Historical Newspapers of South Carolina

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McCORMICK MESSENGER, McCORMICK, S. C.. THURSDAY, JULY 29, 1937 JVe«r« Review of Current Events A YEAR OF WAR IN SPAIN 1,000,000 Killed, But On It Goes • . . Robinson's Death Perils Court Plan • • • Poor Harvest Worries Europe Joe Robinson Rallies the Democratic National Convention. ^^luraAjdi U/. ftuduUcd V SUMMARIZES THE WORLD'S WEEK 0 Western Newspaper Onion. Bloody Anniversary 'TP HE Spanish civil war entered its second year. For the popu lations of rebel cit ies, the occasion was one for joyous celebration, with fiestas, bull fights and concerts the or der of the day. Gen. Francisco Franco, commander of the insurgent forces, publicly proclaimed it a “year of tri umph.” He ordered that all communica tions and public doc uments for the next twelve months be dated as of “the second year of triumph.” In the first “year of triumph, more than a million persons, includ- Gen. Franco ing women and children, were killed. The insurgents claim to have taken 34 of the 50 provincial capi tals of the country, and all of its colonies. They have captured six of the eleven cities of more than 100,000 inhabitants: Seville, Malaga, Bilbao, Saragossa, Cordoba and Granhda. As the rebels celebrated the eve of the war’s first anniversair, the loyalists marked the occasion by opening a new offensive in north ern Spain. For the first time in months they sent out squadrons of planes to harass the insurgents near Santander; they made advances along the Aragon front, and forced the rebels to send reinforcements to the area about Albarracin. Air planes also caused some damage to insurgent forces holding siege to Madrid. The rebels lost little time in at tempting to regain their losses around MadrM. Franco unleashed the full power of his main army of 160,000 in a drive to recapture Bru- nete and other suburbs of the loy alist stronghold; they were met by at least 250,000 defending govern ment troops. Every weapon of war except gas was used. There was hand-to-hand fighting in the trenches and the greatest use of artillery since the World war as the fiercest battle of the Spanish conflict raged. The battle was opened by as spec tacular an aerial fight as the world has seen in years; insurgents were reported to have lost 27 planes against only four for the loyalists. * ♦ Falls 'Face to Battle* W HEN Sen. Joseph T. Robinson of Arkansas dropped dead of a heart attack in his apartment across from the United States Capi tol, the President’s plan for securing new appointments to the Supreme court bench, even in its amended form, died with him. That is the belief of close observers in Washington. For “Joe” Robinson was the President’s tow er of strength in the legislative branch of the government. He had served the Democratic party well in the senate since 1913, and as the majority leader in the upper house since 1932. Joe Robinson’s job it was to keep a smooth balance between the con servative Democrats, largely of the South, and the more radical mem bers of the party from the North and West, so that the objectives of the New Deal could be turned out of the legislative mill. While the senate was adjourned for Robinson’s funeral, administra tion leaders sought to rally support so the court bill could be passed, even without the late senator’s lead ership. But the opposition forces were equally determined to take ad vantage of the psychological aspect of the senate following Robinson’s death—the desire to effect a peace, finish the session’s business and get away from the capital. The forces opposed to the bill be lieved that when the issue came up again they would be successful in recommitting the substitute bill to the judiciary committee, an effec tive way of killing it. The indica- Senator Harrison tion of opposition greater than had been expected in the house of rep resentatives was another factor pointing to the eventual fall of the bill. Another battle was not long in getting under way to decide who the new majority leader of the sen ate should be. Conservative Dem ocrats were anxious to wrest a measure of control from the White House by backing Sen. Pat Harri son of • Mississippi, who has been faithful to the President, but is fundamentally conservative. The more radical senators backed Al- ben W. Barkley of Kentucky, Demo cratic national convention keynoter, who had been Robinson’s assistant as floor leader. —*— Europe Short on Gram ' p'UROPE began to worry about the possibilities of a hungry winter as early threshing indicated a serious grain shortage. Germany’s shortage