LOWELL THOMAS - SUBOCQ - THURSDAY. OCTOBER 18. 1934 ALEXAKPEB It 'was a day of kings in Belgrade, the capital of Jugoslavia, King Alexander in his coffin, and among the mourners King Boris of Bulgaria, King Carol of Roumanis, and there was another King too, a pale, trembling, frightened little King - Peter the Second, eleven year old monarch of Jugoslavia. The hand of fate that struck down his father, snatched the lad from an English school and onto a throne - placed him today in the solemn foreground as the monarch of his country at the funeral of his father. The more important news now comes in the report that the Italian police have arrested a man who they claim was the master mind of the Croatian terrorists. He is Dr. Ante Pavelich, a Croatian lawyer, whose name was mentioned by the conspirators in the custody of the French police. The Italians are holding this alleged master mind for questioning. ---------------- 0 ------------------- S' This international tragedy has had all the elements of mela-dramatic conspiracy. The final touch if added by the a L-EX j U^DER - 2 appearance of a woman, young, pretty, blond and perilous -- precisely according to the usual romantic pattern. She is said to have carried the guns for the assassins. It is surmised that she is in Italy, for the French police have asFed the Italian authorities to look for her. The international agitation is still continuing. The Jugoslavs are repeating their belief that the whole plot originated in Italy. And they bolster their case up with a new diplomatic angle. We all know that France has been drawing closer to Italy. We had been told that the French government wanted to persuade Alexander to bring Jugoslavia into the new Franco-Italian line-up. This is not contradicted toy the latest Jugoslav explanation, which merely gives it another and very different slant -- that King Alexander went to France to per­ suade the French government to drop its policy of cooperation with Italy. And that takes the form of - France asking him to join the game, he asking France to leave the game. These are the reasons that have persuad ed the Jugoslavs in their opinion that Italy encouraged the Croatian terrorist toand. But now Italy has arrested a Croat whom they call the terrorist master mind. Does that change the logic? :. - ' >9 SAAR It seems almost blasphemous to use such terms as padded, registration rolls, stuffed ballot boxes, wringers and floaters, in connection with such lofty matters as international diplomacy izs=&m affairs of state. A. But here it is, nevertheless - the exalted chancelleries of Europe are bothering their heads about crooked election practices. It concerns the coming election in the Saar Valley zd and the superheated campaign the German Nazis have been pushing to persuade the people of the Saar to vote themselves back into the German Reich. They have been having registrations for the January election. And the registrations, just complete, show an extraordinary fact. More voters registered for the Saar election, than the Saar Valley has citizens - not merely a few more, but a lot more, two hundred thousand more. How did all those extra names get there? Well, maybe two hundred thousand additional people have gone into the Valley of coal mines while the electioneering campaign has been on. Or maybe they're dummy names, floaters, repeaters. It doesn't bewilder the American mind. We have known similar election tricks over heae. The French newspapers are getting excited about the sudden 1 SAAR - 2 1 revelation of crooked ballot business and are wanting to know how come, i Naturally, they are looking suspiciously across the Rhine at £a± Nazi I Germany. I And the French have something else to worry about. They!re known for their logical ways of thinking - also cool foresight. [ Of course Paris is hoping that the valley of coal mines will elect to become a part of France. But the French are not kidding themselves. They figure that the Saar will probably return to Germany and are calculating the results - one of which is sure to be a stream of refugees '^Co ^ rmany of course will be asked to guarantee racial and religious liberV in the Saar. Pari\doesHi©t take much stock in the liberty the Nazis wx9JL grant and expects thousands of people in the Saar to leave their horned if win3theSselection - particularly A A those inhabitants who have b^en supporting the Frenbh cause. No doubt theyf 11 ^strearn into France and what will the FreHch do with them? They have a serious unemployment situation on their has^ds right now , and no Jobs for the prospective refuses. So Paris is worryi^ and laying plans to handle the situation when ft comes about. - . . ; At times an odd bit of news comes along about the American couple, Mr. and Mrs. Robert Gordon Switz, imprisoned in France charged with being spies. But only seldom that we hear about them. They are being kept in closely guarded seo&sion — their j trial for esponiage still being put off. Just how closely they are secluded is indicated byAbwitz 1 himself. He is in a dreaded French "cachot1' — solitary confinement, I He ^as b*an put into tisv solitary because of an infraction of tfcw prison rules. Accused spies are forbidden to talk to anyone — even to fellow prisoners. And it seems that young Switx forgot I this rule. He went up to a pathetic looking prisoner and said: ; ’’Have a cigarette with me. I know you can't afford to buy 6 i them at the canteen, and I have plenty of money." A guard heard this — an® infraction of. the rules. And la* fifteeh minutes later Switz was in "Cachot" —solitary. isS SPAIN The Spanish pepper pot is beginning to burn like Tabasco onje more. The liberal and radical uprising seems thoroughly suppressed, no sign of revival. Now it*s an internal scrap in the government - the President against Premier Lerroux .and his Cabinet. President feels that the punitive measures taken against the rebels were too severe, especially the death sentences. The Cabinet members are upholding those stern measures. Zamorra a may resign the presidency in protest. Some political thinkers are comparing the Spanish republic with the Kerensky regime in Russia - liberal, falter­ ing and weak. Russia went communist-, but then in Russia there was no powerful Fascist movement to fight vred revolution^, as there is in Spain. Moreover, Spain has no Lenin, So Spain1 s a^juimlsut .£)£: Kerensky regime is swinging to the right. A. strike That Hungarian coal mine strike is on again. For several days the workers have been expressing their dissatisfaction over the terms they got when they finally yielded and came up out of the subterranean pit. They have been claiming that when they made the agreement, they did not understand what it meant - they were so dazed and frantic Vu<jvO- after that suicide strike of hunger and thirst. Southey are demanding eight per cent more pay than is provided in the settlement. The mine | owners are refusing, so the miners are on strike again. This time it is no hunger or mass suicide strike, but something much more commonplace. They are refusing to go back to work - just an ordina ry^aMsciies* > > s* i sa . STOLL While the great police hunyts on for the kidnaper of Mrs. Stoll, with swift leads picked upland all the indications of a hot trail — the hnmai drama of two women 7P continuss to bB ttiB strangBst fBO-tur© of* tbB cs . sb « On tiis on© hand there is the woman in the Jail cell, pretty, curley-haired Mrs. Frances Robinson, wife of the kidnapper, charged with being a party to tie crime. She is said to be hysterical. She keeps calling for Mrs. Stoll, cries out that the wealthy young woman promised to help her. She broods incessantly on how she accomplice in holding the victim in concealment, but she was kind to her, shielded her froia the brutality of the kidnaper* So kkwy that human tangle of the two women has brought hysteria to the woman in the jail cell -- a dangerous hysteria. Today a knife was taken away from her, a three-inch paring kniie. And tonight special guards are watching her• They say she is frantic enough to try to do away with herself —- calling always for Mrs. Stoltl to help her. And then there is the slender dark-haired southern STOLL - S beauty, young matron of a prominent Louisville family. A most interesting picture is drawn of her, the kidnap victim in an Indianapolis apartment. She was reared in luxury, surrounded by devoted family and servants, mistress of a Kentucky estate. She was seized while she was ill, beaten brutally, and dragged half clpthed to an mfrn automobile and taken to a place of imprisonment. The kidnaper locked her in a stifling closet every time he left the room. How did she TT conduct herself? ‘They say she retained all the poise of a young matron entertaining in her country home. She found that the kidnaper had a lively mentality and was rather well-informed, though with disjointed, demented Ideas, a maniac twist. She talked to him of politics, religion, swalxl sociology. She tried to keep him from brooding^by engaging him in conversation on Communism, economics, the New Deal^ And she cooked the meals and washed the dishes always making the best of things. Mrs. Stoll continues to tell of the kindness of the kidnaper*s wife toward her. Mrs. Robinson saved her life, she SfOLL - 5 insists, and asks tlmt she be treated leniently. She is trying l&JZ to help the woman in the jail cell , who is hysterically calling upon her for help. BtIRGLAB Last night I told about the boy terrorist of Cuba, the thirteen year old bomb thrower. Well, if Cuba has a tiny terrorist, New York City has a baby burglar. He’s a nine year old boy, said to be a criminal prodigy. They caught him looting an apartment. He was equipped with a complete set of professional burglar’s tools and knew how to use them. He had jimmied a window expertly and his pockets were loaded with stolen jewelry. With him was an older accomplice, a year older - a ten year old boy who got away by serampering down a fire excape and climbing over several high walls. When asked about his partner he named an innocent youngster and then the cops tried to bribe him with ice cream* But he said:- "Aw, I’m a tough guy. You can’t get away with