L. T SyAQPP ■ THURSDAY. MARCH 21. 3 935 GOOD EVENING EVERYBODY: We»ve had so much foreign news of late that it is a relief to find the tidings of the day take more of a local ho me-town aspect. And ( there* s one other turn in the news. It seems particularly to concern the law, and the violation of the law. Even the weather story, concerning the elements of nature, has that angle - one of misdeeds and misdoings. It isn’t only that today is the be -inning of spring and there are disastrous dust storms in the middlewest, but, there are accounts from Mississippi, telling of farmers on the rampage in an exceedingly lawless way. America’s inland citizens welcomed the first day of spring Nineteen thirty—five in a haze of black choking dust. The dust cloud was three miles thick in some areas. Twelve deaths are reported, breathing in of too much dust. Schools ■ LEAD - 2 elo s ed . T raff ic st opped. urops ruined over wide areas "by the whirls of pulverized soil. They say the wheat losses will run into millions. And the dust storm sections are the same as were hit by the drought in Nineteen thirty-four. That makes the economic situation all the more severe and it provides government experts with an explanation. They say itfs because of the drought aridity that the soil is so dry now, and the wind sweeps it so easily as dust. The United states Weather Bureau is warning citizens of the middlewest to stay indoors and keep out of the black cloud. And there’s action on the part of the Department of Agriculture. With the dust storm ctoing so much damage to the crops, Secretary Wallace announces that it is the duty of both the government and LEAD - 5 the farmers to protect the consumers against a food shortage. So the crop restrictions are declared off. The A.A.A. will let farmers plant as much as they want. And that, brings to a halt, if not to an end, one oi the New Deal-^ policies that has caused the sharpest kind of criticism. It has been shouted from many quarters that 3ck±±K crop restriction to increase farm prices might work when natural conditions are perfect, but everything would be thrown out of joint if nature should play one of her peculiar pranks. Nature did play a drought prank last year, which didnH help the crop restriction policy along. Nov; it is a dust storm prank, and crop restrictions are declared off. It’s all exceedingly serious, but there1s the inevitable comic side to the great black cloud. A crop of dust stories are circulating, most of them the genial tall story variety. One man tells how he saw a prairie dog xfcixiiHSXiip burrowing through the dust clouds a hundred feet in the air. Another whopper tells of an old bachelor who declares that the dust was steaming through his keyhole In such a violent spurt, that he held his pots and pans in front The dust acted as a sand blast and the pots and pans were polished until they were shiny. And then. i:i ii T LEAP - 4 there’s another whopper, which revamps a familiar tall classic and relates that out west the hire's are flying backwards to keep the dust out of their eyes. A new dusty department for the Tall Story Club, flow about cur theme of law and the lawless amid these freaks of the elements. And it sounds like a tall story too - farmers dynamiting the levees of flood threatened rivers. Tonight in the State of Mississippi, khaki clad militiamen with machine guns and rifles are petroling those dykes that keep the waters from flowing over in disastrous floods. At Greenwood, Mississippi, the National Guard was called in after a wild night of rioting, during which three hundred farmers went storming along the Tallahatchie River, tossing sticks of dynamite at the levees, and blowing them up. And immediately, the flood waters rushed through the gaps, and washed out thousands of acres of rien farmland. The tovn of Philipp, Mississippi, was engulfed and its population of two hundred flooded out of house and home. Why should the farmers be acting that way? It seems paradoxical that they should want to bring the floods over the LEAD - 5 farmlands^ The answer is one of those bitter local fights. ' The rivers, beginning with the mighty Mississippi, have been greatly swollen of late. Many precautions have been taken to keep them within their channels. Some farmers claim that the levee system is protecting certain areas from flood, at the expense of other areas. These farmers contend that the flood control measures, while for the benefit of the*** neighbors, are actually causing greater dangers of flood to their own lancf. So they’ve gone on the rampage with dynamite, blowing up the objectionable section^of the flood control system. 