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Show 'gig iVofes o an Innocent Bystander: The Wireless: Radio's coverage of the San Francisconfab Is all aces. The news analysts Rre turning the pockets of their minds inside out and presenting perplexing peace problems prob-lems with admirable clarity. They are driving home the issues which will atlect every American home. . . . Nothing more soothing than the Nazi shortwavers' blah-by-blah description de-scription of Verminy's dying gasps. . . . Commentator Baukhagc's adroit delivery packs a wallop. His recent radio report of FDR's interment landed in the Congressional Record. . . . Rita Hayworth's quip-bandying with Cholly McCarthy kept the chuckles chuck-les rolling at a swift pace. . . . Talk about crimson faces. A current bestseller best-seller moans that America is skidding skid-ding into "collectivism." The tome's author appeared on the Chi. Round Table end was asked to give a clear definition of "collectivism." He flunked the query. Memos for a Serapbook: In a literary lit-erary weekly John Mason Brown has embroidered a delightful bit of literary lace: "Praise has never made cnyone unhappy. We like it even when we do not believe it. We tire of it only when it is bestowed too long on other people. It is music mu-sic we do not object to having played ofTstage. Although It may shame our consciences and Insult our minds, it does no damage to our ears." Between the Book Ends: Top flight reporter Ira Wolfert has captured the sordid tragedy, flaming courage and shining hopes of the current struggle via "American Guerrilla in the Philippines" (Simon & Schuster). This slam-bang chronicle of Lt. I. D. Richardson's exploits creates a spiritual spir-itual glow. . . . Most timely Is A. E. Kahn and Michael Sayers' "The Plot Against the Peace" (Dial Press). I Here are the names of the fascist peace-wreckers and their battle strategy. . . . Morris L. Ernst's "The : Best Is Yet" offers a sizzling series 1 of essays. His most crushing haymakers hay-makers land on the few presstitutes In our midst. Such "journalists" can cover their depravity with lofty rhetoric, but they can't hide their shame. Quotation Marksmanship: A. j Ward: Let us all be happy and live j within our means, even if we have to borrow money to do it with. . . . R. C. Sherrif: The telephone began be-gan calling out like a spoiled child, and he hurried off to soothe it. . . . Dorothy Parker: She said her words with every courtesy to each of them, as if she respected language. . . . The Jergens Journal: And so I remain re-main Your New York Correspondent Correspond-ent who, in this babble of tongues Just found out that Eden means garden, gar-den, Molotov means hammer, Stalin means steel and Truman means business. Stalingrad rocked under a murderous mur-derous barrage. Late one night, a creaking ferryboat, piloted by a wheezened old boatman, was smashed by a shell. The old man and a young lieutenant aboard were thrown Into the river. The heavily-packed heavily-packed soldier started to go down. . . . "Here," shouted the old man, "take this life preserver," and looped lt over the officer's shoulder. The lieutenant tried to push It away. . , . "Stop, you fool," screamed the boatman. "I'm old my arm is missing. I'm through. But you're young and can fight. Take the preserver. pre-server. Hold Stalingrad!" Just another unsung, unknown hero In the fight for Decency. Counter-Attack: Little Inna Bentago is a six-year-old orphan. Her father killed at the front. Her mother by a Nazi bomb. ... On Red Army Day all the other children in her kindergarten kindergar-ten class were busy writing letters to their fathers or brothers. Inna, came sobbing to Natasha Zemskaya. her teacher. "I have no Daddy and no one to write to." Natasha comforted com-forted the child and told her to write to Lt. Alexander Kuksenok. . . .1 Little Inna laboriously poured her; heart into a scrawling letter. Soon! she received an answer. "Don't you! cry, little Inna " wrote the lieuten-ant lieuten-ant "From now on I'm your brother. broth-er. I am sending you a little gift. Be a good girl. Love, Alex." , , , Each week Alex wrote to his newly adopted sister. . . . Suddenly the letters let-ters stopped. After several weeks, Inna received a note. It was signed by a hundred soldiers and said: "Alex has been killed, but do not feel bad. His last wish was for all of us to become your brothers. So now you have a very large family, a hundred brothers. Be a good girl and write to us. Love. . . ." Ilya Ehrenberg, Soviet newspaper man, writes of his talk with a German Ger-man sergeant: "He (the sergeant) limped out of the forest leaning on a walking stick. . . . The most expressive ex-pressive thing about him was thai stick. On it were carved the names of the cities he had been in: Ra-dom, Ra-dom, Warsaw, Liege, Namur. Rheims, Paris, Smolensk, and Vyazma. Vyaz-ma. "Observing that I was scrutinizing the stick, the Nazi said, 'We've been everywhere. But where have w got to?" |