Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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£v'#s.f> : Zt'TIZ m\ r- i'-r-.. ; McCORMICK MESSENGER, McCORMICK, S. C., THURSDAY, JULY 8, 1937 Ikitkititkirirkitlt'k'kitlt'kinr* I STAR ! | DUST | $ jMLovie • Radio * ★ ★ ★★★By VIRGINIA VALE★★★ I T HE loyal motion picture fans of the country do not want any substitute for the late Jean Harlow. Letters, tele grams and phone calls of pro test poured into the Metro- Goldwyn-Mayer studio when it was announced soon after her death that her unfinished pic ture “Saratoga” would he re filmed with a newcomer named Rita Johnson in her role. In no uncertain terms the public demanded that Jean's last picture either be released in its unfinished state or kept from view. Decision on the matter is being postponed, but when tho public takes such a whole-hearted stand on any ques tion, you can be sure that the studio will not run the risk of offending them. “Saratoga" will probably never be seen. Loretta Young’s household is fust about the happiest, busiest estab lishment in all Hol lywood just now. She has adopted two little girls, Jane aged three, and Judy not quite two, and is busily confer ring with architects about adding a wing to her house. Just to add to the air of Old Home Week, her sister, Sally Blane, and Sally’s husband Norman Foster have come with their youngster to stay at Loretta’s house while they re-build theirs. , Loretta Young An the time that Irene Hervey was under contract to M-G-M, the executives just couldn't see her when a good role in a big picture came up for easting. She married Allan Jones, her contract expired, and it looked as if she meant to retire from the screen. She was just waiting for the right part, though. Along came the enterpris ing Grand National company with a role for her in “The Girl Said No," audiences raved about her at the preview, and what company rushed to get her services then, do you suppose? None other than her old studio. Lily Pons is very busy these days with her radio program and an extensive concert tour, to say noth ing of her frenzied trips up to her home in Connecticut to see how the garden is doing, but she keeps in touch with the R-K-O studio every day to get reports on the plans for her next picture. It is afl of a year now since Jack Dempsey and his restaurant were shown in a motion picture, typifying the very center of New York sport ing and night life, so M-G-M is going to remedy that omission right away. He and his headquarters will appear in “Big City" which stars Spencer Tracey and Luise Rainer. Jack won't go to Hollywood, though; his scenes will be made in a studio near New York. The best picture of the week, and a frothy light extravaganza for a warm evening it is too, is “Woman Chases Man." Mir iam Hopkins is the star and dear old Charles Winniger plays a giddy role delightfully. The pic ture is farce that verges on slapstick most of the time, and Joel McCrea plays the thankless roie of the one fair ly sensible human in the piece. It isn’t, frankly, nearly so good a picture as Claudette Colbert’s grand com edy “I Met Him in Paris’’—but until that superb bit of entertain ment comes your way, “Woman Chases Man" will keep you amused. ODDS AND ENDS—Grace Moore post poned starting her next picture for two weeks so that her leading man, Melvyn Douglas, could go to the Salzburg Festi val, where his wife is going to sing . . . Ann Sothern's sister, Bonnie Lake, has sold a song that she composed to Buddy Ebsen . . . That loud studio laugh you hear intermittently through Walter Win- chelFs Sunday night broadcast is W. C. Fields, his favorite visitor. Walter draws an audience that is an all-star cast . . . Hazel Glenn who sings nursery songs on the Dr. Dafoe broadcast has a fan letter that she wouldn't exchange for a diamond bracelet. The good doctor wrote her that the quints had listened to one of their broadcasts and expressed delight over the lady who sang . . . The make-up experts are bullying Stokowski now. After all his many years as an orchestra conductor, waving his tousled mane, he has been ordered to grease his hair because other wise it doesn't look dignified . . . Deanna Durbin tried to console him by telling him it made him look like a juvenile . . . Since Carole Lombard is not available, Fred Astaire is now trying to get Loretta Young to play opposite him in his next Miriam Hopkins Soviet Russia Tries to Explain ^ Why Eight Generals Were Shot But, as in Case of Most Red Intrigues, Explanations Border on Fantastic, By WILLIAM C. UTLEY R USSIA—land of intrigue, struggle and upheaval—is today no freer from the plots and counter-plots