~ bUl-jOCQ. THURSDAY. iAARCH 21. GOOD EVENING EVERYBODY: The beautiful lady spring certainly is taking her time in arriving in some parts of this country. New England nas been having a cold wave and winter storms — rain, hail, thunder, lightning, snow and sleet. At Stillwater, Rhode Island, a thunderbolt hit a factory chimney — a hundred eighty feet high. The blast of lightning knocked over the tall chimney and it fell crashing onto the factory — damage, fifty thousand dollars. In the middle west, snow storms are blustering over large areas - Iowa, Illinois, Indiana. In Chicago today airfield radio stations picaed up faint signals from a plane in the sky. The signals said: "We are icing rapidly! All instruments gone!" That plane was flying over Latte Michigan, with ice forming on its wings, and its instruments frozen. A little while later a tugboat on the Lake saw the end of the sky craft stricken with ice - saw it crash into the water. 0ne man was killed. The tug picked up two LEAD - 2 survivors. I myself spent part of the day high up on a snowy mountain where it seemed like mid-winter. Skiing on the spectacular headwall of Mt. Washington with an 83 mile an hour gale blowing clouds of ice particles and snow down upon us. If you want another taste of winter just fill up with Nu Blue and come to the Eastern slopes Inn and ask Harvey Gibson the way to Pinkham Notch and TuckerQianRavine on ait. Washington where the snow is now a hundred feet deep. FRANCE* Franc© has a new Government - subject always to a vote of confidence in the Chamber of Deputies, That test will be had tomorrow* Today Paul Reynaud completed a slate of ministers to taice the place of the Cabinet of the resigned Premier, - Daladier* Tne list includes ten radical socialists, thr^e soci&listsf^tnree republican socialists. £4 Sounds like a lot of socialisA/ but ttiMk the name doesn’t mean anything so’Red or radical in France* if Others on the list are two independents, three conservatives, and one non^ - member of parliament. Such is the minis ta^wnich A ^ & Paul Reynadd presented president Lebrun today. The president ^ f ~ " gave his blessing, and the new governing group goes before the / Chamber of Deputies tomorrow. V The Premier -designates a man small in stature, but large in his opposition to Nazi Germany. He has been foremost in antagonism to Hitler and as finance f.iinister was relentless in his determinacicn to strengthen French economy for a long war. In expressing his attitude toward totalitarian 'jermany, ne used the word - total. wOur enemies,”, he declaimed, "want a total war. ,Vhat we want and are determined to get,” he added, ”is a By total peace he means a total victory for France* total peace.” The war of sea and sky goes on - more German airplane and U Boat attacks against ships on the North Sea^j London reports fifty poeple killed by air and under - sea attack on five ships, four of them neutralsN'the snip casualty list since Tue day. The British ridicule German reports that a British convoy was bombed with damaging effect. Germany claims tnat warships and mercnant vessels were hit by the air raiders. This, the British deny. \ TAX Income tax figures are on the up grade. For the first twenty days ot March of tnis year, the tax collections are ahead of last year, rtcomfortably ahead" Secretary of the Treasury Morgenthau. said today. Last year from March first to March twentieth, tax collections amounted to four hundred and seventy - three million dollars. This year they are six hundred and twenty - one million. A lot more. In percentage figures, this year is more than thirty ^yuz. percent ahead of last. "Comfortably ahead", is right, <3 Secretary Morgenthau, however, was not inclined to do a dance of optimism. He pointed out that because of a new law, income tax was paid this year by a million state* and municipal employees. Paying for the first time, many of them might not have realized that they could remit the tax money in four installments. They might have paid in full on March fifteenth without knowing that they didnft have to. That might have 'helped to make the first --- — returns so high — disproportionate. And maybe there will oe a A decrease later on. So the Deeretary said he d have to wait and see. Instead of dancing with optimism, he said he was keeping his fingers crossed. He was asked whether he thought.boost in the early figures might TAX (2) indicate a tax increase that would cover the extra four hundred and sixty million dollars being spent for National Defense* To this he replied - "No, not a chance.” ? arley . L^nsLSi. Postmaster General Jim Farley^tifl^ a busy d^r today. He was in Boston, where some kind of disharmony has been reported in the Democratic ranks* Postmaster Jim is a famous harmonizer of political disharmony, and hefs especially anxious to tone down any discordant notes in the Democracy of Massachusetts* Because - in that venerable Commonwealth, Sunny Jim is ta&i&g hta chief y\ /\ presidential bid •x] u^\ ^ • Ife^i ic in the Massachusetts Presidential Primary, with both feet. Or, if you prefer, every inch of his hat is in the ring. There has been some report tnat the Farley candidacy is merely a stalking horse affair for President Roosevelt and a third term* But, the Postmaster General today aiain insisted that he was in for himself - "regardless", sail he^ "Cf who^ else is a candidate." This parley affirmation provoked a prompt response from the Democratic vice-chairman in LAS^achusetus, Patrick D^yxo* Jaxl the /ice-c.ainMr Farley’s clear - cut statement has clarified my position. As a delegate to the Cnicago convention, " ne continued w! propose to vote to nominate Mr. Farley regamless of who else is in the field-and thai’ includes President Roosevelt nil self* n FARLEY* .jith political goings on of that sort in Massachusetts, postmaster Jim spent the day in a series of interviews with prominent democratic figures - - busy harmonizing. Reporters asked him wnether his Massachusetts candidacy might be a move toward a Democratic ticket consisting of Hull and Farley - the Postmaster General for vice - president. Farley refused to make any comment DIES In Boston, an investigation is reported - concerning the Christian Front, An investigator for the Dies Committee is in theCity of^the:=i»a'xr^7ict-Jthe Co&* and today he announced A /) he had subpoenaed five Bostonians to appear before the Dies Conunittee in one of its forth-coming hearings. The word is that the five will be called upon to answer questions about the (Christian Front, the djoings of that organization in Boiton and IF' in other parts of New England. The Christian Front claims twenty tnousand members in New England BASEBALL ye've heard a lot of names applied to baseball players-^Ivory”, being one of the mosyagmagata^ This, of course, with gentle referer-ce to the crania of the diamond performers* Today, ball players are given a new appellation. They’re called nIntangible property." I don’t lenow how intangible they are,, baoe Ruth for example. There always seemed to be something exceedingly tangible The new expression in baseball terminology is the creation of the Ohio Tax Gommissioner-nnd it is not good news for the ball clubs. For the commissioner decrees that hereafter in Ohio baseball niagnates shall be taxed for the players they own. The decree points out tnat the connection between tire club and the player is not the ordrinary employer-employee relationship. The Club holds a special kind of contract, according to which the athletes of the diamond are boight and sold. That makes them property. * „ And since it’s a case of contract relation, they’re intangible. that’s the assessment basis? The player’s wages. The amount of money he gets is the guide to his taxable value. ^S>o the next time you go to a ball game you’ll see intangible /C properties pitching curves and hitting home-runs. DANCER 7 K Today at San Francisco a dreani came to an end, a tragic end. A beautiful woman at the edge of a cliff. Nobody knows what happened, probably nobody will ever know# Today the coronor handed down the verdict-"Jumped or fell." Beatrice Lewis was a radiant blond dancer of classic art. She studied with famous teachers of the ballet. She danced as Prima Ballerina with the San Carlo Opera Company# And she made a motion picture success in graceful rhythms of the dance. Recently, she opened a studio in Sdn Francisco to teach her art and produce creations of the ballet. She saw her chance to realize a dream that haunted heri Her imagination was taken by a show place of beauty at San Francisco - sutro gardens. That’s a dreamlike park at the top of a lofty cliff overlooking the sea. It’s a dazzling place of flowers-and the white grace of sculpture. Amid the blooms and blossoms stand marbles of classic gods and goddesses-^pollo, Mercury, Venus,Diana. It was Beatrice Lewis’s vision to create a ballet which she would call - A night in Sutro Dardens. It would begin with the sculptured marbles of Divinities of Greece These seen against a background of flowers and of glimpses of DANCER (2) the distant ocean* Then the sculptured<. marbles would come to life and dance.