was estimat ed at 3,000,000 tons. The deficit will be met partly with increased con sumption of potatoes and sugar beets, and partly with cheap, plenti ful corn from southeastern Europe. It is expected, even so, that Ger many will have (6 buy 1,500,000 to 2,000,000 tons from other foreign countries. Experts estimated that the German harvest for 1937 would be 10 to 20 per cent below the aver age for the years 1930-35. Poland, from which Germany has been able to buy grain in the past, will not be able to sell any this year, while Hungarian, Rumanian and Ju goslavian crops will be smaller than last year, because of drouth. It was believed that if the current drouth continued the farmers of Great Britain would likewise suffer; rainfall in the past month has been about one-fifth normal. Of the Baltic countries only Lithu ania, it is believed, will have a crop equal to her needs. Crops suffered badly in Latvia, Esthonia and Fin land. Only Spain, in all Europe, with an increase of 15 per cent over last year’s grain harvest, ap pears likely to enjoy a well-filled bread basket. Smo-Japanese Crisis J UST after a verbal agreement between Chinese and Japanese military commanders had appeared to have prevented an impending re newal of the Sino-Japanese war, the Japanese government officially an nounced that heavy concentration of Chinese troops had been*made at Peiping, constituting a direct act of aggression against Japan. At the same time the Nanking government claimed that 17 Japa nese troop trains, carrying 30,000 soldiers, were en route to North China from Corea and Manchukuo. Earlier, 12,000 Japanese troops were said to have arrived in North China to supplement the regular garrison of 7,000. At Tientsin, Gen. Sung Cheh-Yu- an, chairman of the Hopei-Chahar political council and commander of the Chinese forces in North China, had complied verbally with the Jap anese ultimatum for peace, al though he refused to sign anything. In a talk with Lieut.-Gen. Kiyoshi Katsuki, the Japanese commander, he apologized for the clash between Japanese troops and the Chinese Twenty-ninth army at Lukowkiao July 7, the incident which perpe trated the new crisis, and expressed the regrets of the Hopei-Chahar council. He said that he would dis miss several of his officers as a punishment. Gen. Sung assured the Japanese he would evacuate the area west of Peiping, and would do his utmost to suppress communism and anti- Japanese activities. Gen. Chiang Kai-Shek, dictator of China, had not yet formally replied to the Japanese ultimatum. Inventor of Wireless Dies /^•UGLIELMO MARCONI, who al- tered the lives of all of us when he invented the wireless, died suddenly of a heart attack at his home in Rome. He was sixty-three years old, had been in good health and was planning the construction of a new radio station in the Vatican at the time of his death. Ill* oU> 'Jtdnkd about Semi-Nude Fashions. S ANTA MONICA, CALIF.— Clothes may not make the man, but leaving them off cer tainly makes him foolish. And that goes double for the women. Whence arises the present-day de lusion that going about dressed at half-mast enchances the attractiveness of the average adult? Our forbears of the Victorian era wore too much for health or happiness o r cleanliness. But isn’t it Worse to offend the eye all through the lingering sum mer by not wearing enough to cover up the blotches, the iryin $. Cobb blemishes, the bulges and the bloats that come with ma turity? Sun baths should be taken on a doctor’s prescription, not at the comer of First and Main. Women old enough to know bet ter are the worst offenders, seems like. If only they’d stop to con sider that the snail, which is naked, would lose in any beauty contest against the butterfly, which wears all the regalia the traffic will stand! • But even though it’s for their own good, you can’t tell ’em. If some body started the fad of going at the game while practically nude, inside of two weeks mumblepeg would be the national pastime—un til somebody else thought up a game to be played by folks without a stitch on. Or anyhow, just a stitch here and there. • • • Doctoring Movie Scripts. U SUALLY they lay these yarns on Mr. Sam Goldwyn, who thrives upon them and goes right on turning out successes, his motto being, “What’s grammar as be tween friends so long as the box office shows results?” But, for a change, this one is ascribed to an other producer, who proudly de scribes himself as a self-made man, which, according to his critics, is relieving the Creator of a consider able responsibility and putting the blame where the blame belongs. They also say