University of South Carolina Libraries
LUX / McCORMICK MESSENGER, McCORMICK, S. C„ THURSDAY, APRIL 30, 1936 BRISBANE THIS WEEK 18 and 65 No Perfect Crime A Heavenly 400 Fighting Over Riven President Roosevelt, In another “opening speech of the 1936 camp&ign, , ' addressing 20,000 Young Democrats of Baltimore and the nation on the ra d i o, suggested tljat youth should begin work at eight een and “old age” stop work at slxty- flve. Youth should have its first 18 y^ars, at least, for elcerclse, study, happiness. Sixty- flve might be a good age to stop Arthar Brisbane routine work for wages, but no man would want to stop real work until 4eath, except that six months to look around this side of .the grave might be acceptable. Goethe finished the second part of “Faust” when be sms past seventy- Two; and one of the ablest French writers, starting a new prose style, wrote nothing until* at eighty-six he wrote the Life of St Louis at the re quest of the king's, widow. Within half a century 25 years have been add ed to the average lives'* of old men; nobody would want these years wasted f ... In the murder of an unfortunate young woman. New York detectives think they see, at tost, “the perfect crime,” one in -Which the perpetrator cannot be Identified. ' Fortunately, there is no perfect crime, except in the imagination of the criminal or the detective story writer, because criminals are dull, can not keep their mouths shut, are vain, boast and the electric chair gets them. Also, they jump wbfch a band is laid on the shoulder r-*that helps detectives, and criminals are betrayed by fellow criminals. r bishop Stewart Episcopalian, ot Chicago, thinks immortality may b** limited. “Only those who hrfVe a defl nlte relationship to God through th« spiritual life may be eligible for 1m mortality, and other souls cease to ex 1st upon death.” ? ; ^ This important suggestion of a ce lestial “four hundred” will appeal to many that might not care to meet, in heaven, the cave man with low fore head. protruding jaw. the bush man With a vocabulary of 150 words, or all the repentant thieves, murde^rs and trnst magnates. ,, , It is conceivable that selection of the celestial few might be postponed a few million years, dntll real civili sation shall have begurt. This Is the poison gas age. •* v ' * Rivers have played* an,. Important part In the world’s history and in wars. The Tigris and Euphrates, creating fertile Mesopotamia, and the ancient Nile, with Its' rich valley, regularly coated with Nile mud, made the first civilisations possible. Men fought through the ages about those two rivers, and today rivers still cause war. In Europe, the Rhine bor der may cause a repetition of the big war. In Africa, the Blue Nile, fed by Ethiopia's Lake Tana, breeds bitter hatred between England and Italy. Charles Lamb tells of a Chinese gen tleman whose bouse burned and of a pig so marvelously roasted that there after pigs were locked In houses, the bouses burned for the sake of the roast P** .. ' That is recalled by a lady under arrest In I'ensacola, Fla. Sheriff Gan dy charges she tried twice to Wreck a passenger train to kill her husband, the engineer. It Is Alleged that the plot failed because the wrong spikes wgre pulled from the rails. Sheriff Gandy thinks the lady wanted to col lect $3,000 in life insurance. An African savage who gave all ids Ivory tusks for a gun was found laier In the bush, on his knees, praying tc. the gun not to shoot him. He did not knew how to use it. This country is equally Ignorant •bout using youth and its enthusiasm. A Frenchman says truly “American digestion would improve If Americans made more and better sauces.” Voltaire, another Frenchman, said the same thing of Ebgiuttd'long ago. He found tttot England had runny re ligions and only one sauce, whereas France had many sauces and only one religion, and he preferred France. The new Zeppelin. In spite of en glues ont of order on her return from Brasil to Germany, kept on her way 00 miles an hour, fighting, winds over the Mediterranean. That is one advantage of a dirigible—she stays up. The beavter-than air plane with en glne trouble comes down Russia has a genuine •youth move ment,” with one-third of all workers under twenty-three years of age. 43 per cent of them girls. Russia has 173,000.000 population, nearly half of It born since the BolshevIst-rHvolutlon. Populations and history change rap idly Extreme youth might control the whole of Russia hut for the fact that it is already controlled hy Stalin of middle age. • V*-* Keatui«R