WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS • • • •
Release of Polish ‘Documents’
Creates Furore in Washington;
Hull, Bullitt Deny Nazi Charge
-—— - — 11 - ■■ —
(EDITOR’S NOTE—When opinions are expressed in these columns, they
are those of the news analyst and not necessarily of this newspaper.)
_____________ Released by Western Newspaper Union. i
HITLER SAY:
The Roosevelt administration
Indignantly denied spectacular
charges by Germany. Herr Ribben
trop's aggressive Foreign Office
charged that it had possession of lfl
crucial documents, found in the
Polish government archives at cap
ture^ Warsaw. These documents
had been turned in by Polish diplo
mats. so the accusation went, and
concerned the activities of the
American ambassadors to London
and Paris. It seems that these am
bassadors, Kennedy and Bullitt, had
egged on England and France
against Hitler, with the teeming
promise that the United States
would eventually come to the allies'
help. It also was alleged that Bul
litt held out false inspiration to the
bellicose Poles. Unquestionably,
these sensational charges were the
news of the week.
President Roosevelt, Secretary
Hull, and Bill Bullitt hastened to
deny the accusations, as storm
clouds gathered over America.
Roosevelt talked about taking it all
with "three” grains of salt. Hull
made a flat denial. Bullitt and
Potocki, Polish ambassador to the
United States, both said no-no in
COUNT JERZY POTOCKI
—Poland’s ambassador to the
U. S., whose alleged reports
to Warsaw on conversations
with William Bullitt, U. S.
ambassador to France, were
published in Berlin. Said
Potocki: "/ deny the allega
tions ... I never had any
(such) conversations .. "
unison. But Congressman Hamilton
Fish and the hardshell isolationists
were infuriated, asserting that
where there Is smoke, there is a
lire or two. Fish demanded a thor
ough Investigation, and others de- ,
tied the President to laugh It oft,
salt or no salt. It was a bad thing
to have happen in a presidential,
maybe a third-term, year.
ANGLO-FRANCE:
' The allied war council met, some
what bewildered by it all, in Lon- '
don. The French and English re
affirmed their unity, barred any
separate peace by either, and an
nounced that their financial, econo
mic and imperialistic co-operation
would continue after the present
war was over. They Intended, they
NAMES
in the newt
C Congressman Hamilton Fish, who
wanted Roosevelt’s foreign activi
ties investigated, himself led colored
N. Y. troops in the last war. He
fought with the French army, in
the only American unit officially at
tached to the Gallic high command.
Fish also was Harvard football cap
tain, and a member of the Harvard
crew. He is Roosevelt'g unwilling
fellow-townsman in Hyde Park.
N. Y.
C Dr. Thomas Parraa, surgeon
general of the U. S. public health
service, declared that cancer, which
caused more than 140.000 deaths
last year, is on the increase and
ranks as second leading cause of
death.
fl. The Irish Republican army of
wild men demonstrated against
tall, calm Eamon De Valera, pre
mier of Eire. "Val" was born in
New York, with a Spanish father,
and an Irish mother and sympa
thies. His American origin saved
him from an English firing squad in
1916
ft William Horllclc Jr., 6.V whose
father started the multi-million dol
lar Horlick malted milk fortune,
died at Racine. Wis.
ft William P. Buckner, who began
serving a two-year term for mail
fraud in the Philippine railway
bonds scandal, was revealed to be
the husband of Adelaid MolTet, night
club singer and heiress to Standard
Oil millions.
C.Henry Ford II, grandson of the
great Henry, is preparing to become
a Roman Catholic. His grandfather
comes of Irish Protestant stock. The
boy's father is Edsel Ford,
ft Harry Hopkins, secretary of
commerce, sent his 120.000 census
takers out to work with the admoni
tion that their task is not an "in
r.uiriticn" and that they should han
< e the people politely. Said he:
' •'i w i! mrct people who have
been misinformed, who are con
i ei.ve them the true facts.
