' I 1|I mi ill IjlWaBB——— Lowell Thomas broadcast for the Sun Oil Goinrjany, Monday, March 5 ,1934. (Song ♦ "On tiie Trail of the Lonesome Pin4?) GOOD EVENING EVERYBOLYs- Yes, I'm down in the Bine Ridge Mountains of Virginia, tonight —"On the Trail of the Lonesome Pine," in the hill town of Norton. X!m at a Blue RidgeADinner of Lonesome Pine nobilities. The two rival prfwafciaBi editors are sitting on either side of me. Like all Virginia editors they are full of ——news• What's the news down here, boys, down* here &N the Trail of the Lonesome Pine? How about a few important items^Mr. Presley Atkins? ?rom the Five-Star Final of your paper, the Coalfield Progress? FOR MR. ATKIMS. —w^-J-v-e-go-ir rrowo down hoy I—arrt-^r—i»d±4)oy ■ r »4——^-s—thr* -M~nrd—aov/a -1 1 va Ge4» lr* 1^ © All "right y»a* i>o—tho ftows ^1^1' right now ■— s3a»»»i Mr. Atkinst- Well, Mrs. V/. K. Surface and her^Sunday School Class are having a picnic and weinie roast on Highknob. Si Thomas1 latest baby is doing .fine. It*s the same baby that weighed twenty-five pounds when it was born. I told about 11^ t II.. paqgpQg and my rival, Bruce Crawford had it in his sheet. The Associated Press picked the story out of ray paper. Time Magazine also printed the story. And Brotner Crawford claims they cooied it from him. He's claiming everything these days. He’ll be claiming the baby next. Maybe it*^ his,for all I knowl Fleetwood McCoy was home from college over the week- end FOR MR, ATKINS #2 to attend th© big dance* He also attended the funeral of ills grand­ father, Fleetwood VanOverles McCoy* L* T»: - I suppose he^ one of the Hatfield-McCoys? MR* ATKINS;* Yep* He is. The old boy was eighty-five years old* He had tvranty-seven notches on his old feud rifle,--but we are grateful to know that he made peace with his Maker before passing to his reward. He died a Christian* Our co rrespondent from down on the Daniel Boone Trail tells us how he went to dinner at a mountaineer’s cabin and everybody was at the table but the old grandfather. When asked why he didn’t join the family at dinner^ Grandpap replied;- nI am waiting for the old woman to get finished. She's using the only set of false teeth we got in the place FOR MR. ATKINS#3 Well, v/e’re welcoming yon, Mr Lowell Thomas In that spirit. V/e'd even ienc^jyou onr false teeth. How what you got to / say? L. T.i- Thank you Mr. Editor for your Southern hospitality. I don* t suppose I have anything so important as those news items of yours — hut let’s see ROOSEVELT Today the President of the United States hvd a dramatic moment celebrating the first anniversary of his Inauguration. He did it by addressing the general NRA conference in Constitution Hall, — # Washington. On his first anniversary he made a formal declaration concerning the giant enterprise that has signalized his first year in the White House and upon which rests the probable success or failure of his administration. And he arose to the occasion, with his telling radio presence at its best, and his clear lucid simple manner of speech at Its most effective. I suppose that after today there are few who are not convinced that the President Intends to carry on and push through with his present policies. He declared in tones of peculiar emphasis that industrial cooperation under government control has become a permanent thing In American life. He was drastically plain spoken in his statement thatthe New Deal has for its purpose not only a cure for the depression, but also 4 permanently greater economic and social Justice for the workers ROOSEVELT - 2 He was forthright and bold In tackling the opinions of those who say that his plans savor of Russian Communism or Italian Facison Mr. Roosevelt came back with the contention that we are not importing any ideas from abroad, that the New Deal is a native product, American in its plan and American in its methods. He observed that his anniversary NRA speech today was the longest he had ever made. But ftfc being longer^ it was none the less one of those examples of clear, simple, incisive radio speech that we are accustomed to expect from Franklin D. Roosevelt ADD ROOSEVELT We all remember how dizzy we were made a year ago by the swiftness with which the new administration began to act, with drastic strokes right and left* And the pace has been kept up pretty steadily during the twelve months that have elapsed; The way he handled the banking situation, the free hand he got from Congress for cutting down expanses, the repeal of prohibition, the 1JRA, the several methods for effect­ ing unemployment relief, the recognition of Russia, the drastic air mail stroke. Not in our time have we seen such a swift kaleidioscope of changes in a presidential year. And now the second year of the admini stration has begun. We will be waiting. We will be seeing. What will happen next? L« T. V/EST VIRGINIA. Yesterday and today, both in Virginia and West Virginia I have been talking to many people about how the Codes are