SMidK-aia, Inc. WNU a^-vi. w MW } mn&ur By Edward W. Pickard © Western ’Newspaper Union m 38 Baron Alois! Italy Is Ruthless and the League Helpless O CCUPATION of Addis Ababa and . all of Ethiopia was the price de manded by Italy for an armistice in East Africa when the council of the League of Nations met again In Geneva. Baron Pompeo Alois! presented the ultima- tarn on behalf of Dic tator Mussolini. Wolde Mariam, representing Ethiopia, countered with a request that the league invoke all penalties against Italy onder article 16 of the covenant, these Includ ing military sanctions as well as the economic penalties which the league has been trying to enforce. The British and French dele gates explained the stand of their re spective governments In the embroglio. The league was helpless, and having received the discouraging report of the conciliation committee, was com pelled to confess It could not find means of attaining peace. France will not consent to the imposition of mili tary sanctions, and Great Britain natur ally will not undertake to enforce thqm by herself. It appeared the poor Ethio pians were to be abandoned to their fate, meaning the extinction of their empire and their exploitation by Italy. The council adopted a resolution re gretting its inability to end the war, reminding league members that they should continue the sanctions and ask ing Italy to be generous in bringing the conflict to a close. Anthony Eden in bis address to the council warned France that she might expect from Great Britain no further support against aggression by Germany than France had given against Italy. Prom the north, south and west the Italian armies were advancing on Ad dis Ababa, and the panic stricken civ ilian Inhabitants of the capital were fleeing from the city. Foreigners sought shelter In the bomb-proofed - British legation. The mayor issued all the arms available an<l the government, called on all able men to make a last stand for liberty, saying “it Is better to die than to be enslaved." Terrible Famine in Once Fertile China Province D ISPATCHES from Chengtn. China, tell a terrible story of the famine and dronth in Szecbuen province, once one of the most fertile regions In the country. It is said to be the worst famine In the history of China, the deaths numbering many thousands and fully 30,000.000 persons being In distress. Suicides and “mercy slayings” are everyday Incidents. The peasants are reduced to eating dogs. cats, rats and clay. Officials said the situation primarily wt a result of Communist incursions during the last two years in which the reds overran and pillaged the land. British Budget Highest Since That of 1931 N eville chamberlain, chan cellor of the exchequer, submitted to the British cabinet and later to parli ament the annual budget which Is for almost four billion dollars, the highest since 1931. The huge rearmament pro gram and other unusual expenses made It certain there will be no relief from present taxation burdens. No estimate has yet been presented to parliament of the amount to be spent in 1936 on strengthening the fighting forces. All that is known is that the air force’s part of the program will cost about $50,(XX>.00U this year. Requirements of the array and navy may bring the aggregate fore 1930 up to $110,000,000. m mm mm Turkey Remilitarizes Dardanelles Zone A NOTHER post-war treaty has gone flooey. President Kemal At murk of Turkov and his cabinet decided that the Dardanelles must he remilitarized, despite the Lusanne pact, and Turkish troops were promptly moved into the zone along the 75 mile long strait that connects the Sea of Marmora and the Aegean sea. It Is lie lieved Kemal will soon rebuild the forti fications In the zone which the allies failed to capture during the World war. The Turkish dictator didn’t surprise anyone by hi* action, for lie asked per mission of the League of Nations some time ago to rearm the Dardanelles. No formal reply had been made, but the British government rather favored giv ing consent, and the Soviet union openly approve* Turkey’s move. Italy was displeased, and there was consid erable excitement in the Balkan state*. espiHdally Bulgaria which hor ders on European Turkey. The Bnl garian* renewed their deniaml for a corridor giving them a direct route *> the Aegean *ea. Probably Kemal * action will not be severely condemned by anyone, for President Kemal most of the European nations are pre paring for war with feverish haste. Austria’s army, small but well equipped, held a spring parade in Vienna, and immediately