on the grand scale which have characterized it over many decades than it has been in the past. And conspiracies today are dealt with by the Communist government with as much dis patch as they were in the days of the Czars, or more. Explana tions today are, as they were in the past, largely a matter of conjecture, and most of them are magnificently fantastic. When, in the most recent “purge" of Red traitors, seven generals and hostile nations would find the n marshal who was verv nearlv the ! p er io(j 0 f Russia’s internal strife an a marshal who was very nearly the executive head of the whole Rus sian army, were summarily tried, lined up against a wall and shot, a typical, wild explanation of the act filled the early accounts. It was re ported, rumored or “secretly known to the Kremlin" that the eight had been leaders of a mass plot, in volving hundreds of thousands of Russians, to turn over a generous helping of western Russia to “an enemy power," Nazi Germany. Of course, when the perspective of even a few days’ time permitted a clearer view of the situation, the “explanation" was wholly rejected. Ordinarily little or no official gov ernment explanation would be at tempted, but the prestige of the Russian army received such a body blow by these latest executions that a semi-authoritative one was con cocted. You can take it or leave it, for it is almost as fantastic as the first one. Masses Must Support Plots. It involves not alone this one act, but the entire series of some 250 military trials and executions which have taken place in Russia over a period of less than three years, cli- axed by the deaths of Marshal ikhail Tukhachevsky and his sev en generals in Moscow on June 12. It is ascribed to the discovery by the Kremlin of a single huge con spiracy against the state. To anyone who has followed mod em Russian history at all it is ap- \m M I: J fl opportunity for successful attack. So the conspirators sought the promise of Germany and Japan that they would not interfere during the revo lution. In return for this co-opera tion, valuable territory in the Ukraine would be ceded to Germany after the successful completion of the coup, and Japan would be re warded with generous oil, mineral and fishing concessions in the Far East. There is no actual evidence that definite agreements were ever con summated between the plotters and the enemy powers. Indeed, Hitler has emphatically refused to consid er the suggestion of a military al liance between the Reich and Rus sia, despite the fact that his high military command has assured him that such an alliance would be the most powerful in the world. The question that now poses itself before the world outside the Soviet is: Can the semi-authoritative ex planation of the “purge” be true— or is it merely a concoction brewed to fit a long series of incidents in a sordid rule of terrorism under the iron hand of a vicious dictator ship? There is no denying the fact that the conspiring generals must have been rather stupid to risk their en viable positions of power in the ex isting regime, and their careers of brilliant promise for the future, in a plot which certainly must not fail if i| iiip f- ■" • ■ i mi | mi ^ Mm I: • ^ ; .5: i V .J ■ : >V jmmm. mm?-. ■ • ; .xiiyx-x*:-: ■.«vv. v XvXvi picture. C Western N-»«pai>er Union. The Soviet Union has vast oil resources. This well, which broke loose in a torrent when tapped, produces 15 to 20 thousand tons daily. parent at once that no serious con spiracy to overthrow the existing regime could be successful without mass support. But how to gain the sympathy of any great mass of cit izens, without spreading the great secret so widely that its existence must be obvious, was a poser in deed. The one unit of people with whom such a plan could hope to be ac complished was the Red army. This highly trained, massive organization had been well-drilled in discipline and would obey the dictates of a few key men among its leaders without question. The theory of the con spirators, then, was to win over a few army men in the key posi tions of command, who could be re lied upon to control the movements of the army. And this, according tvj the explanation, is what the civil conspirators were successful in do ing. Soviet authorities discovered the plot among the civil conspirators, and it was a simple matter to learn then that it had been extended to a handful of important army officers. Accordingly, a strict espionage sys tem was set up to gather evidence in army quarters. The executions followed quickly. It is believed by some close observers that the So viet government was tipped off to the plot by the French secret