no self-made man should stop with the job only partly finished. But then Hollywood is full of parties trying to push Humpty Dumpty off the wall. As the tale runs, this gentleman entered the conference chamber at his studio and as, with a kingly gesture, he laid down a fat sheaf of typewritten pages, said to the assembled intellects of his staff: “Jumpmen, in all my experience in the picture business this is what you might call unique. Here is ab solutely, posstiffly the only poifect script I have ever read in my entire life. I tell you that before we start altering it.” • • • Strikes Versus Wars. D ID you ever notice how like a war is a strike? The operator and his operatives are the shock troops that suffer the heaviest casualties. The owner risks his profits and perhaps his market and sometimes his plant. The work er gives up his wages, frequently his job, occasionally his life. Stockholders see dividends van ishing and investments shrinking. Citizens see their communities dis rupted. Women and children go on short rations, many a time go ac tually hungry. For, as in a war, the innocent non-combatants bear most grievous burdens. Those who really garner in the spoils—professional agitators; finan cial buzzards eager to seize on bankrupted industries; lawyers with their writs and their injunctions; imported thugs masquerading, for one side or the other as honest mechanics—these might be likened to stay-at-home diplomats and profit eers and hired mercenaries who induce friendly nations to turn en emies so they may gain their own selfish ends. After it’s over, we realize that almost any strike might have been averted had common sense and common justice ruled, rather than greed and entrenched stubbornness and fomented hate. And the same is true of almost any war. For every real benefit to humanity came out of peace and arbitration, not out of battle and destruction. And here’s the final parallel: Ul timately, the supposed victor finds himself the actual loser. Tell me which army won any great strike— or any great war—and I’ll tell you who won the San Francisco fire and the Galveston flood. IRVIN S. COBB. ©—WNU Service. Crater Lake in Oregon Crater Lake in Oregon has the most romantic geologic history of any lake in the United States. Its rim was once the base of a volcanic mountain which collapsed and sank into the earth. Later it cooled, springs came out of the sides, snow collected and it filled with water. It is 6 miles in diameter and con tains the bluest water known to ex ist naturally today. There is no out let and no streams running into it and yet the water is always fresh. ADVENTURERS’ CLUB HEADLINES FROM THE LIVES OF PEOPLE LIKE YOURSELFI “ Triple-Barreled Thrill 99 By FLOYD GIBBONS Famous Headline Hunter H ello everybody: Here’s a yarn that packs thrills enough to last through a whole night. At least, it did for Mrs. Dorothy Murphy. Many years ago, Dorothy was living on a farm in the Chestnut Ridge section near the little town of Dover Plains, N. Y. She set out to drive to the railroad station three miles away, and before she got back she’d had enough adventures to last a life-time. That was in February, 1914. Dorothy was just eighteen years old and going under her maiden name of Dorothy Daily. Her aunt had been spending two weeks with the family and it was she whom Dorothy drove to the train on that cold, February evening. Automobiles weren’t so common then. What Dorothy drove was a surrey, drawn by an old, half- blind horse named Brownie. The train pulled out of Dover Plains at 6:45 p. m., and Dor othy turned the horse around and headed for home. Already it was dark—a moonless, starless night. The way back lay along a steep, rough, unfenced country road that climbed for nearly three miles before it reached Chestnut Ridge. On one side of it lay thick woods covering an upward slope of the ground, and on the other was a steep declivity. For part of the distance, that declivity straightened out into a tall cliff. And there was nothing to prevent a carriage from going over it if it approached too close to its edge. That was Dorothy’s first thrill—the prospect of driving over that road in the dark. She hadn't thought darkness would fall so soon that night, and she was scared stiff of that cliff. As she drove along, and the darkness deepened, she couldn’t see her hand before her face, and she gave Brownie a free rein, hoping that his instincts would keep him on the road. Thoughts While Hurtling Through Space. They were going along the top of that cliff, and all was going well. And then, all of a sudden, Dorothy felt the wheels slipping