Liberty magazine 1942 01JAN 03 January 3 1942
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LINDBERGH AND THE JEWS- By Professor pa E. dace sie of aie ing . ‘THE MOST M'
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You've saved two million lives aaa INCE 1907, when the fight began, Se) the tuberculosis death rate has been reduced 75%!—by people like you buying Christmas Seals. More than two million lives have been saved. But the battle against this scourge must go on. Tuberculosis still kills more people Buy between the ages of 15 and 45 than any other disease. Yet it is possible to eliminate completely this enemy of mankind. Our weapons are Research, Education, Prevention, Control —made possible by your use of Christmas Seals, Get them today, CHRISTMAS The National, State and Local Tuberculosis Associations in the United States = : MERRY CHRISTMAS SEALS tio me
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a 1939 and WAR —- and suddenly everybody looked anxiously to the railroads as the life lines of defense. Could they do their part of the job ahead? They did it in 1939. They did it again in 1940. And now the record for 1941 is in—and the railroads have han- dled the biggest transportation job in history. The railroads handled more traf- fic than in the busiest year of the first World War. —handled more traffic than in JANUARY 3, 1942 “In all the world no job is be- _ ing better done today than by gs the American Railroads” Hon. Clarence F. Lea of Cali- fornia, Chairman, Committee on Interstate and Foreign Com- merce, before the House of Representatives, Sept. 25, 1941 the peak year 1929. —handled two-thirds of all the nation’s traffic — all the freight they were asked to haul. — hauled more tons more miles than any carrier in the world has ever transported in one year before. The railroads did the job without car shortages — without conges- tion—for industry—for agricul- ture — for defense. That record gives its own em- phatic answer to fearful talk of railroad bottlenecks. There weren’t any. And, with the continued cooperation of the government and shippers, there won't be any — provided only that the railroads are permitted to get the materials they must have to keep tracks, locomotives and cars in repair, and to buy new equipment to meet increased de- fense production. ASSOCIATION OF AMERICAN RAILROADS WASHINGTON, D.C.
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y er = . COUPLA CRACKS FROM LIBERTY'S LOYAL OPPOSITION Nort Brappock, Pa.—Your editorial No Apology to Mr. Ickes (December 6 Liberty) is proof beyond a doubt, as you state yourself, that “He [Mr. Ickes] was man enough to apologize for the bogus oil shortage!” You are not that frank, but prefer to worm out of your previous statements about Lindbergh because the farsighted Mr. Ickes was *way ahead of you.—Mrs. Thomas Clay. New York, N. Y.—Both you and Mr. Ickes owe the public an apology—Mr. Ickes for insulting people; you because you express your opinions over an entire page of your magazine, knowing . full well that those who may not agree with you have no way of presenting their views. Don’t you editors realize what unfair advantage you take?— Florence Rutledge Hancock. Vox Pop is a vlace for presenting their views, madam. Here's yours.—Vox Pop Eb. SEEMS SIMPLE Santa Ana, CALir.—Have just read your editorial on national unity. (May She Always Be Right, November 22 Liberty). It is very stirring and well written. But if you will read Mrs. Roosevelt’s recent reply to a question about the President’s “again and again” promise you will perhaps un- derstand why hundreds of Americans are puzzled. If we could once be rid of this “double talk” we would see a united nation that ould surprise the world.—Jacqueline Hyde. MEMO TO HOLLYWOOD CHAMBERSBURG, Pa—Why not make a picture from your recent serial Breath of Life, by Faith Baldwin, cast- ing Claude Rains as Dr. Allen, Robert Taylor as Ron, Bette Davis as Lydia, and Ruth Hussey as Jenny? A four- star picture!—S. F. Barkdoll. Published weekly by Macfadden Publications, Incorpo- rated, 205 East 42d Street, New York, N. Y. Editorial and Advertising Offices, Chanin Building, 122 East 42d Street, New York, N. ¥, O. J. Elder, President; Hay- dock Miller, Secretary; Charles H. Shattuck, Treasurer. Entered as second-class matter June 28, 1927, at the Post Office at New York, N. Y., under the act of March 3, 1879. In the United States and possessions, 5c a copy, $2.00 a year. In Cuba, Mexico, Haiti, Dominican Re- public, Spain and possessions, and Central and South > THANKS, CUSTOMERS! WE LIKED IT TOO Brownsvitte, Tex.—This is just a brief note to tell you how much I en- joyed your condensation of the novel The Sun Is My Undoing, by Marguerite Steen (November 22 Liberty). I en- joyed it so much that I should like to obtain a copy of the book.—Philip Atteberry. Hotiywoop, CAuir.—I hope you will make a regular habit of condensing the latest fiction and non-fiction books. It should add thousands of followers to your banner. We who have so little time can thus keep up with the litera- ture of our day.—David Bader, George Pal Productions, Inc. Monessen, Pa.—Congratulations on your condensation of The Sun Is My Undoing. My thirst is craving for more. —A Liberty Reader. . American countries, excepting British Honduras, British, Dutch. and French Guiana, $2.50 a year. In all other countries, $4.50 a year. In entering a new or renewal subscription for Liberty please allow thirty (30) days from the time you send us subscription and the time when you can expect the first copy. A request for change of address must also reach us at least thirty (30) days before the date of issue with which it is to take effect. Contributors are especially advised to be sure to retain copies of their contributions. otherwise they are taking THE FIRST WORD— FROM OUR READERS | ON THE PROS AND CONS OF READING LIBERTY BACKWARDS Benton Harsor, Micu.—Being one of the best features in Liberty, I look forward to your quiz pages. Personal- ly, I do not believe in having the an- swers in the same issue. The cheater at solitaire sneaks one over on himself in these quizzes also. Mediterranean peoples read books backwards, from right to left—often find myself doing it and getting the answers first—David Goosikov. Des Mores, Ia.—Being left-handed, which I am, has its advantages. For instance, I always read the Last Word first. For some past several weeks that. page has had the laugh on persons left “holding the sack” when sent for left- handed monkey wrenches, etc. Now I'd like to tell one. For the better part of my forty-plus (Continued on page 51) - un unnecessary risk. Every effort will be made to return unavailable mani 5 phs, and drawings (if aceompanied by sufficient first-class postage and explicit name and address), but we will not be responsible for any losses of such matter contributed. Copyright, 1941, by Macfadden Publications, Incorpo- rated, in the United States, Great Britain, and Canada. Registro Nacional de la Propiedad Intelectual. All rights reserved.
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Know your M's 1. This isa M_____ 2. This isa M_____ 3. This is o M___ 4. This is a M___ 5. This is a M______ 6. This is M________ & M____ The whiskey that’s Mild, Mellow, Moderate- priced. ANSWERS: 1, Marlin; 2, Musket; 3, Mink; 4, Mace; 5, Mallard; 6, Mattingly & Moore. If you scored all six right, you’re a genius; five, ter- ribly bright; four, superior; three, good; two, fair; one, not up to snuff. Not up to snuff, that is, unless—due to previous ex- perience—the one you got right was Mattingly & Moore. The Best of "em is This proves, obviously, that you are a man of great discernment and good, sound sense... for M & M is really milder and mellower than many more costly whiskies. It’s probably the outstanding whiskey value in the land. —Know Mattingly: &- sa Blended Whiskey—86 Proof (also 80 Proof )—72%% grain neutral spirits. Frankfort Distilleries, Inc., Louisville &@ Baltimore JANUARY 3, 1942 :
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Priel ~ ne “2 SYSTEMS EXPERTS an SE A 0. Bema IT'S EASY THE — COURTENAY WAY Now an entirely different kind of Bridge Book! Here every type of expert play is dis- cussed and explained, both by illustrative hands and by a unique question-and-answer method. Here's a book that shows you how to play winning bridge. A book that makes Con- tract Bridge a fascinating game for you. Get Dudley Courtenay’s new book Standard- ized Contract Bridge Complete and you'll quickly know all the expert plays. This big. giant size book of 160 pages is only $1 at all booksellers or direct from publisher. Barthol- omew House, Dept. L. 13, 205 E. 42nd Street, New York, N. Y. ONLY $1 AT ALL BOOKSTORES 6 BY GERALD McCANN READING TIME @ 3 MINUTES 15 SECONDS THE best advice I can give to novice skiers is, “Keep off the towropes.” A towrope is usually in- stalled on a slope that is too fast for a beginner’s skill. Up he goes for the ride, only to realize at the top that the hill that looked like a gentle slope from below, turns out to be an alp, and that there is no honorable way down except on skis. Lacking ability to control his speed and balance, he is apt to land on his nose with at least a sprain or two, not to mention the danger to other skiers using the slope. Fatigue is a danger to many skiers who ought to know better. Often they try to get a season’s skiing into a week-end, using muscles that are not tuned up to the effort. You may have noticed that most accidents occur late Sunday afternoon. Since ski equipment is fairly ex- pensive (a reasonably good outfit costs about fifty dollars), a man who isn’t sure he’s going to like the sport had better hire his stuff for the first few times. Many places have skis, boots, and bindings for rent. If you decide you like to ski, buy good skis and boots, figuring that they should last you five years. And buy right now; nobody knows what effect priorities will have by next year— steel edges are already getting scarce. Hickory is the best wood for skis. Prices for good hickory start around ten dollars. Laminated skis are stronger and less likely to split or warp, because of the opposing grains of the several layers. The Flexible Flyer people make some that Alex Taylor sells for about twenty dollars. Some experts recommend steel edges for beginners; some say no. I’d say yes, because the popular slopes in this country are often so hard- packed that you need sharp edges for control. If you decide you want them, don’t wait to have them put on until the edges of your skis are too worn down. The steel edges should extend above the front bend of the ski. The best type—the Lettner, which has in- terlocked sections—costs about five dollars. Your boots and bindings are your steering gear and brakes, so they are at least as important as the skis them- selves. The boots must have rigid soles reinforced by steel shanks. Don’t try to save money on these. If you pay less than ten dollars, the uppers are likely to stretch, so don’t take a pair in which the openings come right together when laced. And don’t make the common mistake of buying too large a size with the idea of “packing” with extra socks. Two pairs of heavy wool are enough if you want to re- tain the feel of the ski; high toe boxes allow for these. “Simple leather toe straps” should be stopped by the police. Safe skiing demands a toe iron into which the boot fits securely. A beginner will probably be best off with a leather- heel assembly which, incidentally, is the least expensive. Many experi- enced skiers prefer the “Kandahar” cable binding which has a strong steel spring that fits in the gouge of the heel; an objection to this type is that your ankle is apt to break before the cable does. To eliminate this, Hjalmar Hvams has invented a toe iron called “Saf-Ski” which has a release that works if you fall. The price is four ninety-five. Tubular steel poles with a screw arrangement for adjusting their length to different requirements are also new. Pay no attention to the attempts to introduce colored pants and make you feel that your last year’s clothes are out of date. Navy blue is still the most popular, although I’ve seen a few pairs of tan trousers in the East and some slate blue at Sun Valley. The instructor type, with tapered legs and straps under the arch, are the best. The picture Sun Valley Serenade has aroused a lot of interest in those sweaters with Norwegian patterns of reindeer and snowflakes. Several companies, like Jantzen, are turning out machine knits that, naturally, are -not nearly as expensive as the hand- made ones used to be. Windproof poplin jackets should have hoods, use they are gen- erally worn in bad weather. Some new Bantamacs come well below the waist and have an arrangement for making them snug around the middle. THE END LIBERTY, a
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Dens. See AG AN American citizen sits down on New Year’s Eve. Before him stretches 1942, the most unpredictable year in history. What will happen in that new year may determine the fate of civilization for another century. So for a little while he forgets his own small individual interests and thinks of himself as one of the people of the United States of America, a nation founded on the freedom of the individual. His resolutions now will not be those familiar ones alone—to work harder, to be kinder to people, to take better care of his health. On the brink of 1942 he writes the resolutions of a free people confronting a world in which despotism is on the march with fire and sword to destroy all freedom every- where. And so with a prayer in his heart he writes a new set of resolutions: RESOLVED: 1. That as we find ourselves in war, we shall prose- cute that war with all our energies and with all our con- secration. But we shall do so for principle only, for the cause in which we believe, and for no conquests, no empire, no selfish gain to ourselves. 2. That we, the free men and women of the United States of America, are a united people and we shall pre- serve that national unity without losing our liberties. 3. That we shall, all of us, dedicate ourselves to the hard task of waging a successful war and of sending our aid to our allies. 4. That democracy shall win and that we shall help bring about that victory without ‘ourselves becoming entangled in the ancient hatreds of Europe and Asia. 5. That we shall, in our shipyards, in our factories, and in-all our occupations, produce the supplies that are needed for ourselves and for our allies with the greatest speed and efficiency—and that we shall achieve that speed and efficiency without being forced to accept totalitarian tyranny over ourselves. 6. That we shall give all possible aid to Soviet Russia in its fight against her enemies without becoming a prey ourselves to Communist propaganda. 7. That we shall everlastingly remember that there can be no liberty for the individual except in a state where private enterprise is the foundation of our economic process. 8. That when we find ourselves finally in the midst of peace negotiations, we shall be governed in all our deci- sions by justice tempered with mercy, by wisdom, by a desire for universal peace, with fairness to all, a peace without greed and without vengeance. 9. That when we are delivered from this conflict, we shall turn to a revival of ‘the American way of life, striving for the improvement of all citizens so that poverty may be abolished, ambition, initiative, and thrift rewarded, and liberty and equality enshrined in our hearts. 10. That we shall remember that this was a nation founded in faith and piety and that we shall pray that the people of the earth may turn their faces again to an eternal God who blesses those that are faithful, and gives comfort to the lowly, and has promised peace for those who seek it. JANUARY 3, 1942--- LIBERTY --- VOLUME 19, NUMBER 1 0.3. ELDER PUBLISHER + FULTON OURSLER EDITOR IN CHIEF + WALTER LLOYD ART EDITOR National Defense, LT. GEN. ROBERT LEE BULLARD @ Politics, WALTER KARIG © Sports, JACK DEMPSEY © Football, EDDIE DOOLEY © Theater, GEORGE JEAN NATHAN Movies, HOWARD BARNES © Europe, ROBERT LOW @ Industry & Finance, GEORGE E. SOKOLSKY © Books, DONALD L. GORDON © General Affairs, FREDERICK L. COLLINS Woman's Interests, PRINCESS ALEXANDRA KROPOTKIN @ Lexicography, DR. CHARLES EARLE FUNK @ Associate Editor, SHEPPARD BUTLER © Article Editor, OLIN H. CLARK Fiction Editor, MABEL SEARCH © Managing Editor, LEE PAQSUIN TABLE OF CONTENTS WILL BE FOUND ON PAGE 54 JANUARY 3, 1942
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The COl—sh-sh-sh! . . . Gestapo or Geopol- itik? Neither! Here's what it's all about BY WALTER KARIG READING TIME ®10 MINUTES 10 SECONDS ONE of the best known, best advertised, least-shy men in of- ficial Washington is also the country’s most mysterious character. He has to be mysterious. But he loves it! He is William Joseph Dono- van, chief of the office of Co- ordination of Information; “Wild Bill” Donovan of the COI for short. He does not like to be called “Wild Bill,” and a person less wild would indeed be hard to find. The only thing in Washington more mysterious than Donovan is the out- fit he heads, the COI. It is the only New Deal agency without a publicity expert. It issues no handouts. Nobody except Donovan himself knows exactly who is working for it, and few but Donovan and President Roosevelt know what it is working at. Gaining admission to any of its offices is vir- tually impossible. That is because COI is the super- spy and counter-espionage agency of the government. On its staff is the greatest aggregation of bulging brains and nimble wits that ever a gov- ernment drafted from its nation’s col- lege faculties, military establishment, diplomatic corps, and newspaper of- fices. This staff has flat orders from Donovan himself not to discuss any part of the job COI is doing. He keeps his own mouth shut. “I don’t kiss and tell,” says he. “We are not trying to keep ourselves secret. We are merely trying to protect the vast volume of confidential information handed us by other departments.” And handed them reluctantly, jeal- ously, but by orders of the President: the confidential data compiled by the FBI; the secrets of Navy Intelligence, Army’s G-2, the State Department’s far-flung observers. But COI also finds out for itself. 8 Colonel William J. Donovan and, on opposite page, the building in Washington that houses the mysterious office of the COl. It has channels of information that run under the Nazis’ noses into Po- “land, Norway, Greece, France, and Germany itself. Information comes out, propaganda goes in. Already Donovan’s outfit is making Hitler’s famous bureau of Geopolitik look like a high-school secret fraternity. It sounds fantastic. It looks danger- ous—to some observers. In jig time COI can assemble a brief on any min- ute corner of the earth, but only one man can command its services— Roosevelt. Is there something stirring in the province of Rien de Tout in oc- cupied France? Donovan’s geogra- phers will produce all the known facts about the area’s physical features. His experts in foreign politics will state how many Socialists, how many Royalists, how many Fascists and Communists voted there in the last election, and why. Other experts will report on conditions since the occupa- tion; on the numbers of Jews, Cath- olics, Protestants, and atheists; on the food situation, civilian morale, and attitudes toward Britain, Germany, Vichy, the United States. Another expert will produce the names of trustworthy persons in this province; others will prepare propa- ganda or counter-propaganda to be siphoned into the area... . COI correlates all the confidential information acquired by all the other federal sleuthing agencies and puts the compilation on the President’s desk. COI prepares propaganda — and counter-propaganda. Heading these activities is Robert Sherwood, the fa- mous playwright. As director of the Foreign News Service Division of COI, Sherwood is responsible for pre- paring material for more than three LIBERTY,
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hundred fifteen-minute programs a week, short-waved twenty hours:a day to Europe and Asia. Latin Amer- ica is virtually exempt from COI’s efforts. Our southern neighbors form Nelson Rockefeller’s field of opera- tions. Sherwood’s headquarters are in New York. The head man in the Washington office of the Foreign In- formation Service is Nelson Poynter, former editor of the St. Petersburg, Florida, Times. Here is how COl’s Foreign Infor- mation Service works. During the re- cent British drive in Libya it was found, to the Army’s delight, that American tanks were holding up well under the adverse conditions of sand and sun. COI has a rule that it doesn’t initiate statements without some one to hang them on. So one of the leading men in COI called up the Army and said something like this; “J understand our American tanks in the Libyan campaign are standing up very, very well. Can’t you over there get General Marshall or one of the armored force officers to make some comment of gratification as to proof of the ability of the American tank to operate under terrific war conditions?” Within a day an official Army state- ment was issued, and this, plus some background information about tank production, airplane production, and other figures which would give an idea of the mass and speed of our de- fense effort, was put in the form of JANUARY 3, 1942 radio news copy. This news was short- waved in one of the propaganda broadcasts. After Nelson Poynter’s men get through writing their broadcast copy, it is sent to Sherwood in New York, then on to Stanley Richardson, a for- mer Associated Press correspondent who works for the radio industry as co-ordinator of international broad- casts. The final say is up to Richard- son. Donovan has learned from Rocke- feller about the large percentage of wasted effort in short-wave radio. There are not enough short-wave sets among the foreign populations most concerned. So now COI is setting up a branch on British soil from which it will direct its refutations of Nazi propaganda to Germany and the oc- cupied countries on regular broadcast * bands. A novel system for checking the results of the counter-propaganda broadcasts has been developed. When people have left or escaped from Nazi-held Europe, they are immedi- ately interviewed by a COI man. Have they listened to American broadcasts? How. many of their friends listened? How much has it spread? What has been the effect? How can the broad- casts be made more effective? COI is even working on a plan to have some of the more intelligent refugees ap- pear on these propaganda broadcasts. One of the biggest things accom- plished by Donovan, Sherwood, and Poynter has been the spiking of DNB (official German news agency). Prior to the creation of COI, actual DNB dispatches were being given on Amer- ican short-wave broadcasts to the European continent. Listeners in for- eign countries believed them: because they were being broadcast from America. This has been stopped. On top of all that, COI is con- stantly scanning the whole world by radio, by press services, and through its own observers. The Federal Com- munications Commission has a team of linguists listening in—“monitoring,” they call it—on every broadcasting station on earth that its highly spe- cialized and secret apparatus can pick up. Reports by COI experts are writ- ten on the reactions as expressed by Axis radio stations. Last October, Breckinridge Long, former American Ambassador to Rome, made a speech which gave the Sherwood and Poynter staffs enough material for a two-hundred-word short-wave broadcast. Two weeks later John Ackelmire, cable editor for COI Foreign Information Service, wrote a memorandum summing up the reaction as follows: “The Long speech hit the jackpot and -produced an uninhibited ha- rangue from Axis and Axis-controlled short-wave stations. . . . Axis news- papers also took it up, advertising to their own people Mr. Long’s charge that Germany was asking a million more troops from Italy and intention- ally weakening her ally in order to betray her.” Ackelmire continued. by quoting from the Rome and Berlin radio sta- tions such reactions as: “An infamous and unprecedented maneuver to pro- mote the awful suspicion that the Reich would betray its ally. . . .” COI officials feel that enough protests of innocence like this will instill suspi- cion of the German government’s motives into the German people. FCC Chairman James Lawrence Fly, who is also communications boss in the National Defense Organization, sees that translations of broadcasts get into COI’s possession as fast as they can be transcribed. Where pro- Axis or anti-American propaganda is detected, COI rushes out its counter- propaganda. Of course it is only the other fellow who employs propaganda; we supply information. But, irony aside, COI operates on the theory that hard facts form the best propaganda. Does a° Nazi station jeer at American defense efforts, ridicule deliveries to Britain? Straightway comes COI’s answer— sixty airplanes a day, fifty tanks a day, sixty ships arriving in British ports loaded with lease-lend material. There are two conflicting theories in Donovan’s group on the most effec- tive method of propagandizing to for- eign countries. One theory is that the American radio is now the only one that has a reputation for truth. Back- ers of this theory favor continuing the present system of furnishing in- formation to short-wave stations for those stations to treat as they see fit. (Continued on page 45) 9
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Cherry wanted a cure for love and found something else BY CLARA WALLACE OVERTON READING TIME @ 20 MINUTES 20 SECONDS AS the day went along Cherry saw that it was being crowded with reasonable and unreasonable re- minder of Alan Chalmers. It began at breakfast in the very pleasant dining room where Cherry and her father were absorbed in separate sections of the local paper. Mrs. Brooks sat opposite Mr. Brooks, but she could not see him, for his paper was flung wide. He liked space. He demanded all possible comfort for himself and his family. Almost pas- sionately he desired to protect his wife and daughter from inconvenience. He spent thousands of dollars a year to make them happy, and then threaten- ed all that with a tactlessness that often resembled a large firecracker loosed in a peaceful scene. Still, Cherry wouldn’t have traded him in for ten selected and diplomatic fathers, not even when his large face jumped out from the side of his paper to make a blunt suggestion to her: “Why don’t you ask Alan to come over for dinner tonight so we can have a good game of bridge for a change?” Before Cherry could gather herself for the just properly casual answer, she saw that her mother was handling this with a look. This was a familiar household look, easily recognized by both father and daughter. It said plainly as words that a blunder had been made, a blunder that he had been warned not to make. Mr. Brooks got the message. “Tm only making a suggestion,” he said in a slightly louder voice than usual. “I understood that Alan called up the other evening, and if he calls 10 up I should think he might be asked to sit in on a bridge game.” Cherry even felt a little sorry for her father, but she did not intend to be led into any discussion about Alan. She kept her head bent over the sec- ond section of the morning paper. Mrs. Brooks asked her husband if he would have more coffee. The moment of irritation was smoothed over ex- pertly. Cherry read on in a society column that was patterned like those in the newspapers of larger cities. There was an intimate chat about a possible coming divorce. Then the girl reporter went on to a happier item which she built up lushly: Lovely Dina Harrington gave a dinner for a small group of friends last evening at the Green Hills Country Club. Dina, who is often called upon to play the part of dignified hostess to her father’s guests, enjoys these smaller bright parties made up of people who are her favorites. Since she has spent much of her life in travel and at fashionable re- sorts, Dina’s parties always include ‘a number of out-of-town friends. How- ever, Dina seemed to dance most often with Alan Chalmers, and it is not hard to believe that she finds at least one of our citizens good company. As usual, she had chosen white for the evening. It’s perfect for her dark beauty ... Mr. Brooks had now finished his breakfast and was leaving the room. But at the doorway he swung about, a concerned scowl between his eyes. “Cherry, is this the day you go down to that clinic to help?” “No. It’s tomorrow,” she told him. “Well, now, look here, Cherry—you know that Dr. Lowry is a married man, don’t you?” She raised sudden blue eyes to meet his frankly. “Of course I know. He has a little girl five years old. He adores her.” “All right—all right,” said Mr. Brooks. He looked as if he ought to say something more on this, but he didn’t. He had protected his daughter from every material danger, but he was inarticulate before this kind of possible folly. Besides, his wife had told him that it would be foolish to treat this Lowry matter as a great issue. “All right, then,” he said again and left with obvious relief. “Your father means that he doesn’t think it is wise for you to have dinner with Dr. Lowry every week on clinic days,” said Mrs. Brooks. “I work for nothing. I ought to get a few radishes out of it,” said Cherry. She was a little annoyed, not so much with her mother as with a renewed resentment toward Alan, who had gone out of his way to disapprove of this perfectly harmless custom. He disliked seeing a nice girl he knew start something silly. Those were his words and she had only to recall them briefly to wilt. “A nice girl I know.” With that he had summed up the spring and summer, brought them up to date as of the middle of September in their last telephone conversation. She was glad she had not been home the other evening when he called. Gradually her mind floated back on the stream of her mother’s quiet logic. LIBERTY,
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“T know this is all very innocent, dear, but many people are likely to be critical of what they see. If you had gone to dinner just once with Dr. Lowry—but to go every week really is not wise.” “But we get through so late. Dinner is over, here. And of course Dr. Lowry never goes home for dinnner— and it’s just this place around the corner from the clinic. Just a dump with red tablecloths and steaks broil- ing at one end.” “Well, that doesn’t seem to me to change the basic idea, Cherry. And it’s a rather expensive dump, isn’t it? Steaks are two dollars and a quarter, I believe.” “Oh, have you been there?” “No. But your father went, just to look the place over. And no matter what time you finish at the clinic, dear, you will find a hot dinner waiting at home. I will see that it is arranged.” “Mother, please don’t get into a state of mind about Dr. Lowry. He’s terribly nice, safe as Grandfather Brooks. But a lot more interesting. He understands people. Women. Me. JANUARY 3, 1942 He likes to talk. He knows why some women collect possessions so furious- ly. He knows why they love men that men don’t even like. He knows that most women love one man _ they wouldn’t admit loving even to them- selves.” ‘Tm sure I don’t think it is neces- sary for a doctor to know any of those things. A man like that makes every sore throat a mental case when a simple gargle would probably cure it.” “Mother darling, please say that again. I want to remember it just as it is. Dr. Lowry will love it.” “Tm not a parrot,” said Mrs. Brooks. But she thought it was very nice to hear Cherry laughing. She hadn’t laughed this way in weeks. She had worn a pretty good ready-made smile right along in public, but to come upon her alone was to see that she was suffering. But she had offered no confidences about Alan, and had left it to her parents to guess why he had dropped from sight so suddenly. It had the appearance of a quarrel; but it was not like Cherry to stay angry. Sometimes during the spring and early The Chalmers dining room had been lovely that eve- ning—out of an old print. summer she had been impatient be- cause Alan was working at the labora- tory for the evening, but her impa- tience would melt away into a little pool of pride about Alan. He was doing something really important. But a young physicist didn’t have much of a salary. And Cherry, who was not quite twenty, was bound to get over whatever little hurt there was here. Men liked her. Bud Steele, who was away at an army training camp, was still Cherry’s if she wanted him. I wouldn’t urge her to marry money, but if she should swing back to Bud, that might be better all around. And of course, while this Lowry matter wasn’t as yet more than Cherry thought, it might be just as well to get on to Florida early this year, with a few days’ stopover in Georgia, where Bud Steele was in camp. If we order her to give up the clinic it will look too important. “Are you busy this morning, Cherry?” “Playing golf with Dot Mead,” said the girl. She had left the table and was standing by the window. She looked young but seemed sure about what to do and how to do it. She knew how to dréss well, how to ar- rive at a house and be an agreeable guest. She knew how to behave in a bar or on a camping trip in the West. She could sail a boat, make excellent ll
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coffee, run up a bright sweater, talk to her father about economics. She could make friends and keep them, and laugh at herself. And none of these things had helped her under- stand her conflict with Alan Chalmers, although now she could see that it had been there from early spring. Cherry had come home from Cali- fornia for Dot Mead’s wedding and that was the first time she had ever talked to Alan Chalmers. There was a Chalmers Street in the city over in the old section, but the name’ had dropped out of the new social life of the city. It was true that Alan and his father played golf at the Green Hills Club instead of at the public course, but Cherry cid not recall hav- ing seen Alan at dances out there. Still, he had a slightly familiar look when she found him beside her at the wedding. “Hello,’ she had said. “Hello,” said Alan. “And I know where you have been all my life. You’ve been growing up a couple of miles away. Shall we dance?” Sometime that hour he had told her she was the most beautiful girl he had ever seen. And Cherry had had no vanity about that, for she had known even then that beauty is bestowed on women by men, and that if the man she loved failed to find her beautiful, a woman would not believe it of her- self. But the conflict was there, too, all through those wondrously pale green spring days. They saw much of each other. They went about now with Cherry’s friends, talking, danc- ing, playing golf, disagreeing vividly, and then finding some quick ardent belief or liking that belonged to both of them. Looking back, Cherry could see there had been strain, too. And caution. Then Alan would be caught up in work for a few days. But when he came from that, it was always the same kind of eager companionship. Cherry had left it like that when she went away for a visit in August. But ‘she knew something was changed on the first evening she returned. Alan had taken her to the newly decorated supper room at the Carleton to celebrate her homecoming. They had danced and touched on their old jokes lightly. But there was no kin- dling anew. No wonderful feeling of return, though Alan told her he had forgotten how beautiful she was. “You look pretty solid yourself,’ she had said. “Must be good exercise smashing atoms.” But even if it was a little flat in spite of their proper cuetaking, she had been utterly unprepared for the incredible thing Alan had said that night when leaving: “Well, see you sometime, Cherry.” And he had evidently meant just that. A week went by. She knew she would never live long enough to for- get how that had been. Waiting. Waiting for what? For Alan to see her sometime. In the wakeful night un- happiness tramped up and down with- in her until she was a bruised person. Why—? What now? One day she had gone and volunteered to work at the ‘clinic for an afternoon a week. She 12 had been assigned to Dr. Lowry. She could hardly explain to her mother that Dr. Lowry had been a help about Alan. She had never confided in him about that, but a lot of his knowing words seemed to fit. If you had a watch that didn’t keep the time you wouldn’t take it out to look at it.... Perhaps Alan had wanted Dina Har- rington all the time, Cherry thought as she stood in the sunny window. There had been a couple of items lately in the paper on the order of the one this morning. Her mother said, “The reason I _asked if you were busy this morning is that Jane Covington wants some yarn from the workroom to finish up a sweater. She telephoned that she hasn’t any car to use in the daytime now, and she wondered if you would bring her the yarn.” ‘Tll take it over this afternoon,” said Cherry. Till never call Alan, she thought. I’ve gotten over this by decimals. I’m perfectly all right about it most of the time. I hope he will never telephone again. He’s one of these men who wants to appear friendly after he’s walked out. But I’m hardly the girl to keep a light in the window. He ended it and it can stay ended: THE trouble was that in a town of this size you were bound to run into reminders. Cherry got to the Green Hills golf house before Dottie, and while she was waiting on a bench outside, Alan’s father came along. He stopped to speak to her. : “Nice to see you, Cherry. Just back from the trip?” Cherry liked Alan’s father enor- mously. He was white-haired, a little heavy, but straight, and still rather handsome. He had evidently lived well, and to Cherry he seemed to have been left over from some happier, She dropped in a nickel and dialed. easier world where men had not hesitated to talk unworriedly. Mr. Chalmers had not been in business for a number of years now, so he hadn’t that kind of annoyance, and probably he had his money invested wisely. They still lived in that old house, but Cherry had found it pleasant enough. Cherry had gone there for dinner with Alan. She had found Mr. Chal- mers and his elderly sister, who kept house for him and Alan, a delightful pair. They had been brought up by rules long since discarded. Every little incident was met unhurriedly. And, unlike home, there was no fevered discussion of taxes during dinner. That might be a good rule to put back into circulation, she thought. One of the kind things she was glad to remember about Alan was that he seemed to ap- preciate his father. “T’ve been home a while,” she said in answer to his question. Then they spoke of .the beautiful weather and Cherry asked Mr. Chalmers about his golf game, which was good enough so that it ‘made pleasant conversation. And quite a little of it, because. Mr. Chalmers spoke more slowly than she had remembered. “Well, now that you are home you must come for dinner with us soon,” he said as he joined his foursome. “Thank you,” said Cherry with a smile. It wasn’t likely that she would ever have dinner at the Chalmers house again, but Alan’s father was quite a darling. An active man for his age, too. He had a game lined up for the afternoon, he had told her. Her own game left much to be desired that morning. Dot Mead tried to console her as they came in. “You haven’t played enough lately. Want to come out to- morrow afternoon?” “It’s clinic day.” “T forgot about that,” said Dot. “Is 2° a a.
