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Show j WHO'S NEWS THIS WEEK... By Lemuel F. Par ton NEW YORK. George Wingfield, who has been rolling "snake yes" for the last seven or eight years, is now making six or eight straight passes. I Wingfield don't know wheth-Again wheth-Again "in er the news has Los Angeles Is that he has regained ownership of the Golden and Riverside River-side hotels in Reno and is again looking out from behind a tall stack of blue chips. The one-time buckaroo and faro dealer who gained a fortune of $50,000,000 and owned and operated the sovereign state of Nevada for quite a few years, quietly faded out in 1933, told the court he was broke and relinquished the state with a sportsmanlike gesture. He implied that the croupier had stood him on his head. His friend, William H. Crocker, had a mortgage of $800,-030 $800,-030 on his two hotels. He owned mines and ranches all over the state, in the somewhat metaphysical metaphys-ical way in which people owned things then, but his equities came to just a couple of white chips to be tossed into the kitty. He did this gracefully and started out to get another an-other stake. Senator Nixon of Nevada Ne-vada told me how he got his start. "He walked into my office," said the senator, "and tossed something on my desk. It was a diamond ring. I haven't any idea how much it was worth. He said he had located locat-ed a good-looking outbreak south of Goldfield and wanted me to grubstake grub-stake him on the ring. , " 'I'm not running a hock shop I said. 'There's a three-ball joint around the corner.' "He picked up the ring and started start-ed out. Before he got to the door, a sudden hunch hit me like a mule kick. I called him back and gave him $300 on the ring." Wingfield had already staked his claim, and started a prospect hole. A little more dig-Nixon dig-Nixon Also ging, and there Profited in was tne Consoli- MineVenture dai?d m,ine' riches for both Wingfield and Nixon. Also the start of Goldfield, a ghost town now, half-buried half-buried in sand, but a roaring desert' metropolis for a few years. Wing-field's Wing-field's winning streak was on in those days and it was only a few months later that he broke the bank at the Tonopah ciub. He Joined the Montezuma club, got himself some nice store clothes, polished up his grammar . and moved into circles of finance where the house percentage is doubtless stiffer than that of faro. But it seems that he is beating even that. A FRIEND of this writer, who lived several years in Japan, suggests that, if, by accident, Foreign For-eign Minister Koki Hirota should find himself dressed in spats and pin-stripe trousers, but with an Oriental Ori-ental robe instead of a morning coat, he would find a middle way and solve the dilemma of Japan's half feudal, half modern industrial state. "He hates his morning coat and striped pants," said my friend. f "When he gets Jap Minister home at night, he Works Best in never lose a min- Native Attire int gating into Oriental clothes. In the dress of an occidental diplomat, diplo-mat, he works like one, as wily as the best of them, given to strategy and trick reasoning. At home, in a beautifully embroidered Japanese gown, he reads Confucius, as a pupil of the aged scholar, Mitsuru Toyama. I cite this duality of mind and dress merely as symbolic of the internal contending forces of Japan, vestigeal feudalism and Twentieth century industrial imperialism. In a very literal sense, this dead center cen-ter of old and new epochs accounts for much in current Japanese statecraft state-craft that is bewildering to the modern mod-ern mind. "Hirota is not of the Samurai caste," he said, "but he stems from romantic old Japan and goes only part of the way with the Mitsuis and Mitsubishis of the great industrial dynasties who think they can shoot their way through to a vast Asiatic empire. In his youth, he was a zealous leader of the 'Zen' sect tonsured Buddhists, whose gospel was humility, pacifism and turning the other cheek. Suddenly, he switched to the 'Black Sea' society, a fire-eating outfit of militarists and jingoes. "OE WAS a stone mason'a son, 1 1 apprenticed as a stone cutter, cut-ter, and educated by the Geneyosha, a fervid patriotic society, with 'sim-c, 'sim-c, A. plicity for its MoneCutter motto. in his first Now Shapes effort he failed to Jap Policies pass nis examina' tions for entrance to the Imperial university, but tried again and was successful. He began be-gan as a government clerk, was advanced, ad-vanced, entered the diet and finally the cabinet. He is an intelligent man, keenly aware of the anomalies and anachronisms of Japan'i politics poli-tics and social structure." Contoltdnted New Features. WA'U Service. |