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Show WHO'S NEWS THIS WEEK By LEMUEL F. PARTON NEW YORK. When we went ln tha World war, Sen. Smith W. Brookhart of Iowa said our crack riflemen would win for us if h wer allowed to re-Rifle re-Rifle Virtuoso erultandtraln Made Gun Our them. Amerl. . . . cans, he said, Army Mainstay wtr borB marksmen, and the rlfla would be suited to our native genius. He was soundly patrlotie and moving, as he worked in Daniel Boone and individual individ-ual Initiative, but his plea went unheededin un-heededin fact, the senator's suggestion sug-gestion seemed amusing to most commentators. Bat, at that time, there was a young frilew popping off the conveyer con-veyer belt docks at Ceney island is-land with aueh accuracy that he became a virtuose of rifle fire, and. In between war years, m&dA Mi rifle the mainstay of ear army firing power, hist as Senator Brookhart said It ought to be. The Garand self-loading, seml-automatio rifle, tested by National Guardsmen at Camp Smith, Feekskin, has for several years been put down by military mili-tary men as the world's most sensational achievement in light rma. The army took It over la 1937. It la the creation of John C. Garand, the yonng toolmaker whose earlier laboratory was a Coney Island shooting gallery. It weighs only nine pounds, and fires SO shots to the minute one shot with one trigger-pull. Young Garand made several models, mod-els, embodying his basie Idea, and sent one to the navy department at Washington. They planted him .with the bureau of standards to continue his experiments. Later, they sent him to the United States armory at Spring-Hold, Spring-Hold, where In 1923 he brought through the deadliest small weapon ever made. It has been steadily Improved' since then, and, according; to the most as-' as-' thorltatlve military judgment, has more than trebled our army's firing power. Automatic in all but the trigger-pull, mua-tle mua-tle gas Is used to power It. John C Garand was born in a French-Canadian village, 20 miles from Montreal, and was brought to Putnam, Conn., by his father, when he was seven, after the death of his mother. He was the seventh of 14 children. He was a textile mill machinist ma-chinist at 18. In 1930, he married a Canadian girt. They have a boy and a girl. He Is 52 years old, still a gunsmith at the Springfield armory. ar-mory. THERE was once a hillbilly girl who went to a neighbor's cabin to borrow a hammer. She said, "Pappy's flxin' to build a house next fall." Over In Europe Borrows Europe, they Our 'World of "flxin'" - ,j to build a Tomorrow Idea federated Eu. rope, forehanded about it, as above, with the building apparently dependent depend-ent on a preliminary wrecking job. Within the last few days, plans for the grand remodeling have gone forward, with two sets of blueprints on each side of the west wall. Frans von Fapen fhlaks the new oemmonwealth of Earese will be devised by Germany, Ger-many, while Pan! Eeynaud, French minister of finance, and his confreres la Londoa, are making other arrangements. The wide range of planners swings from Intelleotsals, sseh as JnTian Huxley, the British solentlst, to the man of action, General Wladislas SIkorsU, premier pre-mier of the Folisn government which is Just now camping out la France. General SikorskL the latest matriculate ma-triculate in the peace seminar, visions vi-sions a "consolidated Europe," but one in which s reconstituted Poland will somehow bs happily encysted. Be Is a soldier who became a writing, as well as a fighting man, also, with his gift of ready speech, an orator and politician. He was an effective leader of the war of 1920, when the French geaeraJ, Maximo Weygand, helped the Poles sUp the Bolsheviks, Bol-sheviks, and he became premier in 1922 when he was replaced by Marshal Ptlsudski as chlef-of-staff . He was forced out la 1923, and in 1924 became minister of war. One of his first official acts was to forbid women workers in the department to wear silk stockings. He decreed dark, hlgh-oollared dresses, high shoes and cotton stockings. He is a strict disciplinarian. A handsome and romantic Igure of the old feudal Polish aristocracy, he took full account of modern conditions con-ditions as he tried desperately to tool his country into modern state-hoed. state-hoed. Now, it appears, a weuld just skip it and take a chance on the world of tomorrow. (Consolidated Features WNO Service.) |