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Dr. Lowry still solving everything with epigrams? I suppose he hands a neat one to his wife when she asks why he didn’t. get home for dinner.” “Oh, I don’t believe she ever asks him anything like that,” said Cherry. “He seems ‘to have very amiable do- mestic arrangements.” “I've heard of those amiable ar- rangements,” said Dot. “They’re usual- ly amiable on one side. I wouldn't want to be married to a doctor. Pa- tients and nurses and you young things taking over the clinic. I suppose every time you hand him a square of gauze he says something memorable.” Cherry said, “It isn’t at all like that. People have much too romantic ideas about doctors at work. As a matter of fact we’re usually so busy at the clinic that we seldom exchange a word other than some question or direction. When he works he thinks, and when he’s through working he likes to talk. It’s a relaxation.” “What does he talk about?” “Oh, everything. He covers ground.” “Don’t you think you’re wasting time, Cherry? Dick Perry says Lowry is conceited. He likes an audience.” “That,” said Cherry, “is just what I’ve been saying all along.” But her mind had made a connection now. Dick Perry had come into the restau- rant one evening when she had been there with Lowry. He worked in the laboratory where Alan worked. It had been Dick who had told Alan of seeing her with Dr. Lowry. But by what imagined right had Alan brought it up over the telephone? “By the way, how’s Alan these days?” asked Dot. “Couldn’t give you a firsthand re- port. But he’s doing nicely in the morning paper.” “TI THOUGHT you two were in love. It looked that way, even at my wedding.” — “That was just the early returns,” said Cherry. “Tt still doesn’t make sense. Alan going social and you going social worker. That’s going around too fast.” “This is an unsteady age. Anybody can turn out to be anybody else on practically a moment’s notice.” “Come home with me for luncheon,” Dot invited. But Cherry declined the invitation. She felt sure there would be more questions about Alan, more sympa- thetic bids for Cherry’s own story and in the end Dot would say that no one liked Dina Harrington anyway. Which wasn’t true. Most people seemed to like her as soon as she gave them an ‘ opportunity to know her. In the few years that the Harringtons had lived here, Dina had been criticized for overlooking the local social scene in favor of a sort of imported activity, partly on her father’s account, and partly her own friends’. Mr. Harrington was chairman of a board that ran the city’s great indus- trial plant and the laboratories where Alan worked. Something in Alan’s work had once attracted Mr. Harring- ton’s per sonal attention and it was he, JANUARY 3, 1942 Cherry knew, who had first invited Alan to the house. Later in the spring Dina had asked Alan to fill in at one of her parties. ‘I’m filling in for an explorer who didn’t get back,” said Alan. “Should I wear a bearskin shirt?” Afterward he had told Cherry that Dina was the friendliest person imaginable. She was all right. And at the same time unusual. Yes, it must have been Dina he wanted all along. I can take it, thought Cherry; only I wish people wouldn’t always be talk- ing about him. In her own crowd she knew the kind of speculation that went on as to the state of her emotions. Only at the clinic did she feel free of it. No one talked about Alan. No one waited for her to make a significant remark about him. Why did. they all jump on poor Dr. Lowry? No one understood that she listened to all he said so closely be- cause she hoped, because she believed, that sometime he would say the thing that explained Alan, that would cure her of an illmess as real as any he dealt with at the clinic. WHEN she got home her mother said, “I have some nice news for you. Mrs. Steele telephoned that Bud is coming home on leave next week. She said he was writing you to get ready to meet a train.” “Fine,” said Cherry. a crowd.” “T think Bud would appreciate see- ing you alone.” “Tf Bud finds me waiting alone he’ll think I’m going to marry him, and I might, and that would be a pity.” “A great pity, Cherry, to marry a splendid young man with adequate resources? I don’t believe I agree.” “He’s bright and he’s rich,” Cherry agreed in her own translation. “And it would be a pity to waste that on me, because I don’t love him. I like him the way I like Christmas.” “T don’t believe you would be happy married to a poor man, Cherry. I’m going to say so frankly.” “No poor man has made any bid for me,” said Cherry. “They’ve all been the offspring of wicked capitalists, but they try to rise above it by working harder than anybody else. A sober lot they were, the three of them.” “Your father was a serious young man.” “And he borrowed the money to come to your wedding. Remember?” “An exceptional case,” said Mrs. Brooks. “Are you going to shower before luncheon?” And when Cherry was halfway up the stairs she added, “Dr. Lowry’s office called. His secre- tary would like you to call her.” “They probably found my library book I left at the clinic,” said. Cherry. Her mother asked no questions about the call. Nor did she make any comment when Cherry, ready to set out with the yarn for Mrs. Covington, said she would telephone later if she was not coming home for dinner. She hadn’t fully decided about that. She had called Dr. Lowry’s office after lunch, and the secretary had told her “Tll arrange that Dr. Lowry was not going to the clinic that week. There was a medical meeting he had to attend tomorrow. “And he would like you to have din- ner with him tonight, if possible. Will you telephone him here about five thirty? He’s coming back to see a patient.” This was the first time Dr. Lowry had ever tried to make a date with her that wasn’t merely a continuation of the clinic set-up. Cherry felt that this was putting their friendship on a different basis and, casual as she had been with both her mother and Dot, she wasn’t quite sure this was going to work out to be exactly what she had said it was. She had liked the kind of detached liking that had seemed to go along with their associa- tion at the clinic. Undeniably, though, he was an attractive man and the idea of having dinner with him on a def- inite outside date seemed to present a kind of excitement that had never been there before. And for that rea- son perhaps it would be better not to do it. But she had put on a new fall suit of wonderful plaid. And she set out for the Covington house with gloves. A must. Without a hat. A must not. The coiled bundle of yarn was on the seat beside her like a lazy cat. The autumn sunlight enriched this older part of the city through which she was driving. Prosperous families had built their homes here thirty and forty years ago and many of the houses still wore the strange faces builders had given them. It was still a fairly good section, but Cherry thought that no one would really come over to live from choice. Younger couples moved into cute short-roofed white places in the new developments. The people who lived here stayed on very likely because they couldn’t sell or rent big sprawling houses to any advantage. UNCONSCIOUSLY she slowed near the Chalmers house. It was a frame house with unexpected swell- ings here and there, as if it had been attacked by wooden fungi. There was a careful neatness about the outside, but Cherry could see in daylight what she had overlooked in her evening visit here--the house badly needed a coat of paint. Alan might at least paint the house for his father, she thought. It probably hurt Mr. Chal- mers to have it quite as shabby as this. She wondered if Alan would ever bring Dina here to have curried chicken on old brown scenic dishes. The dining room had been lovely that evening—out of an old print, with its great dish of home-grown roses crowd- ing each other. Candle flame swayed in a windy dusk. Quiet voices traveled back and forth. There had been a dignity about the not very good din- ner. An atmosphere that had doubt- less seasoned many an indifferent meal. But the living room had been rather dreadful. No pleasant old shabbiness there. It was just worn and common- place. Oddly, she had never loved ( Continued on page 52) 13
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READING TIME @ 12 MINUTES 35 SECONDS sk AFTER Lindbergh’s Des Moines address in which he assailed the Jews, I challenged him by tele- gram to defend his “prejudices, er- rors and sophisms in public forum against me.” There was no answer from Lindbergh. But there were plenty of replies from his followers. One defender of the Lone. Eagle’s tirade against our. Jewish people wrote me as follows: “Before there can be real tolerance and peace, every Jew must be wiped off the face of the world so that they may never rise again.” Lindbergh’s attack stirred the hu- man vultures who are ever ready to swoop. Did Lindbergh realize what he was doing? That is a minor ques- tion. As a Catholic, I am concerned about the spread of anti-Semitism among the Coughlinites of my own faith. As an American, I am worried about the possible effects of an out- break of anti-Semitism in my country at a moment of acute crisis in world history. Lindbergh is no mystery to me. I regard him as a typical product of a mechanistic and skeptical age in which the values of culture and re- ligion have become obscured. Such a product cannot see what the issues are at stake in the world conflict to- day. He will view the war as a strictly European affair between two rival imperialisms. He will count the ma- chines of war in the possession of this side and that side, compare the totals, and pick the winner. The moral im- ponderables of faith, perseverance, and idealism will escape him entirely. Obviously to such a man it is crim- inal to advocate that America take steps that may involve a risk of war. He will assail groups allegedly trying to involve us in a conflict he believes is not our affair. His error, like the error of most other isolationists, is the inability or unwillingness to see that what is happening today is a world revolution menacing the moral foundations of our civilization. Our civilization has its roots in Greek and Roman culture, and in the Christian and Jewish dispensation. Out of the fusion of these elements there has emerged a way of life having well defined characteristics. Our way of life, despite all its imperfections, has stressed: 1. The supremacy of law over arbitrary will. 2. The essential 14 An eminent educator's challenge . . "It is certain that he is playing Hitler's game" BY FRANCIS E. McMAHON Associate Professor of Philosophy, University of Notre Dame equality of all men. 3. The dignity of the individual human person. 4. The solidarity of all mankind without distinction of race, class, or creed. St. Thomas Aquinas, greatest of Chris- tian theologians, summed up the mat- ter when he said that the humblest of human beings enjoyed certain nat- ural rights which no one can violate without offense to the Almighty. It is this way of life that Hitler would destroy. For once Hitler spoke the truth when, addressing last De- cember a crowd of his docile subjects, he declared that this is a war between two worlds, and that one or the other world must’ perish. He can be be- lieved here. He can be believed be- cause the official Nazi program is in conflict with the foundations of our culture in every vital respect. To the supremacy of objective law, the Nazis oppose the will of the Fiihrer; to the essential equality of all men, they op- pose the idea of the “master race”; to the inviolability of the individual, they oppose the omnipotent state; and to the principle of human solidarity, they set up the exclusiveness of a domi- nant political party identified with a particular national life. Hitler can: be believed here also because his deeds confirm his words. It is in Poland where he has been most free to impose his “new world order.” Poland is a case history of a potentially universal tragedy. The deliberate policy of semi-starvation to break the spirit; the forced migra- tion of hundreds of thousands reduced to the status of slaves; the incredible treatment of the Jews; the torture and execution of hundreds of Catholic priests; the desecration of temples and synagogues; the attempts to ex- terminate the intellectual leaders of the Polish people—all these facts are so many indices of what is in store for humanity -if the Nazis succeed in conquering the world. This war is a struggle for the pos- session of the human soul. It is a war to the death between unbridled power and a civilized way of life which has managed to survive for over a thou- sand years, and which now finds itself menaced as never before in its long history. If this is not seen to be the nature of the struggle, then nothing is really seen. I do not believe that Lindbergh sees it in this way. Be- cause he does not, he has become America’s foremost promoter of the Nazi world revolution. This is a world revolution not merely in the sense that the moral foundations of our civilization are endangered. It is a world revolution also because of the peculiar methods employed to effect it. Hitler told Rauschning that he would destroy America by setting class against class, race against race, and. creed against creed. The soil of every country con- tains the seeds of this revolution, and they can be made to sprout by meth- ods of which the Nazis have proved themselves to be masters. France fell because’ betrayed by Frenchmen. Who were the traitors there? There were conscious traitors, like the Communists. But far more dangerous were the unconscious traitors found in every walk of life. LIBERTY, SS eEE—— ee ee
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a The Communist, after all, was a man whose patriotism was always suspect. He could more often than not be picked out of a crowd. His organiza- tion had headquarters any Frenchman could point out. The journals ex- pressing the official viewpoint. of the party were well known. But who was the French Nazi? The Nazi program was fluid, its technique mysterious and deceiving. Who was the Nazi? One did not have to submit to a prescribed ritual to enter this subversive group. One did not register and pay a fee. One sought in vain for its headquarters on French soil. It had no official journals in the French language. One often became a Nazi without knowing it. France was betrayed by the men who prided themselves on being for “France First.” They were the men who thought a “deal” could be made with Hitler, and who looked with horror upon any collaboration with the Soviet regime against a common foe. They were the men who played Hitler’s game by undermining confi- dence in the government of Léon Blum. They were the men of the right, conservative wing in French politics, so rabidly anti-Semitic that their hearts could not be in the struggle JANUARY 3, 1942 against Hitler, the one individual who had shown himself supremely efficient in oppressing the despised Jew. France succumbed because it harbored in its bosom the cold, selfish, egotistic iso- lationist, the fomenter of racial and religious prejudice, and the advocate of friendship with Hitler. No instrument of Nazi propaganda has been more powerful than anti- Semitism. The world knows of the barbarous treatment of the Jews in the Reich of Hitler. The Nazis needed a scapegoat upon which to fasten the real and fancied ills the homeland ex- perienced during and after the First World War. The Jews were ideal for the purpose. They were a small and helpless minority. They were an ob- ject of dislike and hatred by different groups having scarcely anything else in common besides this joint aversion for the Jew. What could be more ef- fective than to unite these discordant groups behind the Hitler movement ~ by stressing the “perfidy” of the Jews? Hitler succeeded with these tactics far beyond the dreams of the wildest anti-Semitic. Oppression of the Jews in Ger- many is no longer a means of achiev- ing political or economic power. To a great extent it has become an end in itself. The Nazi must free himself of the “effeminate” virtues of mercy and pity. Therefore the Jew must be flayed and degraded further in the process of forming steel-muscled and hardhearted leaders of the “master race.” Nothing more diabolical has been conceived in the entire history of man’s relations to his fellow man. Yet it is the logical termination of a policy of anti-Semitism, whether pro- moted in cold calculation or unwit- tingly adopted. Outside of the borders of Germany the Nazi program of anti-Semitism must of necessity be more subtle. One will not often stigmatize the Jews on purely racial grounds. One will ac- cuse them, rather, of criminal conduct in economic and political spheres. One will assail “international Jewry,” charge the “Jewish group” with do- ing this or that, and in general foment . Suspicion regarding the attitudes and practices of the Jewish people. The cleverest anti-Semite will hasten to point out that his accusations are not directed against every Jew. He will admit a few exceptions. But the im- portant point always is to effect an isolation of the Jews as a group, set them off from the rest of the popula- tion, and then proceed to excoriate them. : It is certain that Lindbergh is play- ing Hitler’s game. It is quite irrele- vant whether he is a conscious Nazi agent. He is acting as a Nazi would act in the given circumstances. Lind- bergh charged that the “British, the Jewish, and the Roosevelt Adminis- tration” groups were dragging, by deceitful methods, an unwilling Amer- ica into war. He charged that “the greatest danger to this country lies in the large Jewish ownership anc influence in our motion pictures, our press, our radio, and our government.” Fine! The seeds of racial and reli- gious discrimination have thus been planted in the public mind. All the refutations in the world will not de- stroy those seeds or prevent their pro- ducing some evil effects. One can hope only to minimize the evil. 4 MOST Americans of Jewish descent I am acquainted with are anti-Nazi. But so are the Amer- icans of Polish, Belgian, Czech, Nor- wegian, Dutch, Slovene, and Greek descent, together with millions be- longing to other national stocks. But the Jews, it is charged, have an un- due influence in the press, the gov- ernment, the radio, and the movie in- dustry. What are the facts? About 3 per cent of the American press is controlled by Jewish citizens. The departments of our government responsible for foreign policy (the President, with the State Department, the Army, and the Navy) are largely in the hands of non-Jews. Only one member of the Cabinet is Jewish. In radio, NBC has a Gentile president, and its advisory council of twenty-six members contains but two Jews. The president of CBS is Jewish, but the majority of its board of directors (Continued on page 43) 15
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READING TIME @ 17 MINUTES 25 SECONDS IN TWO PARTS—PART ONE A CITY of murder . . . where a life is taken violently every third day. A city of disease . . . where filth and poverty bring their com- panions, tuberculosis and syphilis. A city of seething crowds . . . where al- most half a million human beings eat and sleep and try to live in three square miles. A city of thieving... where rich white men rob poor black men, and poor black men rob whom .: they can. A spawning ground of un- organized crime... . This is Harlem, the wickedest city in the world, created by white men, suf- fered by black. This is Harlem, a few blocks of dingy tenements and tawdry shops bounded on three sides by mid- dle-class ease, on the fourth by a green and spacious park. And out of this “city” comes a crime wave. The people of New York sit up in horrified surprise. They read the tragic headlines of a fifteen-year- old boy murdered in upper Central Park by lads no older than the victim; they read the serio-comic news of a robbery in a home facing the mayor’s, a block from Tom Dewey’s. They know a growing panic as they feel this city-within-a-city encroaching on its clean and richer surroundings. But they never really go to see, to face and study the problem. We went to see. We went night after night. With bitterness, with humility, with shame, we say Harlem is the wicked- est city we ever visited. We say it with shame because Harlem’s crimes are New York’s crimes, America’s crimes, caused by our own indiffer- ence, ignorance, and persecution. We say it with humility because the Ne- groes in Harlem are not inherently evil, vicious, greedy, or cruel. Most of the Negro leaders we in- terviewed confessed that Harlem was “bad, very bad, and getting worse.” Only one protested that it wasn’t the wickedest city ‘on earth. That was Richard Wright, author of Native Son. “Conditions in Harlem are deplor- able,” he said. “Harlem is afflicted with terrible poverty, has many hope- less and desperate people. But it is so much better off than Chicago that there is no comparison.” : New York’s mayor, Fiorello H. La- Guardia, is of this same _ opinion. “Sure, things are tough in Harlem,” 16 Where rich white men rob poor black men, and poor black men rob whom they can INTERNATIONAL NEWS PHOTO — sass es toon a bs. Darkest Harlem by daylight. The outline indicates the location and relative area of what is officially reputed to be "the most crowded dwelling section in the world." he says; “but they’re tougher in every other Negro quarter in the United States. Go visit Chicago, Philadelphia, Washington, Detroit, and other cities. The Negroes have made more prog- ress in New York than anywhere else. Many Harlem intellectuals are among the most brilliant people living. 'm very proud of them.” Yet from 70 to 80 per cent of the people in this district are, or recently were, on relief or engaged in WPA projects. Most of the tenements are overcrowded. Most of the people are in despair. It is not unnatural that so many feel forced to walk the streets . for a living, or go out with a gun or _ a knife to get the money they must have to keep alive. The rents are outrageously high. A In a single block in Harlem there are 4,700 people. Forty per cent of their small income, largely received from relief, goes to pay rent for filthy tenements. The median rent in New York is $35 a month; in Harlem, $50. It has the highest infant and maternity death rate in the city. There are four times as many t.b. cases among Negroes in Harlem as among whites. Harlem's crimes are juvenile delinquency, dope peddling, numbers rackets, petty thiev- ing, “mugging.” There is a saloon on almost every corner in Harlem, a church in almost every block— one church with the largest Protestant con- gregation in the world. Within its three square miles there are more than 700 social clubs. LIBERTY,
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A CLOSE-UP OF ‘‘THE WORLD'S MOST WICKED CITY’® BY HELEN WORDEN AND EDWARD DOHERTY PIX PHOTO ¢ A Lindy Hop in Harlem, where gaiety is rife— . and where by no means all of it is “wicked.” JANUARY 3, 1942 survey made by the New York Hous- ing Authority recently disclosed the fact that many colored families were paying nearly half their meager in- come for rent. Some were paying more than half. And figures obtained from the New York Health Department show that the death rate from tuber- culosis is approximately five times what it is in any other section of New York City. Put that down to malnutrition and overcrowding. The Police Department has found that although Negro children make up only 5.5 per cent of the child popula- tion of the city, they number 10.3 per cent of the “delinquents.” And almost any police official will confirm, off the record, the statement that there is more crime in Harlem, not only among children but among adults, than in any other section. The most frequent crime is rob- bery. Winter before last, so many milk- delivery men were held up that the milk companies curtailed deliveries to Harlem until they could have a policeman ride on every wagon and truck. And all year round the white rent collectors are attacked, even though they travel in pairs. The spec- tacle of them marching out of Harlem laden with exorbitant rentals is a bit too much for the more desperate Ne- groes. Our first trip to Harlem was made on a Saturday night. We visited the police station in 123d Street and talked with Detective Schauers, one of those detailed to keep the prostitutes in order. We decided he would be the logical man to start us on the road to the truth. “You're not walking through Har- lem?” he exclaimed. “No; we have a car.” “That’s all right, then. But be sure you lock the car tight wherever you park it; and you, Miss Worden, keep your pocketbook in your hand all the time, and hold onto it tight whenever the car stops for a red light. You’re safe here so long as you stay in the car. But if you go prowling around on foot, I won’t answer for you. If you must prowl around, at least keep to the main thoroughfares. Don’t go into the side streets.” “This part of Harlem isn’t safe for white people after dark?” “Not in the side streets. Not for prowling white men. A woman may not be attacked, but she might be accosted or robbed. There are some white women who come up here hop- ing for insults, if you know what I mean. Women who think there’s no longer a thrill for them in any white man. “Some colored men, seeing a white woman alone in Harlem after dark, are likely to get a wrong impression and to say something to her—espe- cially if they’ve been drinking kong, a particularly vile drink made out of alky. It sells for something like a dime a bottle, and it drives a man crazy.” “Are there many prostitutes in Har- lem?” we asked. “So many we don’t know them all. 17
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=" Ri 4 We find new ones every day. We take them in and send them to night court. They are usually fined. Then a doctor gives them a blood test. If they have syphilis, and ninety per cent of them do, they are held for treatment. But they all come back as soon as they can, and start to work again. You'll find some of them walking the streets. You'll see others leaning out of win- dows on the lower floors of some flats. We try to keep tabs on all of them, but that’s impossible. © “Usually there’s a parade of white men in this station after midnight on Friday and Saturday nights—men brought in wrapped in dirty blankets or in some copper’s coat—maybe in their underwear. Some of these babies have been hiding and shivering in hallways or under basement steps until it was quiet enough for them to sneak out and steal something to hide their nakedness. ke “MUGGING, we call it. These men come up here to meet col- ored prostitutes. Some woman calls them into a doorway. There’s often a man with a gun in it. He makes the sucker strip. And maybe he beats him up or cuts him with a knife. “Another bird will be enticed into a house and robbed. Once in a while the girls will leave him a blanket or something; but usually they leave him bare. Or a guy may just be walk- ing down the street—where he has no business to be—and a couple of men or a gang of boys may grab him. One of them will strong-arm him around the neck and hold him tight while the others strip him. “We keep old clothes at the station to give to these chumps. Usually we give them carfare too. “Yeah, it’s pretty bad in Harlem. Eut you can’t blame these people too much. Put yourselves in their place. You’re hungry. You can’t get a job. Your shoes are worn through. Your clothes are in rags. And here’s a white man, well fed, well dressed, money in his pockets—cash money. You see this guy, and you know he’s looking for a colored girl. If he saw your wife or your sister on the street he might insult her. So there you are. You mug him. You take everything he’s got, even his underwear. If you get caught by a cop—but it’s a hundred to one you won’t—you’re still safe. That bird isn’t going to get up before a judge and testify against you. It would em- barrass him too much. “Well, now you got money in your hand, and if the clothes and shoes don’t fit you, you can sell them or give , them away. So you keep on mugging.” We got into the car and drove slowly through the streets of this lower dis- trict of Harlem. Smartly dressed couples ambled up and down, enjoy- ing the bright lights, the music from the honky-tonks. Everywhere were children. Every time we stopped for a red traffic light or pulled over to the curb and parked, the golden laughter of Africa and the happy screams: of children blessed our ears. We went slowly through lower Har- 18 lem’s dark side streets. One of us saw women leaning out of windows. “They’re calling to you,” she said to the other one. They were: “Give me a ride, white boy!” “You in a hurry, man? Can’t you stop and say hello?” “Park that bus right here, big boy. You’s home!” Now and then, waiting for the traf- fic lights to change, we saw things that made us forget the gaiety all around. At three o’clock in the morn- ing we saw two little girls, three or four years old, playing at the door of a saloon. We parked for a moment in front of a brilliantly lighted café and saw white women with Negro men sitting on stools at the bar. One woman had her arms around a colored man and was kissing him: Boys and girls out on the sidewalk were play- ing tag. They did not stare through the café window as we did. Perhaps the sight we saw was no novelty to them. All that night we toured the dis- trict. All night long we saw white women and colored men, white men and colored women. All night long we heard the voices of streetwalkers and the voices of women in windows. We stopped at the 123d Street police station. “It’s a very quiet night,” the desk lieutenant told us. “Only twenty prostitutes arrested, two of them Hk vi, No complaints of muggers so an: “There are white prostitutes here?” “Of course,” he said. “Working for colored panders. Giving them all their money. And, more shame to them, some few aren’t white slaves. They’re volunteers. Coming up here was their own idea.” Apparently nobody knows exactly how many white prostitutes there are in Harlem. After a three-year inves- tigation by G-men, the F. B. I. could state with certainty only that they numbered “between 500 and 1,000.” And in June, 1938, Judge Grover Mos- cowitz, in sentencing James Llewellyn Nesbitt to ten years in prison upon his conviction under the white-slave law, placed the number at the same indefinite figure. The testimony in that case showed that Nesbitt had eight women working for him, and that his income averaged $400 a week. ON the following Saturday night we toured the red-light district with a policeman who was off duty. While waiting for him on 125th Street at Seventh Avenue we saw something that still puzzles us. A luxurious automobile pulled out of the traffic and stopped at the curb. A Negro in a smart uniform was driv- ing it. A colored girl sat beside him. Inside, sitting comfortably on the back seat, was a round little white man with a round smooth face. He waited until the chauffeur opened the door for him. Then he stepped out of the car and approached a Negro couple, a young man and a pretty girl. He bowed to them and said something we didn’t hear. The girl swung around and stiffened. Her escort shook his head, grabbed her arm, and hurried her away. The white man smiled, shrugged his fat shoulders, and got back into the car. The chauffeur closed the door, took his seat and started on, to stop again directly in front of a hotel en- trance. Again the chauffeur opened the door. Again the white man got out and approached a young Negro couple. This time we heard the girl giggle and her friend laugh. But they seemed reluctant to do what the white man wanted them to. He called his chauf- feur. The four stood laughing and talking for a moment. Then the Negro couple got into the car. The white man followed them. He sat in the center of the back seat, the girl on his right,’ ner escort on his left, as the car drove Offs). 5 When our policeman friend arrived, we asked him what this could have meant. “Oh,” he said, “nothing un- usual, I’d say. Probably taking them to some indecent party.” THE definite red-light district comprises only a small area. Elsewhere Harlem is quiet, even sedate. But where we were that second Saturday night, anything can happen. It was a most interesting night we spent there—spent in stink- ing little underground dives few white people had ever visited; in bright clean rooms where boogie-woogie mu- sic played and white women caressed colored men; on the streets, the bright gay streets, the dark streets of the strolling women, the streets of win- dows from which women called to white men passing, the streets littered with little children. “See that joint on the corner?” the policeman asked. “See :the swell cars parked all around it? That’s a sort of rendezvous for panders and pros- titutes—white prostitutes especially. The panders own the cars. The girls feel lucky to ride in them.” We met proprietors of many places that cater to both races, all of them sinister, unhealthy-looking men. And we met others who were neither sin- ister nor soft. One of these was a rum- runner and hijacker during the pro- hibition era. Another was a gunrun- ner and an officer in the Mexican army during the days of Pancho Villa and Carranza and Huerta. They talked of women, all these men. They talked of white women and of Negro women. They talked of a lemon-colored girl who made as high as $75 a night some nights, and of how she saved her money and bought the hat-check con- cession at a famous night club. They spoke of a white girl who sold her- self for twenty-five cents and spent the money on gin. They sterilized the drinking glasses as they talked, watched the customers coming in and going out, watched the bartenders as they rang up purchases on the cash registers, watched every move of our guide. “You got to be tough to get by in Harlem.” This is the ex-hijacker speaking. “When I first opened up, LIBERTY, —_
