L_iT., SUMQCO. WEDNESDAY. DECF.MBER Slt ; GOOD EVENING EVERXBOD2: li The news from Lima sounds dull. But it»s news. The delegates are still hammering away, trying to smooth out the difference between Uncle Sam and Argentina. The Argentinians apparently stand pat. Against any Pan-American declaration naming European nations. That isn't so difficult to understand when you remember that three European countries are Argentina's best customers, particularly for beef. This afternoon the word from Lima is that the diplomatic ■ n magnificoes have worked out a new draft, whch they call the American formula. It Is supposed to be a formula that will satisfy t J Argentina and will also be accepted by Uncle Sam. The essence of this new formula is that the word ftnon-Americann is eliminated. In other words, the American republics are to make a declaration against aggression not only from Europe but from anywhere, including America. If Secretary Hull accepts that, he'll put Uncle Sam on record in a most significant and binding fashion. For it would 1 AMERICAN -2 mean that, if any other American government confiscated the property of United States citizens, onr government would he hound by this Lima declaration to do nothing about It hut send notes — just as we*ve been doing for the last few months down in Mexico. A late dispatch from Lima has it that this new draft has been approved by delegations of all the American countries and will be presented to the conference for ratification. DIES Once again a woman has been appointed to an important Job in the service of Uncle Sam. The White House today announced that Miss Ellen S. Woodward becomes a members of the Social Security hoard, Sne succeeds another woman who resigned, and President Roosevelt made quite a point of it, le put out the suggestion that this should be considered a precedent. This appointment «ras considered a slap in the face of the Honorable Martin Dies of Texas, Chairman of the Un-American Committee, Miss Woodward, who has been a director of W.P. a , in Mississippi, testified before the Dies Committee a couple of weeks ago. She took the opportunity to give Dies and his colleagues a piece of her mind, said it was they who®were Un-American. but he did throw a challenge at the White House, fle demanded that the President deal with him frankly and Honestly, not only the President, but Speaker Bankhead and Majority Leader Sam Rayburn. Said Dies: "Let them tell the American people where they stand Dies made no comment on the appointment of Miss Woodward A on the issue of continuing my investigation." Then he added: HI don't want any Corcorans and Cohens slipping around the capitol aud putting the stiletto ihto me from the rear." jimmy Apparently Jimmy Roosevelt doesn’t expect to make the movies his life work. He wants to get back into politics, as he puts it, wprobably in Nineteen Forty-Two, when I will be freed from the accusation of trading on my father’s name." It might be observed that this indicates pretty clearly -M2 that Jimmy^armwii^his father will not be president in nineteen Forty-Two. He made this statement in Boston in explanation of the fact that he was keeping his permanent legal residence in Framingham, Massachusetts. Said hes "The farm at Framingham will be my permanent residence." And^he1!! probably run for office from there four years from now W.P.A. fundsnow available will be exhausted after the first week in February. This information was given out today by Aubrey Williams, Deputy Administrator, First Assistant to Harry Hopkins. He told it to a delegation from Pennslyvania. Shortly after he said this, somebody else was expressing himself on the subject, uttering a demand for a huge appropriation from the new congress. John L. Lewis , head of the 0.1.0. , said that organization would call upon the next Congress to make an immediate appropriation of one billion, one thousand million dollars! The last Congress appropriated one billion, four hundred and twenty-five million, which was supposed to last from July First until March First One bit of news from Washington needs no comment. *t concerns an order received at the Czechoslovak legation from the home government at Prague. The Czechoslovak minister has been commanded to remove the portraits of Thomas Masaryk, founder of the Czechoslovakian republic, and Edward Benes, the co-founder, who recently retired as President. In other words, the two men principally responsible for the creation of Czechoslovakia must be forgotten, nothing left around to remind people that they even existed. And 4- the same order has been sent to all the Czech consulates in the United States, and of course throughout the world SPAIW For weeks we’ve heard little about thafe Civil War in Spain. There had been reports that Rationalist Generalissimo Franco was preparing a monster drive, a drive to end all drives against the Republican forces in Catalonia* There has