6 hableu And now those crowd d iaturhances in New York's Harlem. The negro quarter of New York City was quiet today, under the guard of five hundred policemen armed with sub-machine guns. In spite of alarmist reports, the law and order force of the Metropolis seems amply able to core with the situation. The Police Department numbers some twenty thousand men; and in addition there are nine thousand firemen who could do some effective mob squealching with the big fire hoses. So nobody is putting much stock in the appeal of the white merchants in Harlem, their request to the Governor of New York State to send some state troopers to hold possible trouble in check. * 0 ' ,/^eA -S-- COURTNEY RYLEY COOPER I»ve just been listening to a^gyga*. thriller of a ^ A detective story, so exciting that I*ve asked the man who told it to me A Jkat' i2a^nJ^ W h U l Z, ae anh see that I get ill —-rs2<jjrw\-^ it straight. It!s about golfing gangsters, a band of public enemies^, that went in for the royal Scotch game in a big way, M ;; iff I heard it from the well known author, Courtney Ryley Cooper, who has jfcsts been making a study of that wild gunfire war between the federal agents and the crooks. J. Edgar Hoover, Head of the gangster-exterminating Sjpecial Investigation Bureau of the Department of Justice, has put the seal of his approval on ! Courtney Ryley Cooper*s new book - "Ten Thousand Public Enemies" I was asking the author which of those ten thousand public enemies was the most interesting. And he told me. What was that^ name, **1*1 r^rnTpovtt K C.R.C.It was Charlie HarmoiVj-^He wasn*t any big-shot or flaming personality. It»s merely the story about him, that's interesting. And the whole point of the story lies in the fact that Charlie Harmon was beally a little-shot, an inferiority: 1 J I! , personality. COURTNEY RYLEY COOPER - g You said that the gang of bank robbers he was in didn’t like his goll garnet That he would cheat about his shots and brag about his game — forever boasting that his clubs were all hand made. Is that the dope? C»R«C.: Yes, Charlie Harmon’s golf game v/as the key to his personality. And he was much the same in his criminal life as in his golf life. The mob didn’t trust him, didn’t trust his honesty or his silence. But you can’t simply fire a bank robber from a gang. They had to get rid of Charlie Harmon in some other way. L.T.;- Well, I remember that savage mid-western bank robberJSy you mentioned just now, the one several years ago in which the bank president was kidnapped by the bandits and was killed v/hile the bullets v/ere flying in the getaway. And Charlie Harmon was killed too. I remember telling something about It over the air. C.R.C.Yes, that’s the v^ay Charlie’s pals got rid of him. They took advantage of the gun battle and made it appear that Charlie had been shot by the officers chasing after the bandit automobile. It was too bad. But Charlie Harmon's golf manners COURTNEY RYLEY COOPER - S were abominable, and his criminal manners were ^ust as abominable. So his driving, putting, robbing and murdering pals couldn*t stand him any longer. E-.T_.; - And Charlie had a golfing revenge, you say? What was it about the federal agents finding his body? And then tracing the place where he had been living? A^d then picking up a clue there? C.R.C.;- Just one clue. They found that Charlie had made a long distance telephone call to a maker of hand-made golf clubs in Kansas City. They went there.. And that was the right place. The federal men showed the golf club maker a whole set of photographs of known criminals, and he recognised several of them. Not only Charlie, but the whole .gang had been buying their golf sticks from him. And the golf club maker picked out one picture and said that Just the day before — that man hao. dropped in for a specially made midiron. L.T.So the agents investigated all the local golf courses? And soon found the right one? C.F.C.- That's it. The federal men got the crooks in a r.nURTNEY RYLEY COOPEH - 4 single haul. They were all having a great afternoon on the links Suddenly a swarm of officers surrounded the golf course, and rounded up the whole gang And that was a hole-in-one for the Feds, as you call them in your book — and if any American wants to know the thrilling things that are happening, he ha ought to read wTen Thousand Public Enemies” by Courtney Ryley Cooper PODERJAY And now about that Poderjay crime puzzle:- the mystery of* the disappearance of* ^gnes Tufverson is deeper than ever today, after the latest bit of action in that strange case. Her husband. Captain Ivan Poderjay who has been the subject of hot suspicion !;n was sentenced to prison in a New York court. He gets from two and a half to five years -- for bigamy. He had a wife in Hungary when he married the American woman lawyer over here. Meanwhile Agnes Tufverson remains vanished into nothingness. If there has been murder in that weird affair — the day's news is an iron. Her husband who has been under such grave suspicion — Is sent to jail for bigamy. :i1 1: fr H tin M 11 I S| !! H In the European crisis militaristic action still continues. If This time the word is from Rome. Mussolini is following the example of trance in extending the term of conscript military service. Ihis mes.ns that young men called for military training will be kept in the army for a longer period, which in turn means that more men will be constantly under arms In the standing army. It Increases the Italian military establishment by half a million men. Mussolini has ordered the Class of Winei^reen thirteen || !