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three guys came in. They bought some booze. Then they bought some sandwiches and some more _ booze. Then they said ‘Charge it’ and started to walk out. I hit one of them so hard he flew up in the air like a little birdie. After that I didn’t have no trouble.” The former Mexican army officer told us of love and hate and murder in Harlem, of his own bright lady who had left her husband for him and left him for a colored tugboat captain. “Now she writes me that she wants to come back to me. But I told her to stay where she is. I don’t want her back. I might cut hér heart out some day. Still, I suppose she’ll come back anyway. Once Harlem gets you, you can’t stay away.” We were told of a white girl who cheated her Negro lover. “She gave him only half the dough she made. She was a beautiful thing, gorgeous. Well educated, too. Her people have a big house out on Long Island. Rich as hell. Why she ever came here I don’t know. Maybe she didn’t, either. “This punk got her lots of business, and when he didn’t get all he should get, he beat the devil out of her. You know what he found out? She’d been feeding half a hundred poor colored families with the money she held out.” “What became of her?” “Don’t know. Haven’t seen’ her around in years.” “How many white girls are there in Harlem?” “White prostitutes? A thousand, I'd say. Some of them make big money. Others don’t. Funny as it sounds, the average Negro doesn’t care for white women. He regards them as cold, fire- less, thin, and dull. Whatever you may have heard to the contrary, there’s no rape in Harlem.” SOMETIME after midnight, as we motored up Lenox Avenue, the policeman said, “Suppose, Mr. Doherty, you get out and stand on the corner. See what happens.” The car was parked a hundred feet away. A woman approached and took Doherty’s arm, said something to him. He shook her off gently and gave her a cigarette. Another woman’ hurried over to the two. “Cops, Tiny,” she said. “Beat it. It’s a trap. You’re talk- ing to a cop, and there’s a cop in that car back there.” Our policeman was annoyed. “That Texas must have eight sets of eyes,” he said. “How did she spot us?” Doherty walked slowly down the street, the car trailing him at a dis- tance. In the three blocks he walked, six colored prostitutes made overtures to him. And two of them, he swore, could not be a day over fourteen years old. “Six,” said the policeman. “There’s no other place in the world where that many women would accost a man— unless it was in a regular, organized red-light district. But this is one of the principal thoroughfares in the greatest city in the world. “On some few streets almost every other house contains a brothel. A brothel or a church. Sometimes both.” JANUARY 3, 1942 ae _ “ “But two of those girls,” Doherty repeated, “were children.” “There are lots of children in this game in Harlem.” “What do you do with them when they’re arrested?” “IT don’t arrest any. women. I’d rather resign. I certainly wouldn’t pinch any of these kids. They’re try- ing to make a few dollars to keep the fea alive and the rent paid. That’s a i We ended the night in a Harlem hospital, listening to the cries of a woman who had been stabbed—a woman crying for the consoling sight of the man who had stabbed her. Aft- erward we crept through the area “HARDTACK’ BY REAMER KELLER “It started to rain, mom, but I managed to bring in half of the wash.” north of 142d Street, between Seventh and Lenox Avenues. “This is probably the most crowded district in the world,” our guide said. “I wouldn’t be surprised to hear that it’s worse than the most crowded spot in China.” The Mayor’s Committee on City Planning in a recent report declared that one block on 143d Street housed 3,871 men, women, and children, and called it “the most crowded dwelling section in the world.” There are hundreds of cities in the United States with fewer people— and more room. It was some days after this that we met the Baroness Catherine de Hueck and, through her, obtained an idea of what has made Harlem the “wick- edest city in the world.” The baroness, one of the outstanding characters of the city, knows Harlem intimately and understands its people and their problem. She understands them be- cause she loves them. “They are the finest people in the world,” she swears; “the poorest, the gentlest, the kindest, and the most persecuted. Oh, they have their sins. Who hasn’t? But they are natural sins —natural in that they spring out of emotion and dire need. What are their sins? Murder and adultery and rob- bery. They sell themselves and they rob others only through necessity— so that neither they nor their children shall starve or freeze to death. They murder through sudden passion. They do not plan their killings, nor do they kill for hire. If it’s wickedness you’re looking for, look on Park Avenue and you won’t fail to find it.” The statement that no white woman was safe from insult or harm in Har- lem drew a vigorous denial from her. “T have lived here for two years and have never had even a nasty look from any man,” she said. “Neither has any of my girls, the young ladies who work and live in Harlem. Many a schoolteacher and nurse will tell you the same. The Negroes respect decent women, and, what’s more, they know them when they see them.” THE baroness, twenty of whose people were killed by the Bol- sheviks, is a Polish-Russian noble- woman, at present a citizen of Can- ada. Since her escape from Russia she has been a laundress, a chambermaid, a waitress, an author and lecturer, a literary agent, a Red Cross nurse, a saleswoman in a New York depart- ment store, and a social worker. She came to Harlem with three dollars and a typewriter. She slept on newspapers because she had nowhere else to lay her head—until colored neighbors came to her rescue. Today she oper- ates Friendship House, at 34 West 135th Street, and the four converted stores across the way which dispense cloth- ing and serve as recreation and study rooms for hundreds of infants and adolescents. a More than on® hundred men and women, white and colored, help her in her works of charity. A number of them have, like her, devoted their lives to the work, serving without any income whatsoever. They eat what food is donated to them, wear such cast-off garments as come their way, work from ten o’clock in the morning until midnight and sometimes later. It is her firm conviction that the desperately poor people of Harlem are not maliciously wicked, that they sin only because they are so terribly poor, and that even in their sinning they are not altogether wicked. “Harlem,” she says, “believes in God. In. every Harlem household, no matter how miserable it is, you’ll find at least one picture of the Lord. Har- lem is Christian. Harlem is simple, earnest, cleanhearted, ambitious, and as intellectual and as wise as any white center. But Harlem is abused, shunned, shamefully persecuted. Three hundred thousand very poor people are segregated here, gouged by white men, exploited by white men, detested - and kept down and kept from work by white men. Racial discrimination would wipe them out, if they’d let it.” Is it a fact that “darkest Harlem” is more sinned against than sinning? Judge for yourself next week, when Liberty’s reporters will lay before you their findings concerning rent rack- eteers, race discrimination, and some few of the 10,000 cases a year that come into Harlem’s felony court. 19
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» TS" S's How 0 Become AN ORACLE READING TIME @ 8 MINUTES 55 SECONDS EVER since learning about M. Nostradamus, I’ve had the feel- ing I want to be a spiritualist with psychic powers. I even tried once, but I wasn’t very good—just medium. But now, with the New Year at hand, it might be well to predict possible hap- penings for 1942 and to let you know how to become an Oracle so you won't be jealous. y I remember last New Year’s Eve. George took me to a place where they kept blowing horns all night—it was a drive-in stand. We then went to a party at my aunt’s house. They cleared the room of furniture—and rolled up my uncle. It was a nige’ room. It had a low ceiling, though, and after a few hours it got tiresome dancing around on your knees. It was a wild party, all right. The champagne flowed like glue! And when New Year’s came, they brought in a cake. Well, I won’t be catty and say the cake was exactly stale, but written on it was—Happy BirtuHpay TO May Rosson—and there were eighteen candles! But this New Year’s I’ve decided to be firm. For resolutions—George is giving up pinochle, I’m giving up poetry, and the sponsor’s just giving up. And I’m not going to attend any parties, except if I can be Nostra- damus. Because, once you know the ropes, I always say it’s no harder to become an Oracle than it is to become a law- yer or a doctor or an adagio dancer or even a human fly. As a matter of fact, it isn’t as hard to become an Oracle as it is to become a musician. I know, because I took a musical course by mail. I read a magazine advertisement which guaranteed that after thirty lessons I'd be a pianist, violinist, saxophonist, or trombone player. Well, I took the course and finished it two years ago, and I’m still waiting to find out which one I turned out to be! I can’t even buy myself an instrument yet, since it would be very silly to pay for a sax- ophone and then discover I’m a vio- linist. But you won’t have any trouble like that becoming an Oracle, because there aren’t any courses by mail to 20 confuse you and you can only become a Nostradamus. I must admit that sometimes I feel a little embarrassed about telling people how to do things. Way down deep in my heart I know that I’m no smarter than Professor Einstein or Dr. Nicholas Murray Butler or Sec- retary Cordell Hull or many others who think deeply. That’s why I keep asking myself, Why must I always be the one who has to tell the world how to do things? But I never seem able to think of a good answer, so I have to keep on doing it. Maybe it’s because the other deep thinkers are too busy or maybe they’re simply not interested. Anyway, they don’t do anything about it, and it’s too bad. Wouldn’t it be a better world if Professor Einstein would write an article telling how to knit things out of left-over spaghetti without wasting the meat balls and tomato sauce? And wouldn’t it be thrilling if the Su- preme Court would now and then hand down an opinion on how to keep oysters busy when they’re not in season? It would certainly make life more interesting for everybody—but I guess the only ones who have time to do these things are people like me and Mr. Ickes and Senator Wheeler. Now please don’t think I’m criticiz- ing the Supreme Court justices, be- cause I’m not. I think they’re the best Supreme Court justices we’ve got in the whole country! But they do seem to have the wrong. viewpoint on life —otherwise they wouldn’t always hand down opinions on how you can’t do things! But let’s continue with the subject. Here I’ve been writing for almost two minutes and I haven’t yet told you how to become an Oracle, and I know you're as anxious to find out as I am. There’s really nothing to it. Plenty -of ability, courage, wisdom, genius, and hard, hard work are all you need to get started. But even if you haven’t got these things, don’t give up. You just have to start sooner and work harder and keep it up longer. Just to show you what I mean: When I first started going to kindergarten, it First you take a turkey ... No, that's wrong. Let Gracie explain BY GRACIE ALLEN was a little difficult for me because I couldn’t write, read, or do algebra. But did I get discouraged and quit? I did not! I buckled down to work with my crayons and colored ‘paper and paste, and within four years I was in the first grade! Being an Oracle is really only a matter of will power. It’s as simple as breaking yourself of a bad habit like—like—well, take my mother. My mother used to have a habit of falling down every time she stepped on a banana peel,- but she got over it. Now, whenever she sees anybody eat- ing a banana, she lies down on the sidewalk until she sees where they throw the skin. Of course, everybody isn’t as smart as my mother, but don’t let that stop you. Just set your mind to it and you'll find that becoming an Oracle is as simple as baking a cake. Oh, by the way, if you're ever baking a marble cake, here’s a swell tip: Don’t use agates and glassies in it. They’re big and very pretty, but the small ordinary marbles add just as much flavor and they’re easier to swallow. It’s silly to say you can’t be an Oracle. After I tell you how easy it is there’s no excuse for not being one unless you’ve got an inferiority com- plex. If you haven’t got an inferiority complex—you should get one and get rid of it! They’re terrible! Just to show you how much unhappiness an inferiority complex can cause, let me tell you what happened on my uncle’s farm last summer. One day one of the hens got mad at the rooster,’ so, just to be mean, she laid an egg in his nest. The poor rooster was so em- barrassed about the whole thing that he left home that night. So you see— maybe you're taking yourself too seriously, too. Don’t let a little thing like becoming an Oracle discourage you. Sometimes a little thing can be the turning point in your life. That happened to my brother Willie in the army. All his life Willie has wanted to be an army bugler; but when his big chance came, he got a rude surprise. His buck teeth stuck so far out of his mouth that he couldn’t get the bugle near his lips. That would have discouraged many LIBERTY,
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boys, but not my brother Willie. He figured out a new method of bugling. Instead of trying to blow into the bugle, he puts his face into the other end and inhales—and the music comes out his ears! It’s really a double suc- cess, because he’s the only bugler in the army who can send out calls in two directions at the same time! Incidentally, if you want your boy to grow up and have buck teeth, here’s the secret. Ever since Willie was. a baby we’ve always stuck a light bulb in his mouth when there was a thun- derstorm; then, when the lightning struck him, the bulb would light up and the electricity wasn’t wasted. As long as New Year’s is here— well, why not make a resolution that you will be an Oracle? Isn’t that bet- ter than resolving to get plenty of sleep and exercise and to take a milk bath every day? In the first place, a milk bath is too much trouble. It makes it crowded keeping a cow in the bathroom, and, unless you get a cow that can walk on stilts, how can you get her over the tub, for your shower? And what a job it is to skim JANUARY 3, 1942 Dae Gracie, the Oracle, goes into a huddle with her crystal ball. a cow! And if you don’t skim her, - your milk bath will be full of cream, which is very fattening! If it wasn’t for being overweight, my sister Bessie would still be a movie actress if she didn’t stammer. She didn’t stammer all the time; usu- ally it was only when she was talking, but it ruined her career. Poor Bessie! Her stammering got so bad that they finally had to shoot all her scenes in slow motion so the action wouldn’t get too far ahead of the dialogue. They were grand pictures, but the public always seemed to tire of them before they, got to the second reel. However, even that turned out for the best, because Bessie is now engaged to a lovely soldier boy. He was a little too young for the Civil War, but he’s so patriotic that he lied about his age and got himself drafted. He’s crazy about army life, but he’s scared they'll find out he’s over twenty-eight. Every time he salutes, he knocks his toupee off, and during maneuvers it’s hard for him to keep up with the tanks in his wheel chair. Just yesterday Bessie was reading me one of his letters while I was knit- ting a backless bathing suit for a turkey, and we certainly enjoyed it. Maybe the bathing suit sounds a lit- tle odd to you, but it’s only part of my recipe for preparing “Self-Cook- ing Turkey.” Would you like to have my recipe? It’s very handy to know in case your kitchen range is ever out of order. All right, here it is: 1. First you take a nice tender tur- key and stuff it with red chili pep- pers and canned heat. Before sewing it up, also tuck in an electric heating pad and leave the cord out. That’s so that later on you can plug the tur- key into a light socket and keep it warm. 2. Next you slip the turkey into the backless bathing suit and put on a bathing suit yourself. 3. You wait for a good hot day; then you take the turkey out by the swimming pool or to the beach, and lie down beside it on.a beach towel. 4. Next, after making sure no Peep- ing Toms are looking, you slip the turkey’s bathing suit down off its shoulders. This allows it to get so nice and tanned you’d never know it hadn’t been browned in an oven. 5. Keep turning the turkey over so it will get nice and tanned on its neck, back, chest, etc. Meanwhile, the chili peppers and canned heat are cooking it from the inside out. It’s really delicious. And when you set it on the table and pull off its bathing suit, your guests will be amazed to see so much white meat so far south! Of course, I could go on for hours telling you how to be an Oracle, but then again, maybe you know a better way. I hope you do, because, after all, there’s nothing like a self-made man. Look at Mayor LaGuardia! No, maybe you'd better look at Jack Dempsey, Liberty’s sports editor. He’s not so hard to see on account of he’s in bigger type, if you know what I mean. Speaking of Mayor LaGuardia, though—I’ve got a brother-in-law named Freddie who’s very much like him. Freddie isn’t a mayor, but he’s very short and he’s very busy and he’s always on the go, even when there isn’t a fire. People think the reason Freddie never sits down is because he’s a human dynamo, but they’re wrong. The reason Freddie never sits down is because his legs are so short his shoe-tops are in the seat of his pants—and they’re very uncomfort- able! So that’s the answer. If Freddie can be an Oracle, you can too! You can do anything you want to. You can even do things you don’t want to, if you want to. Just follow my motto and you'll be surprised. Here it is: “I can do anything that’s pos- sible.” It will work for you just as well as it does for me, and as a mat- ter of fact I can even do things that aren’t possible. However, I’ll admit that when they’re impossible they’re usually a little harder. Anyway, a Merry Oracle and a Happy New Year to you all! THE END 21
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Snubs, heartbreak, danger—She faced them all. But she couldn't control her giggle! BY CLEMENTS RIPLEY READING TIME @ 35 MINUTES 40 SECONDS IN 1832 Caitlin Ryan, just out of ie a convent school in Boston, marries Buck Preswald. Not long after, she is left a widow when Buck, having lost all their money to Jim Blake, a River gambler, commits suicide on the boat that is taking them down the Mississippi. Her only friend on board is Dan Bedford, a young man returning from Yale to his mother’s plantation, and he is prevented from see- ing Caitlin before he leaves the boat at Memphis. Caitlin, alone in the world, and know- ing that she must have some way of sup- porting herself and her child when it ar- rives, accepts Jim Blake’s offer to make her his partner in a gambling house he intends to open in New Orleans. The house prospers, and Caitlin, as Kate Ryan, charms the patrons with her singing. As an entertainer in such a place, she is, of course, shunned by the decent folk of the city. Her one ambition is to earn enough money so she can go away with her child, James, and live quietly as Mrs. Preswald. In the meantime, when he is very young, she sends the boy to a school near Nash- ville, to which Sister Serena, who was once Caitlin’s teacher in Boston, has been transferred. When President Andrew Jackson issues his Specie Circular and so breaks the back of the false boom built on “wildcat” money, Blake’s gambling house is in a bad way. Thinking of Caitlin’s future, Jim Blake, aided by Mordecai, a singing teacher from Vienna, gets Caitlin a part at the New Orleans opera house. The citizens protest against such a notorious woman’s being allowed to appear before their wives and daughters, but Walsh, the opera-house manager, holds out against them. On the opening night the house is filled with men. Then, led by Coolin—Blake’s Irish bouncer, who is devoted to Caitlin— the street girls, the dance-and-drink- check girls, file in to take the seats they 22 have bought to see Kate Ryan’s triumph. Blake swears softly. You just couldn’t tell what those girls would do! PART FIVE—"I'M GOING-TO SHOOT YOU, KATE" HOUSE lights out—stage lights on. Curtain up—the footlight candles gleaming against their reflec- tors. A man, who didn’t look at all the way he had looked in rehearsals, out there singing something. A voice behind her—“La-la-la-la—” Fingers beating the time. “Twelf more bars— four more—ja!” Before she could say she couldn’t —she wouldn’t—a solid kick that went all the way up from her bottom to the top of her head had shot her onto the stage. Being there, she twirled as she had been taught and went into her song. At least, she tried to go into her’ song. But, before she could hit the first note, Coolin, tears of happiness in his eyes, turned loose an iron- handed round of applause that split his careful white gloves to ribbons. ‘ . She lost her pitch and her timing, fought for it—got it. Some- how, she managed to get through. Coolin tore loose again, and this time the girls followed his lead. They completely ruined the star’s entrance. And from then on until the merciful curtain of the first act Coolin led the claque from Royal Street. But there was more than that to it by now. It wasn’t long before the gentlemen who had left their wives at home got into the fun. She couldn’t make a gesture, sing a note, without bringing down the house. In the only box which wasn’t crowded with men sat a white-haired lady in gray satin with pearls, and a big sandy-haired young man... . Dan Bedford and his mother had ar- rived in New Orleans only yesterday. “You never did mean to shoot your- self—it’s just a ramrod—" She caught his wrist and pushed it up. LIBERTY,
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JANUARY 3, 1942 It had startled Dan Bedford that they could get a box at the opera for the first night on such short notice. But there had been no trouble—none at all. Madam Bedford, who had sel- dom had a chance to hear opera in the fifteen years she had spent in West Tennessee, supposed that it was be- cause it wasn’t opéra grand but opéra comique. She was thoroughly startled by the behavior of the audience. But she was a Philadelphian and the ways of this western country were still wild and ‘savage to Madam Bedford. “Perhaps she’s a local girl,” was her comment. “That’s why they applaud so. She looks very pretty and she sings very sweetly. But in my time, in Philadelphia, an audience didn’t—” Dan listened politely to his mother’s description of the Philadelphia opera season in her time. During the en- tr’acte he managed to get away. In the lobby, he grabbed the first man he knew. “Look—that girl, the soubrette—is that a Mrs. Preswald?” “Huh?” The man began to laugh. “You don’t know? You fool, that’s Kate Ryan! That’s what all the fun’s about!” He hesitated. Then—‘Dan, is that your mother in the box with you? Then get her out of here right now! No New Orleans lady is here tonight—those women are just street girls. Can’t you understand? That girl who is singing is Kate Ryan! Get your mother out!” Well, if the soubrette was Kate Ryan (he had heard vaguely of Kate Ryan) she certainly wasn’t Mrs. Pres- wald. . . . Dan went back. He didn’t quite know how to explain to his mother. He whispered, the best he could. They’d better go. Madam Bedford flicked out a feather fan. “Why, Dan, I’m enjoying it. We’ve paid for our’ box; there’s every reason why we should sit in it and hear the rest. . . . Now, Dan, really—you’re being tiresome! I’m a Philadelphian—your dear father came from Boston. Is it really very im- portant whether a lot of Westerners happen to approve of the morals of a singer? She sings very nicely. I didn’t suppose New Orleans would be so provincial. Still—Westerners—” “T wish you didn’t have this hate on Westerners,” Dan whispered, grin- ning. “After all—you waited till you got West to have me. And I’ve lived in the West all my life.” “Oh, la, la!” Madam Bedford smiled back and waved her fan. “If a cat has kittens in an oven, are they bis- cuits? Even your hero Andrew Jack- son was born in North Carolina or South Carolina, or some place on the eastern seacoast, no matter how rough and ready and Old Hickory he may pretend to be. And—oh, do be quiet, Dan! She’s coring on again —a lovely child! If only the audience would behave!” Caitlin had stiffened herself to any- thing. In the entr’acte Blake had tamed down Coolin. But it was too late—the house was having fun now. It rose, rampant, on her first note. 23
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This was the funniest thing New Or- leans had seen in years. ... “Of course it isn’t,” Dan Bedford whispered to his mother, under the roar of applause, “but her voice re- minds me of that poor little Mrs. Pres- wald. You remember, mother—her husband shot himself on the boat... .” Madam Bedford snapped her fan shut. “Dan, you have the silliest ideas. That Mrs. Preswald was a lady —at least, I suppose you know a lady when you see one. This child, so you tell me, is a notorious character. What difference does it make? Dan, it’s years since I’ve heard any opera—” “But, mother, if this should be Mrs. Preswald—” Madam Bedford got to her feet. “Possibly you’re right; son. At any rate, you can’t let me listen—we may as well go back to the hotel. . .. Now, don’t argue, Dan. Hold my cloak.” IN the carriage, Madam Bed- ford spoke seriously to Dan. When he had come home, years ago, as a college freshman, it was quite natural that he should have been sen- timental over a pretty widow and her tragedy. But he had been a long time out of college now. Really, it was time he settled down—oh, heavens, of course she didn’t mean marry! Prob- ably he would, in time; but that wasn’t what she meant. “Dan,” she said, “I’m getting older than you realize. It’s really time you took over the management of the plantation and the finances.” “Glad to, mother.” Dan’s voice, in the darkness of the carriage, was suddenly hard. “I tried it last year. Every time I suggested an investment or an acre of planting, you ran around to everybody in the neighborhood and got opinions—” “But, Dan darling, opinions are valuable. You haven’t the experi- ence—” “T found that out. That’s why I’m going into politics. That’s the one ' place where a man doesn’t need to know anything about anything.” “Dan, if you really mean to go into Tennessee politics, you’d better drop this cynical pose.” Dan stared grimly at the driver’s back. The horse’s hoofs clop-clopped steadily through the soft green night. . . - He said suddenly, “I reckon you’re right, mother. I was just—I seem to be growing older and not getting anywhere. Andrew Jackson was a man at fifteen. He—” “Yes, Dan—your father and Mr. Jackson have told me the story often. He left home, went to Charleston, in South Carolina, and lost his patri- mony in gambling on race horses and dice. Now, really, Dan!” “He’s President of the United States, mother.” Madam Bedford’s tone took on a sharper note—she couldn’t help it. “If you want to try politics—that’s a good career for a gentleman. I don’t suppose you'll be President of the United States. I don’t think it was gambling away his patrimony that made Andrew Jackson President. ... 24 Frankly, Dan, I wish you’d chosen a more personable hero. Nobody in the East has any use for Andrew Jack- son. The old argument flared—Phila- delphia versus Memphis—East against West. Other men, younger than Dan, were pushing ahead, doing things. ... But Dan had a duty to his mother— to his father’s estate. If he wanted to do something, why not start by doing something about the plantation and the investments? If Dan couldn’t man- age a plantation near Memphis, how could he manage Memphis—Shelby County—the State of Tennessee? It left him licked—as usual. Un- happy. He didn’t know how to tell his mother that if she would get out of his life he could manage that, at least. Oil lamps in halos of warm mist— clop-clop over cobbles. Silence in the carriage. . . . Mother’s fingers sud- denly twining among his. “Sonny— this Mrs. Preswald—on the boat. Was she very pretty? ... Ah, of course she was! And you were in love with her?” “Of course not. Well—I guess I must have been.” “Ah, sonny! And this little soubrette tonight made you think about her. Ah, Dan darling, I’m not so old I can’t remember. And that’s why you were this way!” Dan put his arms about his mother and kissed her. “Mother, you’re the most understanding person in this world.” ; THE carriage stopped at the hotel. Hurriedly, lest the mo- ment be broken, Madam Bedford said, ‘Dan, tomorrow, you go out with some of your Yale friends here in New Orleans. If—well, if you want to see this little soubrette—I’m sure you'll be disappointed, but here’s fifty dollars. Do have a good time!” Dan Bedford grinned in the whale- oil light that flickered in front of the hotel. He paid the carriage driver and handed his mother out of the car- riage. “Tomorrow night,” he said, “we’re going to a play. You and I. I spoiled tonight for you—but from now on we're going to have a lot of fun!” One thing Madam Bedford had done when she swept out of the opera house with Dan in her wake—she had finished Caitlin’s career in the New Orleans opera for good and all. Coolin and. the girls had been pretty bad—but Madam Bedford’s august departure had put the capsheaf on it. ... “I’m sorry,” Walsh told Caitlin. “You tried hard, and you were good. But I’m here for the bank—and the bank has put the squeeze on me. Here’s your twenty-five for this week —and fifty for next week. ... No,- that’s fair. You were good—but you see how it is.” Mordecai of Vienna said, “Rinds- viech!” or something that sounded like it to the reporters. Pressed for a translation, he was vague. “Kettle?” he suggested. “Some oxes, maybe, wit’ mules, wit’? donkeys?” One reporter said, “Listen, Mr. Mordecai—are you comparing a New Orleans audience with a mule?” Story! Pencils poised over paper— Mordecai smiled. He shook his heavy head. “I would never compare a New Orleans audience wit’ mules. Mules got sense!” Mordecai disappeared before a paper could come on the street. CAITLIN went back to Blake’s. She wept a little, and then powdered her nose and went down- stairs and handled things very well. Winter dragged into spring. Some- how, pinching, saving a penny here, a penny there, they managed to keep the house open. But nothing, Caitlin was beginning to discover, is'as dull as uncertainty. There were long faces everywhere these days. The excitement of the panic was over. There remained the slow aftermath—the looking ahead to the bleak years—years without hope. Only Jim Blake seemed possessed of hope, and in some ways his op- timism irritated people more than his pessimism during the boom had done. “Now, listen, Jim. Cotton’s down to where it don’t pay a man to raise it. Up North they tell me it’s the same with wheat.” “Land’s still there, isn’t it?” “That’s just the trouble. And the fools are still farming it. Making more stuff all the time. And steamboats, canals, freight wagons, even these fool new railroads, all hauling the stuff to where nobody else has the money to buy it, either. I tell you, America’s done—finished!” “Oh, I wouldn’t say that. Andrew Jackson still has his hands on things.” “Jackson? Jackson? You fool, he’s the very cause of it all. Didn’t he call for hard money instead of cheap money and bust Biddle’s bank? What’s he ever done to make prosperity?” “He’s said, ‘A national debt is a na- tional disgrace,’ and he’s mighty near wiped ours out. When the United States government is solvent and buying its own paper, when taxes go down instead of up—you don’t need to worry about the future of Amer- ica. CAITLIN wasn’t worrying about the future of America. She was worrying desperately about her. own —and James’. One thing did happen that winter, though—she got rid of Bruce Norris for good and all. Or so she thought. For months—years, really—Bruce Norris had troubled her mind. Not very much, perhaps—not very strong- ly—but it was always there. She knew what he was—bad! Last male in a family that had held itself high, he was alternately petted, scolded, prayed for, by spinster aunts and _ great- aunts whose number seemed to be legion. A generation ago the Norris family had been wealthy, numerous, powerful. Just what had happened, no one in New Orleans could have told you. But the aunts lived in grand- gone-shabby houses, and Bruce lived LIBERTY,