Ea polite and patient. Show your
CT-rf’entials willingly.”
ft Warren K. Billinas, famous as
Tom Mooney's pol tical jail-mate in
C»l:*wr'a. got mn-ried in Nevada
to M:ss Jusephine R-tdolph, who met
him in c urt.
let It be known, to take a more
active part In pushing the war, and
there was a lot of gossip about
Chamberlain going the way of Dala
dier—into the prime-ministerial dis
card. Due to British naval losses,
there was also talk of the axe for
Winston Churchill, first lord of the
admiralty.
It appeared that the neutrals
would suffer, as the result of an in
creased war endeavor by the allies.
Germany must be shut off from oil
and iron, and if Norwegian, or Ru
manian, or Russian neutrality suf
fered in consequence, that could not
be helped. The special threat was
aimed at iron-carrying ships, from
Narvik, Norway, to Stettin, Ger
many, which have the habit of plod
ding safely along in Norwegian ter
ritorial waters, free from the frus
trated allied blockade. The allied
reasoning ran something like this:
No Swedish iron; no German steel;
no Nazi mailed fist; no Hitler.
But the neutrals were not too
afraid of the allies. The Dutch shot
down a British bomber that had vio
lated their neutrality, and Rumania
appeared to be turning more and
more to the German camp. The
Russian ambassador to France ex
pressed rude opinions in a telegram
iu inuatuvr, auu vise * »vm.n mvnuu
him out on a variety of charges.
France appeared to want war with
the Soviets; England, most emphat
ically, did not, as a number of sig
nificant organizational elections
across the channel showed.
Meanwhile, the Germans and Nor
wegians scored off one another, 1 to
1. A German U-boat wormed its
sinister way into Kirkwall, British
base in the faraway Orkney islands
north of Scotland, and "singed
Churchill's whiskers, if any" by
sinking a Norwegian freighter,
which was "safely” held there by
the British navy. This was consid
ered another maritime coup; but the
Norwegians countered by interning
a stranded U-boat in Norwegian wa
ters, which aroused the customary
amount of furor Teptonicus. There
was sensational talk of a U-boat
base on the Pacific, at Whale bay,
southwest of Vladivostok, in the Si
berian maritime province.
FORODDS & FORENDS:
C Tokyo, capital of the Japanese
empire of Nippon, claimed a popu
lation of 7,000,000. This is said to
make the Jap-cap the world’s second
city, with New York first, and Lon
don third. London, formerly first
in population, has been reduced by
wholesale evacuations, blackouts,
and utter boredom, so the story
goes. Berlin Is still fourth, and ver
minous Warsaw has doubled Its
population since the war began.
« With the Spanish civil war a year
over, the grandees (noble families of J
rank No. 1> took stock. Pictator
rranco recently restored them their
states, confiscated by the late la
nented republic, but sttU they had
>atd • heavy toll. Records of the
DICTATOR FRANCISCO
FRANCO—A year after the
Spanish war ended his peo
ple took stock.
Council of Grandees indicated that
40 ermine-clad ducal ones had been
killed in the civil war, and that no
less than 118 more of them had been
"assassinated." It was further re
ported that Spain was slowly gath
ering momentum in reconstruction;
that her people and her leaders
were pro-German; but that her eco
nomic life now was closely integrat
ed with the fortunes,of the allies.
It is typically Spanish, that the His
panic heart does NOT follow the
dollar.
C. Pop* Pius XII called for more
Christianity in all nations, and for
a rebirth of human decency in the
face of hell on earth, ill will to
men. He deplored the bombing of
civilians, the violations of treaties,
and the whole conception of power
politics and super-tough Realpolitik.
The Mohammedans, in India, usu
ally the fast friends of John Cull as
against Gandhi and his predomi
nantly Hindu Congress party, de
nounced British treatment of the
Mehammcdan Arabs in Palestine,
thus complicating both the Indian
and Minor Asian toothaches.