serv ice, interested because of the alli ance between the two communist nations, but this has never been admitted officially. No Evidence of Agreement. The plot did not, as first believed, include the turning over of White Russia to an enemy power, but the traitors did attempt to reach an agreement with Germany and Japan. The generals were well aware that if their plot developed into mn important revolution, these to be discovered amid the universal system of state control and state spying which is Russia today. Russia Worries Over Prestige. The puzzle also arises: If one dictator can dispose of eight of the most prominent men of the army in one fell swoop, why would it not be as easy for eight generals to do away with one dictator? Russia is.definitely worried over the effect of her internal military disharmony upon the outside world. Diplomatic divisions of the western European powers lost no time in taking advantage of it. Germany and Italy, particularly, acted quick ly. Their dream has always been of a four-power alliance with France and Great Britain. But France, con trolled by a communistic party gov ernment, in sympathy with the Rus sians and out of sympathy with the Fascists, has been the stumbling block. Now Germany is trying to convince France that she,had better forsake any alliance with Russia because U would be too unreliable. The recent resignation of the Popu lar Front government in France may work to the advantage of the Fascists, also. There is no doubt that the French must be a little uneasy over fhis new weakness of the nation they had counted upon as their most im portant ally. The Red army can hardly look so powerful today as it did a few weeks ago. And the French can hardly help remember ing how powerful that same army looked before the World war and how pitiful it looked once the war got under way. Russia’s importance among the powers of the world has always been limited by her difficulty in pre serving her own unity. Stretching out 5,500 miles across Europe and Asia and from the Arctic ocean to mm Ax-x.&’r-: Wgmmm Marshal Mikhail Tukhachevsky, most important of the eight Red army officers who were executed for treason June 12. the southern mountain ranges, the Soviet Union comprises the largest connected realm of any nation on earth. It is sub-tropical, it is Arc tic, it is desert and it is verdant farm land. Ninety per cent of all the area of the union is included in the largest of the eleven constituent republics, the Russian Federative Socialist Re public, which also includes more than two-thirds of the population. The other ten are: Ukrainia, White Russia, Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ar menia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tadjikistan, Kazakhstan and Kirghi zia. All except White Russia, Ar menia, Turkmenistan and Kirghizia contain smaller republics within themselves. Rich in Natural Resources. The 175,000,000 people are as va ried as the physiography. They fall into some 180 different groups and speak 150 different languages and dialects; the government makes no attempt at establishing a national language. There are more Russians than persons of any other nationality, the Russians composing about half the population. The other principal groups, in order of their number, are: Ukrainians, White Russians, Kazaks, Uzbeks, Tatars, Georgians, Turks, Armenians, Jews, Germans, Mordva, Shuvash, Tajiks, Poles, Turkmens, Kirghiz, Bashkirs and Votyaks. These are some of the reasons Russia’s tremendous natural re sources have been little more than dipped into. She is almost com pletely self-sufficient, with a vast wealth of coal, iron, oil, gold and other minerals, as well as rich farm lands and wide stretches of fine vir gin timber. Josef Stalin’s personal dictator ship is all-powerful. He is secre tary-general of the political bureau- of the central executive committee of the communist party of the Union of Socialistic Soviet Republics, which is quite a mouthful any way you chew it. The party bosses the state (for law has decreed that it is the only party which shall be rec ognized), the central executive com mittee bosses the party, the politi cal bureau bosses the committee, and Stalin bosses the bureau. By virtue of the constitution adopt ed in December there is a parlia ment—or soviet—composed of a so viet of the union and a soviet, of the nationalities, and called the Su preme Soviet. Together the two bodies exert all legislative and ad ministrative authority, through a cabinet appointed by the Supreme Soviet and known as the council of people’s commissars. But through the political structure outlined in the foregoing