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by his wits and in the hope of legacies. Every so often an aunt would die and Bruce would come into a little money. Whether he hastened the proc- ess, aS whispered gossip suggested, was doubtful. He was a pistol shot and had killed his man under The Oaks. Other young bucks of New Or- leans had cause to remember him by a bullet scar in the leg or shoulder. But the murder of aunts didn’t seem to be just his dish. Caitlin didn’t know the social gos- sip, but there were queer rumors among the girls who came _ into Blake’s. Jim Blake said, frankly, that he didn’t believe a lot of the talk, but that he did think Norris was taking cocaine—and discreetly peddling it on occasion. Caitlin knew he was bad— bad as could be. But he did have a dark, desperate lock of hair over. his forehead, and he moved like the big tiger she’d seen in a cage once. And he did give her funny not-nice feel- a when he slid his dark eyes over er. Then, one afternoon, it happened. She was alone in one of the supper rooms, trying to think how she could make it look not so shabby without spending any more money on paint. And suddenly there he was—and she all alone. THERE was a curious white look to him, but his eyes were blazing. He grinned, stepped across the room, caught her in his arms, and kissed her. There was no drink smell on him, but there was something— She pushed him away. “Kate! Kate Ryan! I’m asking you to marry me—” The tone was desperate, but the words were the words of a man con- ferring a favor. King Cophetua and the beggar maid. "No! Oh, Bruce Norris, I don’t know! .. . No!” He looked at her. He saw she meant “no”—saw her hesitate. Suddenly, horribly, he was on his knees, clasping her skirts. “Kate— Kate! I’ve got to have you! I need you—I don’t care what you’ve been —look what I’ve been!” He burst into tears. ... He was wetting her last decent dress with his salt tears—and heaven only knew what would take tears out of a skirt! The tears were just what Caitlin needed to bring her back to sanity. “Look what you are—Bruce Norris! To be crying like a baby all over the floor. Now get out of here!” He came to his feet. He had a der- ringer in his hand. “I’m going to shoot you, Kate—you, then myself. I swear it.” She knew he was just crazy enough to do it. Oh, she had to think fast— talk fast! “Why now, Bruce Norris—why—” Something—the Big Mick maybe— made her grin in his face. “Bruce Norris, you've made a fine swear, so you have! You never kept a swear in all your life—and you won’t keep this one.” She was moving back steadily to the JANUARY 8, 1942 bellpull behind her. “Now, I’m not scared of you, Bruce Norris. You'll shoot me, maybe. But the sheriff will put a hemp rope about your neck, and you'll kick and choke a long, long time.” Her hands touched the bellpull. “Get away from the bell! Put your hands in front!” She moved carefully, so that her back was to the door. She had man- aged to give two short rings on the bellpull—the bad-trouble ring. But it wasn’t likely any one would hear it this time of the afternoon. She said, “Well—here I am, Bruce Norris. You said you’d shoot me and then yourself. So shoot!” She watched the pistol waver. “Now BY GEORGE SMITH “Yd go home to mother if I knew where she was parked!” you,” she said, “are doing a very dirty thing. You don’t pay your tailor —and you’re going to shoot me, that pays my dressmaker on the nail.” It didn’t make any sense, but she had to keep talking. . . . Oh, if some- body had just heard the trouble ring! He steadied the derringer. It had two barrels—one above and one be- low. “I’m going to shoot you—and then myself.” “Just curiosity—’ Caitlin’s hands and feet were lead. She was trying not to feel the smash of the bullet beforetime. “Would you tell me which barrel I’m to be shot out of?” ... . There was a queer noise behind the curtain door—maybe somebody had heard the ring. .. . “Now, if it’s the the top barrel,” Caitlin said pleasantly —desperately, “I think you're lying. You might shoot me”’—she stepped nearer—‘but you’ve got nothing in that lower barrel but a ramrod. You never did mean to shoot yourself—it’s just a ramrod—” Norris raised ‘the pistol to look at it. Caitlin caught his wrist and pushed it up. ... It blasted a bullet through the ceiling. And while Caitlin was struggling with him, who should come in through the curtain door but the big blonde, Lily Bullero. ... She watched for an instant—then kicked Bruce Norris twice, in the groin, with pointed toes. . . - He doubled up and sank to the floor, clutching and moaning. She was on him instantly, holding him down... . “Whassat bottle over there—turpentine? . . . Thank heaven for painters—gimme!” While Caitlin stared, Lily strad- dled the heaving figure, pulled the cork with her teeth, and dashed a liberal portion of turpentine into Bruce Norris’ eyes. . . . He screamed, writhed, heaved. She cracked the neck of the bottle on the floor and held the jagged glass ready. “Wake that ape Coolin up, dearie,” she told Caitlin. “The tur- pentine won’t blind Norris—but this glass will.” Coolin was already there. He took Bruce Norris out by the neck. He gave. him one good kick and laid him in the gutter. He brushed off Mr. Norris’ hat and put it beside him. Sure, Mr. Nor- ris was a gentleman. Caitlin-sent Coolin around with the money to pay her dressmaker before she dared say her prayers that night. ANDREW JACKSON had left the White House, but Martin Van Buren was trying (subject to considerable prodding from behind) to carry out his former chief’s poli- cies. Sick Jackson might be, and out of office, but the old lone wolf still had teeth. Once or twice, when Van Buren hinted that a recall of the Specie Circular or just a leetle less insistence on paying up the national debt and balancing the budget might make things easier in the 1840 elec- tions, he felt those teeth. And as time went on it began to ° be apparent that Jackson had been right. If there wasn’t as much gravy around Washington as many a worthy demagogue felt there should be, the country as a whole was digging its way out of its troubles, and doing it steadily. Along the levee the sweating rous- tabouts began to sing again as they rolled the cotton down, bound for Liverpool or the New England mills. In the North the factory chimneys smoked. In the Northwest a farmer could look over his sweep of yellow grain with something like satisfaction. IN the breakfast room at Bed- ford Plantation, Madam Bed- ford, smooth and placid as an egg, was telling Dan that he could not have a $5,000 advance on his inheri- tance to buy into the new pro-Jack- son, pro-Van Buren newspaper that was being started at Memphis. In the first place, Madam Bedford disapproved of Dan’s hero, Andrew Jackson. A President of the United pe rd who cocked his feet up on the sofa— “Now, mother! President Jackson has visited in our house—often. He was a friend of father’s. Did you ever see him cock his feet on a sofa?” “Certainly not, Dan. Your father was here. But I’ve no doubt he would have. Anyway, thanks to your hero, my income isn’t anything like what it used to be.” “It’s still more than we spend, mother,” he said. 25
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“That's neither here nor there. Mr. MacIntyre from the bank came out only last week with some papers for me to sign, and he told me that this hard-money idea of your precious Andrew Jackson was silly. . . . Really, Dan, you’re being very tiresome. If you really feel you must go into poli- tics, do it in a gentlemanly way. Read law—I can help you into any good law office between here and Phila- delphia. Your hero, Andrew Jackson, read law. Even Mr. Calhoun read law. Mr. Clay read law! All the great men in American politics have been either lawyers or soldiers—” “Dr. Benjamin Franklin of Phila- ‘delphia?” Dan suggested wickedly. “I always thought he was a newspaper- man.” “Dr. Franklin,” said Madam Bed- ford placidly, “was not a Philadel- phian. He came from Boston or some- where. He was doubtless a very clever man of sorts, although his moral code was bad and he was not really re- ceived in Philadelphia.” Dan grinned and kissed his mother on the cheek. “Well, I’ve got five thousand of my own,” he reminded her. “Maybe I can double it some- how.” THIS day was the eighth day _of January, 1840. Twenty-five years ago today Andrew Jackson’s hastily assembled army had cut Gen- eral Pakenham’s fine regiments (Brit- ish regulars and veterans of Water- loo) to pieces with rifle-fire and won the Battle of New Orleans. Fought after a peace had been negotiated at Ghent, and while the news of the peace was still in mid-Atlantic, it. could not affect the diplomatic out- come of the war. But it had far- reaching consequences. It taught Europe that properly led American troops were something to be reckoned with. It taught Europe that the Amer- icas, north and south, were no longer a rich field to be exploited, but a great potential power to be concili- ated. The force in world affairs of the Americas had been shown—the depth . of the power behind that sudden lightning force was keeping many a European politician awake While the candles guttered down to the last half inch. Now, twenty-five years after the battle, New Orleans was en féte. Andrew Jackson, sick and in pain, but the lone wolf still, was here to do honor to the men who had fought along with him. From, the gallery of the Royal Street house Jim Blake watched the crowd with a certain tolerant cyni- cism. He loved watching crowds; he loathed being in them. People worked so hard at having a good time. His mood was mellowed at the moment by a tall glass, artfully compounded, that Erasmus had just brought him on a silver tray. He ran his palm lovingly over the chill smoothness, sipped and rolled the first drops on his tongue.. “Perfect!” he told Erasmus. Then he glanced again at the crowd 26 below and chuckled. Kate Ryan was approaching along the packed ban- quette. Caitlin, picking her way through the jam waiting for the parade, was not thinking of Andrew Jackson. She did remember that she had been born the year of the battle—but that only made her remember that she was twenty-five. Very worn, she thought in a spasm of self-pity. For a moment she had a lovely time thinking of herself as a tragic figure— a sacrifice to mother love. Then some- thing took her mind off that, and again she was a slim eager girl with a singing voice and dancing feet. Actually, she was getting a good deal of amusement out of her method of progress along the swarming street, and it was this that had made Blake chuckle as he watched. Her system was simple. She would come up to some respectable matron and her brood and tap the lady on the arm. With a look of pure horror, the lady would withdraw her skirts and her family. Caitlin would smile pleas- antly and pass. The husband, if there was one, would look stonily in an- other diréction. Certain old French conventions were still rigidly held to in New Orleans. One was that on the street the gentleman speaks first. Caitlin never recognized a gentleman on the street. If the gentleman chose to rec- ognize her, he usually kept his hat firmly on his head while he did it. (Inside Blake’s it was different. Kate Ryan had the one place in New Orleans where the gentlemen re- moved their hats.) FOR the moment Caitlin was having little luck with her pose as an old-young, hardened, world- weary woman. Every few minutes somebody .would look so funny that she couldn’t control her silvery giggle. It ruined the effect. But she sobered as she came to the house. She did have a purpose today, and she meant to drive it through any opposition. Blake wasn’t going to like it. : He met her in the empty game room, where the dust sheets shrouded the tables. The house was closed to- day in honor of Andrew Jackson. The leaders of the Jackson Democrats in New Orleans had taken reform to their bosoms in this election year; it wouldn’t do to give them anything to criticize. “You were amazing!” he greeted her, with a grin. “Any one else would have needed the militia to get through.” “T’ve never had any militia to clear my path so far, but I’ve managed to get along.” There was a certain intensity in the tone that warned him. He agreed hastily and completely. More—with- out her, in the past three years the house would have gone under. But better times were in sight. “You really think so, Jim?” A sud- den eagerness. “Well—yes. You know the Jackson crowd—the Van Buren crowd here in New Orleans—are against us. There’s been hard times, and when there’s hard times the politicians have to blame it on somebody. Some places they’ve blamed it on the banks—that’s always easy till the bankers get a3 broke as anybody else. Where there are big factories, they blame it on the manufacturers. Here in New Orleans they’ve been blaming it on the French Quarter. . . . Oh, they won’t close us—or only for a few days. But the more antigambling laws they can agitate in the state Assembly, the more the local boys can shake us down for. We run an honest house, and a more successful one than most. Take the roulette wheel, now. A ere zero gives us a_ percentage 0 — “OH, stop it!” Caitlin put her hands over her ears and yelled. “You said a better time was coming!” “Sorry, my dear. I just meant to say that the local shakedown goes far beyond any hope of our percentages. . . . But it looks to me as though the Whig ticket with Harrison and Tyler would sweep the West next fall. In that case the reform wave is over in New Orleans and we go back to the sound doctrine that a fool and his money are soon parted. . Now wait a minute, Kate—the fool gets a better break here than he does against the politicians. First, he knows what the odds are here; he doesn’t know what the politicians are charging him in hidden taxes. Second, he doesn’t have to come here; he does have to pay his. taxes. Third, he isn’t even persuaded—did you ever see a gam- bler stand up on a barrelhead and claim’ that he was indispensable to the people’s welfare?” “What’s that got to do with it?” “Just this: Elect the MHarrison- Tyler ticket in the-West, and in a year we'll be making money. In two years you'll be a rich woman, Kate. . . . Look out at that crowd. You'll be able to control a lot of it—if you’d be bothered doing it. You could even have society, of a sort. And we'll elect the Harrison-Tyler ticket in New Orleans, I think.” Caitlin faced him, white, direct. “I - don’t want to be a rich woman two years from now. I don’t want to con- trol anything. I want my baby!” She threw three letters on the table. . . . She grabbed one back. Blake read a letter from James. it was pretty well written. It said that James liked his school, that he was happy, that he had got 98 in arithme- tic, 72 in spelling, 87 in reading, 27 in Latin (which was mean old stuff and no sense), and 67 in geography. He sent his dear love to his mother, and prayed for her every night. . . . Blake said, “A nice letter, Kate.” Caitlin pointed to the other one. It was from Sister Serena: “. . . and I know James is happy here. He is a fine boy. But, Caitlin dear, I have found him moody and depressed of late—and by accident I found the en- closed in his geography book. I think LIBERTY,
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you will believe me when I say it was by accident. The letters the boys write home are, of course, written as an exercise, read and corrected, and rewritten by the boys. “T hesitated to send this to you. But James is a little boy still. It may tell you, better than I can, what to do. After all, you are his mother. I have tried to give him love and happiness and to teach him honesty and rev- erence and kindliness. I think, with God’s help, James and I have done well. James did not mean to send you the enclosed. Little boys often write out their troubles and confide them to secret hiding places. Perhaps in doing this.I am doing what I did in going to Bishop Brady and getting you married to Mr. Preswald. That did not turn out well, though I thought it would at the time. Dear Caitlin, I send you this—I may be doing a great wrong. But you are the boy’s mother—” “All right— Blake looked up. where’s James’ letter?” He was startled to find Caitlin in quiet tears. . . . Then she gave him the crumpled sheet of foolscap: Dear MoTher, It is very nice here and I have a good Time. i Rote you all those things I got marcks in so I will not reepeet. Ther is a lak and we go in canuus sometimes and there is row bots to. And there is a boy named stevn wilCox and he ses if I have got a Mother why do not i go home for the holydays. And a boy is here and he is Jo Bone and he does not have any Mother-but a Bank so the bank sens for Him in hollydays he rides ponees. So I had a fite with Steven wilecox and Jo Bone and after Father Paul siched me a little bit whith switch for fiting but not verry much. It is verry nice heer and pleas send for me like rest in summer holydays so no more Yr’ obt humble s’vt JAMES PRESWALD. JIM BLAKE blew his nose. . . . “Ah, Kate! The house can stand a pony, anyhow! Let’s see—his birth- day’s in March. The twelfth—” “I know, Jim. You’ve always sent him a birthday present. But James is going on eight—eight, can you under- stand that? I—I don’t want you to be sending him things any more. He might guess . . . Ah, Jim, I don't want to hurt you—you’ve been kind. But he wants his holidays. He—” “Bring him here. We’ll—” “That’s just the thing I can’t do! It’s been put about that you're his father—” “I wish I was!” “You—you! .. . Ah, I’m sorry, Jim. You’ve been kind. But I want a little house—a long way away from here. Where I can bring my boy up like his father’s people.” “T know, Kate. But just right now —with the reform stuff hitting us—” “Just right now!” she stormed. “Re- form or no reform! If the house can’t stand a few thousand dollars—enough to give my baby his holiday and his ‘mother—I mean business, Jim! And JANUARY 8, 1942 I own half of the house! I want that money—now!” Blake shrugged unhappily. “Kate, we haven’t got it. The house is mort- gaged—you know that. Maybe you could go into court with your claim— force a sale at a tenth of what we'll be worth a year from now. We're doing well—just beginning to pay up and get on our feet. But right now—” “Tll look at the books!.’ “By all means, my dear!” Blake had won, but he wasn’t happy in it. CAITLIN disappeared into the office. Blake sipped his drink. He had warned her, when times were flush, to bank some of her money in- BY BILL KING “She’s prominent in Boston, Newport, Palm Beach, and around the hips!” stead of putting it back into the house. Well, if she had she would have lost most or all of it clean when the banks broke in ’37. As it was, she had a good chance of get- ting it back from the house and more to boot—if he could just keep her from cutting the fool about it for an- other couple of years. He wondered what James was like. Rising eight: . . He didn’t know any little boys—he tried to remember what he himself might have been like when he was rising eight. Funny how hard it was to remember. He had slopped hogs. He remembered winter afternoons cutting potatoes for seed in the cellar by a flickering whale-oil lamp. He remembered punching holes in the furrows with a pointed stick, dropping the potato eyes in, covering them with his bare feet. . . . The three-mile tramp to the Academy, arms full of books. Red mittens (Christmas) and his fingers freezing inside them. Copper-toed boots and his toes freezing. Crying with the pain of it, and the tears freezing on his face. . . . Long summer days—fish- ing, berrying. The great brief glory of the county fair. . . ings slipped into place and out of place like a child’s kaleidoscope. Each pat- tern was clear-cut. But he couldn’t remember which time he had been eight years old. It was while he was trying to make the picture that the door opened and he looked up to see a large young man standing in the opening. “Y’ servant, Mr. Blake,” said the newcomer pleasantly. “Your doorman said you were in, so I took the liberty of coming up.” Blake greeted him mechanically, trying to place him. There was some- thing decidedly familiar about the rather square face and sandy hair. Not a New Orleans buck, by the look of him—more like an upriver planter. . . . He said, “You wanted some- thing, Mr.—” “The usual thing a man comes to a game room for. I want to try my luck.” Blake shook his head. “Sorry, sir. Any other time—but today the house is closed in honor of General Jack- son.” The young man grinned. “What’s the matter with you, Blake? Are you afraid of me? I seem to be the one man who can’t get a game out of you.” In answer to Blake’s startled stare, he went on: “Last time, you told me to go get some age on me. Well, I got the age. And now it’s General Jack- son.” SUDDENLY Blake remem- bered. “Mr. Bedford!” He laughed as they shook hands. “Yes— you ve got the age all right. How have you been? And what have you been doing? It’s been—let’s see—eight years.” “Oh, I finished up at Yale. Since then I’ve been pretending to manage Bedford Plantation. . . . By the by,” Dan broke off, carefully casual, “what ever became of that pretty Mrs. Pres- wald, who was on the boat that time? The one whose husband—” He broke off, flushing. “Shot himself.” Blake finished it calmly. “An unfortunate thing, that. To tell you the truth, I’ve lost sight of her, although I did hear some years ago that she was living here in New Orleans. She had some independent means, I’m glad to say. Naturally, her path and mine wouldn’t be likely to cross if either of us could help it.” “TI thought I saw her in the opera— recognized her voice, rather,” Dan pursued. “It was a couple of years ago. Her voice was pretty unforget- table. She had a bad night of it.” “That must have been Kate Ryan, from the house here. Now I think of it, the two do look a little alike. . . Poor Kate failed very dismally in opera—not a trained singer, and anyhow New Orleans wouldn’t stand for her. A really fine girl, Kate. Good instincts—so many of them have. But New Orleans is fanatic about its opera.” “But didn’t I see that big Irishman that used to guard Mrs. Preswald downstairs? I couldn’t be mistaken.” Mentally Blake cursed Coolin. But it was Kate’s pitch and he meant to give it every chance. He said care- lessly, “You’re not mistaken. I won Preswald’s labor contracts—you re- member? I sold the others, but Coolin tickled me, someway. He’d been a fighter. once. I took him on as a (Continued on page 38) 27
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BEFORE YOU PAN READING TIME @ 11 MINUTES 15 SECONDS Ke ASK a Bostonian-with-a-by- line why he likes literature, and he may tell of happy hours spent reading the novels of Dickens, the stories of Poe, and other recent or remote but unforgettable classics. If you ask him why he likes paint- ing or sculpture, he might take your mind by the hand and toddle it through the Louvre—to Michelangelo, da Vinci, Rembrandt, and other great masters. If, at your command, this obliging critic would discourse on the the- ater, you might hear again the beau- ties of Shakespeare, the comedies of the Greeks or the French, the dramas of Ibsen or the contemporary O’Neill. And you'll have a pleasant evening, I’m sure—with your books and pic- tures and, I hope, a few drinks. But then, in your turn, if you ven- ture to discuss the merits of the mo- tion picture in this important way, your friend will assume that the basic subject has been changed: You have gone from the sublime to the movies. Oh yes, he will concede, there have been some memorable films. But of course they are the exceptions. The movies as such are way downtown. Why? Why should every other art form be judged by its exceptions and the movies only by the run of the mill? When Dickens was a current best seller an awful lot of authors. wrote books that no one bothered to re- member. And a lot of canvases were daubed while a Rembrandt was painting The Night Watch. And a lot of turkeys were produced the same year that Ibsen wrote The Wild Duck. Of course the movies aren’t as old as the Greeks, although you never can tell whether we’re merely living in a cinematic reincarnation. But give Hollywood a few thousand years and you'll have a lot of exceptions to’ point to. Meanwhile we’ll stick to the last twenty-five years in which ten thou- sand films have been produced. There have been as many unique results from Hollywood’s efforts as in ten thousand contributions to any other medium over the same period. Better than that—there have been more good movies in that time than good plays, more good movies than good books. These films have been produced at the rate of ten a week. Almost every- body likes all of them; some even in- sist on seeing two at a time. But there are some articulate few, either in print or in the parlor, who 28 claim that the movies give them in- tellectual indigestion. It happens that as the pictures got better and better, learned not to flicker and learned how to talk, this indiges- tion has become more acute. With | AT every advance in the movies, the com- eS” plaints seem to get louder. e It is not easy to account for this ob- servation of fact. Maybe it’s because the movies have truly arrived. Suc- cess often breeds contempt. Maybe it’s because the screen author has found a place in the industrial community as important as that of a banker. Maybe it’s because the the- atrical road company and local stock have been crowded small by superior, though photographed, attractions with lower admission prices. At any rate, the routine is now completely predictable: Better movies, tougher articles. Cause and effect. If the movies ever get perfect they will most likely be greeted with an avalanche of disapproval. An essential error in judging the Hollywood product is to make too many generalizations. Confronted with an entertainment that engages vir-~ tually the entire nation, blanket opin- ions have lost their meaning. Let’s hear about this movie or that movie, not “the movies.” One might just as well generalize about “printed matter.” The movies contain every prismatic color. They have as wide a range as from comic strip to editorial, pulp magazine to quarterly, potboiler to Pulitzer prize. The very word “Hollywood” is often used as a form of criticism. Then, having dismissed the Hollywood prod- uct as “Hollywood,” it makes good copy to go behind the scenes and dust off the personalities with a muckrake. : . This copy is usually unearthed in the summer, when there is a periodic s slump in attendance, due to the com- er . petition of Nature. The solicitous ~ ; > FA ‘ * The Long Voyage Home— Walter Wanger scribe then goes into his dance about the big salaries and half-witted dis- tortions of stories. He conveys the idea that the distorters are all rela- tives of the magnates who have been drafted out of the poolrooms and set up in swivel chairs. ~ The star system comes in for its annual panning. As if the public didn’t want the stars and didn’t, in fact, make the stars and insist on having the stars. LIBERTY,
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An embattled spokesman for filmdom defies its critics BY HOWARD DIETZ Famous librettist and director of advertising and publicity, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Pictures The Good Earth—M-G-M a 2a ee. & 7 Ay \ met . ' a ie \ f : es sue » sd Citizen Kane—RKO-Radio JANUARY 3, 1942 % At the same time some writers say the producers are ruining the stars. “For eight long years,” says one of them (Frederick Lewis in Liberty), “they did their best to conceal Myrna Loy by painting her yellow.” The answer to that is that somebody did notice Myrna, and once she became a star she’s remained one, through un- concealed productions, for the last ten years. They also drag in the so-called movie trust, which is charged with hampering independent initiative. As to that, the screen is free to any one who wants to invest a half million dollars in making a picture. Few pro- ducers would risk the movies with les§ capital than that. Actually, all he might need is a few cans of film and a camera. If what comes out has merit it finds a market. But it is summer and the beaches are crowded into the daylight-saving hours. “The people are just staying at home,” says Writer, “and listening to the radio. The movie people are dopes. They’re likely to cast Shirley Temple as Hedda or Mickey Rooney as Hamlet.” We can’t quite remember what people did before the radio and the movies, but somehow the people sur- vived. We do know that both devices have made life much more fun and they’ll probably get along in the same world. But let us resolve this sug- gested argument. There has been very little competi- tive struggle between the radio and the movies. During the last fifteen years, when the radio has been ar- riving, the movies have nevertheless doubled their own audience. It seems that the people do not stay at home to listen to the radio. They listen to the radio because they stay at home. And they often stay at home be- cause they were out last night and are going out tomorrow, or because they haven’t the price to go any place. If you put a quarter slot machine on the radio box while charging nothing for the movies except some initiation fee, the homes would be empty of nights and the theaters packed. The radio, faced with no alterna- tive, had to derive its revenue from commercials. It is significant, how- ever, that the criticized leadership of the movies, despite the most bewil- dering temptation, have refrained from using the screen as an advertising medium. Millions of dollars by com- mercial products have been offered as bait, but the producers refused to violate the amateur standing of the screen. This in itself has kept open every avenue of progress for the fu- ture of the cinema. Had they been greedy they would have fallen for this seemingly easy money, especially those companies which were on their last legs. This adherence to a principle gives the lie to many sordid accusations that have been thrown around when the linen was washed in public. The movie magnates, whatever their frailties and admitted mistakes, have been doing what they thought was for the best interests of the vast personnel in- volved and for the success of the screen itself. It is understandable, of course, that so large a preoccupation of a whole people should be subject to the closest scrutiny. An industry that deals in art and opinion, characters and ca- reers, syndicated entertainment for over ten million people a day, couldn’t very well not have something wrong with it. But the target is so vast that it is almost unsporting to select it. It is also too vast to attempt to cover it with a coat of whitewash. The men. who make the movies are not unmindful of the criticisms that have been made, however indiscrimi- nately leveled. One producer said, “Fair enough. If they’re going to blame us for what’s wrong with the movies, we'll have to take it. But at the same time they should give us credit for what’s right with the movies, the good things we’ve accomplished and the good things we're doing. They can’t have it both ways.” Another producer admitted that he has tried hiring some of the most con- scientious critics of the industry, but these critics remained soothsayers rather than surgeons. It was pointed out that it isn’t always necessary to be able to make something in order to criticize it and he conceded that to be true. “But,” he added, “you’d think that once in a while one of those boys would come through. They can’t write a picture or cast it, but they want to rewrite and recast entire studios.” Somehow, some way, it becomes clear to those who care that the men who make the movies have more sense than those who take them to task. The movies are here to stay and they got that way because this criticized leadership had investment courage in the pioneer stage and enough vision to share this leadership with the growing talent. | They believed in the movies, risked their security for the movies, and stuck to their job with the tenacity of a sourdough in the days of the gold rush. Some retired, some were de- feated, and some survived, side by side with those who emerged as pro- ducers from their previous crafts as writers, directors, or presentation ex- perts. Despite statements that stars go, but the producers go on forever, there is as big a turnover in this job as in any other of the main categories—actor, director, writer. And the producer salaries do not average anywhere near four figures, as has been alleged. Nor do the heads of the movie industry get any more than the heads of the few other leading American indus- tries. And there are fewer chief ex- ecutives in the movies, although you hear about them more often because movies make copy. The studio heads have varying de- grees of equipment. In a business way they .would have risen to the top of almost any industry they might have (Continued on page 53) 29
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= ——— A kiss is the symbol of ecstasy, but this one was a fizzle—until the lady changed her mind BY PHILLIPS CAMPBELL READING TIME @ 26 MINUTES 5 SECONDS DON’T be silly—it wasn’t lack of appeal on Ronnie’s part; he could even have gotten in a shirt ad if he’d wanted to. But there was more to him than that. His voice, for in- stance—which was the big reason Mr. Hendon, our director, wanted him to play Bishop of Axminster in our show. Part of-the trouble was Ronnie and ‘part was Andy. Almost the same thing had happened the night before, and Elsa had asked Andy please to leave—but he’d just sat there like he hadn’t even heard her and looking so sour a grapefruit would have seemed like a bonbon by com- parison. Andy was just another cour- tier—in the show, I mean—though in real life he and Elsa had gone steady for months. Mr. Hendon was the only person on earth who didn’t know _Andy was ga-ga about Elsa Turner. But you’d have to know Mr. Hendon. For that matter, he wasn’t aware of anything but the show. You’d have thought he’d been born in it—and was going to die in it; and that Ronnie was really the Bishop of Axminster and Elsa was really Marion, Queen of Norland, and that courtiers were just courtiers instead of real flesh-and- blood people who might even be nuts about his queen. Well, here he was again, telling her, “Stop right there! Marion, put your arms around the bishop’s neck!” While poor Elsa, with Andy looking daggers at her, was saying, as though she were all washed up, “But I can’t, Mr. Hen- don. Queens don’t drape themselves about like ordinary people. I’d rather not, Mr. Hendon; really.” But I guess K. Raleigh Hendon was at his wit’s end, because he started fingering nervously at a silk handker- chief that was sticking neatly out of his breast pocket and continued, “This 30 is the weakest spot in the show, Miss Turner.” Then, with a lot of do-re- mi-fa gestures and his fudgy sweet- sixteen voice, he really laid it on. “Miss Turner, please try to be an actress. Forget that you are yourself; forget that there is such a person as Elsa Turner in the world. You are Queen Marion—for two years incum- bent of your kingdom’s throne. You are successor to a long and noble dynasty, loved and respected by your people—but, for all of it, you are alone.” “Which is exactly where I wish I were now,” Elsa interrupted. But he was too wound up to hear her. “Surrounded by the obsequious- ness of the court, you have no friends; born with a woman’s heart within your bosom, you have all of your life been deprived of love—of personal, intimate, romantic love. Suddenly, through unsuspected vicissitude, there stands before you, burning with pas- sion, the bishop.” You should have seen Ronnie’s fin- gers twitch and his eyes get like saucers on that one. “Queen though you may be,” Hen- don went on, throwing his little chest out like he was another Mussolini, “the woman within you is paramount. Come now, Miss Queen—throw your arms around his neck and kiss him.” Elsa tried once more, but she couldn’t help seeing Andy half off his chair and gripping it as though he was ready to throw it—and there was something in Ronnie O’Rourke’s eyes that seemed to send shivers all up and down her spine. The poor kid was actually crying, and she turned to Mr. Hendon and said, “I can’t do it. I’ve tried, but I can’t do it!” Well, anybody could see the scene wasn’t working out at all. Ronnie was about to flop onto an empty chair, but K. Raleigh caught him and said, “Mr. O’Rourke, if you please. We have no time to waste.” Then he turned the molasses on Elsa. “Miss Turner,” he said, “if you could but match your elegance, your superb poise, with a contrasting hu- man touch, your business with the bishop would be perfect.” “But there are too many people watching,” Elsa complained. "The lips draw together slightly, and the body poises to spring forward." LIBERTY,