Q. Canada rallied enthusiastically to
the war. by a landslide Liberal elec
tion which sustained Premier Mac
kenzie King. It meant another five
year term for the Libs, all things
being equal and reasonably success
ful. The King cabinet had pledged
itself most emphatically against
conscription for Canadians, which
satisfied the pacific French of Que
bec and the polyglots of the western
provinces. Social credit, a radical
experiment, retained control of Al
berta, but the Tories lost catas
trophically, all along the line.
Woman-of-the-Week
MRS. HJALMAR PROCOPE
Uncertain of his nation’s
fate. Finnish Minister to the
U. S. Hjalmar J. Procope kept
mum about his marriage, plans
until Finland came, to terms
with Russia. After that he lost
no time. Bundled aboard a
U. S.-bound steamer was Miss
Margaret Shaw of Yorkshire,
England. Minister Procope
met hgr at the dock in New
York. Next day they were
married at the Fairfax, l'a.,
home of R. Walton Moore,
counselor of the U. S. stale
department, by the Rev. F. Y.
Joki of the Brooklyn Finnish
Lutheran church. Ahead, be
fore the Procopes settled down
in Washington, ivas a south
ern honeymoon.
MON-MON-MONEY:
The house slapped through a mere
billion dollar Labor-Security appro
priation, voted down about a quar
ter of a million for the ailing Na
tional Labor Relations board, which
has been getting a panning on many
fronts, and approved $17,450,000 for
the National Youth administration.
The Civilian Conservation corps,
one New Deal institution generally
approved by Tories and pinks alike,
stood in for $50,000,000 worth of gov
ernment gold.
The President got back to his of
fice desk after a lengthy and fevered
cold. He talked to Sumner Welles,
fresh in from Europe, and gave out
indications of pessimism as to any
early peace abroad. Opponents of
the President hinted that he did not
want peace abroad, until the allies
won by a knockout. Senator Van
denberg got off an epic: ‘‘Let's swap
horses, and stay on this side of the
stream.” Senator Taft hinted that
the New Deal was heading toward
a totalitarian state; a statement
with which many calm political sci
entists, who neither like nor dislike
fascism, tend to agree.
But, despite Vandenberg and Taft
and others, Secretary Hull succeed
ed Jn beating the Pittman amend
ment to the Trade Agreements res
olution, which would restore to the
senate the power to ratify all future
reciprocal trade pacts. Vanden
berg, at this point, declared that the
Roosevelt-Hull trading system would
cost Uncle Sam his shirt. It was
a close senatorial vote: 44 to 41.
The New Deal tide was piomoted by
three anti-Roosevelt Democratic
senators, who evidently preferred
Hull, whom they consider One of
the Boys. It was a lucky thing for
the White House, that it had not
succeeded In purging these three,
way back In pre-war 1938.
SUPREME THE COURT:
Our top tribunal found guilty the
Ethyl Gasoline corporation. In an
anti-trust case. Ethyl, despite her
attractive name, was accused of li
censing Jobbers in a way contrary
to the public weal. At the bottom
of the case was an anti-khock com
pound . . . Also, according to the
court, the Federal Communications
commission may license new radio
stations freely, without bothering
about the weal of other radio sta
tions . . . Also, Judge Gordon, of
the Washington federal district
court, declared that trade unions
were Just as liable as anybody or
anything else, under the Sherman
anti-trust law, including the serious
charge of criminal conspiracy. This
decision was good news to capital
ists the country over.
MURDER DE LUXE:
It is hoped that the English and
Nazi newspapers do not go to town
on tidings from Brooklyn, N. Y.
There the mass-murder racket in
vestigation continued under Dis
trict Attorney O'Dwyer. It turned
out that the mass-murdering outfit
maintained branch offices in various
cities, on a truly national scale. Kid
Twist Abe Reles told astonishing
details; one poor music publisher
had been shot down on the errone
ous suspicion that he was a Dewey
witness. Three important Brooklyn
witnesses were held at $100,000 bail
apiece, "for their own safety." One
gangster was arrested; he had given
Scarface A1 Capone thpt famous
scar. His name was Frank Galluc
cio.
UP ABOVE:
The American airplane transport
system is fast becoming one of the
nation's good boys. We point with
pride: Once we viewed with alarm.