the nations of the little entente displayed their anger at this show of military force and their mili tary attaches In the Austrian capital were ordered not to occupy the places reserved for them among the review ing officials. Rumania has Increased Us military budget to $38,000,000 and created a special fund of $20,000,00c for the development of aviation. Hun gary is clamoring for revision of the Trianon treaty and recovery of the ter ritory it lost to the little entente. The forty-seventh birthday of Relchs fuehrer Adolf Hitler provided an oppor tunity for a big display of Germany's military power. President’s Secretary and Adviser Taken by Death L OUIS McHENRY HOWE, secretary to President Roosevelt and for many years his close friend and ad viser, died in the Naval hospital at Washington after an illness of more than a year. Mr. Howe was known In the capital as “the President maker,” for It was largely due to his efforts that Mr. Roosevelt reached the White House. For twenty-five years, from the day when Mr. Roosevelt and he first met In Albany, he had devoted himself to forwarding his friend’s political for tunes. During the Chicago convention and the ensuing campaign his plan ning and his advice were credited largely with the results attained. Judge Ritter Is Found Guilty by Senate F EDERAL JUDGE HALSTED L. RIT TER of Florida was found guilty on Impeachment charges by the senate and removed from office, being the fourth federal Jurist to be ousted Id this manner. On each of the first six articles of im peachment a majority of senators voted for his acquittal; but on the seventh article, which was a general ized summary of the charges against him, he was convicted by a vote of 56 to 28. H. L. Ritter An order declaring Ritter should be “forever disqualified from holding any office of honor, trust or profit under the United States" was defeated. 76 to 0. The senate's verdict in the twelfth Impeachment case brought before It as a high court of Impeachment since foundation of the American republic amounted to a decision that Judge Rit ter had violated the Constitutional re quirements of good behavior in office. Editors Condemn Seizure of Private Telegrams R ESOLUTIONS condemning the blan ket seizure of private communica tions were adopted by the American Society of Newspaper Editors In con vention at Washington. “We are of the conviction,” said the resolution, “that if such practice Is not checked the threat to liberty of Indi vidual action and particularly to the freedom of the press Is Immediate and menacing.” The society urged its member* to co operate with all law enforcement agen cies by guarding against the premature publication of Information harmful to the successful completion of criminal investigations. The editors also Inaug urated a formal study to determine if it Is possible for the press and bar Jointly to reach some working formula to prevent sensational murder cases from becoming public scandals. PWA Power Loan Suit Goes to the Supreme Court A SKING that the Supreme court re view the lower court decision In the celebrated Buzzard Roost case, the Duke Power company and the Southern Public Utilities company carried up to the highest tribunal the question of whether the Public Works administra tion may finance publicly owned and operated hydro-electric plants to com pete with private enterprise. Unless extraordinary measures are taken to speed the case, arguments cannot be heard until the term beginning next October. The government has 30 days in which to reply to the petition for review. This case, which deeply concerns the New Deal program, arose when the PWA allocated $2,Sr>2,tXH» for construc tion by Greenwood county. South Caro lina. of the Buzzard Roost plant on the Saluda river. mm Results of the Illinois Primary Election I LLINOIS’ primary held the center of political interest for it not only provided lively state battles but also was of considerable moment nationally. Col. Frank Knox, pub lisher of the Chicago DaUy News, and Sen ator Borah of Idaho, who was born In Illi nois, were the contest ants for the Repub lican Presidential pref erential vote, and the former came out with 31 delegates against 26 for Borah. The sen- i .tor’s friend, were k Knok elated because, with out organization, he carried a large part of the state outside of Chicago. This preferential vote is purely ad visory and neither man has a slate of delegates to the national convention.. The result makes it certain that Knox will make a respectable showing on the first roll call. It also adds to