affecting them down here. Bill German, 4 prominent soft coal executive in the Pocahontas field, tells me the Code is enabling them to get e—running- on1 bae4a»» dr^>etter |5rice for coal, better wages for the men. He sees profits for the first time in quite a while. At Holden, v/here they have the best looking camp I’ve ever seen, they ha4* the same story to tell. There was the same optimism at Gary, West Virginia, the United States Steel camp, and at the lively town of Williamson, and at Welch, and at LEIPZIG Today is a big day in the old and learned city of Liepzig. It is the opening of the great annual Leipzig Fair, That Fair has been held every year for the past seven hundred years. It is the oldest going concern in the world, I had a trans-oceanic telephone call from Leipzig this after- noon* A European acquaintance of mine told me of crowds of traders and a bustle of trading. And he reminded me that today they are celebrating the one-hundred and fiftieth anniversary of the Leipzig Fair^s first contact with America. This great annual market in the old Saxony Capital has long been considered an accurate barometer of trade conditions. Over the trans-oceanic telephone I learned that 145,000 buyers and sellers, businessmen have gone to Leipzig; forty percent more than attended last year*s Fair, There are over eight thousand exhibits, eighteen percent more than last year. These are indications of the world wide recovery that is taking place (For Monday, Man^h F>) DILLIMGER 51 There are several angles to that Dlllinger affair which make one stop and wonder. It Is hard to understand how prison authorities would allow a desperate killer to have razor blades in h1possession. You would think that such sharp edged objects would be kept but of reach of a notorious desperado. It seems almost unbelievable that Dlllinger could have escaped so soon after he was put In prison with all the blaring of publicity that went with it. The fact that he escaped oy means of a pistol carved with tnose razor blades out of a piece of wood caps the climax of incredliibility. The description of conditions inside the prison show a free and easy condition, with dangerous "Ivob-nobblng with the jailors. Misogynists are pointing out that the Sheriff in charge is a lady sheriff. Her husband had been sheriff and she was elected to the Job when he died. I suppose some people will be saying that it was because of feminine administration with too much kindliness and good nature, that the discipline was lax and dangerous convicts had too many privileges. ■ANCHUKUO Here's a problem, not for you or for me, but for John Bull. John doesn't know what to do about Manehukuo. then Japan grabbed the country from China and erected a new government John did the same as Uncle Sam. He refused to recognize the nation created by Japan. He said: "So far as I am concerned the state of Manehukuo doesn't exist." So when Henry Pu Yi became Emperor Kang Teh there were no gold braided British diplomatics at the ceremony. How, Manehukuo may not exist for John Bull, but it does for his Postmaster General overland mails to the far east have to cross Manchuria. And nowA the EmperOr Kang Teh has mounted his throne^ his government speaks thusly to Great Britain: "Pay usj Ho pay, no mall across our territory. That puts It up to John. If he pays he reeogni^fe his Manchurian Majesty, If he does not pay British letters to the Far East will have to go around by wat*r through ttoaii Suez* and the Indian Ocean, a difference in time of several weeks. (For Morfaa y^ 4kif^ah ~ &4 COSTS I never knew until today that Dleudonne Costwho sometimes Is called !,The Llndb ^gh of FraneeJ1 hates flying over water. Sounds like a paradox to learn this of the man who has eleven medals for his exploits aviation and who with his comrade Bellonte made that spectacular trans-Atlantic flight from Paris to New York. In his latest adventure Coste took off for Parls^from Copenhagen, and was not heard 6f for three days. It was feared that he might have come to grief In the North Sea. But his friends reported: ’’Not a chance. Coste won't go anywhere near the water if he can help it. What they said was corroborated when It turned out that all the while he was resting comfortably at Muenster In Germany, where he had landed. They asked him^Dldn11 you know the whole world was worrying about you?n He replied "Mals Non, I was just tired and sleepy. 