over the edge, poor, half-blind old Brownie had failed her. He had gone too close to the edge! The surrey gave a sudden lurch and Dorothy was thrown out into space! Says Dorothy: “I clutched at the air as it slid past me, like a drowning man clutches at straws. My hands grabbed some bushes growing out from the side of the cliff and I hung on for all I was worth. And there I was, between earth and air, and with nothing to save me from death on the rocks below but my precarious hold on those shrubs.” Dorothy says that time has no meaning under such circumstances. The minutes seemed like years. Her arms were aching and her head was swimming. She could hear Brownie and the surrey wandering “I was afraid I’d grow weak or faint.” off in the darkness. Evidently the old horse had pulled the surrey back on the road after she had been thrown out. For a terrible moment she clung to the bushes, and then her fingers encountered a branch of a small tree growing along the side of the cliff. She caught it with one hand—then the other—and drew herself up over the cliff to safety. She lay on the ground for a while, sick and weak. Therv having recovered a little, she got up and stumbled to the road. The Big, Thrill Was Yet to Come. Brownie and the surrey were nowhere in sight. Dorothy started walking toward home. You’d think she’d had enough adventuring for one night—but the big thrill hadn’t even started. She had only walked a few steps when she heard a sound that froze her blood in her veins—the baying and yelping of dogs. Dogs don’t sound so dangerous—but Dorothy knew better. A short time before she had seen the body of a boy who had been killed and partially eaten by these same dogs. They were wild animals—descendants of dogs who had run away from their mas ters to live in the woods and had reverted to type. Every once in a while, in those days, packs of that sort appeared in the woods in various places throughout the country. And they still do, in wild, outlying regions. A single dog would run at the sight of a man, but in a pack, and in the middle of winter when they were half starved, they would attack almost anyone. Dorothy knew all too well what would happen if this pack caught up with her. She turned, stumbling, into the woods and ran until she found a tree. It was a tree with a low fork of its branches—one she could climb. She began pulling herself up into it. The yelping of the pack was coming nearer and nearer. She wasn’t a minute too soon. She had hardly clambered into the lower branches when they were on the spot, yelping and snarling at the bottom of the tree. She Couldn’t Understand Why There Was No Help. “And there I was,” she says, “perched in the tree while the hunger- maddened brutes howled and snarled below. I still turn sifck and cold all over when I think of that moment. The worst part of it was that I was afraid I’d grow weak or faint, or so numb from the cold that I’d fall out. I knew what would happen then.” Hour after hour Dorothy clung to that tree, wondering why her folks didn’t miss her and come looking for her. Wondering why they didn’t realize something was wrong when the horse and buggy came home without her. She didn’t know that old Brownie, turning completely around in his struggles to haul the surrey back on the road, had wandered back to town and was spending the night in an open horse shed. Her folks thought Dorothy had de cided to spend the night with relatives in town, as she often did, so they didn’t worry. And all that night, she crouched in the tree racked by the cold and harried by terrible fears. As the first streaks of gray appeared in the sky, the dogs slunk off through the woods, and when she thought it was safe she came down and crawled to the road. She couldn’t walk, but a farmer, driving to the milk depot, found her in the road and brought her home. Dorothy says she’s written this story for us other adventurers to read, but she adds, “Usually, I don’t think of it if I can help it.” ©—WNU Service. Third of Australia in Tropics More than one-third of Australia, or 1,149,000 square miles, lies within the tropics. The remainder, 1,825,- 000 square miles, is within the tem perate zone. Australia, being an island, is less subject to weather extremes than are regions of sim ilar area in other parts of the world. Latitude for latitude, it is more temperate, the extreme range of temperatures in the shade in summer and winter over a very arge area. Over the greater part of the Commonwealth the climate is similar to that of California, Southern France or Italy. The Lachine Rapids La Chine means China in French The