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na = oO vel = oo ed a < =) 4 < cy
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“They are your friends; they are all in the cast,” Hendon said. “Tomorrow there will be the audience too. The cast realize that love scenes are the hardest and they are with you. You are not the first who has stumbled at a love scene.” So she gave in and told him, “All right.” Andy had to take that moment to fall off his chair, and while he was still sprawling on the floor with his hands and feet in the air Elsa turned on him shatteringly and cried, “Won’t you go home? Please go home!” Then she dive-bombed into Hendon. “I can’t picture myself hanging around the bishop’s neck like a lei!” . “Madam,” chimes in Ronnie, “do you mean I’m that repulsive?” Well, it was tough on her. Any one who was bright enough to follow the score would know that if:it hadn’t been for Andy hanging around, Hen- don wouldn’t have had to beg her more than once to put her arms around Ronnie’s neck. But Andy had gotten up off the floor and picked up his chair again, and was slouched mopingly on it sort of like an egg that had been dropped there accidentally—so she couldn’t say too much to Ronnie, only, “Certainly not. Oh, don’t say things like that. Ronnie, you know I like you. Oh, Mr. Hendon, can’t we stop? Haven’t we rehearsed enough?” Well, Hendon, being true to his art, couldn’t see it that way. “I do feel sorry for you, Elsa,” he said, “for I know you have really tried—but the prob- lem must be met. For my sake, my dear, you must do it. You must oblit- erate yourself, throw heart and soul into your lines and action, forget that you are Elsa and be the queen, forget that Ronnie is any one but your lover; act as though the room were empty except for you and him, and do as your instincts tell you.” Somebody over on the side lines let out a “Whoopee!” but K. Raleigh’s glance poured ice water on that hot spot in a hurry and he continued, “This is our dress rehearsal, dear queen; tomorrow the show goes on; we have only tonight to attain perfec- tion; tonight we must succeed. The bishop will please commence with the line, ‘God grant I shall merit no re- proach. My heart cries out—’ and so forth.” vr RONNIE had come back eager- ly and Elsa had her arms around his neck, but as their eyes met square- ly, Andy made a chuffiing noise on the floor with his teet and the kiss that she was about to place upon the bishop’s brow fizzled completely. “Oh my, oh my!” Hendon exclaimed, clutching his hands above his head like he was in pain. “You are in love with him! For the first time in your life you have found love. A kiss, Miss Turner, is something exquisite; it is the symbol of ecstasy.” Elsa looked a trifle bored. “Oh, please, Mr. Hendon,” she said, “I was kissed once. It was my mother. I know all about kisses,” “We have no time for banter,” he 32 said. “I am speaking of the kiss in its finer aspect. There are other kinds, of course—some unduly prolonged, some vulgarly slobbering, some flung off between a last cup of coffee and the bus to downtown. And there’s even the so-called peck—though where it comes in the category of the kiss I hardly know. It is far, far down in the scale of emotion and substance, my dear queen. That was a peck that you just now gave the bishop.” He got them to try once more, and they failed once more. There were nobles and courtiers draped all over the place, of course; some half asleep and some watching all goggle-eyed and tittering. But when Hendon finished talking, some of them tittered too loudly and he turned on them like Edna May Oliver and reminded them that the good name and glory of the Little Theater was in their young hands and each would be gracious enough to do his part and not interrupt and they might remem- ber to be gentlefolk. “If you ask me, the whole idea of this necking and kissing’s improper!” Andy blurted out from where he sat. “Andrew!” It was Elsa who shouted it, and you knew she was mad, ’cause she never before called him Andrew. And Hendon blew up, too. “You are nothing but an impudent young man!” he yelled. “Leave the room at once!” WELL, it was pretty warm. Andy went like he’d been spanked, and Mr. Hendon pulled the silk handkerchief out of his pocket and mopped his brow and patted his lips and then jammed the hanky back in his pocket—which is mighty hard to imagine if you know K. Raleigh. Then as though nothing at all had happened, he said, “Marion, a kiss— let me show you.” The whole artist had emerged. “Watch me,” he directed. “This you do not do—observe very carefully.” And he illustrated how not to do it—hold- ing it like his picture was being taken. “You noticed the lips were drawn to- gether like when you suck a soda through a straw. That is the flippant teen-age kiss. Now watch again. In this one, you see, the tongue wets the lips, going around and around like a youngster who has been given a bowl of frosting to lick.” I once saw a fellow do the same thing when we were watching Hedy Lamarr. “And there are others,” said Mr. Kendon. “But the kiss that we are after, my dear—the kiss that we are after starts from deep, deep within the heart. The soul beautifies it, desire warms it, and it emerges co-ordinated with the lush longings of the entire being. Observe now. You can almost see the heart beat caster as the facial muscles tense. The lips draw together ever so slightly, and at the same time the body poises to spring forward. Bishop, where are you? Stand right in front of me, bishop. The body poises to spring. Note the mouth has not changed much. But in a sudden im- passioned outburst the lips are smoth- ered in their lover’s as the two become one—thus.” With a lunge, Hendon’s arms encir- cled Ronnie’s neck and his lips pressed against Ron’s. Ronnie’s cheeks turned positively a Chinese red, and you'd have thought that, for all of his bish- op’s robes, he wanted to kick Raleigh Hendon in the stomach. IT was awfully late and it was my car we kids were going home in. When we got out onto the street, we saw Andy standing there sulking, and it made me mad. “Can I ride home with you?” he said, and I said “No” right off the bat, and I wish I'd stuck to it, but I didn’t. I don’t know why I did it, but as soon as I’d spoken I turned soft and I said, “Oh, all right, if you have to—but you've got to ride up in front with me if you’re coming.” I wasn’t exactly picking a good time, but I sort of felt sorry for Elsa by then, and I knew she wouldn’t be in any mood to have him pawing her and maybe picking on her. So we all got in, Andy and me in front and Elsa and Ronnie in the back seat, and it was pretty much like a funeral procession when we started off. And I wish it had stayed like that! “O’Rourke”—that was how Andy started, and I never yet heard any one start that way that wasn’t trying to make trouble. “O’Rourke, I been watching you,” he said, and as soon as I’d heard the first word I reached over and kicked him in the shins— but it didn’t do any good. “Yeah?” Ronnie asked. “Well, what’s it about?” “You know what about,” Andy shot back. Elsa could see something was com- ing, so she put in a mild “Andy, please.” That was all—it’s the honest truth; but, boy, did he take it up! “So you're on O’Rourke’s side, are you?” he demanded. “Andy, I’m tired,” Elsa answered. “Turn around and mind your own business.” “Or get out and walk, if you’re look- ing to pick a fight,” I told him. And he astounded me, because he did actually turn around. He just growled a long “Oh-h-h-h”—and sort of whinnied and jammed his hands down between his knees. For about a minute. Then he came the meek stuff; and I hate it. I’d heard him use it too many times before and it never lasts over two sentences. “Elsa, I’m going to ask Hendon to leave that kissing scene out of the show,” he said. He said it so softly, so gently, you’d say it was almost pathetic if’ you didn’t know him. Ronnie was wise to him, though. “Why don’t you start writing shows yourself?” Ronnie said. Then he added, “I wouldn’t bother about this one, though.” “You’re pretty smart, aren’t you?” Andy began—and I gave him two more kicks, and hard ones too, because he was asking for trouble so insistently it was painful. But you couldn’t stop him. “If you kiss Elsa the way you did tonight—” ==
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Ronnie almost climbed over on top of him. “You leave Elsa out of this!” he yelled. “You watch the way you look at her, then, and the way you put your hands—” Ronnie was quicker than anybody I ever saw. You wouldn’t believe me if I told you how fast he moved, and honestly I wouldn’t know how to tell you about it even if you would be- lieve me, because quicker than a flash he grabbed Andy by the hair with his right hand and clamped his left hand tight over Andy’s mouth. And at the same time I saw something else, too— and that was Elsa with both her arms around Ronnie like she was really scared and Ron was her protector. Andy couldn’t move and he couldn’t say a word, but I thought I’d better play safe, so I pulled over to the curb, because you can imagine how awful it would have been if they had started a fist fight in the car. But they didn’t; and you can thank Ronnie. Because, instead, he gave Andy’s head a yank and looked right into his face, and he said like I’d never in my life heard Ronnie talk, “If you say another word T’ll smash your damned mouth!” And I got brave, too, and said, “And Ill help him!” And we meant it. And after that it was like a funeral again. At least, in the front seat, IT seemed as though the next day came in about the twinkling of a star. And in another twinkling we were all at the theater and the audience was gathering. And in another the show was on. And it was wonderful. I had to be near the stars—I mean Ronnie as the bishop and Elsa as the queen; and I was close to Mr. Hendon almost all of the time and I could hear every single thing he said. I'll admit, though, he drove me a little nuts with his dancing and prancing and playing with the hanky in his breast pocket through the whole show. There was a prologue, of course— only it was in fancy language, so that actually all you got out of it was a sort of rough idea of what was going to happen. But after the prologue was over the curtain went up and there JANUARY 3, 1942 was the first act right in front of you, and it was a. great banquet hall and there were musicians tuning their in- struments at the far end of it. And there were guests assembling—and honestly it was lavish, the whole thing. It would have befitted the finest court that ever was—that ever really was, I mean. And as each new couple ar- rived they were announced with great ceremony. Like this: “The Duke and Duchess of Widener. Lord and Lady Ascot. The Marquis and Marchioness of Stintsbury. Lord Drummond. Lord and Lady Craigs- mor. Baron Weymouth of Corstor- phine. Lord and Lady Hartford.” Then they all hubbubbed for a while until the same voice said again, with such emphasis that you knew some one very important was coming, “His Lordship the Bishop of Axminster.” Well, you’ve heard people say that a_ silence fell on something—well, what I mean is that a silence really did He growled a long “Oh-h-h-h" — and sort of whinnied. fall on all the guests and they made way at once so that the bishop could go downstage. And as he proceeded down to the front you could hear whispers running through the audi- ence like, “Such dignity.” “He has a kindly face.” “Such graciousness.” Ronnie fell into conversation and became the center of attention on the stage—and the center of attention for the audience, too, with his gentle voice that was sort of like soft violin music and his perfectly glorious humbleness. He looked like such a kind good man —and yet sort of different from most good men because he was very grand and stunning at the same time. Then suddenly there was a great blare of trumpets. The chattering of the nobles stopped as though a shock had gone through them. Ronnie looked straight in the direction from which the horns had blown. There wasn’t a sound left in the whole hall except for people whispering excitedly, “The queen is coming! The queen!” Some of them got nervous, though. I saw Lady Ascot fixing the neckline of her dress and tugging at her shoul- der strap, and the old Marquis of Stintsbury’d forgotten to take off his garters before putting on his tights, and first he yanked and snapped at the garters to get them up in place and then pulled at his tights to get the legs back down. But the trumpets were very close by then, and you should have heard them pierce the air with their clear, royal tones. And then a herald entered and stood in the archway beyond the marble steps at the back of the great hall and proclaimed in a voice that was round and powerful, “Her Gra- cious Majesty Marion Queen of Nor- land, Empress of Sendia, Protector of All the Realm.” Can you picture it? Can you picture a rich background of royal purple— I mean so rich that you’d like to ‘touch it and really feel it against your skin and you'd like to picture your own self in front of it? And then a queen appearing? ere was.a glittering crown on Elsa’s head and her body was swathed in pure white—the purest you can imagine. And it ended in graceful folds that were held from the earth— maybe you'd even. say the common earth—by train bearers. And about her waist she had a belt of gold. Noth- ing else; because she didn’t need any- thing else. And a big gasp went through the audience. Because I guess they had never seen such grace and such beauty and such bearing. You knew before she had said a word that Elsa had won their hearts. The audience was positively capti- vated. And so was dear little Mr. Hendon. I tell you, by the end of the first act K. Raleigh was in bliss. ' “They’re wonderful—they’re mar- velous!” he exclaimed to any one who came close enough. Elsa, of course, had one of the stars’ dressing rooms, and Mr. Hendon hardly stopped to rap on the door be- fore he opened it a little crack and started talking to her. “My dear, such an exquisite queen!” he sort of bubbled. “You fairly carried me away with your regal bearing and your understanding acting, though I know the lines by heart! You are no longer an amateur, my dear; you are destined for the stage—positively destined!” Well, naturally, Elsa was delighted, and she came close to the door and touched his hand and said, “It’s so sweet of you, Mr. Hendon.” And I noticed he took hold of her hand and that he kept on holding it, though of course it didn’t mean any- thing. “I can see you on Broadway overnight!” he raved on. “Producers will come begging you to sign their contracts! The world will adore you! They will mention you in the same breath with Hayes and Cornell! Holly- wood will cry its eyes out for you!” But all of a sudden he seemed to realize that maybe Elsa had a lot to do and he started leaving. “I must congratulate the bishop,” he said. “My dear, I almost envy Axminster. I should fall in love with you myself if I were young enough.” Then he went away. I guess it was theysame thing over again in Ronnie’s room—except that Mr. Hendon wasn’t quite so specific as to when Ronnie would land on Broad- : 33
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a i i i kt ee EI Py; way. Of course before he was through he got started on Elsa without realiz- ing even the slightest bit that it could be that Ronnie, quite aside from being the bishop, might have suddenly gone mellow on her. And I guess he gave her such a build-up that Ronnie all at once swung around and broke in, as serious as could be, “She’s perfect.” IT was when Elsa was leaving the stage after the second act that K. Raleigh, meeting her as he scampered after a stagehand, tried to stop so suddenly that he lost his bal- ance and crashed against her ribs. He looked as startled as my little brother Willie when he slipped on a banana peel once, only Willie’s face got white and Mr. Hendon’s was ridiculously red. And while he was still supporting himself with his arms around Elsa’s waist he cried, “The audience is wild about you, Marion!” And as he got back on his feet and perched on one toe like he was going to start sprint- ing again, he jabbered at her, “You're stately, you’re majestic—that’s what they’re saying! and you will live with the immortals!” he promised her. “When the bishop bares his heart to you, remember that you are a woman! I must dash on,” he puffed, “but I shall be watching you, Marion, I shall be watching you!” If I can ever in my whole life be as happy as she was right then I'll be willing to die without a peep and you can bring on the lilies and I won't even care. And I hope I do die if that half- witted Andy ever comes into my life, because you can stuff me for a mummy if he didn’t have to choose that mo- ment to stick his ugly nose around a corner and shout at Elsa, “Hey, wait a minute!” ‘ The way she looked at him you’d have thought even a brainless dunce like him would have caught on that it wasn’t a time for nagging. But not Andy. He doesn’t ever catch on to anything—at least, that I’ve ever seen.’ So what does he do but throw at her, “You goin’ to keep on lookin’ at that O’Rourke guy the way you been?” Well, all that Elsa said was, “Andy, I’ve been dreaming. Don’t spoil it.” And he answered, “Oh, nuts! I’ve got eyes!” Which was too much for even Elsa. “Well, if your eyes are as big as your tongue, think of all the trouble you might get into!” she shouted, and tossed her head like she was really mad. And she actually ran to her dressing room and you could hear the door close with a bang. And Andy stood there like she’d slapped him- ig I WAS passing Elsa’s door long ahead of the third-act curtain when she opened it and stood in the doorway like she didn’t know whether to come out or go back in. She’d no sooner seen I was there, though, than she grabbed my wrist and gave it a yank and said, “Come on in and talk to me.” Well, after she’d pulled me through the doorway headfirst I was glad she’d 34 One more triumph. done it, because it was like going into a lovely flower shop—I mean it smelled so sweet and there were three gor- geous bouquets of roses. For a tiny wee moment I felt like I must be Mr. Hendon, because the only thing I could think of to say was, “Elsa, you're wonderful!” But I didn’t know whether she’d even heard me, because she just plopped in front of her mirror and started tucking in some loose ends of hair and said all nervously, “It’s taken so much out of me.” Then she added bitterly, “And then, there was that Andy.” Well, you’d know she didn’t want to auByigns Our temperamental question tester, Gregory Pinquetea, missed Nos. 3 and 16. Count double if you get those right. 1—Daniel M. Casey achieved immortal fame in what way? 2—The product of what number, when multiplied by any other number, always adds up to the original number? : 3—Do you know what an ampersand is? 4—Why is New York. called the “Empire State”? 5—When was the first successful para- chute jump made, and from what height? 6—What has a tail measured in millions of miles? 7—How often does “cent” appear on a Lincoln penny? 8—What does “upstage” mean literally and figuratively? g—In ancient days, what was the chief uses of butter? 10—Which is the largest lake in Europe? 11—Was Pickett’s charge at Gettysburg made by cavalry, infantry, or tank corps? 12—Where are most “Panama” hats made? 13—In their gold-rush trip from the east- ern seaboard to California, what three main routes were used by the forty-niners? 14—The U. S. has ordered new “floating stones.” What are they, and when were they first used? 15—Is a heliograph sent via sun rays, ether waves, or sound waves? 16—The following men had what in com- mon: Theodore Roosevelt, George M. Dallas, Levi P. Morton, and Chester A. Arthur? ve there any active volcanoes in the 18—Of what is gun metal made—and is it used in making guns? 19—W. J. Ennever originated a memory- training system known by a name easy to remember. What was it? 20—At 10,000 feet up in an airplane would you weigh more, less, or the same as you would at sea level? (Answers will be found on page 50) talk about Andy, so I-told her again how marvelous she was. All the time she was going through a lot of jittery motions with her hands and wiggling around on her stool, and I couldn’t tell to save me where her mind was; except it seemed to be everywhere at once. For a moment it was on that third act. “I don’t know whether I ean get through it,” she said. What I tried to do was switch the subject, because I’m no good at all at the pep-talk stuff, so I said inanely, “Elsa, these roses, I simply adore them!” And she said excitedly, “So do I!” So I asked her who the white ones were from, and she whirled around till she was facing me, and the way she did it made even me get all warm and sort of loving inside. And she an- swered, “Ronnie sent them.” So I knew she was completely gone on him. “T couldn’t even finish the show if it weren’t for him,” she said. “You've done O. K. so far,” I told her. “Because of him,” she said. When I told her every one was say- ing she was even better than Ron, she tried to edge out of it. “Then it’s ’cause he’s made me,” she said. “I’d have even fainted if it hadn’t been for Ron— if his eyes hadn’t looked into mine when I looked up at him.” “I guess you must sort of under- stand one another,” I said. Elsa leaned over and pressed her lips against one of the roses. All of a sudden I realized that it must be time for the curtain and I shot out of her room like a bullet, but something was wrong with the scene- shifting. - Elsa came out and wandered around like she was dazed, but pretty soon she found a corner back of some props where there wasn’t any one at all, and pulled a chair over and tried to sit. Only she couldn’t sit. She’d sit and then stand—and then fidget. And then Ronnie saw her. Well, I watched out of the corner of my eye and got a little closer where I could hear what they said. You’d have thought she’d been lost in the middle of a jungle and he’d tracked her for hundreds of miles, be- cause when he went up to her he told her, “I’ve hunted for you everywhere,” and he was all breathless and quivery. She was quivery too, and it was like both of them were terribly afraid. And they talked fast, like you would if your house was on fire. WELL, I’m not sure if I heard it all, because I was as excited as they were, but I'll swear she said to him, “Ronnie, let’s run away!” And he said, “Elsa!” And she said, “I’m so afraid of this next act. I can’t go through with it!” And I guess that was what finished it; because first he took hold of her hands, and then his arm was around © her and he was pressing her body against his own and kissing her. And he said, “We'll run away to- gether—after the act. We'll go—oh, anywhere; anywhere where I can hold you and kiss you and— I love you so!” And then it got so gooey I was ashamed I’d sneaked on them, because it was pretty private talk, after all. Then the final call came. And I wondered whether she’d make the stage—she was so sort of groggy. But she did. She reached it and she was even saying her lines. And Ron was there, too, with his soft, clear voice. When they came close to one another, she looked like she wanted to touch him with her hands or stroke his cheek or feel his arms around her. I guess I was as groggy as she was. The stupid courtiers seemed to take so LIBERTY,
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long with their speeches and their empty-headed talk. Why didn’t they rush things and get their prattle over with? You could tell how Elsa felt by just watching her; how she was buoyed when she heard Ronnie talk, and that under the stiff formal lines he had he was sort of singing to her. - Then she looked like she couldn’t even see him—like things were foggy. And I got it too—like when I’d had the fever. The stage was whirling be- neath her feet and the actors gyrated crazily and she seemed to forget her lines. Ronnie—Mr. Hendon, I thought, what’s she supposed to say? Prompt her, somebody! Good heavens, can’t some one help? Where should she be? What’s it about? What— Then the fog cleared and she seemed to see Ronnie again—as though he’d rushed back to save her. “God grant I shall merit no reproach. My heart cries out—”’ Ronnie was pleading with his very soul. So that’s the place? That? Why doesn’t the au- dience do something? I wondered. Why don’t they clap? He’s got them hypnotized! The way he’s got her— and me! There go his hands! He’s reaching for her! His arms! Now she ean hold him! Raleigh Hendon was standing next to me in the wings. He was spellbound. It was like his Queen Marion was unbelievable. It was like he’d never seen such incredible acting! He even touched his hand to my shoul- der and pointed and said, “Axminster too! Listen to Axminster!” And there it was: “God grant I shall merit no reproach. My heart cries out—’ And Hendon said in a loud whisper, “Perfect, Axminster, perfect! See his hands! He is reaching for her! She is responding! How beau- tifully she responds!” There was a terrific moment! They stood like statues before one another —marble statues that were finer and more beautiful and more perfect than any others in the world! As though they were not sure of one another! And the audience was rigid! It was that sublime moment when life goes beyond itself and shows you a beauty that’s too fine to even dream of! And then her voice rang out, fever- ishly and high-strung: “Ronnie!” Oh, my gosh! It was terrible! Was that what she really said? Raleigh Hendon went pale. He yanked his handkerchief from his pocket and mopped his brow, and chucked the handkerchief in my hand and gasped, “Get some smelling salts— some one get the smelling salts!” And Elsa was still talking: “Hold me tight, Ron. Hold me tighter!” That was what the queen said! And she was kissing Ronnie—like nothing Mr. Hendon could ever have imagined, and poor Mr. Hendon was unconscious and didn’t even see it! It was ruined, of course! The whole show! But that wasn’t the worst. Leave it to Andy. The dunce had been leaning against a flat with his eyes and ears at a little slit, and when he heard Elsa he got so mad he threw a fit and the whole flat fell forward, tearing a great stained-glass window from the set. And Andy rolled onto the stage. And where the stained window had been there were a lot of ladies of the court holding their petticoats waist-high be- fore an electric fan getting cooled off. And the audience was so stunned they didn’t even move—until Andy crashed down with the window. And then they howled. “Yippee!” “More! More!” they screamed. And some whistled and some stomped. And in the midst of it Ronnie, car- rying his completely overcome beloved off the stage, tripped as he reached the exit, so I guess he bore his lover across the threshold accompanied by more cheering than any one else has ever heard. Well, I yelled, “Curtain!” because Mr. Hendon was out of the picture, and somebody heard me and dropped the curtain, and it crashed like a guil- lotine and just missed Andy’s head. WELL, they’ll be home tomor- row.. They’ve been in Bermuda two weeks. Won’t it seem queer calling them Mr. and Mrs. O’Rourke? Andy and I are going to meet them at the train. And after that we’re go- ing to let Mr. and Mrs. O’Rourke—gee, that sounds funny—be all by them- selves and Andy’s going to take me to dinner. At least, that’s what he said last night, and if he wants to do it, it’s perfectly O. K. with me. THE END CROSSWORDS by Lee Pasquin HORIZONTAL failed to ex- 1 Prefix: half plode 5 Worship 26 Employ 10 Precious stone 27 On high 14 Interjection 28 Soon 15 Allude to 30 Color 16 Genus which 31 Exhausted includes frogs 17 Insectivorous mamm 18 Falsehood 19 Narrowed to a 24 Reverential fear 25 Shell which Rizimiappioimino MI \A 1 ‘Al IS ‘Al i RIE | ‘S| E| RI 0| by Y] HIE NIR|| RB! LLIRIOINICIRIO/S |S] Last week’s answer JANUARY 3, 1942 34 Armed conflict 35 Tiring person 36 One disturbing public peace 7 Exist 38 Public walk 41 Remember 43 Greater in number 44 Lair 45 Draw out 46 Liver secretion 47 Bind 48 Of the thing (legal) 49 Unadulterated 50 Salt 51 Watering place 53 Ireland 54 Siding in a canal 57 Drove in a car 59 Cushion 60 Burdensome Y #5 Y/, an dut ine g Gol ative PPL TZ rae. 3 aa 64 Indian tribe 7 ms eens Y. |_| 67 Formerly Sig i ae eee ies Whee Se 7 tad 7//t 3 Man who kills yy 4 imal RTS £ Avxiary verb ae AG al WD yee Re 7 Prepesition Pe | the Hs 3 Dor back Pooh cok 29 Called il Breast-high 30 Back part of bes 31 Titl i agen 32 Foedher 18 Conducted 33 Current 35 Bundle 20 Hebrew letter 36 Unusual = — 38 Part of nutmeg 26 Throw 39 Tree Peas 27 On top of 42 Superintendent 28 Conscious of ah Be Be 6 th a Tre HS NY of a museum comparative 43 Muck degree 44 Surgical in- 54 High wind strument 55 Opening (pl.) 46 Refrain 56 Means of 47 Fish egress 49 Portion 58 Nonhydro- 50 Sorrowful lyzable sugar 51 Duck 59 Apt 52 Study 63 Egyptian god 53 Suffix denoting 64 Pronoun The answer to this puzzle will appear in next week’s issue. 35
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Will new ones be born in the Army?—Titles will topple in '42, says a famous ex-champ BY JACK DEMPSEY SPORTS EDITOR OF LIBERTY READING TIME @ 10 MINUTES 10 SECONDS ake THE corn may be green, but the cauliflower crop for 1942 is greener and cornier, and while I be- lieve Joe Louis will continue his reign throughout the year, from my obser- vations, based on recent performances of some of the outstanding headliners, boxing titles in all classes, except the heavyweight, will be toppled about like tenpins in the coming year. I’m also convinced that the next heavy- weight champion of the world will bear the brand, “Made in U. S. A.,” meaning the United States Army. In- deed, I think the future champ is somewhere in one of our army train- ing camps right now. And that goes for all the other classes, too. The increasing activity in athletics in the training camps is exerting a stimulating effect on sports in general and boxing in particular. Scattered on farms, in cities, villages, and towns in various parts of America, there al- ways have been potentially great fighters who were unable to get the proper teaching and training oppor- tunity to develop their natural talents. The army training will develop a lot of this promising material. But al- though any number of young men already have shown conclusively that they have “the makings” and may grow into excellent or possibly great fighters, it is much too early to make any predictions about them, for those predictions would be merely guess- work now. They represent the cauli- flower crop of, say, 1943 or ’44, and a bumper crop it undoubtedly will be. And so, in considering the outlook in boxing for the coming year, I'll confine myself to the cauliflowers 36 that are now on the market, already in the “profession.” Contrary to the general opinion ex- pressed by most of the boxing writers, I don’t think Joe Louis has slipped to any appreciable extent. If he should fight Billy Conn in the summer of 1942, at this writing it seems to me Louis would defeat the Pittsburgh Adonis in even more decisive fashion than he did before. As for the other “contenders” of 1941—such as Abe Simon, Buddy Baer, “Red” Burman, Lou Nova, Bob Pastor, Godoy, etc., all of whom Louis has shellacked— they, I believe, will be relegated to the status of trial horses for the new crop of heavyweights who are begin- ning to crop up like mushrooms. Among these are Lem Franklin, Harry Bobo, Johnny Colan, Tami Mauriello, Wallace Cross, Johnny Aichers, Tim Still, and others. Some of this latter group are light-heavy- weights or novices now, and some even have been beaten. Colan and Mauriello, both beaten as light-heavy- weights, are growing rapidly, while Cross, Aichers, and Still are as yet untried, although they show great promise. Melio Bettina also has grown into the class. So much for the heavy- weights of 1942. The light-heavyweight title is one of those which, in my opinion, will be bounced around considerably this year. Two of the toughest contenders, Mauriello and Colan, I am quite sure, . will outgrow this class before the year is over. At present writing Gus Les- nevich, who is matched to box Lou Nova in an over-the-weight match, rules the roost in this class, having nosed out victories over Mauriello twice last fall. But Billy Soose, Ken MA avd Qtr —— Overlin, and Al Hostak, all former middleweight champions of one sort or another—either New York Com- mission or National Boxing Associa- tion—have outgrown the middles and are carrying their feud into the higher division, and I look for some hectic ‘action in this class. Soose, having re- nounced the middleweight champion- ship, should do better in this heavier class. He is a clever boxer and with the added weight should be a heavier hitter, and this combination should make him one of the most logical to gain the title. Overlin, a clever boxer, in spite of his victory over Hostak, is passing his peak and may find the others too young for him before the year is out. Booker Beckwith and Mose Brown, a couple of hard-wal- loping Negroes, should develop enough LIBERTY,