been considerable puzzling over the prolonged delay of this super-drive. Today comes what may be an explanation, and a sensational one. Franco’s armies are held up because he has discovered a plot among his officers. Also, because Spies in the Republican government have managed to obtain complete information regarding Franco’s plans. One report has it that hurgos. Franco’s neadquarters, is virtually besieged by nationalist police and other guards who had to be brought in from another city. All streets are barred, and the police made a series of raids on all hotels, bars and restaurants. There’s a curfew law in Burgos, nobody allowed out in the streets after nine o’clock except mounted policemen. They arrested nearly eight hundred people. It is said that several officers were shot, including two colonels and a major. We hear from Washington today that Uncle Sam is going to SPAlJM - 2 help hungry people in Spain. That is, civilians. The announcement was made at the Department of State by the Acting Secretary, Commodities Sumner Welles. The Surplu^#B«iM*sriA*|r^Corporation has a lot of spare wheat on its hands. And the idea is to give the Red uross half a million busnels of that wheat every month for the next six months. It would be sold to the Red Cross at a purely nominal figure, and the Red Cross would distribute it impartially among tne civilian population on both sides, in Spain. ARABS A warning was thrown at the head of Buce Mussolini today, a warning from a new source* It concerns Tunisia, and the warning to the Black Shirt Dues is, "keep your hands off Tunisia*" This comes from a gentleman whose name is Si El Hadj Dj elloul ben Lakhdar. He*s described as the supreme chief of all the Arabs, though there are probably millions of Arabs who don!t know it and who may not even X have heard of Si El Hadj Djelloul Ben Lakhdar* The exact words of the supreme chief. Si El HadJ Djelloul Ben Lakhdar, are: "If Mussolini touches Tunisia he will find all the Moslem world in front of him to defend the authority of France*" And he -^itinueds "In Morocco, Algeria and Tunisia we are all Moslems. If necessary, we would all die for the only authority we serve, that is France." UKRAlJlIAJiS Tlie Ukrainian question today came up in Warsaw, tiie capital of Poland. The Ukrainians who had been elected to the Polish Parliament had asked for political autonomy for their part of the country. Today they were notified by the government that the demand had been rejected, rejected because it would involve a change in the Polish Constitution. VATICAN For days Europe has been in the harsh grip of eccentric weather. Tenipsratures below zero recorded, in many parts and in others influenza that was almost an epidemic. But the weather reached its culmination today in a violent electrical storm near Rome, xhat lightning was no respector of either persons or A religious institutions. The worst bolt fell on Vatican City. While Pope Pius was working in his private library, the building was strucfe^fey a violent shock. It didn't injure anybody but it smashed to atoms some fifty window pains in the gallery that contains the precious Rafael paintings. The entire papal buildxng quivered and it is said that both the Pontiff and Cardinal Pacelli his Secretary of State, jumped up from their chairs in alarm as they heard the crash of glass falling into the historic courtyard of St» Damascus WRECK A bad disaster is reported from Mexico, a train between Mexico City and Vera Cruz came to grief on a curve just forty-eight miles from Mexico city. The coaches were crowded, carried more than a thousand passengers. Fifty-one were injured and more than forty killed. (f VIZETELLX ki • Frank Vizetelly who died today was not merely a most respected friend of mine; but an invaluable friend of this broadcast- He was a tower of strength when my sponsors were Funk & Wagnalls, publishers :f the LITERARY DIGEST. Viz was Just about the most knowledgeable fellow I ever encountered* He had to be, to be editor of the Hew Standard Dictionary. He was editor of more than two hundred and fifty publications, on medicine, psychoanalysis, history, travel and an encyclopedia of religious knowledge* Personally, he was a grand old boy, a magnificent figure, over six feet tall, with a massive, leonine head, flaming blue eyes, and sweeping white mustachios. When Dr. Viz roared, as he often would, everybody in the building quaked, including his employers. Himself a monument of scholarship, the thing that made him roar loudest was pedantry in others. That*s where he became a tower of strength to me- When I started these broadcasts, the complaints against my use of English were always deposited on the desk of Dr. Viz for his scrutiny. People objected because I said "simoleons* VIZSTELLI X instead of dollars. Complaints like that always drew a roar from Dr. Vix and he would shout n a curse on these hyphenated asterisk pedants.n Then