A full year has just passed without
a single death or serious injury to
any passenger, pilot, steward, or
innocent bystander on the U. S. air
ways. This encouraging figure
takes in well over two million trav
elers, and nearly 90 million aerial
miles. The statement came from
the Civil Aeronautics authority,
which has no axe to grind.
NICKEL SUBWAY:
The end of the famous flve-cent
subway fare in New York city was
predicted! The state senate ani
assembly both passed the Moffat
Coudert bill, taking away control of
the City subway-fare system from
the legislature, and turning it over
to the city board of estimate. Spe
cial gloom was registered by the
nickel-minded subway Democrats.
Among city proletarians, the flve
cent fare has been always a fetish.
Many local Republicans have long
Considered it a nonsense.
U. S. Farmer Puts Money in the Bank
While City Folk End Up Behind 8-Ball
By OSCAR REGAN
(Released by Western Newspaper Union.)
WASHINGTON.—Though
his source of income is
constantly threatened by nat
; ural and artificial disasters
and he must support the na
tion’s largest family, Mr. Av
erage American Farmer man
1 ages to save more money
i than any other average man
in the United States. What’s
j more, technological trends will
| probably enable him to better his
record for economy in the next few
years—and get fat doing it.
A house-to-house survey of more
j than 1,000,000 farm, village and city
! families by the department of ag
riculture reveals that 42 per cent of
the nation’s farm families consist of
live or more persons. Only 20 per
cent of the village and city groups
are that large, the average being
slightly under three. Yet where in
come is from $1,000 to $1,250 a year,
a farm family ends the year with
| a saving of $26 up, while city fam
| dies of the same level wind up in
{ a deep financial hole. Let a farm
j er get his hands on as much as
j $4,000 to $5,000 a year and he’ll save
1 almost half of it, the survey dis
closed.
His Diet Is Better.
While watching his pennies, the
farmer manages to eat more good
things than other groups. His brood
of five consumes 60 per cent more
milk, 16 per cent more butter and
25 per cent more fresh vegetables
than city families. Village families,
incidentally, are shown by the sur
vey to be the poorest fed In the
land, some almost to the point of
malnutrition, though an abundance
of fresh and nourishing food is usu
ally available nearby.
In fairness, however, the survey
discloses that farmers do not have
as many incidental expenses as their
urban brethren. Less than half those
questioned had electricity, while 98
per cent of city and village dwell
ers get monthly power bills. Only
52 per cent of the rural families
had installed telephones as com
pared with 60 per cent for village
and urban families.
More than 94 per cent of city
homes were billed for running wa
ter, while in the north-central re
gion of the United States ony 24
per cent of the farms paid for that
convenience. Furthermore though
94 per cent of the farmers own au
tomobiles as compared with only
70 per cent of the others, the agrari
ans buy three-fourths of their cars
from the used-car market while
more than half the city families buy
new cars.
However, from one point of view,
farm savings are menaced by the
rapid spread of rural electrification.
Within the past decade the benefits
of electricity, according to the Rur
al Electrification administration,
have been extended to 700,000 farms.
In addition, the hard-surfacing of
approximately 85 per cent of the
nation's primary and secondary
highways has brought the costly at
tractions of the city—beauty par
LORDING IT OVER CITY—Agriculture department survey
shows farmer making $1,000 to $1,250 a year will save a little of it;
city families with the same income wind up in a deep financial hole.
lors, theaters, shops and department
stores—closer than ever to the farm.
However, it is pointed out, such
threats to farm bank balances are
more than offset by technological
advances which have cut farm pro
duction costs. Chief among these
are small low-cost, all-purpose trac
tors which owe much of their time
and fuel savings ability to the pneu
matic rubber farm tires on which
they have attained speeds compara
ble to those of the automobile. De
signed specifically for work on the
typical American farm of 100 acres
or less, these rubber-shod machines
have been found to cost a maxi
mum of 34 cents an hour to operate
on regular farm work, including de
preciation, upkeep, interest, taxes
and all other charges.
