| OCR Text |
Show WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS Hew Roosevelt Political Dynasty Seen in FDR, Jr.'s Vote Triumph; Clay Urges Accord With Germany (EDITOR'S NOTE: When opinions are expressed in these columns, they are those of Western Newspaper Union's news analysts and not necessarily x this newspaper.) Last Man Over ! , J h V I VW .'' " 1 ' I , 1 ACCIDENTS: Three Reasons Plain stupidity, bad manners, and liquor are the top three causes of automobile accidents, accounting for three-fourths of all fatalities, or over 24,000 deaths per year, according accord-ing to a case analysis by Northwestern North-western National Life Insurance company. By far the top killers are the "stupid" group of driver offenses excessive speed, ignoring traffic signs or traffic officers, passing on hills or curves, and other miscellaneous miscel-laneous "dimwit" violations; the study finds that one or more of these offenses isg involved in 40 per cent of all fatal accidents, and is the principal cause of 32 per cent. FOOLISH ACTIONS by adult pedestrians crossing against traffic traf-fic signals, crossing intersections diagonally, crossing between intersections, inter-sections, coming from behind parked cars, and walking in the roadway in the same direction as traffic cause another 12 per cent of fatalities, based on experience records of 1946, 1947 and 1948, the study finds. Thus 44 per cent of our annual traffic death toll results from failures by drivers or pedestrians pedes-trians to use common sense. Bad manners, such as road hogging hog-ging driving over the center line or actually on the wrong side of the road, and "barging through" when the other fellow has the right-of-way cause another 15 per cent of traffic fatalities, the records reveal. TRAFFIC DEATHS due to alcohol alco-hol are estimated by the insurance statisticians at a minimum of 15 per cent 12 per cent due to drinking drink-ing by drivers and 3 per cent due to drinking by pedestrians. This is the most difficult group of cases to measure accurately, the study points out, because: Many drinking drivers try to conceal such facts in case of an accident, and an unknown un-known number succeed; second, a considerable proportion of other violations such as reckless driving, which are directly blamed for certain cer-tain accidents, would not be committed com-mitted if the driver were fully sober and his judgement clear. Summary: Of our annual traffic toll of 32,000 to 33,000 deaths, 44 per cent result from acts of folly by motorists or pedestrians, 15 per cent result from bad driving manners, man-ners, and at least 15 per cent from liquor. Total: 74 per cent. ROOSEVELT: Old Tradition The old tradition was running true to form: you can't beat a Roosevelt. Young Franklin D. Roosevelt, Jr., most like his father in looks, charm and smile, won the New York congressional seat left vacant by the death of Sol Bloom. And he won it with the national administration ad-ministration and Tammany allied against him. FDR worshippers were jubilant. Those who had fought the "champ" throughout his years in the White House professed to see in the election elec-tion result the creation of a new Rooseveltian political dynasty. Already the cry of the exultant victors, was "on to Albany," New York capital which Franklin D. Roosevelt, four-time President of the United States, used as a springboard spring-board to the White House. Denied the Democratic nomination, nomina-tion, young Roosevelt ran on the Liberal and Four Freedoms parties' par-ties' tickets in a contest which kept Manhattan's west side in an uproar for months. A surprise to many Americans, who did not know such procedure was permissible, Roosevelt Roose-velt does not reside in the district he will represent in congress. It t seems that all the while there has been no bar in the law to prevent j a candidate from living in one dis- trict and representing another. DESPITE his victory as a stand-1 stand-1 ard bearer for two other parties, Roosevelt declared he is still a 100 per cent Democrat. Campaigning, he visited thou-' thou-' sands of voters, turned on the old ' Roosevelt charm, mingled with the masses in their homes, attended house parties as honor guest, made street corner speeches. One defeated candidate sounded a familiar note heard so frequently during other Rooseveltian campaigns: cam-paigns: j "The formula in this election ,was a glamorous name and a quarter I of a million dollars, and neither of I these did we have." SNEEZER: 150,000 Times Michael Hippisley had sneezed 150,000 times and was still sneezing. London doctors sought frantically to bring some relief to the 14-year old schoolboy who had sneezed once every three seconds for nine days. THE only time the boy hadn't sneezed in the nine days was when he was knocked out by drugs or sleeping. "I've had kerosene up my nose, drops down my ears and hundreds of tablets," Michael told reporters. "Then they cauterized me. I couldn't feel anything more, but I kept on sneezing." When news of Michael's plight got about, some 50 callers offered sympathy and advice. One suggested sug-gested hypnotism. Another , said sneeze in a paper sack.. Unfortunately, Unfortu-nately, all remedies had been tried. SCIENCE, making great strides with allergy controls and remedies seemed stymied on this case. The Hippisley family doctor said that's what he thought it was the constant "aa-chooing" was due to Michael's "abnormal sensitivity to pollen dust." Lt. Joe Russo, U.S. army air force, is shown holding a bouquet bou-quet of flowers presented to him after he landed his airplane air-plane at Templehof airdrome to complete the last airlift flight before the lifting of the Berlin blockade. GERMANY: Clay Speaks Up If Gen. Lucius D. Clay, retiring United