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to furnish some hot contention here. In spite of his defeat at the hands of Bob Pastor in Chicago early in No- vember, I think Beckwith will de- velop into a very dangerous battler. Tommy Camponella, a youngster whom Ray Monahan, well known fight manager, picked off the docks, is an- other who may come through. When Tony Zale defeated Georgie Abrams in Madison Square Garden on November 28, he became the first universally recognized champion in the class which had come to be known as the “muddleweights” since Mickey Walker walked out of the title about ten years ago. Zale is a hard puncher and a rough fighter, and he damaged Abrams’ right eye so severely that this injury will hurt Georgie’s chances of turning the tables on Tony in a~- JANUARY 3, 1942 return match. Steve Belloise may lose his slight “inferiority complex” and fight the way he is capable of fighting against class opposition; and Tony Fernandez, Shorty Hogue, and a few other youngsters will probably de- velop enough to supply some keen competition in this class. Ray Robinson, the flashy Negro battler who piled up such an amazing string of victories in 1941, appeared to me to have the welterweight crown at his mercy until he was stricken with pneumonia in November. This class contains some very capable bat- tlers and should be one of the most active in the coming year. I think Freddy Cochrane is a better fighter than he generally is credited with be- ing, but I don’t believe he is up to standards set by previous rulers in this division. Joe Gould and Tex Sulli- van have a fine prospect in “Young Kid McCoy,” the youngster sent East by the Iate real Kid McCoy, who dis- covered him and gave him official authorization to use the name McCoy. Bob Montgomery, the clever Negro battler, also is a definite threat in this division; although of course Bob will be a seasoned veteran this coming year. Randy Brown, a Mount Vernon caddie, and Danny Bartfield, whom Nick Florio, their: trainer, tells me is a nephew of old Soldier Bartfield, also look like good welters. And Tony Ferrara and Frank Montaneri must be reckoned with among the welter- weights. I look for a lot of somersaults in the lightweight class. I am afraid the present ruler in this division, Lew Jenkins, has seen his best days as a fighter and I don’t think he will hold the title very long. Sammy Angott may topple him from his throne, and so may any one of several others. Joey Peralto, who outgrew the feath- erweight class, showed me that he has the makings of an excellent fighter by his defeat of Chalky Wright, current featherweight champion, in an over-the-weight match. Lenny “Boom-Boom” Mancini, and Bobby Ruffin are comparative newcomers who might cut a wide swath in this division next season. By far the most colorful fighter in this class—or any other, perhaps—is the little Negro, Beau Jack, “darling of the Stork Club,” so called because a score of habitués of that night club own “stock” in him. He is managed better: than Joe Louis, according to his “pilot of record,” Chick Wergeles. “When he was turned over to me,” Chick told me, “I thought if I had to piece him out I’d do a real job of it. So we got twenty guys and gals to buy stock in him at fifty bucks ~ a share, making a ‘grand’ to defray the expense of launchin’ him on his fistic career. His real name’s Sidney Walker, but he’s Beau Jack, I>k., now, and the stockholders include Lansing B. Lee, a famous. mouthpiece in Atlanta, Georgia, Bobby Jones, the golfer, actors Frank Crumit and Frank Craven, Wall Street broker Cliff Roberts, Mrs. Grantland Rice and Mrs. Tom Yawkey, the cartoonist Billy De Beck, big distiller “Slats” Slater, and a dozen otHer big shots. The stockholders get no dividends, and they’ll get paid back when, as, and if. But they don’t care. They’re glad to help out an orphan. They buy thirty-six box seats and forty or fifty ringsides whenever he fights.” Lansing Lee acts as financial man- ager for the kid, and after each fight just enough is held out for his living expenses and the rest is banked. Also, after each fight Wergeles generously hands the kid one dollar, which he spends for ten-cent movies. After the dollar is spent, no more movies till his next fight. He’s 5 feet 7 inches tall, weighs 135 pounds, was born about twenty years ago in Augusta, Georgia. At. the featherweight limit, 126 pounds, I think Chalky Wright is about the best today, and he is an- other champion who I believe will retain his title through 1942 unless he outgrows it. Here, too, there is some hot competition. Harry Jeffra of Bal- timore, former bantamweight cham- pion, is still good enough in this class to rule the roost if he is at his best, and Jacky Wilson, Richy Lemos, Sal Bartola, and Joey Archibald, are others who must be reckoned with. Lou Salica is a fine little fighter, but I think he will lose his bantam- weight title in 1942. Rush Dalma, a snappy battler from the Coast, appears 37
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ae —_— to me a likely candidate for the throne. I also like Kid Tanner in this class. Tucker Smith is another who looks like a fine prospect to me. In the course of my travels I saw a young Porto Rican, Diogenes Leon, who I think will cut a wide swath among the bantams. The flyweight title, like the mid- dleweight championship, is vacant, according to the boxing solons of New York and the National Boxing Association, but I believe champions will be crowned in both of these di- visions, and that Jackie Paterson has as good a chance as any of the tiny battlers to cop the smaller title. He will have no easy time of it, however, for he will have boys like Little Dado, Little Pancho, Johnny Shaughnessy, Small Montana, and a host of others to conquer. In looking over the field, one can’t help but be impressed by the large number of colored boys who dominate the various boxing divisions. Joe Louis and Chalky Wright hold the heavyweight and featherweight titles respectively, while Negro boxers are high among the most prominent con- tenders in practically all the other classes. This condition, which has ex- isted for some time, reflects the influ- ence of the heavyweight champion. When Joe Louis won the title and con- tinued to perform brilliantly and suc- cessfully, he fired the youth of his race to high ambition. I certainly don’t believe in babying or mollycoddling a fighter, but there’s one practice that is hurting the fight game today. That’s the tossing of crude but promising battlers in over their heads against far more experi- enced and seasoned fighters and al- lowing the saplings to get their ears punched off. This may satisfy the greed and cupidity of a promoter or manager, but it doesn’t do the fighter any good. For instance, budding bat- tlers like Pat Comiskey, Booker Beck- with, and Johnny Colan, to name a few, were tossed in against mature experienced opponents before they were ripe for. that kind of company. Result, they took a terrific shellack- ing. This, in the long run, might prove good experience for them; but in the case of young Colan, whose eye was so severely cut that the referee and also the Commission doctor refused to allow him to go out for the ninth round, it was certainly harmful. Colan’s fight with Tommy Tucker last November reminds me of my battle with John Lester Johnson early in my boxing career. This was fought in the Harlem Sporting Club, at 135th Street, New York, and it very nearly ended my career in the ring. Johnson, a gigantic and powerful Negro, was in my opinion one of the toughest fight- ers in the ring at that time. He hit like a pile driver. It is hard for me to re- member ever being hurt in the ring, because I was so keyed up by ex- citement when fighting that I hardly felt the blows I received. But not long ago, when I was asked whether I could remember any single punch that really hurt me, I could recall only one—a body blow from Johnson, landed early in the fight back in 1916. It broke two of my ribs and the effect lasted all through the fight and for weeks afterward. It came in the sec- ond round and the pain doubled me up. Several rounds passed before I could stand up straight, in spite of all the will power I could command. How I was able to continue battling for ten rounds I will never know. After the fight I went West to re- cuperate, convinced that I would never be able to win the championship. Being overmatched, having to fight against some one who is better and more experienced than you are, saps your confidence. I hope that Colan will be able to come back as I was lucky enough to do, because he looks to me.like a great natural fighter. In fact, he reminds me of the late Stanley Ketchel, whom I saw battle when I was only a kid. Goodness knows, the cauliflower in- dustry can stand a few of this type. THE END MISSISSIPPI! BELLE—Continued from Page 27 bouncer. We have to do that once in a while, though not as often as most. His mind is mixed up—he gets curi- ous ideas. Punch-drunk. But he han- dles the job here very well. : . . By the way, will you join me in a drink?” He rang for, Erasmus. He had a sudden idea—he wanted to see if Bedford would recognize Erasmus. Erasmus came, took the order, and went without a flicker on either side. “T wish I could get you to change your mind and give me a game,” Dan said. “I’ve got five thousand dollars and I need either nothing or ten.” Blake looked up at him, interested. “Would it be an intrusion to ask why you want nothing or ten thousand? I—you’ll pardon me—I happen to know something about the affairs of Bedford Plantation. You have a fine situation near Memphis, and a fine profitable place. It’s such a place as Td like to own myself, if I could afford it, for my declining years.” Dan Bedford laughed. “You don’t look as though you had any declining years coming for a long time. Me, I’ve got years coming up—waiting on Bedford Plantation for my declining years isn’t good enough. There’s a new newspaper starting in Memphis —the Appeal. I want to buy in, and ten thousand is the least they’ll fool with. I’ve come to you _ because you've got the reputation (you’ll par- don me) of being a pretty cold propo- sition—and honest.” “Well—not cold, exactly.” Blake was interested and a little flattered. “Mechanical, say. As to being honest 38 —I don’t use gimmicks. There’s a sheet of glass under each roulette wheel—you can pick the wheel up and look it over for needles. Happy to have you examine the faro box— deal the cards out of it yourself, if you like. You may bring your own cards for any game in the house, provided you'll let me ruffle them a few times. If you like your own dice, all I ask is to warm them a few times—against a balk, of course. I work purely on the percentages, and with honest per- centages I will, sooner or later, get your five thousand dollars. The occa- sional player can’t win, in the long run, against a machine—and I am a machine.” “Thanks, Mr. Blake. Let’s try it out.” : “Not today. The house is closed. - . . Here are the drinks.” Erasmus brought the tall glasses. (Not a flicker—no recognition.) They clinked glasses. . . . “The house is closed, as I told you, in honor of General Jackson.” Blake sipped. “Curious—I admire the man, but I do not like his ward heelers. General Jackson is a great gambler. He has gambled his life, his fortune—every- thing except his honesty—on every- thing from a horse race to the Presi- dency. He figures out the percentages and goes neck-or-nothing according- ly. He does not use gimmicks. I think Mr. Biddle’s bank was a gimmick. He destroyed it—in the process he damn near destroyed me. . . . Funny—the little ward heelers of the man who gambles a continent in the interests of the people who have won that continent are trying to refuse them a fair gamble by closing the houses. Sending them back to the land specu- lators. No, I admire General Jackson. I wish I could vote for his ticket—I can’t. Anyhow, the house is closed.” Dan used arguments. He was per- suasive. . . . No, he couldn’t come back tomorrow—he had to go_up- river on the Vicksburg (the boat that was to carry General Jackson’s party). . . . He supposed he could take his five thousand somewhere else, but he liked Blake’s mathematical approach. He was interested in the mathemati- cal side of it—and he still didn’t see why an intelligent man couldn’t play a system that would throw the per- centages in his favor. He had caught Blake in his weak spot. A moment later he had drawn the dustcloth from a roulette table and was demonstrating the principles on which a professional gambler works. Dan drew him on—baited him, hooked him. Here was somebody, at last, who would listen intelligently. He finally agreed to a two-handed battle for Dan’s five thousand. “What game do you want?” Dan surveyed the room. “You seem to have plenty of equipment. Why not a thousand on each?” Will Dan Bedford lose to Blake, as Buck Preswald did? Will he see the notorious Kate Ryan and recognize her as the girl he loved eight years ago? Read the next installment of this vivid, compelling novel next week! LIBERTY, EEE
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READING TIME @ 8 MINUTES 45 SECONDS THIRTY or so years ago, five New York theatrical producers became wildly excited over the criti- eal and financial possibilities of a cer- tain play. The producers were Sam S. Shubert, Lee Shubert, J. J. Shubert, John C. Fisher, and Frank Perley. The play was The Nazarene, by Hal Reid. In association, the five enthusi- astic producers put on their great treasure in Newark, sat back, and prepared themselves for the flood of gold that was to come. Then some- wpe { tA Sone Le oan Kr Bs Audiences came to kid him. thing happened. Just before the cur- tain was due to go up on the opening night—in fact, just ten minutes before it was due to go up—they got word from a rather inconsiderate friend that their potential gold mine had been presented exactly two years be- fore at the Murray Hill Theater in New York under the title, The Light of the World, that the audience had gone sound asleep at it on the first night, that the critics the next morn- ing had panned the life out of it, and that it was one of the most awful flops of its season. The rest may be imagined, including the consternation of the five producers and, obviously, the immediate failure of their hypothetical mint. But if it be imagined that this is an exceptional story about that craziest of all trades, the show business, the -particular imagination is in prompt need of a doctor. Furthermore, if any one thinks that things have changed very much since those days, he is cuckoo. It is true that in that era there were many incidents that would take a lot to beat them, but when it comes to show business you can usu- JANUARY 3, 1942 HELLZABUSINESS Our critic gives you a blithe and sprightly lowdown on "the craziest of all trades” BY GEORGE JEAN NATHAN ally trust it to be sufficiently haywire at any and all times. It would seem, for example, pretty hard to outdo the old story of the eight Hurtig brothers who got their start as theater managers and pro- ducers by dividing themselves into two groups of four each, sending one group on the road ahead of Sarah Bernhardt quietly to buy up all the tickets in advance and then following it around the country with the second group to sell the tickets, before the Divine One opened, at a stiff premium. Or to surpass the intellectual effort of J. Austin Fynes, the first dramatic critic of the New York Evening Sun and thereafter manager of the Union Square Theater, to inaugurate three- a-day opera at his theater with a lone piano player in the orchestra pit and with a variety show added as a bar- gain. Or to excel the theatrical producer who, upon being offered Reményi (the famous Hungarian violinist) as an attraction, demanded to know “what the sketch is about, how many actors it calls for, and how much scenery it uses.” Or, surely, to top the story of the jitney Gilbert and Sullivan troupe that was pursued to New Haven, Con- Seven Juliets to one Romeo. necticut, by half a dozen indignant hotel managers who had been beaten out of their bills in other near-by towns and who, when the show was threatened by the sheriff with im- mediate closing in New Haven and when the male chorus struck, allowed themselves to.be persuaded that for ‘ financial self-protection they should substitute as the peers of high and lofty station in Iolanthe. Or, again surely, to beat the record of George Jones, known as the Count Joannes, who made a fortune playing Romeo and Hamlet behind a net and whose large audiences came nightly solely to kid the pants off him. Or, finally, the whimsy of Joseph Tooker, manager for Jarrett and Palmer, who intro- duced seven different Juliets, among them Marie Wainwright, in as many scenes in the Shakespearean tragedy wherein George Rignold, the English actor, played Romeo. However, coming to present times, let’s see. : When the Theater Guild several Grand Rapids horrifies Hardwicke. months ago announced as the first of its revivals Eugene O’Neill’s Ah, Wilderness! and issued a call for ac- tors, one of those who went around to see Theresa Helburn, in initial charge of casting, was a little actress named Ruth Gilbert. “But what role did you have in mind?” asked Miss Helburn, not without some impa- tience. “The role of Muriel,” replied Miss Gilbert. “Muriel!” exclaimed Miss H. “Nonsense! You are alto- gether too young for the part!” Miss Gilbert took her departure, with no small humorous difficulty restraining herself from informing Miss Helburn that it was she herself, now apparent- ly much too young for the role, who had played it all of eight years before when Miss Helburn and the Guild had originally produced the play. 39
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Incidentally, when Philip Moeller was directing the original production he stopped suddenly short at one point - and said to O’Neill, who was in re- hearsal attendance, that he believed it would be a fine idea to put in a comical line—he gave a sample—at that particular juncture. O’Neill, who never accepts outside suggestions for his plays from any one, gazed at Moeller long and hard. “Your line is funny all right,” he observed sar- castically, “but, if you insist on a _ laugh in that spot, it would be a much finer idea and a lot funnier if you yourself. came on during the scene, slowly turned around, the meanwhile dropping your trousers, and disclosed to the audience your bottom painted a brilliant blue!” A number of seasons ago, Eddie Dowling was booked to appear: in San Francisco in a new show. At the time, there was a newspaper editor in San Francisco who hated the theater and refused to give it any more space than was absolutely necessary. While play- ing in Chicago on his way to the West Coast, Dowling prevailed upon the editor of a local paper, an old and » AAI EAURRS 209 PIIIID AA VIS] ¢ She must have a swan bed. close friend of his, to lend him a help- ing hand. The editor did, and the day Dowling arrived in San Francisco the theaterphobe editor received him under another name and, on the hot recommendation of the Chicago edi- tor, duly gave him a job as a special interviewer. “Who do you suggest as your first assignment?” asked the boss. “There’s a guy named Dowling over at the St. Francis Hotel who, though unfortunately he’s in show business, is also interested in politics and might make a good story,” blandly replied the new member of the staff. The boss let out a disgusted belch. “Doesn’t sound good but—well, O. K., go around for a starter anyway and see what you can get.” Dowling went around, interviewed himself with enormous gusto, wrote a lengthy and enthusiastic appraisal of himself, shrewdly interlarding it with humor, and presented the result to his boss. The latter read it, liked it, and printed it the next morning, which was the day Dowling’s show was to open. The thing he liked particularly about it, he confided to the inter- viewer, was that the latter had made 40 out this Dowling actor fellow to be something of a sissy. The week after Shadow and Sub- stance had scored a big success in New York, the Shuberts, who shared financially in the production, sought to economize on the overhead and thus guarantee larger profits. It was thus that, when on the second Monday night Sir Cedric Hardwicke in the role of the aristocratic Canon came on- stage and delivered his famous testi- monial to his friend Don Miguel Barzan y Perdito and the taste in per- sonal surroundings which he had acquired from him, his eyes suddenly rested not on the rare antique furni- ture that had been in the parochial house before but horrifiedly on some of the doggonedest Grand Rapids stuff ever seen outside a tank-town hotel. _ Last year, when Sinclair Lewis played the Canon in summer stock, he found that the necessary fine re- productions of Velasquez’s Philip IV Entering Lerida, Murillo’s Immaculate Conception, and Raphael’s Dispute of the Sacrament to which the Canon addresses one of his most telling speeches were beyond the financial resources of the theaters. His loud protestations to the several manage- ments being of no avail, he was driven to substitute for the Canon’s grand speech the following paraphrase: “I have no pictures on that wall, and why? Because if there can hang no beautiful reproduction of Velasquez’s Philip IV Entering Lerida, and there another of Mturillo’s Immaculate Conception, and there another of Raphael’s bitter Dispute of the Sacra- ment, I want no compromise with beauty and prefer no pictures at all. But were they to hang there, could they be called secular if we know anything of the might of the thing that has given us birth?” The audi- ences esteemed the speech as one of author Paul Carroll’s very best. * LIBERTY’S BOOK TIP * by DONALD GORDON TEACHER'S HUSBAND, by Henry and Sylvia Lieferant. The Lieferants have written a quiet and truly drawn drama about a domestic situa- tion of which almost every one has seen an example within the last decade . . . the moral disintegration of a man increasingly resigned to accepting support from a work- ing wife. We are told it’s so common among the great army of teachers as to constitute an occupational hazard. Prob- ably you will recognize the development of the psychological knot portrayed whith our heroine was able to untangle in time. (The Dial Press.) Throughout its prosperous run in New York and other cities, critics and audiences at The Time of Your Life deplored the momentary shifting of the scene from the water-front saloon to a hotel bedroom, arguing that the shift slowed the action and that the bedroom scene could just as well—in point of fact, much better—be played in the saloon and be made sufficiently convincing in a pictorial direction simply and merely by the use of lights. Lawrence Langner of the Theater Guild, which had an interest in the production, stubbornly refused to consider any such change. “We spent a hundred dollars on that bed- room set and we aren’t going to throw it away for any one!” he insisted. When Julie Stevens read for a part in the play Brooklyn, U. S. A, the producers told her that she was satisfactory except for one thing. “Your hair is much too dark,” they said to her. “You'll have to dye it. You play a Polish girl and, naturally, all Polish girls are blonde.” So, despite the fact that every authentic Polish woman who has ever appeared on the American dramatic stage—from Janauschek to Josephine Victor—has had dark hair, Miss Stevens is now a blonde. The producers evidently got their idea of Polish girls from Lyda Roberti, of musical comedy fame. Lyda was blonde all right, and how! If they put on another play with a Polish woman in it and hire the dark Saroyan faints at a metamorphosis, Polish Pola Negri for the role, watch out, Pola. : When the Wild Bill of the Pampas, Saroyan, last season put on his play, The Beautiful People, he told the agents to send around for his inspec- tion actors for the role of Jonah Web- ster, described in the text as a care- lessly dressed, poetic, impoverished, boozy old bird. Of those who showed up, one, Cooksey by name, what with his indifferent clothes and genial slouch, struck Saroyan as just right, and he engaged him on the spot. Dur- ing the weeks of rehearsal, Saroyan further warmly congratulated himself on his sagacity in having picked ex- actly the man for the part. Then came the opening night—and Saroyan fainted. Proud of himself for sharing in the great occasion and determined to make the most of it in every direc- tion, Cooksey had gone out and bought himself an elegant new ward- robe and, when he appeared on the stage, it was nigh impossible to dis- tinguish between the bum _ that Saroyan had written and John Drew, or even William Faversham, in his fashionable prime. THE END LIBERTY,
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NEVER before in history has there been a situation like this: A vast expansion program carried on for eight years made it possible for the world’s largest brewery to produce more beer in 1941 than ever before has come from a single brewery or group of breweries operating under one management—and yet it was impossible for us to fill all orders. ‘Such a demand, previously unheard of for any similar product, made it difficult to main- tain adequate distribution in all of the 48 states at all times. Through it all, our dealers To A BEVERAGE JANUARY 38, 1942 oti DUdweiser}.":. TRADE MARK REG. U. S&S. PAT. OFF, lia large onder : America always makes up its mind about quality slowly and carefully. But, once it is certain that a prod- uct is the best of its kind, America quickly demands its production on a tremendous scale. With more Budweiser than ever before.... there has not been enough to go ‘round have shown great patience and for this we are grateful. America prefers Budweiser. Your own preference for Budweiser is a compliment to your own good taste—proof that you recog- nize the outstanding quality that has made Budweiser the biggest-selling beer in history. With the completion of our expansion program, we trust that you now are getting Budweiser when- ever you call for it. COPR, 1941, 41
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“Ss BY PRINCESS ALEXANDRA KROPOTKIN LINGUIST, TRAVELER, LECTURER, AND FASHION AUTHORITY READING TIME @ 4 MINUTES 55 SECONDS BETTY DEAN specializes in training beauty champs. Since there are more than a thousand local contests annually, climaxed by the _ Atlantic City national, Miss Dean and her staff have their hands full—tlit- erally—most of the time. I asked how she happened to take on this in- teresting job, and how it’s done. ... “On a train,” she said, “I met a Brooklyn girl coming home from At- lantic City, brokenhearted because she’d expected to win but hadn't. I realized there must be thousands in her fix, so I set out to do my best for them. The difference between a win- nér and a runner-up is usually an inch or so in the wrong place. As a rule it’s their hips, legs, or shoulders. We work the excess off that spot and that spot only. Spot reducing is done . by hand, through a method known as no-cream molding massage. We can get rid of two unwanted inches in about ten treatments if the girl ad- heres strictly to my regime. I advise contest candidates against strenuous exercise, swimming, tennis, fencing, field sports, which build muscular flesh that is hard to control. I don’t prescribe diets except with a doctor’s authority. Seventy per cent of the girls who come to me need very slight figurealterations. Measurements aimed at are those of the 1941 Miss America, Rosemary LaPlanche of Los Angeles: 5 feet 4 inches, 116 pounds, 34 bust, 35 hips, 23 waist; and of the 1941 Mrs. America, ideal married-woman type, Mrs. Ruth Licklider of New: York: 5 feet 5% inches, 120 pounds, 34 bust, 36 hips, 23 waist.” ... Agen- cies for garment and advertising mod- 42 els often have their professional beauties kept in perfect shape by Miss Dean. She also conditions stage and film stars. Her clientele has in- cluded Phyllis Welch, Sidney Fox, Jane and Patti Pickens, the Gae Fos- ter girls, etc. WORLD affairs being the mess they are, I suppose it’s natural to hear strange stories such as the true one I’m now going to tell: In a town of important defense industries lives a young American business woman who spent some years in Europe before the present war. There she had a brief but serious romance with a young government official. They never wrote after she left him and came home, but last year she heard he had been executed as a po- litical offender. Recently she has seen him several times, unmistakably, on the street in her home town. He passes her without a sign of recogni- tion. Why? Is he here as an enemy— or has he learned about the child she had in secret? THIS is for the week between Christmas and New Year’s, when vacationing youngsters may eat you out of house and home unless you protect yourself. One of the best ram- parts against such devastation is a good old English Steak-and-Potato Pie. ... Cut 2% pounds round steak in thin slices. Dip in flour mixed with pepper and salt, and roll up. Line bottom of deep pie dish with thickly sliced raw potatoes. Season with salt and pepper. Arrange meat rolls on potatoes and sprinkle. with chopped onion previously parboiled. Repeat potato and meat layers until dish is three quarters full. Add boiling water to fill. Top with short pastry crust; bake 2 hours in moderate oven. Leave a hole in the crust through which to pour a little rich beef gravy just be- fore serving. Serve hot or cold, accompanied by mustard pickles. Should be enough for 6 or 8—I hope! YOUTH boost from a pamphlet sent by Oscar Vogl of the Ap- preciate America organization: ... “When some one tells me that the trouble with this country is the younger generation, I ask him about his own children, and he tells me they’re exceptions. I tell him that practically all other children are ex- ceptions, too.” DOROTHY DRAPER, §fash- ionable decorator, has just let me in on a slick new way of lac- quering furniture. Do it with an ordi- nary Flit gun! Thought up by an in- ventive member of Miss Draper’s staff, the Flit-gun method is quick and easy. Spray on three coats thinned to the consistency of cream. Let each coat dry, and rub it down with pum- ice, before applying the next. Newest colors in style now are ink blue, oxblood, emerald, Chinese yellow, brownish black. TEACHER’S HUSBAND, new Henry and Sylvia Lieferant novel, links modern high-school scenes with a career-versus-marriage mix-up. (Published by the Dial Press.) ake “LIKE a fool,” writes a Minne- apolis girl, “I kept the diamond after breaking my engagement. Now my new fiancé is fiendishly jealous. The boy who bought me the ring refuses to take it back, and I wouldn’t feel right if I sold it or gave it away, yet my new man insists that I get rid of it. Shall I throw it in the river, or what?” THE END LIBERTY,