1 .es having a good rest." &J. ^ ^ iHCH pin MHH—wmi FLOOD Floods high water and washout a all over the country. And down here - what a thaw! As if the planet were melting away. Last Friday I came over the mountains through snow drifts sixteen feet high. How# there isn’t enough to make a snow-ball. And the way it thawed and raced down these steep mountains was a sight! Water-falls everywhere. Creeks transformed into wild rivers. Banks torn away. Streams over­ flowing fields and roads. On my way from the delightful college town at Athens we drove through water a couple of feet deep. Along *'ith the thaw came land-slides. Roads were blocked with avalanches of rock. So we had to take to the railroad. The Norfolk and Western, Along Tug River, at Red Bird we saw a house that had been carried down the mountain side by a land-slide. Ten people, who were asleep in it, had a narrow escape from death as their house was swept away. It happened at one o'clock in the morning. J. D. Payne and his wife and four children, and four boarders, cut their way out FLOOD - 3 the rate were actually sitting on the backs of the hogs. Which story auto-matically entitles the Judge to a diploma in the Tall Story Club. At any rate, the thaw seems to be universal. Murray Gibbon of the C.F.R. tells me they1re having it In Canada too _ RETAKE of the house with axes. They were shaken up and injured, but not seriously, I passed that house and it certainly looked as though it had had a wild ride down the mountain! On the Norfolk and Western we passed another place, right in the heart of those beautiful mountains where ten thousand tons of earth and rock came plunging down at Sam's Hollow, A hundred families were marooned. The "Pocahontas*, crack train of the Norfolk and Western was wrecked, the locomotive overturned and mail and baggage cars yanked off the rails. No casualties. And they seldom have accidents on that line, which is said to be the most successful railroad in America, It taps all this rich coal country, with a down hill run to Norfolk# At Holden, West Virginia, in the heart of the Hat­ field -McCoy country, I was talking to a Circuit Judge, Naaman Jackson, about the flood. Judge Jackson told me about an island in the Guyandotte River where somehogs were marooned. As the water rose rats swarmed on the island until it was so crowded that FLOOD - 5 the rats were actually sitting on the backs of the hogs. Which story auto-matically entitles the Judge to a diploma in the Tall Story Club* At any rate, the thaw seems to be universal* Murray Gibbon of the C.P.R. tells me they1re having it in Canada too LAGIJARDIA Alien Major Fiorella LaGuardia was elected Mayor of New York somo folks said:- 11 He ma;/' make a better mayor than Jimmie Walker but, he'll never be r good a showman." Word comes through to me from the big town thatjthe JPiory Fiorella is proving himself to be an even better showman tha** Jester Jimmie. For instance there's the slot machine show he is staging at the R. C • A Building in Rockefeller Center. raiding and seizing slot machines. People hove been askings- “Why the wasteAtine an : energies of thgjpolice on such trivial matters as that?" So LaGuardia replied:- Let's show .New Yorkers and out of town tisitors the truth about swindle on which they're throwing away four million dollars a monthl So in the Concourse of the R. C• A. there are now on exhibition s a...^ _. . . tines confiscated A ^ in the police raids. The exhibits are enough to demonstrate even to the most ...gullible that it's impossible to win on these gadgets. I suppose there arbother towns whose mayors might profitably follov/ LaGuardia's example. Let's ask the mayor of Norton, Virginia about it. Any slot machines down here Mayor Fuller? For several weeks the Gotham Mayor's coppers have been s£l). 'OR I.^YQR ^'LLIuK No sir, we don’t allov/ sv/indles like that in this town Slot machines and other things that belong to the Devilf would he sort of out of place in these lovely Blue Ridge Mountains. Our people are all law-abiding citisens*v® vvwcjcXfc^n ICHEERS- 1 mmum. INTKQDUGTIQN TO CRANFORD Somehow, the events of the great v^orld don’t seem so Important down here In the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia• So just to get around to vital things, the things that coLint I’m going to ask that rival editor to give us some last minute flashes* He’s Editor Bruce Crawford, of Crawford’s Weekly, also On the Trail o f the Lonesome Pine* This is Wise County, so let's have some wisdom Brother Crawford* FOR MR. CRA7/FQRD Lowell, the wisdom of* Wise County is being careful about what you say< I was talking to Sheriff Adams about the high mortality rate around here* Andhe said the high mortality rate Is due primarily to gun play* just plain shooting* The second reason for the high mortality rate Is heart failure -- among the bystanders, when the s no o ting b e g1ns * So you see an editor has to be careful down here or a lot of folks will die of heart failure while he’s getting shot. In fact mr rival. Pres. Atkins, ought to be shot for some of the things he says. But I’m playing safe and I'm going to make an apology. I said In my paper the other day that naif of the City Council here are Idiots. The City Council has been kicking about that so I’ll reverse my self right now and say that half of the City Council are not idiots FOLLOW CRAWFORD - Ending (song: Chorus - "In the Blue Ridge Mountains of Virginia, On the Trail of the Lonesome Pine.1* L.T.:_ SO LONG UNTIL TOMORROW. / _^'yUM‘h'^ ‘ * 6 ? -y l1l> <"t