Replaces the Horse.
With government figures placing
the cost of working one horse or
mule at 15.4 cents an hour, the
■mall rubber-equipped machines re
place four draft animals which would
cost a total of 61.6 an hour to work.
Each hour, then, the tractor is sav
ing at least 27.6 cents or $2.76 ev
ery 10-hour day, a sizeable addition
to farm savings. Furthermore, P.
W. Stansfield, farm service manag
er of the B. F. Goodrich company
which pioneered the development of
Canada Fights ‘Strangest War’
With Industry Instead of Guns
OTTAWA. — When Cana
dian Prime Minister W.
L. Mackenzie King won a vote
of confidence in his special
“war mandate” election in
late March, it unleashed
forces which permit continu
ance of the
strangest war
any nation
haseverseen.
Having
straight - for
wardly de
clared war
against Nasi
Germany.Ca
nadians find
themselves
forced to fight
n o t o n t h e
western front philip STEGERER
but at home. u g yolunUer_
Their weap
ons are industry and agriculture,
not guns.
To be sure, one division of troops
has already been sent abroad but
this was more to pacify the Cana
; dians than because Great Britain
j wanted them. There are already
too many men on the western front
and the allies are In greater need
I of economic resources.
To make it even more unusual,
a large number of the Canadian
I
Ohioan Makes Cimbalons
For U. S. Music World
MIDDLETOWN, OHIO. — John
Farkas. robust cabinet maker, has
dedicated his spare hours and wood
working talents to the mission of
supplying cimbalons to the Ameri
can musical world.
When Farkas arrived in Middle
town in 1922 from Hungary he
missed the harp-like lyrical music
of the native Hungarian instrument,
and thus began his hobby.
His knowledge of fine carpentry
and music enabled him to revive
the music for himself and to intro
duce the new musical strain to his
adopted land.
Farkas’ daytime job is to recon
dition furniture in a Middletown
store. But after hours at home he
designs and builds cimbalons as
well as violins. He has made five
cimbalons and introduced them to
, musical groups.
A cimbalon looks like a rectangu
I lar box on wheels. It is strung with
124 wires, zigzagged across three
bridges.
troops sent abroad or held for train
ing are American volunteers, of
whom between 10,000 and 15,000 are
said to have crossed the border
since war began.
Unlike 1914, when hostilities
brought feverish recruiting of men
for cannon fodder and women for
nursing and bandage-making, the
war of 1940 finds Canada going along
much as usual. Only a few select
troops are accepted and they must
pass rigid examinations. Women,
no longer needed for bandage-wrap
ping and sock-knitting, are concen
trating instead on saving food and
working in offices and factories.
Nor is Great Britain demanding
huge quantities of foodstuffs as in
1914. Canadian farmers, who ex
pected such a rush, are left with
bulging granaries.
As a source of war supplies and
a training ground for allied aviation
Canada is rapidly becoming so im
portant that many believe it may
be the British empire's most impor
tant industrial center when the war
is over. Some 15,000 pilots from
England, Australia, New Zealand
and other parts of the empire are
being given their final training in
Canada.
The dominion is also manufactur
ing planes, shells and automobiles.
Battleships may also be built there
eventually, for Canada is now mak
ing smaller naval vessels.
As never before, Canada at war
is emphasizing her financial inde
pendence from England, acting al
most as a separate notion. Cana
dian securities held in England are
being repatriated and $1,500,000,000
worth of Canadian-held American
securities are being sold back to the
United States.
The dominion is financing all
munitions manufacturing herself,
granting credits to Britain and ear
marking her gold for Britain. When
peace finally comes she will not only
be independent of London but may
actually be a creditor nation.
But Canada’s nonparticipation in
hostilities does not mean that life
goes on minus wartime restrictions.
Exports of war materials-to neutral
nations are prohibited. Newspapers
and the radio are subject to severe
censorship.
Industry has been placed largely
under government control, yet
Prime Minister Mackenzie King has
pointedly assured the people that he
does not intend to keep it there.
