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Show I WHO'S NEWS I THIS WEEK... By Lemuel F. Par ton NEW YORK. At least one asset possessed by Getullo Dernelles Vargas, who has seized dictatorial powers in Brazil, is a comprehen- ... sive grasp of the Brazilian public affairs of Dace Knowt his country, re-Covernment re-Covernment suiting from seven years experience as Brazilian ruler. When he first appeared in public life as prosecutor in Porto Alegre, capital of Rio Grande Do Sul, at the age of twenty-five, his diminutive stature, five feet four inches in his stocking feet, occasioned some derision de-rision and some doubt among unthinking un-thinking fellow countrymen who fet that official efficiency In approximate approxi-mate degree related to physical proportions. pro-portions. Here, incidentally, was an error observed in the early career of one Napoleon Bonaparte and other little lit-tle men whose dynamic energy, pertinacity per-tinacity and keen mentality could easily have filled more adequate physiques with much to spare. Like Napoleon, Vargas is swarthy of complexion and, also like him, he is no shakes of an orator. In fact, deeds, rather than words are characteristic char-acteristic of Brazil's fuehrer. He will be fifty-five years old next April, having been born under the . empire of Dom Early Day Pedro ln i883 ln Were Under the village of Sao Dom Pedro Borja on the Uru-guay Uru-guay river in the state of Rio Grande Do Sul, of which he eventually became governor. While holding this office in 1930, he led the revolution of that year in which the insurgents seized control con-trol of the country, the revolt being due to Mr. Vargas' conviction that his defeat as candidate for the pres-I pres-I idency in the spring of that year had been due to ballot frauds. Four years later he became president un- J v. ...u:u 1 UUl UlC tUMSLllUllUIJ WUiUil nets I1UW been superseded. In youth, after a primary education educa-tion of some soundness, he entered the army, and, at the age of seventeen, seven-teen, won a sergeant's warrant. But disliking army life, he resigned to continue his education. He took his degree in law in 1907, aged twenty-four, and thereupon began be-gan the political career which seven years ago landed him in the presidential presi-dential palace, where he seems minded to remain for an indefinite time. SPORTS writers tell me that Joseph Jos-eph C. Trees, Pennsylvania oil millionaire, is in for a handsome pasting from the colleges for insist-T insist-T ,. ing that hiring rees I ella football players is of Time He "eminently sound Was 'Ringer ancJ, PrPer:;' He rpilled quite a platter of beans at a University of Pittsburgh banquet, telling of his days as a "ringer," as they called the hired player in his day, back in the nineties. He wants the colleges to abandon their "pious and holier-than-thou attitude," and says "they deceive nobody but themselves." He told of punching the time- clock in the Pittsburgh football mill and how other big eastern colleges had tried to bid him away. He was a laborer in the oil fields in those days. He took a degree in mechanical me-chanical engineering in 1895 and drilled so many dry holes they called him "Dusty Joe" all through western Pennsylvania. In his junior year, he had married mar-ried Miss Claudine Virginia Willi-son Willi-son of Perrysville, and she, and she alone, says Mr. Trees, saved him from failure and set him on the road to fortune. When his last hole proved to be as dry as the Congressional Record, he went home and told his wife he was through he was going to pick up his old job as a day laborer. As he now tells it, "The little woman just naturally chased me ... out of the house. The Missus She said t hadn.t Chases Him started yet and I'd to Fortune be"er, hurry UP and plug another well. I did and I got oil not a gusher, but enough for a start." That was the start, and the finish was many millions, many directorates, director-ates, beautiful estates and much public largess, including the gift of a gymnasium to his former employ-I employ-I er the University of Pittsburgh. His second wife is Mrs. Edith Lehn, his former secretary. When they were married in 1929, and he was making over his magnificent estate es-tate near Pittsburgh, he moved a 60-foot elm tree ten miles, just to work out a nice detail of landscaping. landscap-ing. His career has been saddened by the death of his two sons, one in an automobile accident in 1909 and one in an airplane crash on a Texas training field during the World war. t) Consolidated News Feature. WNU Service. |
