G-MEN ^7. it looks as If the latest melodrama of the G-men might turn into a comedy of errors^ a huge mistake that might be laughable if it were not for the fact that an agent of the Department of Justice lies badly wounded tonight. The G-men laid a trap and sprung it, but the trap missed in a blaze of gunfire. Desperate criminal escape was the first 3 1 11111iim » ini ill 11 > but now it looks like a farce. The trap was of the ancient variety. Therejseems to be little that is new in the strategy catch^a blackmailer. You have ^ victim follow instructions to pay the money, and you lie in ambush when the crook comes to get the cash. The blackmailer always seems to fall for it. There isn,t much else he can do - he has to take the chance. So In the depth of darkness a man walked along the /V Chicago aaft Alton Railroad tracks just outside a$ Independence, Missouri. He was Howard Jacobs, a coal dealer of Independence. He had received an extortion note d'emanding six hundred dollars or else. And now he was following the blackmail instructions for handing over the money. Hidden along the sides of the track. JirfL v concealed in the^w©^^ the G-men lay in ambush. Jacobs walked along the ties, and then out of the darkness appeared a man coming toward him. The nearest G-man was Special Agent Henry Snow. He arose pistol in hand to make the capture, and was able to fire just one shot. The man in the darkness blasted him down with the roar of a shotgun. He fell, badly wounded. And the dim figure scurried away - lost in the black of night. So the trap went haywire, and the chagrined and mortified G-men started a manhunt - searching angrily, sleuthing indignantly. But now comes a^report that the man who walked into the G-man trap and shot his way out - was nothing more than a - - CL hunter on his way home along the fee railroad track. Seeing a man rise from the weeds. at him with a pistol, and 0 . 0 . -£*. firing ^ ^ A the hunter replied with a crash of buckshot. He is said to be a business man of Independence whose hobby is hunting. A handy fellow with a shotgun. PICKETING The New Xork Court of Appeals today handed down a decision of widespread interest - on the subject of union picketing. Have pickets the right to ask people not to patronize a store, not because they have anything against the store in particular, but because the store handles goods to which the union objects? The Court of Appeals said nYesTr - pickets have the right nto ask a people not to buy non-union products!,l— QUOTE Whether at the plant of the manufacturer or at the store of the retailer END QUOTE. This is only a New York decision, but it will be of interest in the nationwide phenomenon of picketing WASHI im GTOJN Tine chie I even*. in ‘<«g,sh..l \g1ion "toe. ..y v/r.s iliB F.<f*oubl j can raid against the Farm Bill, Republicans supported by Democrats. Senator McNarry of Oregon sallied to the front with the demand that the Crop Control Program should have a time limit Nineteen For.ty; so ttea* then the next administration could start it all over again if it didn’t iiucli turn out right. But that was beaten down by the New Deal cohorts^-when the House bus voted against the McNarry motion. Administration leaders are confident that they have the situation in hand and can put the bill through by the end of the week. EQGSSVELT mhite House nes — the ex-ray pictures ore favorable. These bright tidings concern the presidential toothache. When President Koosevelt returned to Washington there was one thing .liore imperative than, the Farm Bill or the Wages and Hours Bill. He had broken off his fishing trip because his gums had not headed properly — after the tooth pulling before he left. So the imperative thing was — the dentist. And that meant — •x-ray pictures. It was feared that the jaw infection might have penetrated so deeply that the bone would have to be scraped. But today the ex-ray pictures were examined and show that the infection in the President's jaw is confined to the soft parts of the gum, and haj| not affected the bone. So they won't have to scrape the presidential jaw bone. It's always a bit gruesome to be facetious about a toothache, but, in consideration of the famous Roosevelt eloquence, it seems appropriate to inform the nation tonight — that the presidential jaw bone is O.K. bo eloquently,O.K, that this afternoon F.13.R. held his usual press conference, and told the Washington correspondents all about things. ROOSEVELT - 2 He discussed contracts for building warships, meetings with utilities executives, government purchase of silver, and tax revision. He refused to comment on the decision by the Tax Boards which exonerated the late Andrew W. Mellon of