■ i 1 : l II ; I! I i j to be held for further service,<::^c^^-men born In Nineteen thirteen. | In the ordinary course of things, .they would have been dismissed and the Class of Nineteen fourteen ‘called up. But now both classes will be under arms. This pretty nearly completes the picture of war preparation Germany rearming, England heavily increasing her war air force, France boosting her standing army., and now Italy, i And It looks all the more alarming with the word from 1 Berlin today - that the Nazi government is turning down with a ' i flat rejection /# the strongly worded protests made by France I !i i III and Italy. *he of these notes was exceedingly determined, jl GERMANY - 2 There is just as much drastic deteunination in the German refusal to consider the French and Italian To England, on the other hand. Hitler is being a good deal more polite. This refers tc is Sir John Simon1s diplomatic visit to Berlin on Sunday. Meanwhile, the Berlin government, despite all the hubbub, is going right ahead with its army—building program. They say the newest Nazi edict, about military service is a blow to the Jews - the decision that men of Jewish blood will not be allowed to serve in the new German army. Ordinarily, you would^t think that the prohibition of military service would^suctija great burden. But the way the Jewish people of Germany look at it is this - if they were to be taken into the army just like anybody else, they would understand it to mean that Nazi anti-Semitic sentiments were easing up. At Geneva things were tense today, as the French protest to the League of Nations reached the League Council. The Secretaiy General read^it^ Thereupon it was announced that the I-rench communication will be considered at a meeting to be held tne first week in April. I dontt suppose the League is very happy over the GEKMANY - 5 chances of being able to do much about Germany's decision to rearm, has Even the international situation ax a mystery crime story slant today. This is in the case of the disappearance of a German- Jewish journalist in Switzerland, Herr Jakob, a strenuous opponent of ftxltx Nazidom, fierr Jakob has been active in the anti-Hitler movement. The report is that he was sjdddca&xiMsuEmsdsifiR that in contact with agents that came from Germany and gave them information. It is surmised that some of these agents may really have been members of the Nazi secret police, because Herr Jakob has vanished, without a word or clue. There is a lot of excitement in h | France because the French believe that this prominent enemy of the Nazis has been abducted or perhaps killed by Hitler's secret agents. ! Congress tried some double action today. The bonus of course was expected. The bonus plus inflation is a trifle more surprising. The House of Representattivee passed the Pat te» Bill by a ^wofre ef ene hundred anti-pigh»y three-te^o»peywewe»>» This calls for two billion dollars to be expended in the immediate payment for the amounts due on the adjusted in compensation certificates. How's the money to be raised? That's the inflation part of it. The Lower House voted to inflate the nation's currency to the extent of the two billion needed to make the bonus payment. The rest of the story still stands as before — the President will veto the bill. STOCK EXCHANGE It's encouraging to hear that there's harmony and agreement between the New York Stock Exchange and the Securities Exchange Commission: love and friendship between somebody being regulated and somebody doing the regulating. This was stated today by Joseph P. Kennedy the Boston banker who is the head of the Securities Exchan ere Commission. He mentions a program of eleven points, for the governing of Stock transactions and the protection of investors. Mr. Kennedy declares that his Commission and the Exchange are in perfect harmony on every one of those eleven points. 7/e find in Wall Street today not words but figures on the ticker tape. Prices goinv up, the Stock Exchange in a buoyant mood. One feature is a rise in Utilities Shares. Utilities have been heavily attacked of late, but here we see the stocks taking a jump. The reason they say comes in reports that federal and Municipal governments ace more favoraole toward utilities, such as rumor of an agreement between Mayor La Guard ia of New fork and the power companies of the bi : city. Anyway, stocks are on the way up — and I'm on ray way out -- and SO LONG UNTIL TOMORROW.