As a reassurance on this point
the government has enlisted the aid
of experts from finance, industry
and commerce.
pneumatic farm tires, points out
that the saving of approximately 24
working days on a 150-acre farm
by the faster machines enables
farmers to cultivate approximately
33 additional acres with resultant
increases in income up to $600 an
nually. Thus, it is presumed that
farm thriftiness, despite rising
prices, will increase during the next
few years.
Statistics on the cash income of
farm families are peculiarly rele
vant to modern American problems.
In New England, average net cash
income for the group of farm op
erators’ families studied was $789.
In the central region, the average
net cash income for the families
studied extended from a low of $518
in Iowa to $1,202 in Illinois. Dust
and drouth disasters are reflected
still in figures for the mountain and
plains regions where the lowest net
cash income was $207 for families
studied in North Dakota. The high
was $874 in Colorado, Montana, and
South Dakota. *
New Englanders Need More.
In the Southeast, white farm fami
lies in Georgia fared worst with an
average net cash income of $449 for
the year. Mississippi white farm
operators fared best with an av
erage net cash income of $1,566.
Many oddities were brought out
in the survey. Despite their tradi
tional thrift. New England villagers
required an income of from $1,750
to $2,000 before substantial savings
were made. The expenditures of
low-income Southern farm wives
and daughters for cosmetics and
beauty parlors almost equalled those
of the Pacific coast group where
net cash incomes were highest. In
Ohio and Pennsylvania, the farmer
spent more on clothing per year
than his wife, while in the Midwest
men spent more in barber shops
than their wives did in beauty par
lors.
U. S. Watches Azores
As Possible Threat
To Atlantic Security
NEW YORK.—Direct flight of
commercial airplanes between New
.York and the Azores islands, a dis
tance of 2,000 miles, has again fo
cused attention on the Azores as a
potential aerial threat to American
security.
Beginning this spring, two Ameri
can transatlantic air services are
making the 2.000-mile trip in a sin
gle hop, carrying mail and passen
gers. Military men see no reason
why invading bombers could not
make the same trip.
Thus the dreamy Portuguese is
lands in mid-Atlantic have assumed i
tremendous significance within a few ,
short months, after 500 years of iso- j
lation and loneliness. They have
moved within 15 hours of the Atlan- I
tic seaboard.
The islands have belonged to the
Portuguese since their discovery
in 1444. The United States holds
no fear of invasion from the Azores
so long as Portugal owns them,
for the friendly relation of these two
nations has continued unbroken
since Colonial times. But it is
not implausible to assume that an
aggressor power may some day
seize them.
Several military men have ex
pressed this fear openly. In 1938, j
Rear Adm. Yates Stirling, former
navy chief of staff, expected Franco
Spain to capture Portugal.
Maj. George Fielding Eliot treats 1
the same subject in his book, “The !
Ramparts to Watch." He says: “For !
these islands to pass into German I
control, either directly or by means
of a Portuguese puppet government |
dominated by Nazis and Fascist i
influence would be a matter of such
grave concern that it’s a question
whether we ought not to resist.”
Aerial experts point out that ene
my bombers from the Azores would
have to fly only 1,170 miles to reach
Newfoundland. Thus an air base in
the Azores would be considerably
closer to our coast than Hawaii.
WHO’S
NEWS
THIS
WEEK
I-— I
By LEMUEL F. PARTON
(Consolidated Features—WNU Service.!
NTEW YORK. — Paul Reynaud.
• who was asked to form a new
French cabinet, and successor to
Premier Daladier, put through the
„ . • French - Brit
Prenuer Desires ,sh monetary
British-French and economic
Monetary Union accord ,ast
Decern b e r,
and, even before the start of the
war was an advocate of a close
financial union between the two
countries as the first bulwark of
their joint defense. For several
years, he has been studying Eng
lish finance and history, insisting
that both nations must abandon their
old plan of remaining apart in the
matter of monetary and economic
relationships.
