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Show xi " -' WHO'S NEWS THIS WEEK By LEMUEL F. PARTON NEW YORK. Among his companions com-panions in barnstorming, Glenn L. Martin was known as "The Dude," although his carefully tai-, tai-, lored flying suits Martin Had were always Get-Up of black, including Mortician thelr elaborate braid trimmings. His somewhat mortuary get-up and behavior gave an impression of great conservatism, and it Is not surprising that he got backing from the bankers when other aviators failed. A few months ago, he said his Glenn L. Martin company, of Baltimore, Balti-more, making planes, had a backlog back-log of $15,500,000. He told the house naval affairs af-fairs committee there should be a 100 per cent Increase in air armaments, that foreign nations are spending; ten times as much as the United States. He would build a 250,000-pound bomber, carrying; 30 men and a 4,000-pound 4,000-pound bomb load 11,000 miles. In 1912, this writer saw him put an inflated inner tube around his neck, strap a compass on his leg and take off to sea, at Avalon bay, Los Angeles, in a flying laundry wagon on which he had rigged a single wooden pontoon. He was bound for Catalina Island, 20 miles away. It looked like suicide. He not only made it, but picked up again at Catalina and finished , the round trip, Round Trip blanking Bleriot, Sea Flight whose flight over h Success the British channel chan-nel was a one-way excursion. He had made the plane in an abandoned church. The flight got him world attention. atten-tion. Then he staged a plane coyote hunt, dropped a ball into a catcher's mitt and a bouquet into the arms of a beauty contest queen. This air extravaganza did not last long. In 1913, he built and sold two model XT war planes to the army, and has been building build-ing fighting craft ever since, with the exception of trans-Pacific Clippers. He grew up in Mackburg, Iowa, built a pusher plane In his backyard back-yard and flew it in 1908. He is fifty-two. WILLIAM JENNINGS BRYAN, in his seersucker suit and his rumpled hat, frequently looked as if he had been sleeping under a bridge, especially Bryan, Jr., in the midst of a Fastidious hard campaign. About Dress His son William Jennings Bryan, Jr., is fussy about his dress, severely severe-ly and fastidiously groomed, with a Jaunty little moustache and a nice collection of malacca sticks, sports clothes, and varied haberdashery. He is in the news now as he becomes be-comes collector of customs at the port of Los Angeles, his first recog-. recog-. nition by the California Democracy, in whose vineyard he has labored for years. When his father laid down bis staff and scrip at Dayton, Tenn., he picked from the legacy only two things free silver and anti-evolution. anti-evolution. He is quite unmoved by oratory, speaking with calm, legalistic precision, with no gift for the resounding or oracular. He has made spirited forays against this or that, notably Upton Sinclair's "Epic" Will Speak heresy of 1934, but Good Word with no such im-for im-for Silver passioned fervor as that which inspired in-spired his father. But, when occasion oc-casion offers, he puts in a word for silver, or against evolution. After the Dayton trial and his father's fa-ther's death, he made a knightly vow that his lance always should be leveled against this ignoble theory the-ory of man's origin. But nobody seems to be bringing that up now. The argument is shifting to where man is going. He attended the University of Nebraska Ne-braska three years, studied law at Georgetown university, went to Arizona Ari-zona on account of his wife's health, and practiced law, first in Arizona and then in Los Angeles. He is fifty years old. 5 Consolidated News Features. WNU Service. ; . |