Borah’s prestige and aids him in the coming Ohio primary. Gov. Henry Horner, seeking renom ination, was victorious in the bitter fight with the regular Democratic or ganization and the Keily-Nash ma chine In Chicago, which had thrown him overboard and supported Bunde- sen for governor. The Democrats al most - unanimously voted for the re» nomination of Senator James Hamil ton Lewis, and the Republicans named Former Senator Otis Glenn to oppose him in November. Republican leaders in Washington were encouraged to believe the in ternecine warfare In the Democratic ranks would help the Republicans to carry the state. The Democratic sages, on the other hand, liked the showing of strength made by Borah, feeling his liberal following might switch to Roosevelt in November. In Nebraska’s primary only Borah’s name was printed on the Republi can preferential ballot but almost one- sixth of the voters wrote in the name of Gov. Alf Landon of Kansas. For the Democratic preference Presi dent Roosevelt was unopposed in both Illinois and Nebraska. Flood Control Approved by the President I V HIS press conference President Roosevelt said government depart ments are concentrating on flood con trol problems and that if congress would pass a bill appropriating a bil lion dollars for that purpose he would sign it, provided the measure put men to work Immediately. Mr. Roosevelt said the Passaraa- quoddy project in Maine and Florida ship canal were eliminated because *f the recent refusal of congress to male appropriations for continuance of the work. He said he did not contemplate doling out relief funds for the proj ects and that there would be do fuads for the projects unless congress re versed Its refusal. On the same day the United States Chamber of Commerce issued a warn ing against encroachment of the fed eral government on flood control proj ects which are the primary responsibil ity of the states. President Lays Cornerstone for a Big Building W ITH appropriate ceremony the cornerstone of the new Interior department building in Washington was laid, the President handling the trowel. The structure, the second larg est government office building tlere, is to be completed in December. It covers five and one-half acres and will pro vide 700.000 *quare feet of usable floor space. It will cost $12,000,000, about $5,000,000 less than the capital's larg est, the Commerce department building. The trowel used by Mr. Roosevelt was the one employed by George Wash ington in laying the cornerstone of the Capitol In 1793. Respighi, Noted Italian Composer, Is Dead O ttorino respighi. one of the umst fatuous of modern Italiun «-oiiipo*ers. died In Rome at the age of fifty-six of h irt disease following blood |H>ltionlug. His passing is cause for deep mourning among music lovers everywhere. Several of his oiieras were presented In N*w York and Chicago, and lie was guest conductor of the Phil- harmonic Symphony orchestra of New York in 1932. Draft of New Tax Bill Ready for Consideration H AVING discarded the President’s suggestion of temporary process ing taxes. Chairman Sam B. Hill’s house subcommittee completed its draft of the new tax bill. It calls for a new type of corporation levy, ranging from t per cent to 29.7 per cent for corporation* with net Income up to $10,000, and from 4 to 42V4 per cent for cor porations with net in come over $10,000, de» pending on the amount p». ,..v. of ear nings that are am not distributed. Pref erential tax treatment is given to hanks and insurance companies, to debt-ridden companies, to companies in receivership, and a new system of tax. Ing non resident aliens is created. Big Pay for Lobby Committee Lawyer Is Refused B Y a vote of 153 to 137 the house rejected a resolution to permit Senator Black’s lobby committee to pay $10,000 to special counsel In in- Junction litigation started by William Randolph Hearst to protect his tele grams from the prober*. Thl* action, which followed a hitter debate, doesn’t nalt the work of the ifmmittee, which has Us own funds, but at prevents the payment of more than%3.600 a year, in accordance with geheral law. tc^ Crampton Harris of Blru^ngbajn, what thinks .about: Irvin S. Cobb Pensions for Veterans. S ANTA MONICA, CALIF.