg ominous letter ^ ship LENA calling 'todf' thousand miles from the^island of Sakhalin, in the sea of A RESCUE FOLLOW SHIPWRECK; _ g Soviet Snip LENA calling. Position desperate. Engines crippled. Ship filling rapidly. No answer to our call. n Thereat, the Polish lad, at his two-valve set, fissS? thousand miles away, jumped to his feet, ran to the nearest telephone and called the authorities at the largest town in the vicinity. They in turn telephoned uaja-ftraH-n* -Rmrrgg'gy —fq Warsaw. they had Within three minutes^fchw-iigvAjjsV LiutiabMoscow on the phor The amazing result was that, twenty minutes after Schaber had run to the telephone, a lifeboat crew at Sakhalin was putting out in the icy waters of the sea of Okhotsk. The lifeboat reached the spot a few bare mirtutes before the vessel sank. And thus the crew of twenty men from the LENA were saved. Today x young Erwin Schaber, the amateur operator with the Four Dollar set wears a medal specially bestowed upon him by the Soviet Government