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LINDBERGH AND THE JEWS—Continued from Page 15 is non-Jewish. Mutual is a co-opera- tive organization, with the Chicago Tribune (notorious for its isolation- ism) one of the stockholders. The movie industry has many Jewish exec- utives, but as in the case of radio it is ultimately public demand that de- termines what kind of. product is offered. If Lindbergh has any case at all, it should be directed against the Amer- ican people. It is they who have set themselves against the aggressions of Hitlerism. It is they who have been prompted by a fine instinct of human decency and rational defense to rise against this threat to religion, culture, and American liberty. It is they who have supported steps involving risks of war, not because they want war, and not because their President desires war, but because they realize that a world revolution is in progress, initiated by Hitler and constituting a menace to all they hold dear. As an American, I can have no part with Lindbergh’s anti-Semitism. Al- low that cancer of anti-Jewry to grow, and our country will be destroyed. Never was it more important to pro- mote unity within our land among the various national stocks and religious groups: unity of purpose to preserve our liberties; unity of action to achieve that purpose. The enemy is closer to us than most of us realize. No one could do a greater disservice to his country today than to foster internal dissension. Anti-Semitism is always bad enough. Today it is an unspeak- able crime. Attack the Jews today, moreover, and you unleash forces of hatred and persecution that turn against Protes- tants, Negroes, and Catholics tomor- row. What happened to the Christians in Germany after the Jews were op- pressed? The story is too familiar to need repetition here. Pastor Niemoel- ler languishes in a concentration camp. Pope Pius cries out against what he terms a “war of extermination” against the Christian faith. Altogether, it is a shortsighted Christian who co-oper- ates in any manner, even by a studied silence, in the intrigues of the anti- Semitic. AS a Catholic, I regard attacks upon the Jews as anti-Chris- tian. I have always understood that Christianity was a religion of love, not one of hate. I cannot fathom the mentality of a Coughlinite who assails the people from whom the Founder of his reli- gion came. “Spiritually we are Sem- ites,” said the Pope in 1938 when cas- tigating the virus of anti-Semitism. There are and can be no limits to Christian charity. At a time, moreover, when the Jewish people sustain one of the supreme agonies of their his- tory, a Christian is unfaithful to his vocation who refuses sympathy and succor. “But did the Jews protest when JANUARY 3, 1942 Christians suffered in Russia, Spain, and Mexico?” I can hear. some of my fellow Christians saying. As a matter of fact they did. Various rabbinical organizations in the United States and France protested against these perse- cutions. But the mentality behind ‘such a question puzzles me. When has Christian charity become a matter of quid pro quo? Because the other fel- low might lack a sense of justice and mercy, does it give me a right to be likewise deficient? A strange brand of religion. Jews, like the Irish and other peo- ples, have their black sheep. But whereas the Irish generally are not stigmatized as a group for the mis- takes of some, the Jews are. The anti- Semitic is quick to point out the im- perfections of this or that Jew, and just as ready to universalize against the entire “race.” He is incapable of recognizing the intense devotion to truth and justice, the loyalty to the ideals of freedom, and the love of the word of God which characterize the countless Jews throughout the world who live according to the spirit and who faithfully practice the reli- gion of their fathers. I AM optimistic about the fu- ture of America and humanity after witnessing the almost universal condemnation of Lindbergh’s anti- Jewish speech. The spirit of fraternity is still strong among us. We Catholics, Protestants, and Jews are so many spiritual fam- ilies enjoying the benefits of the most wonderful country on earth. But getting along together does not mean a passive acquiescence in a status quo of mutual benevolence and friendship. All of us must make a constant and positive effort to promote better un- derstanding and respect for the other man’s point of view. We.must be alert to scotch every attempt at racial or religious discrimination. Today es- pecially we must engage with might and main in a co-operative effort to save a world and ourselves from a deadly menace, and likewise: to build a new world order wherein the hum- blest of human beings can be made secure in his natural dignity from every form of aggression. THE END LADY e+. doesn’t cough in public. Smith Bros. Cough Drops relieve coughs due to colds— pleasantly. Two kinds:—Black or Menthol, 5¢. Smith Bros. Cough Drops are the only drops containing VITAMIN A Vitamin A (Carotene) raises the resistance of mucous membraues of nose and throat to cold infections, when lack of resist- ance is due to Vitamin A deficiency, we WwW LIBERTY’S GREAT NEWS PROGRAMS BROADCAST FROM COAST 10 COAST Listen regularly to these well- known news commentators over your local CBS Network Station PAUL SULLIVAN The East's popular analyst now re- views the news for Liberty Maga- zine at 6 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday WABC—New York WKWK—Wheeling WCAO—Baltimore WADC—Akron WKBW—Buffalo WKBN—Youngstown WBRY—New Haven WHP—Harrisburg WGAN—Portland WFBL—Syracuse* WGBI—Scranton WOKO—Albany* WMAS—Springfield, WJAS—Pittsburgh Mass. WPRO—Providence WORC—Worcester WJSV—Washington WEEI—Boston * 6:45 p.m. TODD HUNTER With the Middle West's evening news at 10:30 p.m. WBBM—Chicago Well-known West Coast morning newscaster at 7:30 a.m. KSFO—San Francisco KNX—Los Angeles KIRO—Seattle KOIN—Portland KARM—Fresno FULTON OURSLER Editor of Liberty and Well Known Au- thor—broadcasts weekly his personalized commentary on world affairs Without Fear or Favor Every Wednesday at 8:15 P.M. EST WHN—New York—Dial 1050 ALL PRESENTED BY WWE CEATS THE AMERICAN WAY OF LIFE
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Berunes You Oucwr 170 SEE BY HOWARD BARNES Ann Sheridan contributes to the general hilarity in The Man Who Came to Dinner. READING TIME @ 4 MINUTES 5 SECONDS * *& %&'2 THE MAN WHO CAME TO DINNER It takes doing to beat the stage at its own game. The screen has done exactly that, though, with this hila- rious picture. Using the same charac- ters and the same situations which made the Kaufman-Hart farce a huge success on Broadway, the film man- ages to be even funnier. Give the theater credit for an original and comical satire on contemporary celeb- rities. You still have to hand it to Hollywood for a knockout translation. The most surprising thing is that The Man Who Came to Dinner was a play which offered little scope for movie treatment. The entire action took place in the living room of a Midwestern home. Most of it was in- volved in a round-robin exchange of wisecracks and insults, as an ill- mannered literary light and lecturer took over a staid household after slipping on the steps on his way to one of those dinners which leading citi- zens give to visiting big shots. First- rate stage stuff, this, but difficult to make interesting on the screen. Nevertheless it has been made into a riotous movie comedy. Even though the lecturer is once more in a wheel chair through most of the proceedings, the camera whisks around the Stanley home and its environs, giving the nar- rative plenty of movie action and color. The script has bite. William Keighley’s direction is fast-paced and knowing. Here’s a film which you can enjoy hugely, even if you are not fa- miliar with the antics of Alexander Woollcott, Noel Coward, and others who are supposedly caricatured. This sort of burlesque needs deft AA 4 STARS—EXTRAORDINARY 3 STARS—EXCELLENT acting. It had it on the stage. The performing of the screen version is quite as good. The bearded Monty Woolley again plays the rolé of the irascible and crafty lecturer who im- poses himself and his whims on a small-town Ohio family. He is not a screen name, but he should be one from now on. It’s a cruel portrait that he paints, yet exceedingly amusing. Bette Davis portrays the lecturer’s secretary with a fine sense of dramatic values. She points up the farce in the early sequences, when the visiting celebrity is being most obnoxious. She is intensely human when her own life is being jammed up by her egocentric employer. Richard Travis is fine as the small-town editor with whom she falls in love, and Ann Sheridan does some flamboyant and striking acting as a flyblown actress whom the lec- turer calls on to break up his secre- tary’s romance. The playing is uniformly good in The Man Who Came to Dinner. Regi- nald Gardiner is tremendously funny as the playwright astonished at his own brilliance; Jimmy Durante is Durante at his best as a Hollywood cut-up; and Grant Mitchell and Billie Burke are excellent as the bewildered Mr. and Mrs. Stanley who get more than they bargain for when they ask a literary lion to dinner. A gay play has been made into an even gayer entertainment in this film. (Warner Brothers.) * %& %& DESIGN FOR SCANDAL An attractive and expert pair of players is coupled in this feather- weight film farce. Rosalind Russell and Walter Pidgeon are certainly re- sponsible for most of the fun in the picture. No matter how preposterous Rosalind Russell and Walter Pidgeon score in a fast film farce, Design for Scandal. the story becomes at times, the stars see to it that it remains constantly entertaining. As a matter of fact, the story itself has good points. It shows a trouble- shooting newspaperman trying to in- volve a lovely lady judge in the sort of romantic goings-on that judges are not supposed to indulge in. He follows her to Cape Cod, pretending’ to be a sculptor. He woos her. Just as he is about to frame his Portia, though, he finds he has fallen in love with her. Fortunately the ending of the film, under Norman Taurog’s staging, has a lot of zest and flavor. In an uproar- ious courtroom scene, the pretty jurist exposes the original nefarious scheme of the trouble shooter, but he acts as his own counsel and makes her admit on the stand that she loves him. It’s preposterous but amusing. Rosalind Russell is serenely skillful in project- ing the part of the susceptible lady judge. Pidgeon is dashing as the news- paperman, and Edward Arnold, Lee Bowman, Donald Meek, and Mary Beth Hughes fill lesser roles competently. (Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.) FOUR-, THREE-AND-A-HALF., AND THREE-STAR PICTURES OF THE LAST THREE MONTHS Ik kk —Dumbo, One Foot in Heaven. Koko ;A—H. H. Pulham, Esq., How Green Was My Valley, Two-Faced Woman, Birth of the Blues, Suspicion, It Started with Eve, You'll Never Get Rich, International Lady, Honky Tonk, All that Money Can Buy, Hold Back the Dawn. tkkk—Kathleen, The Corsican Brothers, Sundown, Shadow of the Thin Man, Blues in the Night, Playmates, The Chocolate Soldier, Tar- get for Tonight, Skylark, Ladies in Retirement, The Feminine Touch, Smilin’ Through, Interna- tional Squadron, Navy Blues, Lydia. LIBERTY,
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THE MOST MYSTERIOUS OFFICE IN WASHINGTON Continued from Page 9 Such a hands-off policy of the gov- ernment is essential to keep confi- dence of foreign listeners, they believe. The dissenters contend that since American radio is the only one that isn’t controlled, and since foreign listeners know only government-con- trolled radio programs, these listeners won't believe that American broad- casts are not government-controlled. Another principal branch of COI is the Bureau of Research and Analy- sis, headed by Dr. James Baxter, president of Williams College, with a staff of sixty or seventy experts re- cruited from various universities. His bureau obtains information from all available sources, subscribes to press services like any newspaper, scans cables with expert eyes. It is this bu- reau which prepares reports for the President and for the other divisions of COI. The theory concerning a re- port is that COI is unbiased in its opinions. It has no axes to grind, it can say what it pleases. Need I add it is rapidly becoming one of the most disliked agencies in the government? Tied to his desk because of the pres- sure of work and his own physical limitations, the President realizes he cannot actually see many of the de- fense production lines in action. Re- cently he has given COI a new func- tion. It is just emerging. John Ford, famed Hollywood director of The In- former and Grapes of Wrath, is about to start a series of documentary films made solely for the President’s information. These movies will be actual shots of production lines, ship- yards, munitions factories, transporta- tion. Thus American industry will be brought to the desk of the President without his having to go see it. All this has been built up since July, when President Roosevelt cre- ated COI and appointed Donovan its chief with the diplomatic explana- tion that in co-ordinating and corre- lating “defense information” there would be no duplication or “inter- ference with the activities of the Gen- eral Staff, the regular intelligence services, the Federal Bureau of In- vestigation, or of other existing de- partments and agencies.” The “other departments and agencies” uttered an inaudible “Oh, yeah?” and, by and large, their skepticism has grown. A more amazing transformation than Bill Donovan’s has seldom, if ever, occurred. Up to the close of 1940 he was a hard-shell, double- dyed, New Deal-hating isolationist. Born in Buffalo, New York, on New Year’s Day, 1883, he is, as you might guess from his name, a Catholic, of Irish descent, and he says so in Who’s Who. He also says he is a Republican. Up to a year ago Mr. Roosevelt would have called him a Tory. He is a self-made man. He came up, both in the legal profession and in politics, the hard way. He was Re- publican candidate for Lieutenant Governor of New York in 1922, and for Governor in 1932. He was a Hoover supporter in 1928 when his fellow New Yorker and Catholic, Al Smith, was seeking the Presidency. He said of F. D. R.’s “forgotten man” speech that it was “so much fly- paper spread around in the hope of ensnaring the votes of the discon- tented and discouraged.” In 1940 he wrote that “we are com- pletely independent of the outside world,” and that “even with the destruction of the British fleet by Germany, neither Hitler nor any con- ceivable combination of nations could successfully land an army in North or South America.” And in 1940 he worked and voted for Wendell L. Willkie. Meanwhile his closest personal friend, the 1936 Republican Vice- Presidential candidate, Colonel Frank Knox, entered the Roosevelt Cabinet as Secretary of the Navy. Donovan owns a big farm in Virginia and his law firm has a Washington branch, so he saw a lot of Frank Knox and even set up bachelor quarters with him while their wives were summering in cooler places. Both men were World War colonels. Donovan, with the famous “Fighting Sixty-ninth,” received three wounds and the Congressional Medal of Honor. During’ the Italo-Ethiopian 3@ When shaves run into overtime, : Try Thin Gillettes, four for a dime! Get speed and comfort . ... what a treat! You save real dough—look trim and neat! JANUARY 3, 1942 e Thin Gillette Blade Is Produced Maker Of The Fomocs Giltette Sue Blade 8 tor I9c Save Extra Money! Get The Big New Economy Pack, 12 For 27c
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War, Knox, as publisher of the Chi- cago Daily News, breveted his old pal a war correspondent. Donovan set up his tent beside Marshal Badoglio’s, saw the Italians take a couple of preliminary whippings, and sent back word to America that there should be no optimism because it was in the bag for Mussolini’s men. A lot of wishful thinkers in the United States were telling the world otherwise, you will remember. Knox persuaded Donovan to take a look at warring Europe for him. Donovan took a couple of looks. He came back convinced that the most patriotic service a loyal, anti-inter- ventionist, anti-New Deal Republican could do was to back up President Roosevelt to the limit, Americans were wishfully expect- ing the Germans to come a cropper in the Balkans. Donovan was slated to become lease-lend director for Yu- goslavia and Greece, but when he re- turned he told Knox and F. D. that before the United States could get help started toward the Balkans that part of the war would be over. He was right. It does not appear on the visible record that, at the time, Mr. Roosevelt wholly believed he was. But what Donovan told the press was: “I have nothing to say.” He had visited England, Gibraltar, Yugosla- via, Bulgaria, Greece, Turkey, Egypt, Iraq, Palestine, and England again, armed with State Department cre- dentials—which were stolen from him in Bulgaria. But he had “nothing to say” after traveling 30,000 miles in fourteen weeks, and so he emerged as the Man of Mystery, the Akhoond of Hush, on March 18, 1941. He had seen Hitlerism at close hand, and was convinced it was something that had to be fought, and fought with its own brand of fire. It was obvious to him now that his observations of ten months before had been too naive. The Axis did not have to “land an army in either North or South Amer- ica” to conquer the Western Hemi- ‘sphere. It could be done by propa- ganda. Thus COI was conceived. What the infant born in the White House last July will grow into, however, has some persons worried. One hears voiced suspicion that from spying and propagandizing abroad, COI could shift its efforts to the domestic scene, could become the like of OGPU. Probably the critics are just seeing things under the bed. I think so. It is evident that Bill Donovan’s outfit is engaged in a vitally necessary part of the national defense. To do the job, he has assembled a staff of more than one hundred per- sons ranging from a college presi- dent to a Pulitzer prize-winning playwright. Captain Jimmy Roosevelt is going to be a triple-threat man eventually. He represents the United States Marine Intelligence on COI, with a background of travel in the Far and Near East war zones. And he is, of course, mildly an expert on movies. Now he is taking intensive study in foreign languages, specializ- ing in German, and he should qualify as a movie-making devil dog of a linguist. Douglas Miller, for ten years Amer- ican foreign service officer in Berlin and author of You Can’t Do Business with Hitler, is another member of COl’s general staff, teamed with Pro- fessor William L. Langer of the Har- vard history department, who has made a specialty of the historical causes which led to Nazi supremacy in Germany. Dr. Calvin B. Hoover, Duke University economist and formerly Consumers’ Counsel for the AAA, is one of those at whom suspicious glances are sometimes directed be- eause of his unorthodox economics and somewhat pacifist views on record. Joseph Barnes, former foreign editor of the New York Herald Tribune, has charge of COI’s New York office, and is also suspected by some of having been more pro than anti toward Soviet policies. There is no use listing all the ex perts in a dozen fields assembled in COI. Some sit in New York, evaluat- ing rival propagandas, others do the same in Washington. They write counterargument. They work fifteen hours a day. It is work that has to be done. Whether COI is doing it to per- fection, no outsider can judge. Besides the ammunition that COI fires, manufactured by all the other fact-finding, detective, and espionage agencies in the government, there are mysterious “contacts,” volunteers working at continuous peril to their lives behind Hitler’s lines. A third category would include men who go forth from the United States on busi- ness of their own. but who are com- missioned by COI to seek facts, make observations, and report. In the V-shaped (“V for Victory”) Apex building on Pennsylvania Ave- nue, Washington, and in Madison Avenue offices in New York, COI’s experts labor at their secret toil be- hind more guards than protect the White House. But don’t tell anybody I told you. And that man in baggy clothes and funny-looking hat critically inspecting a field of winter wheat on Chapel Hill Farm in Virginia—he’s no farmer. No; and he isn’t the Wall Street lawyer who fought F. D. R. for thirteen years, or the fighting Trishman who could comment with equanimity on a German naval victory over Britain. Not any more! Sh-sh-sh! That’s William Joseph Donovan. Sh-sh-sh! THE END You Never Can Tell THIS is a tale as it is told in a little English town—a tale of long ago, when the world was a quieter place and men and women had time to think about things. In this little town lived a clergyman, his wife, and two children. It was a poor living for the pastor and his family, but the townspeople were very fond of their ministe: r. One bright Sunday morning a gilded coach and four clattered over the cobbled main street of the little town. A family of rich people jour- neying through had heard the church bell ringing. The horses were pulled up and the Londoners, in their finery of silk hose and satin ribbons, en- tered the little church for Sunday worship. They heard a remarkable sermon. This provincial minister preached with a simplicity and power that came upon them unawares. They were sophisticated city people, but their eyes were wet at the benediction. Now it happened that the head of 46 this family was a vestryman in one of England’s most famous churches, old St. Paul’s in London. When he reached home he told the other vestrymen about the remarkable preacher he had found in a Midlands village. They said, “We need an as- sistant pastor. Let us have the man up to preach a sermon here. If we like him we may make him famous.” So, wonder of wonders, the little pastor got a letter one day inviting him to come to London and preach in old St. Paul’s. His wife pressed his best suit and made him a new cravat. He prayed and labored over his ser- mon. Finally the great Sunday came and this obscure little man stood in the pulpit under the Christopher Wren dome, and without nervousness he preached to London as he had always preached to his flock at home. He made the Londoners weep. When the service was over the vestrymen crowded around. They had no doubts. He must come to London at ten times Liberty's True Two-Minute Story his salary. The little parson went home in a daze of glory. Two weeks later the London coach stopped at the tavern in the center of the town. In it were the clergyman and his wife and two children on their way to the great city. An amazing sight confronted them. All the people of the little town were gathered in front of the tavern, bareheaded, on their knees, crying. The clergyman, turned to his wife. “We can’t go,” he said. “We cannot leave these people. We must stay.” Then, without speaking, he went back into his study, sat down at his desk, and wrote a few lines. Almost no one today knows his name or his story, but the whole Christian world knows the lines that he wrote; the words of a hymn that came to him that morning out of the affection of all his people. What John Fawcett wrote was that immortal psalm to God and his people: Blest Be the Tie that Binds—Barbara Wake. LIBERTY,
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THIS MANS RMY CONDUCTED BY OLD SARGE READING TIME @ 3 MINUTES 3 SECONDS Hey! How about letting the Amer- ican Merchant Marine in on this page, especially since it was decided to arm our merchant vessels? My ship is pushing off to Archangel, Russia, with defense materials as soon as the new guns can be installed. A. T. L., Baltimore, Md. Come on in, sailor. You may not be a member of an armed force yet, but you'll soon be rubbing elbows with those who are. Maybe I’m just another soldier with an age-old gripe, but having just walked seven miles from the nearest town to get back out here to my base camp, I’ve had enough time to think over a few angles. I speak of the question of civilians offering rides to soldiers, and I have two points in mind. One is the question of “taking a chance” when you pick up a soldier —that he might take your money or your car or your best girl. But there’s also the angle to consider that the soldier is taking a chance just by being a soldier. And that leads me into my second point. The Army “protects our rights” according to the phrase of the after-dinner speaker. Among other things, that means to me that soldiers protect the rights of the civilian, that we are here to see to it that the civilian retains the right to even own a car. Therefore, if offering rides to soldiers isn’t the best car insurance on the market today, I'll eat my rifle, bolt and all. Pfc. A. W. C., Fort Jackson, S. C. That's not a bad line at all, soldier. Your seven-mile walk may have resulted in sore dogs but not a sore head. Must say I agree with you heartily and the number of letters received from civilians indicate they do too. It seems that Scott Field has more than its quota of “crabbers.” Last night, before school, I was feeling pretty low. The fellow next to me started to crab, and boy, oh boy, did JANUARY 3, 1942 he crab! He left nothing out. First it was school, then the food, then the Army itself. By that time I was be- ginning to feel good. He crabbed so much that it made me feel like I loved the Army. Is it so everywhere? Why do they crab? They ought to be glad to serve their country. I am an en- listed man and feel that I should not crab because I asked for what I’ve got. Right? Are there others that feel this way? Pvt. W. B., Scott Field, Ill. You're right that there are a lot of others who feel as you do. I'd be inclined to be suspicious of a man who never “crabbed,” but more than enough is too much, in the Army or out. The man next to you makes me think of the guy who was sitting on a curb one cold rainy day, head in hands. He was complaining to all and sundry that he couldn’t pay his rent and had been evicted and had no place to go. But when some one offered to lend him money and get him a job, he said, “What! And give up my grievance?” Here we are in Antigua, and every- body wonders where that is. Tell ’em to look it up on a map of the West Indies. A bunch of radio, movie, and stage stars flew in last night and really worked hard to put on a show for us. It was probably the biggest night Antigua has had since Admiral Nelson outfitted his fleet here over a hundred years ago. Until we Ameri- cans came, Antigua was going its leisurely, tropical way. Now the people have other interests than sleeping the day away. Corp. F. P. Williamson, Jr., Antigua Base, B. W. I. Glad to hear from another island. And glad the “flying showboat” got to Antigua to give the men a taste of real entertain- ment. I hope it will be the first of many such shows to visit the men at the Caribbean bases and I understand that present plans so provide. This department of Liberty is for the men of the armed forces of the United States: Army, Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard, also their families and friends. The identity of letter writers will not be disclosed without their permission. Address your letters to: "Old Sarge," c/o Liberty, 122 East 42 St., New York. —" “It looks like Private Doakes got his Christmas box from home.” 47
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BLOOD OF READING TIME @ 15 MINUTES 40 SECONDS PART TEN—CONCLUSION HARLAND SIMPSON stared at the paper. Again he read the telltale lines: “Come to me, best beloved. Come to me at once. I need you.” He turned the page. He saw: “T am at our house. Waiting for you. Impatiently waiting, as ripening rice waits for the hot touch of summer.” Not a direct warning. The girl, he considered, was too clever for that. This was. merely a love message, and to be interpreted as such, to be dis- missed with a shrug and a smile, should it be intercepted. He swallowed hard. He had a queer sensation: like a stab of naked fire on some inner membrane. Hitherto he had hoped, against hope, against the judgment of his brain, that there might be a mistake somewhere, an explanation for her conduct. This hope had been subconscious—and foolish. Now here was proof, in her own writing, of her perfidy. He clenched his fists. His eyes smarted. The atmosphere was tense, tragic, suffused with a sort of subtle honey-sweet Far Eastern violence. A second later he thought of his sister, and a rush of anguish gripped him almost bodily. For his instructions to her, at the Paradise Garden, had been to the point: “You must not let Li Su-Chang get away from you,” he had told her through Bill Endicott. “You must not let her out of your sight for even a single second. Don’t fail me. Keep her with you until you hear from me. And use force if you have to.” That’s why, while they were dancing together, Bill Endicott had given her his revolver. And yet—here was the note to Nag Yat. Somehow the Chinese girl must have slipped away and gone to Nag Yat’s house. How had she done it? Had she at- tacked Carrie and overpowered her? Must have. There could be no other explanation. And so—what of Carrie? What had happened to her? She was not one to give in without a fight. Maybe she had tried to use the revolver—and Li Su- Chang had wrested it out of her hand —and then... Simpson crossed himself. He must hurry at once to her apart- ment; must find out what .. . “Listen, boss!” Jim Macdonnell’s voice cut into his reflections. He ee ia) : Aer Macdonnell pointed at the conspira- oa pie geet! - ; tors. They had been herded into a “She spoke in a whisper. LIBERTY,
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THE DAGON “Hail, Jewel in the Lotus!"—and the sigh of a tired child falling asleep. So the story ends BY ACHMED ABDULLAH group; stood there silent and sullen. “What’ll we do with this lot o’ beau- ties?” Macdonnell wanted to know. “Take ’em to the little house over in Brooklyn to start with and give ‘em the works?” “Yes to your first question, Mac. And no to your second.” “OQ. K. by me. You're the boss. And what about the reporters?” “Already?” “ll say. There’s a bunch o’ them in the lobby downstairs. You know how quick them babies catch on when there’s something fishy in the wind.” “Go down and talk to them.” “What’ll I say?” “Just as little as you can possibly get away with. Whisper the words— oh—fifth columnists, subversive ac- tivities. That covers a whole lot of territory and ought to hold them for a while. They can do a lot of sensational guessing. Later on I'll take up with Washington how much, or how little, of the truth should be released.” “If I had my way,” grumbled the other, “I’d build me a nice long gal- lows and hang ’em all out o’ hand, side by side. I’d have no jury, no trial, no quibblin’ shyster lawyers.” “Sort of purge, Mac? Bitten by the totalitarian bug?” “Wellatentas “No can do. This is still America.” ‘J wish it was Naziland—for just about half an hour.” He paused. “What about Nag Yat?” Oh, yes! Nag Yat, Harland Simpson echoed in his mind. Nag Yat, the leader of the conspir- acy. Nag Yat who mattered more, just now, than Caroline. More than Li Su-Chang. And, thinking of her, he became conscious, so unreasonably, of a great driving surge of tenderness, of deep longing, in spite of her treachery; caught himself trying to find excuses for her. Why, he loved her! She was the one woman in all the world for him. . . . He shook his head. 0, no! How could he love her? She was his enemy. The enemy of the United States. She was guilty. That was all there was to it. She had warned Nag JANUARY 3, 1942 Yat—and he must not be allowed to escape. Of course ships were out of the question, since, as a Mongol, Nag Yat was easily spotted. Therefore—there was no other way—he would try to flee the country by airplane. Simpson’s department had discovered that the conspirators had recently acquired more than one, for perfectly legitimate purposes on the face of it; and so a pilot would be ready to transport Nag Yat across the ocean. Not only Nag Yat. For—surely—Li Su-Chang would be with him. . . . aK¢ “OLWELL!” the detective called out. : A short red-haired man, one of the agents, walked up to him. He grinned broadly as he recalled how, not so many weeks ago, the chief’s death in an automobile crash had been re- ported. : “You owe me ten dollars, sir,” he said. “How come?” “That's what I gave the priest to have Masses said for your soul.” “Charge it to profit and loss.” “Anyway, I’m glad you came back to life, although”—with an amused look at Simpson’s make-up—“as a heathen Chinee.” - “Listen, Olwell!” The detective gave rapid orders. Let the other communicate immediately by long-distance telephone with cer- tain key stations on the Atlantic, the Pacific, and the Gulf of Mexico where, during the past few months, Simpson’s department of the intelligence service had established day-and-night air pa- trols, using some of the fastest and most powerful flying boats built in the United States. Let all suspicious air- craft, chiefly if headed for the open sea, be spotted, pursued, challenged, commanded by radio to turn back. And, in case of refusal to obey, let it be fired upon. ’ Simpson paused. He grew pale. He imagined Li Su-Chang aboard the plane. A burst of machine-gun fire. Her lovely slim body ripped, torn, smashed to bloody pulp. .. . “Go to it, Olwell!” The latter left; and Simpson mo- tioned to another agent. “Lawson!” a) b a ed “There is a Miss Angela Grant,” giving his sister’s stage name, “at the Hotel Sefton on West Eighty-second Street. Go there. See what has hap- pened to her. Give her first aid, if needed. If she should be seriously in- jured, get hold of the department doc- tor. Keep the police and the hotel people away. And if they’ve already been called, inform them it’s a federal matter and that they should keep their mouths shut. And tell Miss Grant I shall see her before morning.” “Very well, sir.” Lawson, too, left, while once more the detective addressed Macdonnell. ‘I’m going over to Nag Yat’s house to take a look-see. He must have flown the coop in a hurry, and I may come across some incriminating papers.” “Want me to go along after I’ve finished with the reporters?” “I’d rather go alone.” HE spoke on the spur of the moment, without conscious thinking. Usually, when he searched a place, Jim Macdonnell, who was an expert at it, was by his side. But tonight Simpson did not want him. Later on, talking to his sister, he remarked that he was not a supersti- tious man, given to heeding psychic warnings. Didn’t believe in all that sort of bunk. Naturally not, since it was his job to deal exclusively with facts. And yet, he added, there had been a warning. A warning that had come silently, out of the nowhere, and had told him that he must go by him- self and must not take Jim Macdonnell along. It was, he said to Caroline, impos- sible to.describe precisely what he felt. It was more than intuition, much more. It was—oh—compelling, like a cosmic, elemental force. At all events, there it was, whatever it was. And he knew—yes!—knew that at Nag Yat’s house he would find something which his eyes alone had the right to be- hold; would hear something which his ears alone had the right to hear. SO he called a taxicab. He drove uptown, while the conspirators were being taken down the back stairs and bundled into cars, off on the first leg of their tragic journey, their final journey—the eventual sentence for all being life—toward Fort Leavenworth. Simpson lit a cigarette. He looked at New York, still awake in spite of the late hour. Sixth Avenue as well as Broadway glittered with hectic carnival tinsel. Everything dripped and oozed light. The streets were thronged with men and women, slow moving of neces- sity. Men and women shouting, laugh- ing, pushing, and elbowing good- naturedly. Gay people. Kind, friendly people. Americans. People, thought Simpson, who called their souls their own, their freedom their own. And—oh—if they knew what had 49.