States military governor in Germany, had his way, America's ex-foes would be permitted back into the company of democratic nations as soon as possible. BACK in Washington where he was feted and decorated by President Presi-dent Truman, Clay warned that unless un-less Germany is restored to the community of western nations, an alliance with Russia by our former enemies is inevitable. Speaking to the house of representatives, repre-sentatives, the general declared that the German people, in spite of their recent history of aggressive war and "extreme cruelty," now had shown their preference for a government standing for the "dignity "digni-ty of man as an individual." In the spirit of the residents of Berlin who survived through the airlift, Clay declared, there is a spark for German freedom that "may grow with the years." He told the senate how the people of western Germany had adopted through their parliamentary council coun-cil a constitution which guarantees free elections and is "devoted to reestablishing in Germany the dignity dig-nity of man." WITHOUT referring to the Soviets by name, he charged, nevertheless, neverthe-less, that the Russians have two objectives that were irreconcilable with the efforts made by the United States, England and France to create a four-power government in Germany based on international cooperation. co-operation. He defined these objectives of what he termed "the fourth power" as intent to exact the maximum in reparations from Germany and to set up a government that could be controlled or exploited by a police state. COMMUNISTS: Losing Ground Whatever was responsible the American airlift,' a conviction that American democracy had more to offer or a general revulsion to all police states the Communists weren't doing so well in the eastern east-ern Berlin elections. THIS was in contrast with the confident predictions of Communistic Commu-nistic politicians in the Soviet zone of occupation of an overwhelming majority. The vote was being taken on a "people's congress" of 2,000 members, mem-bers, all hand-picked by Communist-controlled organizations and put on a single ticket. However, the Communists were picking up only about a third of the votes expected. ex-pected. Some voters wrote on their ballots bal-lots "we won't vote for a police state and we reject Communism." Early returns from Berlin showed a majority of "no" votes the only way the congress could be rejected re-jected since only one list of candidates candi-dates was submitted. THE "PEOPLES' congress," if it were to be set up, would be the Soviet answer to the western state being set up in the western zone. Objective observers couldn't fail to see in the initial trend of the voting an indication that in any case where American system and idealogies may be contrasted with that of the Soviets, the latter cannot can-not command support. Cheats Death BARKLEY: No Guards "I'm a big boy now. And besides, who would want to harm a young man like me anyway." Thus did Kentucky's Alben W. Barkley, Vice-President of the United States, dismiss the idea of personal guards. BARKLEY, who will be 72 in November, goes where he wants, when he wants and flatly refuses protection of any sort. He told newsmen that President Truman had "tried to get me to accept a few secret service men," but was turned down. Secretary of the Treasury Snyder and top G-man J. Edgar Hoover also offered to provide bodyguards. But Barkley wanted his freedom. "I like it better that way," he said. Barkley claims he's just a "common "com-mon man, nothing fancy." In fact, he gets a kick out of people trying to figure out how to address him. "I STILL call myself senator," he says, "a habit after 22 years in congress, but the kids call me veep.' I like that." He could also be called Mr. President, since that's how he's referred re-ferred to in the senate over which he now presides. RADIO: Godfrey Tops Carrot-thatched, gravel-throated Arthur Godfrey, radio's chief exponent ex-ponent of the "be yourself" type of 1 entertainer-announcer, led the CBS network in earnings during 1948. He was paid $440,514.16 last year by the broadcasting system for which he labors. Newscasters didn't fare so badly, bad-ly, however. Lowell Thomas was a close second with $420,300. Oddly enough, the network boss, Frank Stanton garnered only a measly ; j ' $109,798.80. All these figures cov-! cov-! : ered income before Uncle Sam took j ! his cut, so there was some difficul- j ' ty in trying to ascertain just how much "take home" pay these geri- tlemen received. For the ABC network, Don Mc- Neill, emcee of the Breakfast Club, was tops with earnings of $180,229.-40. $180,229.-40. ! . Paul Whiteman, ABC's musical i ; director and vice-president, re-i re-i , ceived $145,316.56. Again the net- ; work president ranked . lower. ABC's president Mark Woods got ! ! only $75,000. -' . , ' -1 J RI i il lll IllStilf liliii iiillIiiiSSi mmxmmmmmmmmm Flashing a smile of victory over death, Reid C. Lewis, is shown in hospital at Santa Monica, Mon-ica, Calif. His heart stopped after a minor operation and remained re-mained stopped, as did breathing breath-ing and pulsebeat, for 12 minutes. His doctor, remembering remember-ing an old Boy Scout trick which sometimes revives drowned persons by breaking a bone, snapped one of Lewis' ribs and the shock restored him to life. PARKING: No, Thanks In a nation where parking space is at a premium, parkers were shunning a Great Bend, Kas., parking park-ing lot in great numbers. Joseph Nolan, a short-time parking park-ing lot operator is authority for the reaction. Nolan opened his lot in the heart of the downtown district. In eight days his gross income was only and exactly $1.20. He tried every device he knew, even "free parking." Still they stayed away. |