he would prove that such words as bucks0 and sirooleons0 were perfectly proper. Xes, and he approved of the use of slang and was perhaps the greatest authority on the subject that ever lived. Viz came of a most distinguished family, that migrated to England from Italy, in the Sixteenth Century. One cousin was war correspondent for the MEW XORK TIMES in the Franco-Prussian War, took part in one of the campaigns of Garibaldi, and was colonel of a Turkish regiment in the Russo-Turkish War, Another cousin made the first translation into English of the novels of Emile Zola and went to jail for it. Still another was a war correspondent of the ILLUSTRATED LQflDOM MEWS in the American Civil War, a Carlist Insurrections in Spain, the bombardment of Alexandria, and was killed in the Sudan during an expedition against a Mad Mahdi, Dr, Frank H. Vlzetelly was unique. He came to America in Eighteen Sinety-One, penniless, before I was born. The first place he went into was the publishing firm of Funk & fagnails. He VIZETELLX - S worked one whole day for nothing, to show what he could do; was promptly employed and his first employer in this country was also his last, he worked forty-seven years for one firm. R. J. Cuddihy of Funk & Wagnalls tells of him that though he was the greatest lexicographer in the world, there was one word he never was able to spell, thd word "medicine”. Another story is that, two years ago he went to Virginia Beach for a vacation. He spent his mornings correcting proofs on the new edition of the dictionary his afternoons swimming, and evenings taking part in a spelling bee at the hotel. He also used to say that with all the half million words in his dictionary, there werenH enough of them in the English language to describe his pretty little granddaughter. MURDER A small leather bound copy of the Dew Testament produced a dramatic effect at Youngstown, Ohio, today• Last October a prominent young merchat of Struthers, Ohio, was murdered in his own car. As the car came to a stop outside the police station, a young stranger got out of it and ran away, leaving a dead man1s body slumped over the whell. For a while the killing was a mystery. The sheriff and his deputies combed the countryside, and in a cave on the bank of a nearvy creek they found a leather-bound copy of the Dew Testament:, On the fly leaf was written the name of a man, Chauneey Miller. Towards the end of October, that same Chauneey Miller was arrested at Grafton, West Virginia, thrown into jail for stealing the lunches out of workmen^ pockets. The New Testament with his name in it tied him up with the murder, and today he confessed. UlTflQ a lady in Ciiicago was faeing a dismal utiristmas. She had no money to buy presents for her eight year old daughter. A banh, she decided, was the best place in which to obtain money. So she went into the Drexel State bank her hand two bottles . mm SemandS? to see the president ■aosiWu? handed him a letter. In that letter she stated that timsm two A bottles, ies m ganwsirlaahd'. containec ed nitro-glycerine and she would AT"----- —A dash them to the floor, blow everybody up if he didnTt promptly give her five thousand dollars. She also said that she had an accomplice outside armed with a machine gun. The president of the bank took no chances, he wrote out a check for five thousand dollars. The woman took it, carried it out to the teller, and cashed it immediately. But she didn't get far. On the steps of the bank a policeman seized her, recovered the money, and grabbed the bottles. In toOM. bottles^ nothing but water. JITTERBUG One of Snakespeare’s characters said: "Music oft hath such a charm To make bad good And good provoke to harm." Letfs see how that applies to a certain young member of what is described as a prominent family of Reading, Pennsylvania. This young man is of the type topically known as a Jitterbug He telephoned to an orchestra leader and said; "I want to engage your band; meet me tonight." he made a rendezvous fiaixan at an isolated spot in the neighborhood. The orchestra leader, tttj with a couple of other musicians, drove to thafc place and met the .A fashionable young man, who then said: "This is as good a spot for a littl^swing as any other." Then he continued: put some floy-floy into it, boys. I’m going to lead you," riini1JTTrrrn firr got an instrument that plays the bluest notes you ever heard." With that he brandished a revolver^ ip'made them play and play and play. He evidently felt like Shakespeare’s Duke Orsino in "Twelfth Night", who So.id: "If music be the foot of love Play on, give me excess of it." i j JITTERBUG And-needless to say, the poor musicians gave him an excess of it. Full up with floy floy the goofy jitterbug then drove away. And now the police are looking for him, they want to charge him with kidnapping. They want to give him a cozy cell in which to do the flat foot floogie. And SO LONG UNTIL TOMORROW.