that’* With tiny terrorists and baby burglars, I suppose we’ll next have pirates in perambulators Today a man hoagftgfensm'i< ji mt TI l ' 1 1oa and said: ^5**sorry ^ A A to go.'1 He was a little Italian, and his name is Ponzi. And this presumably closes the last chapter in the American record of a famous wild-cat financier. He^s feJS3=l£r his native Italy, A ftwfcaTiome for his family, /V Fourteen years ago, the "Boston Post" got a Pulitzer prije In recognition of Its expose-’ of Ponzi* s scheme. That scheme was simple, "Get money from one investor, pay him back with a profit out of money ginttrm from another investor — keep it going until the bubble burst." Ponzi served his term in prison, and now has been deported. s a -< l . He seem®* to be in no repentant frame of mind^ "My trouble,” bewails the former wizard of finance, "was that I was a piker. I should have sided with the big fellows." Instead of that, he took the money from the little fellows 4 , yv,/* FOOD PRICES It takes more money these days to bring home the bacon. Food prices are up, especially pork. And they*11 soar higher, says Secretary of Agriculture Wallace^ The Secretary, who is the American farmers* "Knight in shining armour", declares that a proper relationship must be bx | ur established between the farmer’s Income and out-go. muo ii &*= L i more Income, the consumer*s A /\ A out-go. expert advisor of the Department of Agriculture. He says there is already a consumers* strike, at least in the case of pork. Pork prices have taken such a phenomenal jump that instead of eating pork and beans a lot of people are eating just beans. And I suppose beans Secretary Wallace doesn*t take any stock in the possible consumers* strike, but its different with Dr. M<fdecai Ezekiel, the they*11 eat pork and beans without^pork and without the beans. If you make a grand slam at bridge, are you sane? If you bid a grand slam, are you sane? If you play bridge, are you sane? These questions are before a Massachusetts court, They*re trying to break a wealthy woman* s will by proving that she was of unsound mind. The defense opposes this by citing a bridge game in which she played. They have testimony to prove that the lady in question bid and made a grand slam. So how could she be crazy? I think they ought to summon me, as one of the wbuese world* s worst bridge players, to give some.expert testimony. Everytime I bid a grand slam, my partner says,I aim rraayy I kst don*t know what A A they*d say if I made a grand slam, because I never make one. Maybe if I did, it would only prove that the opposing players were^j ICING KONG King Kong is dead — the King Kong of Harlem — that huge black giant Y/ho was the admiration and terror of New York1s negro colony. In a local police station a tiny negr^lfold how she did it:- "Yah,* I done it. I done it with a butcher knife. He want no good." It,s a story of dark tragedy in dark Harlem. His real name was Willie Smith* but nobot^ called him that. He was six-foot-eight in stature and had fists the size of footballs. Once he got into an argument with fifteen imysjfflnaEX longshoremen and beat them to a frazzle. Whenever he started raising ructions and the cops came,it was always a riot call - at least four burley Harlem policemen to handle him. Would you call a man like that Willie Smith? No l Harlem called IF* him King Kong, ne had a taste for strong liquors. He quaffed the flowing bowl of Harlem gin. ^When he did he was all right. When King Kong was sober he was a terror. Hut when he was drunk he was gentle and mild. If he took enough gin a harsh word from a man half his size would make him speak softly, apologetic and hurt^ KING KONG - 2 He met Mary Williams from North Carolina, less than half his kx weight, King Kong honored her by allowing her to Irexing-toff her affectionate loving man, but when he .was sober woe betided walk besi^'v him down Lexin&toiT Avenue. When he was drunk he was Mary Williams from North Carolina, And now comes black catastrophe'. King Kong met Mary Williams on LijiicAin^fiew Avenue. He was ^ober. She knew it. &■ She smelled his breath. He growled: «Come along with me.B She said: ^o.11 She was afraid of him when he was sober. King Kong just picked her up, tucked her under one arm, and, in sober fury, carried her up to his Harlem flat. He was sober once too often. An hour later Mary Willi&n^s of North Carolina was in the police station telling how she did it — with a butcher knife. TiCatr***** *^**V B*.never was good when he was sober. £01?, ENDING The coal miners of the New River^Companyjr^aae^C. them -a»-*hG V^hi I'g&vko. -^hero bro«dc»et «a4ergroM*Mi-laat- ewaa^ei^ publish their own parywTrx paper, full of pictures showing the beautiful gardens around the homes of the coal miners, telling about their safety competitions, and so on. In it I have just run across the most difficult proper name to pronounce that I have ever seen. It seems that there is a coal miner named Joseph A-l-a-d-a-s-n-a-b-a-l-a* d-i-e-d-o-e-c-h-e-d-a. It Vs pronounced --- Joe. And as Joe Aledasnabaladiedoecheda would say — SO LOflG UNTIL TOMORROW.