charges of income tax fraud. MELLON Today the attorney for the.estate made this stateiaentr- !lV.'e deeply regret, said he, Mthat Mr. Mellon did not live to read the repudiation of that ch&rge.,, He meant — the charge of income tax fraud. The Mellon attorneys considered the decision of the Tax Board of Appeals as a victory — as well they may. However, the victory was not one hundred percent complete, bo late today they announced they are going to tX&t. file an appeal. Of the ten charges against Andrew W. Mellon the Board of Tax Appeals dismissed six, sustained three and compromised on one. But those six that areout represented the bulk of the accusation — the charge of income tax fraud. ItTs all involved in technicalities of tax deductions in complicated transactions. of any The Board finds — no frauc^jaaxjqt sort. In thoseY6n which lb* supports the government, nothin^ further is charged than difference of opinion. 77 ^ net result in terms of money is that the Treasury claim of more than three million dollars is cut down to seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars. But the great fact is — the exoneration of Andrew W. Mellon which he did not live to see. 1 AMBASSADOR | I l 1 There1s an insistent report in Washington that wefre to have a new ambassador to Germany and that he*!! be Hugh Wilson, now Assistant Secretary of State. Officials won»t affirm or deny that our present Ambassador, William E. Dodd, is retiring. But the t report is so categorical as to say that the Ambassador's resignation is on the President's desk right now. They say that Hugh Wilson will be named in a few days. He?s a native of Evanston, Illinois, and has seen service all along the diplomatic line, abroad and in Washington. I GOVERNOR The name of the Governor of Vermont is George D. Aiken. Whet does the nD" stand for? Why - t,David,, - that fact flashed into the political limelight today. Yesterday, Governor Aiken issued a proclamation calling for a reform and shake-up of the Republican Party, whereupon he was immediately hailed as a possible Nineteen Forty candidate on the G.O.P. ticket. Today, the Vermont statesman shook his head, denying that he has any presidential aspirations. He expressed it this way: ”My middle name is David," said he, "but I'm no giant-killer." By which he must mean that, while he's no David, the New Deal is a Goliath. Governor Aiken went on to make a declaration of political principles. "I'm no conservative," he proclaimed, "nor is any other Vermonter. We try anything but when it proves impractical we discard it and try something else." He means - Just wise, shrewd, sagacious and sensible. Not a conservative, just a Vermont Yankee. There's one thing that seems to put the Governor out GOVERNOR - 2 ^political running - he1 s such a passionate horticulturist* His business is greenhouses and flowers, but it breaks his heart. He declares himself this way: ’’Selling a blossoming plant is almost like selling one of the family. I hate to see them go after Ifve raised them.” '’As a president hefd balk at a plow-under O' policy - so far as flowers are concerned. It would lacerate his feelings to command - nplow under those roses, violets, lilacs and petunias.” Hefd rather be horticulturist than president. COUuhLIN Father Coughlin will resume uis broadcasts. After a year of silence the familiar voice of the radio priest will be this heard on the air again. He announced^last night saying he will . ive weekly broadcasts beginning the first of the year. All of which follows reports that Father Coughlin had been silenced permanently on the ether waves by his ecclesiastical superiors, is true to this extent -- the radio priest will not_ return to his controversies on social and political subjects. We hear today his weekly broadcasts will be confined to religious A --Ovt topics#—Such As the word ItaaAfc Catholic circles Father Coughlin himself made this statement today: ”1 will choose subjects," said he, "which are not censored by the RomanCatholic Church." So to microphone and loud speaker returns a well-remembered voice that created sensations on the air. BASEBALL V^e have some baseball news on the familiar theme - the jack-rabbit ball. The National League today voted - out with the jack-rabbit. They’ll use a less lively ball next year, sphere a trifle deader. The bulletin issued by the club owners in their annual meeting goes into such technicalities as Cover Number Three and Cover Number Five. The point being - that it’s the cover which makes the ball lively or dead, so far as the practice in the League is concerned. With a thin cover, it’s a jack^rabbit, which the batters drive all over the place - the home-run