paragraph it may be seen that what they do is dictated by Josef Stalin. Production Speeded Up. Russia is now in the last year of its second Five-Year Plan for ag ricultural and industrial develop ment by the state, under which the state controls the entire economic life of the nation. The first of these plans was started by Stalin in 1928; private trade was suppressed, land- owners liquidated and agriculture collectivized. Production under the second Five- Year Plan was speeded up greatly, for both economic and military rea sons. A few facts serve to illustrate the effectiveness of the programs. Elec tric power production in the Soviet Union was 5,007,000,000 kilowatt hours in the year before the first Five-year Plan; last year it was 32,600,000,000 kilowatt hours. In steel production the Soviet Union rose to a position second only to Germany among European producers last year. In 1927 it man ufactured a total of 680 automobiles; last year, 138,000. The total grain harvest was 92,010,000 metric tons in 1935, although it fell off to less than 77,000,000 metric tons last year, because of widespread drouths. The 1936 cotton crop set a new record. Latest reports are that there will be a third Five-Year Plan started which will go into effect January 1. © Western Newspaper Union. AAAA aaaaaaaaaa WSASSAAAASS WHO’S NEWS THIS WEEK... By Lemuel F. Parten Modern Damon and Pythias. EW YORK.—Kid McCoy, at six- ty-five, is twenty years older than Harry Bennett. but for many years their’s has been a Damon and Pythias friendship. Bennett, commander of Henry Ford’s mili tant home guard against labor unions, learned about fighting from McCoy. He was a sailor when Ford bought some wooden boats from the government. They threw in Bennett, along with boats, and Ford found it a good bargain. He became a personnel officer at the Dearborn plant, be coming, in time, as the years slipped off the conveyor belt, the head of the Ford “protective” or ganization. In 1932, McCoy finished a confine ment of seven years for having shot his sweetheart. By this time, Ben nett had a yacht and a castle on the Huron. For old times’ sake, he gave his friend a $6-a-day job and a gold badge, explaining, plausibly it seemed, that his organization in cluded a limited number of former convicts, and that there was no rea son why it shouldn’t if they behaved themselves and did their work. Mc Coy, helping expand and direct the “service men,” now enters a serene old age, fit and vigorous, younger than his years, doing the work he likes best. Bennett was “Sailor Reese" in the years when he was a lightweight boxer in the navy. It was in 1896 that McCoy became world welter weight champion, by defeating Tommy Ryan. It was years later that the young sailor entered his New York gymnasium and told him of his ambitions as a boxer. McCoy trained Reese, without charge. It has been frequently on record in the newspapers that Reese became lightweight champion of the navy. However, this writer, scout ing information among such light weight navy champs of twenty-five years ago as Sam Robideau, Joe Fisher and Paddy Mills, has been unable to pick up his trail. Where Sailor Reese knocked off and Harry Bennett 1 took over is equally elusive. A curtain is drawn over the beginnings of this partic ular Alger story—the story of a boy who makes good by watching a clock—to see that the other lads punch it. Current news reports reveal Ben nett and McCoy as working in a deep, inaccessible basement of the Administration building, deploying an army of “college athletes, former prizefighters and ex-convicts," both ready to wade hi with the hired men as emergency swampers if need be. Bennett is small, agile, muscular and given to direct action. For pas time, he practices pistol shooting, reads mystery stories and goes hunting. • * • The Troublesome Doukhobors. The story of the Canadian Douk hobors might make a good study for Robert Allison Parker, author of the recently published “Father Divine," and a specialist in Mes sianic psychology. They remain shaggy, nude and obdurate, with their leader, Peter Verigin II, again having jail troubles in British Co lumbia. He is the head of an organization supposedly owning about $10,000,000 worth of property, but the court confirms his jail sentence for vag rancy. His huge, barrel-chested father, with whiskers like a percher- on’s uncurried fetlocks, was killed in a train wreck in 1924, and Peter II came over in 1927 to head the sect, the Russians having jailed him for heresy and released him on the condition that he leave the country. He is big and bewhiskered and commanding, like his father, but parades in the nude and other ec