— Merely another little proph ecy by old Doctor Cobb, the amateur soothsayer, who never said a sooth he’s surer of than this one: Agitation for a blanket pension to cover all YVorld war veterans, re gardless of ratings or physical condi tion, will start as soon as those lately- won billions are distributed. At first some veterans’ organ ization will oppose it —not for long, though. At first congress will he lukewarm. Then it’ll see a great light, and this new pension act—one that will be to all previous pen sion acts what a whale is to tadpoles—will be passed. At least the veter ans have the argument of patriotic service on their side. And isn’t it true that to nearly all of us has come a new con ception of the national figurehead? No longer is it square-jawed, self-dependent Yankee Doodle. It’s a generous, jolly smiling Santa Claus bringing free checks for everybody; that is. free until the taxpayers start paying the bill. Defying the Almighty. ’P'OLLOWLNG the example set some r years ago by a certain famous per sonage, a cock-sure infidel made a speech lately, defying God to smite him dead on the spot. It seemed, first off, a very sound idea, but nothing happened, so the gentleman took this for proof there was no God and went his way rejoicing. Some look on this as blasphemy, but, granted that every man is entitled to speak his opinion on religion, I’d call it pure gall. Think of inviting the Al mighty to suspend the entire cosmic scheme while forging a thunderbolt to abolish one solitary copycat of an amateur Ajax. Would you call out the standing army of the United States to kill a cockroach? Lady Killers. TT HAS been in print so often you must know it by heart, yourself: At sight of her recreant gentieman friend, the poor bruised butterfly felt a great sense of her wrongs—the wretch wanted to go back to his wife or something equally dastardly—and the next thing she knew she was hold ing a smoking automatic that acci dentally happened to be in her hand bag along with some lipstick and a recipe for fudge; and he w-as deader then the prosecutor’s chance of con victing her for the killing. But just prior to that “everything went black before her eyes.” There’s one detail which never varies—that going-black- before-the-eyes business. It was in the case they tried re cently in New York. It’s in this latest case at Chicago. ’Tis a sore affliction, always marked by total lapse of mem ory and frequently coupled with tem porary insanity, but it’s certainly fine for marksmanship. The lady scores a perfect bull’s-eye, invariably. I wish I could go blind to order that-a- way. I’d be the best quail-shot that ever came out of Kentucky, instead of the worst. Brawls in Hollywood. N ATURALLY, I have hot southern blood, which seems to be the hot test there Is, although down home I never noticed it. But up north. If trouble impended, people would speak of my hot southern blood when all the time I thought I was having a nervous Chill. Being thus all hot-blooded up. I adore fighting, if somebody else does it. Since our movie heroes always stage their combats in some utterly secluded spot, such as a cafe or a night club. I hurry hither and yon hoping to he present when an embit tered star satisfies his honor hy bonne. Ing a special order of sweetbreads un der glass with mushrooms—twenty minutes, 90 cents—off some rival’s classic profile. But it’s iiard enough for me to go; in touch with a waiter, let alone a good plate-tossing contest. Today the war correspondents report two brisk battles on the Hollywood front, and I’m absent, as usual. In the main bout, both gladiators were script writers, proverbially a tigerish breed. Believe it or not, a Mr. Riskin tangled with a Mr. Ras kin, the presumption being that one of the gentlemen regarded the other as a typographical error. English Reds Aga*n. S OMETHING printed here recently about the way the English handle their reds and pinks prompted an Eng lish gentleman to write giving further details. ’Twoiild aeem that over there all public servants, including, notably, state-paid school teachers, must swear to uphold the crown, which means they cannot preach communism to their pupils without violating a solemn oath and, if caught so doing, they lose their official heads instanter. Moreover, no avowed or suspected agent of the Soviets may use the radio to preach the overthrow of the existing govern □mill in favor of the Russian plan. In other words—forgive the pun. please—Britain never shall he Slavs. But. on the other hand, Americans always will be suckers! IRVIN S. COBB a—WNU Sft-vlo*- TALL TALES As Told to: FRANK E. HAGAN and ELMO SCOTT WATSON Champion of the Oil Fields A SK any Texas or Oklahoma oil- driller who’s the best in his busi ness and he’s pretty certain to answer "Why, Kemp Morgan, of course!" Ask him why and he will tell you it’s because Kemp had more unusual experiences