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happened tonight, in the room on the top floor of the Golden Peiping Caba- ret! If they knew from what dreadful fate they had been saved! Well, they must never know. At least, must not know all. There would be; could be, no de- tailed report. Would be, could be, no mention of the second army, the un- known army, the army of the intelli- gence service which marched without banners or trumpets or drums; which received no congressional medals of honor; which lived and—dear Lord!— died without other glory than the knowledge that it had done its duty. Duty toward America. That trite, wonderful thing called patriotism. __In the case of Harland Simpson this patriotism partook of an almost reli- gious exaltation, as if he were battling, like a modern St. Francis, for the co- eternity of the divine Son and against proud brazen idols. Idols of Nazi and Fascist and Communist. Totalitarian idols . . . and tonight he had smashed a few of them. Had smashed in the process his own heart—the love in his heart, the passion and sweetness and tenderness—the longing for a little Chinese girl. .. . HALF a block from his destina- tion he dismissed the taxicab. He approached the house on foot. He stared at it. Silent and black it loomed above him. Lifeless. And yet—as he felt, once more, the queer warning coming out of the nowhere—it was to him as if this black silent lifelessness were brimming with activity; a tremendous spiritual activity—he said, later on, to he sister—that was based upon cold Os Me ER Momentarily he stood still; kept on staring at the house. And then, suddenly, as on that eve- ning months earlier when he had gone to the Bronx and had seen Li Su- Chang for the first time, he noticed on the third floor a faint red light re- flected on one of the windowpanes. He wondered what it could be. A fire? Perhaps, hurriedly, before leaving, Nag Yat had been burning compromising papers that were smol- dering in a grate? No. The reflection was too steady for that. There was no flicker. And a few seconds later he smelled incense, as in a Catholic church—or a Buddhist temple? Incense which meant—sacrifice . . .? ake HE was up the front steps in a couple of leaps. He knew it would be useless to ring the bell. He glanced up and down the street. It was deserted. He produced a skeleton key and un- locked the door. He entered the outer hall. It was dark and empty. He switched on his electric pocket flash, approached the stairs. The smell of incense became stronger. So sweet. So cloyingly sweet. ... And then, again, as on that evening in the Bronx, he heard a voice chant- 50 ing in Chinese, giving thanks to the Lord Buddha: “Thou art the Supreme Ruler, O Buddha, Immortal and unmodifying. Thou art the eternal law of righteous- ness. Of all things thou art the reason And thou the support. Hail, jewel in the lotus .. .” Simpson trembled. Li Su-Chang’s voice—no doubt of it... . And what—what was she .. .? His heart beat like a quick padded hammer. He ran up the stairs. He dropped his Answersto Twenty Questions on Page 34 1—He was the real-life Casey about whom was written the poem, Casey at the Bat. 2—Nine. 3—It is the symbol & meaning “and”. 4—George Washington is said to have re- ferred to it once as “the seat of empire.” 5—In 1797, by Jacques Garnerin—a 3,000- foot jump from a balloon. « 6—The tail of a comet, which sometimes extends 100,000,000 miles. 7—Once. 8—“Upstage” is the back part of the stage. If an actress, in a scene with an actor, stands farther upstage than he does, he has to turn his back to the audience to address her. She has “upstaged” him; snobbish. 9—As an ointment, for bathing purposes, and as illuminating fuel. Only occasionally was it used for eating. 10—Lake Ladoga, between Russia and Finland. 11-—-It was a famous infantry charge. 12—In Ecuador. Panama was the point of distribution. 13—Around Cape Horn; by boat and land pe Meg America; in wagons across the 14—“Concrete boats,” first used in the World War. 15—By sun rays reflected in a mirror. The mirror has a shutter, and long and short flashes send messages in telegraphic code. 16—They were all U. 8S. Vice-Presidents. 17—One: Lassen Peak in California. 18—It' is an alloy of copper, tin, and zine, formerly used in making guns. 19—Pelmanism. 20—Less, because of the lessened effect of gravity. pocket flash; could not find it; nor was he able to find a wall switch. He ran on in the dark. Twice he stumbled; once fell—and the voice grew louder, more triumphant: “By day shineth the sun, By night shineth the moon. Shineth also the warrior in harness of war, . The lover who loveth highly and greatly. But the Buddha at all times shineth ' ever the same. Hail, jewel in the lotus... .” He reached the landing of the sec- ond floor. One more flight of-steps. Hurry—hurry.. . . He must get there quickly. And the incense scent grew still more strong; the chant still more triumphant: “Accept then, O Lord Buddha, O thou perfectly awakened one, This sacrifice in sign of devotion to thee And of devotion to my parents— May their souls enjoy Paradise! For hate, too, O Gautama Buddha, Hate as strong and clean as love, Is the way of purification, The path of salvation. Hail, jewel in the lotus. .. .” And Li Su-Chang repeated: “Hail, jewel in the lotus!” as Simpson hurled his weight against the locked door and broke it open. IT is difficult to describe after- ward, with accuracy, the many details, large and small, which make up a tragedy of life. But though he saw it all in the fraction of a second it took him to cross the threshold, the picture of it projected itself on the detective’s mind with the fidelity of a motion-picture reel. He saw, at the farther end of the room, the gilt statue of the Buddha of the Paradise of the West sitting cross-legged on his lotus throne. He saw the two tall sacerdotal candles glowing right and left of the Buddha with a clear crimson flame. He saw the bronze incense pot from which rose spirals of smoke that veiled the idol’s placid features with silver and gos- samer gray. He saw, on the floor be- fore the altar, Nag Yat’s lifeless body, Li Su-Chang’s dagger—the dagger with which her mother had killed herself, preferring death to dishonor —-piercing his heart. He saw, even as, with a choked exclamation, he ran across the room, Li Su-Chang with- draw the weapon. Saw her raise it. Saw the point of it gleam in the ruddy candlelight. Saw—yes, saw more than heard—a dull sickening sound as she plunged it into her breast. ; A second later he was by her side. She fell backward with a soft gurgling cry, into his arms, her blood trickling slowly, dyeing his clothes with splotches of rich scarlet. He knew that it was the end. He held her in his arms—tight; and she read the question in his eyes. “I—I had to.” She spoke in a whis- per, yet with a rush of energy, her dauntless spirit delaying the moment of death. “You are what you are—an American..And I am what I am—a Chinese. No, no”—with the ghost of a smile—‘T do not think you are—ah— of superior race. But people—I know that now—would not have allowed us to be happy. In the end you would have suffered—dreadfully. And I love you too much to have you suffer... .” “You—you love me?” “Have you ever doubted it?” “But”—he blurted out—“you mar- ried 4%, °<” “You—found out?” “Veg “And you don’t know why, you LIBERTY,
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clever, clever detective? Hayah, not clever enough to read a woman’s heart!” Her accents grew thin, brittle. “I am a Manchu on my mother’s side, the descendant of iron-capped princes. I could not be mistress—to anybody. Better Nag Yat’s wife—better the less- er pollution than the greater. He kissed her. She gave a laugh. A gay, mocking little laugh. “You”—her voice was a mere breath —“you must not blame your sis- terre os “What happened?” “I told her I loved you. And, being a woman, she knew I spoke the truth. And then, adding I had no time to explain, I told her I had to go away, to prove my love to you. And that, too, was the truth. And she felt it— though she could not read all that was in my heart—and let me go. Ah”— with that same small gay laugh—“I’m afraid I lied to her—a little. For there was also the other reason why I had to go—my honor, and my parents’ honor, to be made white—with blood— before prison gates saved Nag Yat from my vengeance. . . .” She was silent. Then something blurred Simpson’s vision for the mi- nutest fraction of a second. Perhaps— he said, later on, to Caroline—it was Li Su-Chang’s soul which passed through the room, out into the open, and up toward her Lord. é He crossed himself, He got to his eet. Downstairs was a telephone. He long-distanced Washington, spoke to the greatest man in the land and made a short preliminary report. “T,” he went on, “shall give de- tailed information to the Department of Justice.” “Good work,” was the answer across the wires. “Congratulations.” “Thank you, sir.” “By the way. Something important has ‘come up. In the West Indies. You’d better leave next Saturday.” “Very well, sir.” HE returned upstairs to the room of death. He took the tall sacerdotal candles from the altar and placed them, one at the head and one at the feet of Li Su-Chang. He knelt. And while the Buddha, the god of an alien faith, smiled placidly down at him from his lotus throne, he intoned the Litany to the Blessed Virgin which years ago his little Irish mother had taught him: “Holy Mary, pray for us. Holy Mother of God, pray for us. Holy Virgin of virgins, pray for us. Mother of Christ, pray for us. Mother of divine grace, pray for us. Mother most pure, pray for us. Mother most chaste, pray for us. . . .” His voice droned on. . . . THE END Vox P QP—continued from Page 4 years I’ve tried to buy a pair of left- handed scissors, usually to be told there was no such thing or given one of those “Oh-no-you-don’t” looks. Finally one day in a hardware store I found a pair. The man in charge quickly apologized. “That pair is no good, ma’am. They were miscast. See, they are all wrong. However, if you can use them you can buy them for one dollar.” They had been priced at four dollars. That should balance things up some, don’t you think?—Mrs. F. L. Lichtenberger. P.S. I bought the shears, but the dealer, so far as I care, is still all wrong. ALL WE CAN SAY IS OUCH, MR. GURNSEY KeeENE, N. H.—The tremendous burdens imposed upon us by the Roosevelt admin- istration worry me. However, I believe that a campaign, started now, might change all this. Roughly, “Fifty per cent for Uncle Sam.” I believe that, beginning sometime in late 1943, every business should volun- tarily give 50 per cent of its net profits to Uncle Sam and all wage earners should give, say, everything they earn above twenty-five dollars a week. Think of the possibilities! Take the government out of the red in twelve months. Sacrifice every- thing for one year, so that we may stay on our feet, so that our children will also be happy.—Frank Gurnsey. JANUARY 3, 1942 WAR OR NO WAR, WE DO SEEM TO GET AROUND From a letter to Mrs. W. B. Carss, Kamsack, Saskatchewan, from her hus- band, published in the Kenora, Ontario, Miner and News: WirH THE 14TH CANADIAN Fietp REcI- MENT, CANADIAN ARMY OvERSEAS—Am go- ing to take a minute to tell you of the thrill I just got. The cinema operator brought down a couple of cartons of magazines for me. I opened one of those cartons, and I'll be darn-dinged if there wasn’t a Liberty with an endorsement on the front which read “Lipsett’s Drug Store, Kamsack, Sask.” Of all the different places in the whole British Empire that those magazines might have gone—to think that they would turn up in this particular camp, where I am supervisor!—W. B. SENTENCE TO END ALL SENTENCE-TALK WITH Denver, Coto—In November 29 Vox Pop Miss Dorothy Saunders of the Uni- versity of Washington asks, apropos end- ing a sentence with a preposition: “Have my English teachers been kidding me?” I say, “Undoubtedly.” If such a minor detail as ending a sentence with a prepo- sition nettles her, think how perturbing the following sentence would be! “What did you bring that book for me to be read to out of up for?” That is really grammar for her to con- jecture with!—George F. Helbig, D. S. C. don’t WORRY Why put up with yearsof needless discomfort and worry? Try a Brooks Automatic Air Cushion. This marvelous appli- ance permits theopening toclose, yet holds reduc- ible rupture securely, comfortably—day and ait Thousands report amazing results. Light, neat-fi ping, gi saa stiff springs to chafe or gouge..Made for men, women and children. Durable, cheap. Sent’on trial to prove it. Never sold in stores. Beware of imitations. 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SEE YOU SOMETIME—Continued trom Page 13 Alan more than she had sitting in that living room surrounded by the mole- colored furniture. She had never been more proud of him, because he hadn’t offered any kind of apology. And she had been happy because he had wanted his family to know her. “T loved it, Alan.” But he hadn’t seemed willing to talk about it later. Perhaps because it: wasn’t important to him what she thought. She had reached the end of the street where the old stone house that belonged to the Covingtons had stood like a sentinel at the edge of this shelf of land above the lower city. Yarn under her arm, she crossed the un- even lawn to a small ground terrace where two women were sitting. Jane called out a greeting and rose to pull up a chair. She was a wide but not plump person with a cheerful freckled face between scallops of reddish hair. “Hello, Cherry. You know Mrs. Haines, don’t you?” Sylvia Haines said pleasantly, ‘T’ve seen you out at the club. Cherry acknowledged that, and Gey talked a little about the club and how crowded it was this year with all the new people who had moved in since the defense effort had gotten under way. Mrs. Haines mentioned various names. Did Cherry know those people? “He’s a very good-looking man,” and “I like him immensely,” she said over and again, until Jane cut in good-naturedly: “Aren’t there any attractive women out there?” Wee: many,” said Mrs. Haines with a e. Cherry had often seen Sylvia Haines at Green Hills. Sometimes she was with the intelligent-looking but quite undistinguished man who was her husband. But Mr. Haines’ business took him out of the city quite a lot. When she had gone back and forth to school, Cherry had often seen Mr. Haines in the Pullman. He was for- ever studying reports, as she recalled him. Naturally, since he was away so much, it was not strange that his wife often came to the club without him. Very frequently, this summer, what- ever group she was with included Ben Martin. Cherry had observed that, because she hed thought they were a most attractive couple when they danced together. Ben Martin was probably a few years younger than s. Haines. He was blond and well built, and Mrs. Haines was slight and dark and dressed beautifully. She had a quick face, thought Cherry as they talked. Her eyes were dark and rest- less. Constantly they moved to Jane, as if Sylvia Haines needed to know Jane’s reaction to what was said. “1 thrive on new people and change of scene,” she said. “If there’s excite- ment, I want to be there. Jane doesn’t approve,” she added at once. “Nonsense,” said Jane. “I like ex- citement, too. Let me have a good band-and. Pd.-parade -for-any~cause:’- “Besides, you have the excitement of your children, Jane.” 52 Quite. Especially when they take a Beri and break an arm. “That’s just it, Jane. Your life doesn’t let you become bored. You’re never alone.” It sounded like a one-sided argu- ment, thought Cherry, as if Sylvia Haines were intent on proving a point that had never been set up in the open. At least, she seemed to be on the defensive against Jane, who re- mained calm and wholly impersonal. Jane changed the subject without being too determined about it. + “CHERRY,” she said, “some young friends who have just moved here are coming for dinner to- night. Won’t you stay and meet them? They’re rather a talented pair, peg in getting a theater grou going. I think hes would like them. “Sorry, but I have a dinner date, Jane.” She had made up her mind to see Dr. Lowry after all. Perhaps it would be atesnaticie to discuss marry- ing Bud. Dr. Lo could analyze it. Not that she intended to marry Bud, but it was always possible to get a new twist on marriage without love. “Oh, Alan—” said Cherry careless- ly. “T haven’t seen him in ages. I don’t even know if he makes a regular habit of dinner. You know how they work on and on at the laboratory. Sometimes the huskies get through to them with coffee and sandwiches.” “Just every ‘one connected with the plant has the same story,” said Sylvia. “They can’t do anything or go any- where because, it seems, there’s a war in Russia. It gets to be annoying.” She was talking about some one man in particular, Cherry decided. “Why not start knitting?” said Jane. “That way time just goes by. Here, I'll set up a scarf for you according to the personal directions of the Brit- ish Admiralty.” “But I have to go, Jane. Some other time perhaps. I’m due downtown for a cocktail around five.” “Jim coming home tonight?” “Yes,” Sylvia said. But her face told you nothing about that, Cherry saw. She stood up and you saw how small her waist was. “It was nice talking to you, Cherry. Good-by, Jane.” Twi eyes seemed a little wistful, like a child’s waiting for an approving word. Cherry thought Jane didn’t see it. Her good-by was pleasant, matter of fact. “Now Ill get the things I want to send down to the workroom, Cherry I have a number of pieces finished” There were indeed. “How do you find the time; Jane?” ~~~ “That is what Sylvia wanted to know.” “She’: S very attractive,” said Cherry. “Yes,” agreed Jane readily, “and in a way it has been a tragic thing for ~her life--If-she had:had ‘more ordinary looks she would have been thankful probably for one of the kindest hus- bands in the world. As it is, she’s for- ever looking for something offside, you might say. It’s only vanity that demands constant admiration, and nothing happens and nothing comes of her search. So Jim puts up with it. But it isn’t what she does but what she doesn’t do for her marriage and her home that’s the saddest part of it all. Her life is neither here nor there. It never is when you play both sides of the fence.” “It’s too bad she’s not happy,” said Cherry a little uncomfortably. She was quite sure that Jane had spoken as frankly to Sylvia as she was speak- ing now, but the frankness had spoiled a picture. “Tl drop these things at the British Aid rooms now.” She gathered up the garments. “Sorry you can’t came back for dinner and bring Alan. I’ve always been fond of him since we lived next door.” “I didn’t know you lived over there.” “Before I was married. Alan’s mother was alive then. Somehow I always think of her ironing shirts. There was never any end to them for Mr. Chalmers. He always kept up a great dignity after he was dropped from the Light Company. I suppose there were times when he didn’t have a dollar and a half of his own.” “But how did they manage?” Cherry was shocked. “Mr. Chalmers’ sister came there to live and she had a little money. So they managed until Alan was able to take over. It’s been hard on Alan though. I happen to know he’s paying back money he borrowed for school.” ake WINGS of dusk stood within the city as Cherry drove down from the heights. Where is my pride? she thought. I want to see Alan. Talk with him. She parked the car, left Jane’s work at the British Aid, en- tered a drugstore near by to seek out a telephone booth. But they were all taken and people were waiting. The Carleton was only a block down. There was more privacy there to tele- phone. The booths were along a quiet corridor. Sometime, driving into the city, she had decided not to have din- ner with Dr. Lowry. She would leave a message with his secretary. ~ The lobby of the hotel was crowded and the open cocktail lounge well filled at this hour. Between the palms that partly closed it off from the lobby, Cherry had a glimpse of Sylvia Haines. She was sitting alone on a small sofa. There was a tenseness about her, as if she had been waiting too long. It seemed as if she would be better off home listening to the news. There were empty telephone booths here. Cherry dropped a nickel in the instrument and dialed. But it wasn’t Dr. Lowry’s secretary who answered. It took Cherry several seconds to — what she had done. She had ed Alan’s number at the labora- a Suddenly she decided not to run away from it. “Mr. ” she said. She would just say something friendly,
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say she was sorry to have missed his call the other evening. “Mr. Chalmers has left,” said the operator. “ you.” It was a little odd, his leaving so early. She rang another nickel into the box and this time put her mind on Dr. Lowry’s number. “Oh, Miss Brooks,” said the secre- tary, “Dr. Lowry was so terribly sorry, but. he was called out to the country ‘for a consultation. I tried to reach you at home an hour ago. I hope this hasn’t inconvenienced you. I know- Dr. Lowry was so sorry it turned out this way.” “It’s quite all right,” said Cherry. She was pleasantly relieved of the necessity of making an excuse. She was relieved to be free of anything special. But on the street it occurred to her that this would be a good time to pick up her library book at Dr. Lowry’s office. It was long overdue and it would save another trip down here for the book. The building was not far from the hotel. The offices were on the second floor, and as Cherry left the elevator she found the door to the reception room partly open. She stepped into the room and auto- ‘matically became an audience to a one-sided telephone conversation. Dr. Lowry’s secretary was talking: “—so I’m staying here until seven to take any messages. He doesn’t want to be disturbed at home. Whenever he loses a case he just can’t get home fast enough. He had me his wife and tell her he was coming home for din- ner, and then I had to make up an excuse for his date when she called—” Quietly Cherry went out and down the hall and returned with enough noise to warn that some one was com- ing. The conversation ended suddenly and the secretary came to the recep- tion room. “I thought I would pick up my book,” said Cherry, smiling. “Oh, of course. It’s right here, in- side.” She brought it out. “Dr. Lowry was terribly sorry he had to go out on consultation. He will probably call you tomorrow before he leaves.’ Cherry went on her way. She wasn’t surprised. She wasn’t disturbed. When you played offside you had to expect to be kept waiting. To be stood up. Just as well I learned it at twenty instead of thirty, she thought. She drove home rather fast. Her mother and father were in the living room together. They looked concerned, she thought. “Look, dar- lings,” she said. “You don’t need to worry about me any longer. The only. married men I’m going to go out with from now on are those I’m married to myself.” She waited for their happy approval but they didn’t seem to re- spond as she d “Cherry, dear,” said her mother slowly, “I’m afraid we have to tell you some shocki news. You haven't heard about Alan’s father, have you? He was taken ill in the locker at the club this afternoon—and there was nothing that could be done for him. . . . I know you were very fond of Mr. Chalmers.” se AT ten o’clock that evening she was still trying to write to Alan at the desk in her room. But the words looked cold. She tried again. Her mother came to the door. “Cherry, Alan is downstairs in the living room. He’d like to see you.” “Alan—” said Cherry. Then she went swiftly down the stairs. Alan stood in front of the fireplace talking to her father. He spoke quiet- ly. “T wanted to see you, Cherry.” ‘T'm glad you came, Alan,” re- sponded Cherry. Neither of them quite noticed when Mr. Brooks went away. But presently they were alone. “I mustn’t stay long,” said Alan. But he sat down be- side her on the sofa. “I can’t realize it yet, Cherry.” “Of course you can’t, Alan.” He was silent for a moment. Then he said unexpectedly, “I’ve been thinking of you all day. Strange, isn’t it? You think it’s better to get out because you can’t do anything else. You want the girl to forget you, and when she does you don’t like that. Maybe men are just hard to please.” “It might be,” said Cherry. Sud- denly she thought she understood most of this. One thing was certain: When Alan found trouble he had come to her. Alan stood up. “I’ve got to be going, Cherry. I ought to be at the house all the time. Sometime I'll be able to tell you about everything. Did you know that dad liked you especially?” “I’m glad he did,” said Cherry. “Tt don’t know about tomorrow. There will be people coming to the house. If I had a chance to, I'd like to come in for just a minute, Cherry.” “Tl be here all day,” she told him. “Good night, Alan.” Tll always be here, she thought. He has a lot of things to work out, but he will surely come back to me forever sometime. THE END BEFORE YOU PAN HOLLYWOOD... (20'Px"° ,, entered. They are definitely show- men and the accusations of irrespon- sibility and waste are irresponsibly made. Putting something on a stage or a screen has been described as ‘judicious elimination.” Even the great Ziegfeld used to throw out half of every Follies after it opened on the road. And he made one show a year, not one a week. We hear good gags involving malapropisms t are attributed to the producers, but Hollywood is crowded with authors and wits who can build a misphrase into a traveling companion. And pretty good fun, too. Oh, yes, indeed, the boners are pulled, but give me this straight comedy any time in preference to the boring Bab- bitts who run the widget industry or even some magazine publishers who tell about their deep breathing and bran for breakfast. What really counts is what is really accomplished. Over the years the Hollywood movies have become the best in the world, capturing the market wherever they were shown. Despite barriers of language, more than seventy-three per cent of the seating capacity of all the theaters outside the United States JANUARY 3, 1942 are devoted to American films. Al- though statistics are scarce since Hit- ler and Mussolini got gruesome, the number of Hollywood prints that have been “duped” and bootlegged to keep the suppressed peoples quieter makes a message in itself. It is not necessary to go into mat- ters of trade or the incidental accom- plishments showing how styles were started and even entire industries created by the movies—the whole modernistic trend in furniture for ex- ample. Let us here credit them with the major achievement ef developing the remarkable technique of the fea- ture picture through constant willing- ness to experiment. They have unearthed and trained real talent in all branches of films, acting, camera, direction, and con- tinuity writing. They have presented well mounted productions. to the pub- lic so that the talent could be fairly judged and the stars selected. They have coached their players in an or- i schooling system. This bud- ing talent has received a real chance either denied to it by the theater-or concealed by the inadequacies _ of -time’ production. And most important of all are the pictures, the ones we can dwell upon with fond recollections, not neces- sarily as remote as the Big Parades and Covered Wagons but merely with a glance over the memory’s shoulder. Each of us can select his ten best films for that desert-island projection room. For the moment we can offer the simply suggested narrative of The Informer, the majestic embarkation of the Bounty, the tender honorableness of Captains Courageous, David Cop- perfield’s walk to Betsy Trotwood’s, the battle of the locusts in The Good Earth, the don’t-push-me-aroundness of Mr. Smith, the coming-of-age of Scarlett O’Hara, the Okies on their jaloppy, the blue Blue Danube re- vealed to Mr. Chips, Ninotchka’s trip to Paris, the scientists’ credo of The Citadel, the unveiling of a statement without a moral in The Long Voyage Home, the charm and decency of Mr. Deeds, the boastful camera of Citizen Kane, the unpulled.punch .of .The Little Foxes. . .. But you get the idea. Dwell on it for a second before you give full credit to the pan on Hollywood. The movies didn’t just happen. They are -the~- result .of -hard work, inspiration, and the good judgment of able men. THE END 53
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© BACHRACH FULTON OURSLER NEXT WEEK LIBERTY begins the publication of another important biog- raphy: Stalin—Devil or Genius? by Emil Ludwig. Millions of our readers will remember how Ludwig, eminent biographer of Napoleon, Bismarck, and Lincoln, accepted Liberty’s assignment to come to the United States and write the life story of President Roosevelt. Now Ludwig, who has talked with Stalin face to face and studied his career from its earliest beginnings, presents an intimate and uncompromis- ing portrait of the Russian Dictator. WITHOUT FLATTERY AND WITHOUT MALICE he has looked at this master of the Soviets and records what he has seen in thrilling detail. Ameri- cans have watched with bewilderment the merry- go-round of contemporary history. They have read with horror of the blood purges and with sickening disgust of the murder of Stalin’s implacable enemy, Trotsky. They have watched with growing admira- tion the titanic spectacle of Russian resistance against the Nazi invasion. Is he a murderer or is he not? Is he a great statesman? The riddle of Stalin is all the more complicated by the rumors and legends that grow day by day. To separate the true from the false, - to understand this curious individual placed so high, invested with so much power—that is the purpose to which Emil Ludwig has addressed himself in this new biography. It begins.with a generous installment in Liberty next week. f ; FOOTBALL FANS WILL FIND many surprises in the All-Players All-America team selections which will also appear in next week’s issue. When Walter Camp picked his first All-America, little did he realize what he was starting. No one man can see more than a few games during a season, and even several men, pooling their knowledge, can only guess at the comparative merits of the thousands of college players who give their all for dear old Alma Mammy each Saturday. So, until 1933, All-America picking was an open sport, with one man’s team as good as another’s. But in that year Liberty’s All-Players All- America was born. It employed a new principle, ee ak. CONTENTS—JANUARY 3, 1942 x x EMIL LUDWIG PUTS STALIN UNDER THE MICROSCOPE simple yet logical. The players themselves selected their All-America. As most people know, Norman L. Sper, Liberty’s All-America conductor, mails indi- vidual ballots to the players of the major teams throughout the country. Each player names the out- standing man for each of eleven positions on the teams against which he has played. THE 1941 TEAM, also the second and third teams and sectional teams, will be announced in next week’s Liberty. No one who is at all interested in football should miss them. The importance of Liberty’s All-Players All-America team will be emphasized this year by colorful cere- monies at the great Sugar Bowl game in New Orleans on New Year’s Day. Between halves the members of Liberty’s All-America will be introduced in person. All who are not playing elsewhere will be present at the Sugar Bowl as guests of Liberty. The game will be broadcast from 2 P. M., E. S. T., over N. B. C.’s entire Blue network. The announcing will be han- dled by Jim Britt, who will give the play-by-play account, and Fort Pearson, who will provide the “color” and will tell about Liberty’s guests as they are introduced. I recommend this broadcast to all football enthusiasts. HOPE YOU WILL ALSO ENJOY the exciting short fiction next week, especially The Ghost of Montfaucon, by Pat Frank, and Peace Is Where. the Heart Is, by Winifred Halsted. Carl Crow tells an exciting story of Why Fear Drives the Japanese. Ted Shane offers a quiz, What Do You Know About 1941? Howard S brings you an armful of laughter in Hollywood’s favorite humor. More About Harlem, by Helen Worden and Eddie Doherty, another exciting installment of Mississippi Belle, by Clements Ripley, together with all your favorite departments and features, make up an issue that I sincerely hope will entertain, inform, and truly delight you. THANKS! Hope to see you all right here with us again next Wednesday. FULTON OURSLER. x * EDITORIAL Resolutions for America SHORT STORIES See You Sometime! Clara Wallace Overton Triumph Phillips Campbell You Never Can Tell—Liberty’s True Two-Minute Story Barbara Wake SERIALS Mississippi Belle—Part V Clements Ripley Blood of the Dragon—Conclusion Achmed Abdullah 22 48 ARTICLES Man to Man....Gerald McCann The Most Mysterious Office in Washington ... Walter Karig Lindbergh and the Jews : Francis E. McMahon In Darkest Harlem Helen Worden and Edward Doherty How to Become an Oracle Gracie Allen Before You Pan Hollywood Howard Dietz What Will Happen to the Cham- Jack Dempsey 6 8 14 Hellzabusiness George Jean Nathan 39 FEATURES Y 42; Pictures You Ought to See by Howard Barnes, 44. The names and the descriptions of all char- acters in the fiction stories appearing in Liberty are wholly fictitious. If there is any resemblance, in name or in description, to any person, living or dead, it is purely a coincidence. COVER BY JOHN SCOTT
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wh, MA BABY DOCTOR... YET iu) | DESPISED ALL MOTHERS! Don’t Miss This Great Book-Length True Novel In addition to our monthly book- length true novel, True Story proudly starts the new year with a regular true novelette for your fur- ther enjoyment. “I Do Not Want Your Child,” premiere novelette in the January issue, is the story of an Ameri- can immigrant who faced the dilemma of bearing a German child—a kin to the Nazi murderer of her own Norwegian father. If ever a tragic circumstance moved you, this woman’s problem will stir you to the depths! Do not fail to read it! Make Your Reading True in 1942! Book-Length True Novel — True Novelette — scores of delightful true romances—and our famous Home- making features — all appearing in AN a man be a successful children’s doctor when he is contemptuous of all mothers? What strange powers move a physician to worship the youngsters he heals, yet to hate vehemently the women who gave them life? Would you have faith in a doctor like this? The heart-rending account of this brilliant spe- cialist trying to protect children from their own mothers provides one of the year’s most human stories. You’ll never forget the climax, when into his life came a woman who. .. But read “Baby Doctor” complete in January True Story—another thrilling book-length true novel. Do not miss it! BY LOUELLA PARSONS Nobody knows Hollywood better than its own historian, Louella Parsons. Yet one romance between two immortals of the sil- ver screen still tears at her heart strings. Who were the stars who lived this magnifi- cent drama? Meet them in Louella Par- sons’ own deeply moving version of their memorable affair in the new True Story. January Now on
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Copyright 1941, The Ameriean Tebaceo Company, “T’VE WATCHED Luckies buy tobacco at more auctions than I could count,” says Alf Webster, tobacco warehouse owner of Durham, N. C. “They go right after the milder, better-tasting leaf, pay what it costs and take it away. “To me, Lucky Strike means fine to- bacco. Sure I smoke Luckies!”’ Smokers . . . in tobacco, as in most WITH MEN WHO KNOW TOBACCO BEST—IT’S LUCKIES 2 TO 1 things, quality counts. The finer, light- er leaf just naturally costs more—but Luckies pay the price to get it! Among independent tobacco ex- perts—auctioneers, buyers and ware- housemen—Luckies are far and away the favorite. Why not enjoy this milder, better- tasting tobacco in your own cigarette?