thrill. ‘ffrnrytfctgfr-yTTYgwYwry A thicker cover, and the ball is more of a mud tortoise, better for the pitching - the science of the pitcher’s battle. The Number Three cover is the thin one. The American League started using it first - for the home-run extravaganza of the Babe Ruth era. The National League^adopted Number Three in Nineteen Thirty-Three. But now they’re abandoning it, going back to a thicker cover - Number Five. Thereby they hope to improve the pitching. What's the American League doing? Nothing. They’re sticking to thin Cover Number Three, the jack-rabbit - and the ^0me-run. CHINA The Japanese are surrounding Nanking tonight. ^Already they have pushed through the suburbs of the capital and are facing the ancient city wall. All day there was an exodus from Nanking, thousands leaving. A^ last reports the American ambassador to China was ready to go, prepared to board an American gunboat in the river.^ General Chiang Kai-shek has fled, which is taken to indicate that Nanking can make no effective resistance to capture^/ One report is that the Generalissimo is thinking about coming to terms with Tokyo, and submitting to the terms of the Mikado*s generals. In Tokyo they*fe preparing for a festival of victory. £> Japan will celebrate the fall of Nanking with a wild ovation. There are reports from London that the British government may hand a formal protest to Tokyo - so alarmed are His Majesty»s ministers by the Japanese sweep in the Far East. London is said to have word from Moscow that the Soviets have no intention of interfering with the Japanese - not at present. Stalin’s government will wait to see how things keep on going in China^.before formulating a definite policy of war or peace. They say the CHINA - 2 Red army has plenty of war planes with which to equip the Chinese forces, but Soviet aviation is handicapped and made virtually powerless by the lack of landing fields in China, the absence of ground equipment for war in the sky. JAPAN Meanwhile Japan has solved thur military crisis, when A money was donated to buy a pair of sfaoes^ Big shoes. It appears that the military chieftains of the Mikado were having trouble with ioshio Ikeda, a giant recruit. Yoshio is a wrestler, of the Zumo variety. Those Zumo fellows are the giant Far Eastern grapplers you sometimes see in motion pictures. His feet are so big that no pair of shoes in the entire Japanese army Qhijf. department could be found to fit him. His feet are more than fifteen inches long, it looked as if the Zumo wrestler would have to go to war bare-foote<4 - as the Ethiopians did when they fought Mussolini. However, the Japanese remembered what happened to the Ethiopians, so now the report flashes that the Die Nippon Zumo Wrestling Association raised fund and had a special pair of Gargantuan shoes made to fit the monster grappler. & And tonight he is monster soldier. fk SPAIN We haven* t had much war news from Spain lately. The battle has quieted down over there, save for bombing. And that*s the story tonight - sky bombs at Barcelona and artillery shells at Madrid. Fifty people killed at Barcelona, when ten Franco war plants flew over and dropped high explosives in the crowded sections of the city. At Madrid, the heart of the capital was shelled for half an hour today. With the crashing of explosives, people dodged to safety in cellars and basements streets deserted IRELAND A Czechoslovakian count thinks hefs to become the President of Ireland, and tha^s thinking a lot.. It sounds like ^affy. Well, the Counts name is Taffy. His ancestors left Ireland two hundred years ago, but he thinks that’s no reason why he shouldn’t be considered a hundred per cent Hibernian. So now Count Taffy has become an Irish citizen so that he may succeed de Valera to the presidency. He claims he’s the man whom de Valera meant when as his successor. But de poke^of havln he spoke ng his eye on someone Valera denies this - says he didn’t meant Count Taffy at all ENSLEM I have a letter from Betty Lee of Cape Cod, Massachusetts who v/rites: ”1 walked into Dr. Currier*s home last night and found three children crowded around the radio, listening to your news broadcast. When it was over a young man of twelve spoke up and said you should tell us what is happening to our good friend Meel Enslen, since he was reported in the hospital.** And then I have a card from the Reverend William Hay of Stepney, Connecticut who writes: "Slip in a word when you can about how Heel Enslen is getting along.** These are examples of many inquiries. Well, I talked to Heel just a moment ago. He*s home, up and improving. Outdoors today for the first time. And that*s good news with which to say SO LONG UNTIL TOMORROW.