than any other seeker after “black gold” ever did. For instance there was the time Kemp lost his best drill. He was working in soft ground but he noticed that the drill kept going slower and slower the farther It went down. Pret ty soon It stopped completely. When Kemp tried to pull It out. It was stuck fast. Come to find out that. he .had hit an alum mine and the hole had shrunk up around the drill so tight that even Kemp couldn’t budge It. Then there was the time a Texas “norther” swooped down on Kemp’s rig. But it didn’t stop him—no sir- ree I He just kept on drilling, and brought in a 22-incb gusher. It was so cold that the oil froze as It spurted upward so there was a solid column of frigid oil. Kemp just took out hi* knife, hacked it off in three-foot lengths and shipped it to the refinery on flat cars. That was in Texas but Kemp nad a funny experience once in Oklahoma. He drilled a well so deep -that it tapped a rubber mine ’way down in Brazil. She began to gush pure‘ rub ber, so Kemp just blew his hot ’breath on it to make it solid, cut It off in 11- foot lengths and shipped it to that place in Ohio where they make solid tires for trucks. When the average driller* brings in a "duster,” he moves his rig away from there pronto. But not Kemp Morgan! He knew what a tough time the Kan sas farmers had digging postholes in the summer when the grouritl was baked hard. So whenever he’d strike a dry hole, he’d' just take his two hands, pull it up four feet and, two inches at a time and saw it off. Then he’d ship a earload of these lengths across the state line where they al ways found a market. ; Private Life of Jonah I T WASN'T a whale which swallowed Jonah, theorizes Stanley Suofewalko, it was a big-mouthed fish in pprthern Michigan. His friend. Laddie. Hornik, captured the monster.in 1930. Laddiq Inspected the fish, which had laid down Its life while being -hooked, gaffed and beaten over the:heard with a pair of oars, and couldn’t decide what to do with it. The size,seamed to destroy the fish’s commercial yalne and imagine Laddie's surprise, says Stanley, when the first stranger to arrive bid a fabulous price for the fish’s scales. Laddie yelled “Sold!" Then he re covered his poise, sheared off the scales, counted the money and watched the stranger bear the scales away. “What’ll you do with ’em?” asked Laddie. “I’m a spade manufacturer from Mo line, 111.,” replied the buyer. “I’ve got material here for 6,400 spades of the best chilled steel.” Buyer after buyer paid staggering prices for different parts of the fish and Laddie, says Stanley, didn’t get wise until a tremendous price was bid and accepted for the fish’s stomach. The stomach buyer immediately slit open the fish’s belly and revealed the golden throne upon which Jonah had been seated during his long captivitv. “It’s cheap at half the price,” stated the buyer with pardonable satisfaction as he brushed a stray fin from his precious purchase. The Despondent Grasshoppers A SEASONED maxim of the copy books is that frequently a real cry does a person good. Leonard Bailer, once a Nebraska farmer, is sure of it. Rain washed away the railroads Around his Nebraska lands; the drouth hit him squarely; then the dust storms killed every living thing and his land was dry as the inside of a grain bin. At this moment, the grasshoppers ar rived by millions and settled on his farms. Wasn’t a thing for the ’hoppers to eat but they were too tired to move on and Leonard almost lost hope. As a last gesture,-,however he rushed out among the despondent grasshoppers, sitting there in the dust, and planted several sets of the strongest and hardiest onions he could buy. To his surprise the onions matured quickly. The moment their bulbs ap peared above ground the grasshoppers pounced on them, ate ravenously and burst into tears. “And that,” Leonard recalls proudly, “is how nly farms were saved. The land was drenched by the tears of the grasshopiHjrs and as soon as they had drowned, themselves l'was able, of course, to raise a normal crop.’* *E> Western NeUnion. Theory Pre-D»te» Pa.Jeur The germ theory of disease is much older than the discoveries of Lonis Pasteur, with whose name It Is asso ciated because he was the first to make practical use ot It. according to ’.he Medical *ociet.yof the state of New York, fie produced serums far anthrax, rabies *nd other diseases. But before I’asteXr was born, a Seven teenth century german scholar named Athanasius Kjfcher noted that files visit the slcl^«nd J/ifect the well hy coat a ini nutiflfc their food.