Chevalier de La Salle set oui for the West (and China and the Orient) from a spot near the La- chine rapids. After his failure to reach the Orient, his enemies named the spot and the rapids “La- Chine” in derision. Horseshoe as Headdress In early days, the horseshoe was regarded as the mystic sign of the female creator. The headdress of Isis, Egyptian goddess, was a horse shoe, and in India temples were con structed on a horseshoe plan I STAR I I DUST | 5 / 5 ★ jMLovie • Radio * ★ ★ ★★★By VIRGINIA VALE★★★ E velyn daw is going to play the lead in her very first picture, and as if that were not enough to make her Holly wood’s Cinderella of the week, she tops it by being a girl who can keep a secret. For six months she has known that she was going to be given a big screen opportunity and she hasn’t told a soul. Even so, when she learned that her big chance was to be nothing less than prima donna opposite James Cagney in Grand National’s. “Something to Sing About” she nearly swooned. Victor Schertzinger, * well-known composer and the motion-picture di rector who gave Janet Gaynor her first chance and Grace Moore her second, is responsible for Evelyn’s opportunity. Carole Lombard still has a sleek town car, a limousine and a roadster or two, but she isn’t using them much these days. Every afternoon when she finishes work at the studio, up drives a station wagon all filled with fishing paraphernalia and driven by Clark Ga ble and off go the two most irrepressi ble merrymakers of Hollywood. She claims she likes the station wagon better than the limousine and she’d rather go fishing than attend a fashionable party. Clark agrees with her. —*— Two newcomers to Hollywood are setting Hollywood fashions and ev eryone is wondering just how far these new trends will go. Sigrid Gurie, the exquisite young Norwe gian actress whom United Artists imported to play opposite Gary Coop er in “The Adventures of Marco Polo” goes in for simplicity. Louise Hovick, most famous of strip-tease artists in her burlesque days when she was known as Gypsy Rose Lee» goes in for conservatism. She won’t pose for pictures in bathing suits, shorts, or even negligees. Carole Lombard - Nick Foran’s brother Jimmy graduated from Princeton medical school just a few weeks ago and walked right into a contract to act in pictures for Universal. Buddy de Sylva, who is producing a musical extravaganza called “Merry Go Round,” saw Jimmy doing some im personations of Washington politi cians and was so amused he per suaded him to postpone his career in medicine for a while. Jimmy will certainly be welcome on the Universal lot. —*— Grown-ups in Hollywood may plead for a chance to watch Robert Taylor or Joan Crawford or Luise Rainer at work, but children unani mously beg to be allowed to visit the Grand National lot. There is a reason, or rather a lot of them. Grand National is rapidly acquiring a zoo made up of the' most talented animals in Hollywood. —*— All over the country picture fans are enthusiastic over Claudette Col bert’s grand comedy, “I Met Him in Paris,” but in Hollywood it looks as if the run will never end, because the same people come back to see it again and again. Almost any night you can find in the audience Barbara Stanwyck and Robert Tay lor, Marlene Dietrich, her husband, and Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. —*— \ Opal Craven, known to radio lis teners from coast to coast as “the Lullaby Lady” of the Contented Hour, has been appearing pro fessionally in the en tertainment world since she was seven. With Frank Black and the Continentals she shares top bill ing on this concert program that has run without interrup tion for more than five and a half years. In private life Opal Craven is the wife of a prominent Chicago insurance man. She began singing lullabies in real earnest about a year ago when her husky son was born. Opal Craven ODDS AND ENDS—Joan Crawford's idea of grand fun is to go down to • radio station when her husband or one of her friends is broadcasting and join the mob of offstage noises . . . M-G-M has found a way to finish Jean Harlow's last picture "Saratoga," using only long shots of a double. The preview audience ap proved mightily . . . Paul Robeson lifts his magnificent voice in song in "King Solomons Mines" making this giddy thriller a picture not to be missed under any circumstances . . . And don’t miss any of Edgar Bergen's shorts with his price less dummy, Charlie McCarthy. Inci dentally, his Sunday night radio program with W. C. Fields almost makes up for Jack Benny's absence from the airwaves^ doesn’t it? C We ■Urn Newspaper Union.