centricities had brought the law on the Doukhobors, and he has dond little but fight off writs and proc esses. He was saved from deporta tion from Canada by a Halifax judge in 1933. The Doukhobors, or “spirit wres tlers,” as they sometimes call them selves, are a strange hold-out in the modern lock-step. They’ll catch step, if they are just allowed to shed their clothes. • * • Youth on the Bench. Nine years out of college, Charles Poletti becomes a justice of the Su preme court of New York, at the age of tbirty-three. He is the son of a stone-cutter in Barre, Vt. He dickered for an old Ford, traveled and sold maps to get through high school, and tended furnaces and waited on table to get through Harvard. He finished law school in 1928. Several of his nine years were put in at the Universities of Rome and Lyons and at the League of Nations. Then he got a job in the illustrious John W. Davis law office and be came general counsel for the Demo cratic committee in 1932. A year later, Governor Lehman made him his legal adviser. He is short, sturdy, dark, galvanic, of Italian parentage and boiling over with energy. © Consolidated News Features. WNU Service. Colorful Flower 1 Heirloom Afghan A merry-go-round of color, that’s what this lacy afghan sug gests, when crocheted square by square from every colorful scrap of yarn your work basket will yield. And won’t it be economical —this “heirloom” afghan, which combines deep shades, pastel Pattern 5830. shades with the same background color, that of the leaves. You’ll love this all-over flowered “throw,” the 3% inch squares of which are easy to join. In pattern 5830 you will find directions for making the afghan and a pillow; an illustration of it and of the stitches used; material require ments, and color suggestions. To obtain this pattern send 15 cents in stamps or coins (coins preferred) to The Sewing Circle Household Arts Dept., 259 W. Fourteenth St., New York, N. Y. Please write your name and ad dress and pattern number plainly* Your Faults It is great folly not to part with your owm faults, which is possible, but to try, instead, to escape from other people’s faults, which is im possible.—Marcus Aurelius. IROnAelRSVIURV INSTANT LIGHTING Poleman^lron Make Ironing a Quicker, easier mad more pleasant task. Iron the easy way—with a Cole man. the genuine Instant UsirtiiTg Iron. Just torn a valve, strike a match and it lights in stantly. The Coleman heats in a jiffy, is quickly ready for use. Operates for HI an hour. See your dealer or write for FREE FOLDER. THE COLEMAN LAMP AND STOVE CO. Dept. WU320, Wichita. Kans.: Chicago.111.; Philadelphia. Pa.; Loa Angelea. Ca&f. (7&0W) What Counts Saluting the flag is fine, but it’s the thought behind the salute that is important. Young-Looking Skin % at 35—Now a Reality For Women! T housands of women now keep the allure of youthful, dewy-fresh skin at 30—35—40 and even after! Now a modern skin creme aers to free the skin of the “age-film” of semi-visible darkening particles ordinary cremes cannot re move. Often only 5 nights enough to bring out divine new freshness—youthful rose-petal clear ness; and toeliminate ugly surface pimples, black heads, freckles. Ask for Golden Peacock Bleach day ; ... or send i Dept. K-315. Paris, Tenn. Creme today at any drug or department stora 50c to Golden Peacock Inc-. Cuts Deep A sharp tongue severs a good! many friendships. "Black 1 ® Leaf 40 ‘'Cap-Bruth*Applicator , makes'BLACK LEAF 40' 60 MUCH FAMTHta JUST A DASH IN FEATHERS.. OR SPREAD ON ROOSTS KILL ALL FUES Placed anywhere. Daisy Fly Killer attracts and kills files. Guaranteed, effective. Neat, convenient — Cannot spill— WUlnot soU or Injure anything, lasts all season. 20o at all dealers. Harold Somers, Inc.. 160 De Kalb Ave.3'klyn.N.Y. DAISY FLY KILLER WNU—7 27—37 Watch Your Kidneys/ Hdp Them Cleanse the Blood of Harmful Body Waste Your kidneys are constantly filterfnc waste matter from the blood stream. But kidneys sometimes lag in their work—do not act as Nature intended—fail to re move impurities that, if retained, may K isoa the system and upset the whole dy machinery. Symptoms may be nagging backache, persistent headache, attacks of dizziness, getting up nights, swelling, puffiness under the eyes—a feeling of nervous anxiety and loss of pep and strength. Other signs of kidney or bladder dis order may be burning, scanty or too frequent urination. There should be no doubt that prompt treatment is wiser than neglect. Use Doan’s Pills. Doan’s have been winning new friends for more than forty years. They have a nation-wide reputatien. Are recommended by gratefal people the country over. Ask your neighbor] DOANS PILLS