-^pollo. Mercury, Venus and Diana. Of recent days Beatrice Lewis spent long hours of how she would turn her dream into reality. Today, a woman on the beach below the towering cliff saw the blond-e dancer high above. She was sitting on a rock at the very verge where the garden dropped off for a sheer two hundred and fifty foot drop. She was staring out to sea, as if lost in a vision. Then she started out of her trance and rose. It se«med as if her feet might have become tangled in the vegetation that covers the top of the cliff, and that she stumbled accidently. Or-maybe not. The only certainty is that she topped over the brink. So today the coroner wrote - wJumped or fell^" the tragic end of the dream FISH HereTs a little classic about the cold wave they had in Florida a coupxe of weeks a&o. Or did they have a cold wavet, I suppose by this time foj-ks at Palm Beach and Miami have got around to saying that the icy spell was exaggerated, just a lot of newspaper talk. Well, I have a letter from an old friend Merle Guise, a mining engineer from Colorado and Alaska. He has been looking into gold prospects in South Carolina and Georgia and went on south to Florida to do some fishing. At Kay tt'est he found fish, all right - a lot of them floating on the surface, numb with cold, so frost- * bitten they eouidn*t swim. Merle Guise tells me he tried to kid a Key West Editor about the iced fish in Florida waters. The editor had an explanation. He buttoned up his overcoat, adjusted his ear muffs, and said the fish had been frosted up north, and had drifted in that condition down to Florida, had been carried south by the current. He didn!t attempt to elucidate why the shivering fish hadn1t thawed out in balmy waters. Moreover, the Gulf Stream, the principal current in those parts, flows north. The Key West editor. It never really gets cold in Florida.n his teeth chattering, said;- HANDWRITING Plenty of people in tais country have bad handwriting, and are of proud^it. But wait a minute, you chicken scratching scrawlers— yo i s jj ill be asuamed, appalled, and utterly downcast* Because today we hear tiat bad writing is costing American business eignty million dollars a year. So that’s what you're doing to our country, you careless calligraphers who* fail to dot your I's and cross your T's so elegantly. I'm glad I am saying this instead of writing it-because my handwriting isn't so good either# t&Ji iATit>&fcz£ 'll The dire statement eighty million dollars a year, is made by A Mrs Doris Almy, president of the National Association of ___ —* I, k I Penman Teachers and Supervisors-quite an exercise in penmanship y -•< -X ^ to write that; fhe calligraphic association is meeting in Atlantic City, and today the alarming truth was told# The eighty million dollar a year loss is caused mostly by illegible sales checks and the misreading of figures. It. seems that in stores the clerks frequently scribble the sales checks so incomprehensibly that IP business gets all balled up and a lot of money is lost. Said the Handwriting President to day; *1 defy anyone to read most of the sales slips that go to the offices of a department store." P7 Than scornful reference was made to Horace Greeley. That great HANDWRITING and historical Editor was famous for the worst of handwriting- and he was Proud^ of it, says the lady professor of penmanship; ^"Horace Greeley was great, but he would have been much greater if he had been able to read his own handwriting." I don’t know what kind of reply Horace Greeley would have written to that, but it wouldn’t matter-because what he wrote would have been illegible anyway. CLOTHES Here are some figures about the clothes worn by Mr. <S/Mrs.# and Miss average American. The sartorial statistics were given out today by the ^labor ^department, which has made a national survey of the fcogs we wear. The average man spends forty-nine dollars a year for clothes**the average woman , fifty five dollars. Mr. America gets himself a new overcoat once every five years^ on the average, and pays t enty - one dollars for it. He arrays himself in a new suit once every two years, at a cost of twenty- four dollars. Mrs America buys a new winter coat once every four and a half years, and pays thirty-two dollars for it. One silk or rayon dress a year. Cost - six dollars. What’s the largest item in the city woman’s clothing bill? You've probably guessed the answer already:**Silk stockings. These figures are the mathematical background for the commonly observed fact that Americans by and large are the best dressed people in the world. ^4" ^ TV ‘ j^TVA. f