He is a lawyer, financier and
economist, minister of finance
since October, 1938. In the
chamber of deputies, he repre
sents a “big business” section
of Paris and has contended vig
orously against “governmental
meddling in business.” In 1935
and 1936 he made a courageous
fight for the devaluation of the
franc, an issue which is always
loaded in France and always
sidestepped by more cautious
politicians. His business sagaci
ty was demonstrated in the sum
mer of 1929, when he warned all
and sundry that a big smash
was coming, and withdrew all
of his securities from the mar
ket.
He is as direct, decisive and fiery
as Daladier is ponderous and medi
tative, and for many years has been
making prophecies more gloomy
than Cassandra's foredoom of Troy,
as he urged France to prepare for
the worst. He parts his hair in ‘,iS
middle, strings with the Alliance
Democratique, a center group, and
has never been classified as either
right or left. He is said to be “too
intelligent to be liked,” and toes
not seem to mind. He is small and
alert, only slightly gray at 60, care
fully groomed and the master >f a
verbal short jab which seldom in
vites a return engagement for any
one inclined to mix with him.
He was a holdOtit on Laval's deal *
to give Museolini a green light in *
Ethiopia and in this connection <
warned France that it had fetter
be looking to its empire. Ir jwli*
tics since 1919, in the chamber since
1928, he was previously miftis:;er of
finance in Tardieu’s cabinet. He
comes of a family high in the moun
tains of Barcelonnette^ of a clan
which has extensive holdings in sev
eral foreign countries, including:
Mexico.
BUILDING more stately mansions
(or his soul, Fritz Mandl, the
Austrian munitioneer, runner up (or
ZaharofT, was interrupted by Adolf
,i jk _ n, . Hitler. In a
New Armt Plante New ?)rk
Are Being Built municipal
By Fritz Mandl court- “ Aus
trian archi
tect sues Mr. Mandl (or payment
(or designs (or a new wing on his
Alpine castle, when he wag married
to Hedy Lamarr, the screen star,
now the wife of Gene Marker* Holly
wood producer. The castle and the
plans were a war casualty, but Mr.
Mandl is sitting pretty in Argentina,
the hidalgo of a great estate, and
getting a fast running start with
new steel and munitions plants in
the land of the pampas.
He rooled Hitler. His. great
arms plants. Including tie iiirt
enbcrg plant, were supp-gr«t to
be worth about $60,000,000. That
was a nice, fat grouse for the
Nazi nimrod, but when Der
Fuehrer moved in, he found the
great plants just a hollow shell,
the securities long since liqui
dated and Mr. Mandl at a safe
nose-thumbing distance with his
former fortune remaining more
or less intact.
now so years old, round-faced ancf
merry, he was a playboy in his:
youth, but stayed on the job in his:
later years. The munitions works
were a family holding, founded by
his grandfather, Sigmund, and ex
panded by his father, Alexander. He
was an associate of the fallen
Prince Ernst Ruediger von Star
hemberg in the Vienna putsch of
1934—not at all interested in politi
cal ideologies, and smarter than the
prince in both making a get-away
from Hitler and from Germany as
well as being able to save his for
tune.
NJ3T a refugee fortune, but the
' makings of a new one appears:
in the operations nf Arnold Bern
stein. who also found a hole in the
Nazi line. A freighter of the Ameri
canized Arnold Bernstein shipping
lines burns at Baltimore, but it was
insured and his newly recruited
ships are running cargos to Europe
and his fleet is expanding. He came
here last October, from a Nazi jail,
where a tangle over the mysterious
blocked marks had landed him. At
51, a tall, pale, thoughtful man, he
gets a new start.
WILLIAM L. AUSTIN, director
of the census, was born on
"Hurricane farm” in Mississippi.
He is an easy-going citizen, in the
census bureau 40 years, and hasn't
yet headed for a cyclone cellar as
the extraordinarily prying 1940 cen
sus heads into a low barometer. He
has been extremely tight-lipped
about census data. In 1936, he re
minded some persistent reporters
that the law did not allow the release
of census information, "even to the
justice department.”