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Show Q I , , "u" i -- i Politics Makes Strange, Etc. Peculiar deals involving congres-Blonal congres-Blonal war profiteering revive similar simi-lar shenanigans by legislators in the oast. About a century a?o a group business men borrow $200 000 and incorporated the Central Pacific railroad. Then they used the 200Gs to bribe congressmen to steal railroad rail-road franchises. The 200G. eventu-ally eventu-ally secured land grants for 9,000 -000 acres and a federal loan of $27,000,000! . The swindlers became rich and powerful railroad owners without investing a penny of their own money! The Tweed King was the most corrupt gang that ever afflicted New York. Boss Tweed filched millions via bribery and legalistic hocus-pocus-until he was finally put behind bars. But Tweed beat the rap many times. After one grand jury failed to dig up enough I evidence to indict Tweed, an editorialist edito-rialist wrote that it reminded him of the man who had been discovered dead and the jury was puzzled as to what caused his death The jury finally issued this report: re-port: "It was an act of God under very suspicious circumstances." Capitol Hill now is burdened with too many demagogues. But the current batch aren't gifted with Huey Long's evil talent. He was a wily rat. ... A reporter once saw a page from a Huey Long address. ad-dress. . Various instructions were penciled in the margins. Such as "pause here," and "use angry fist gesture," etc. At the end of one long paragraph, the following was scribbled in capital capi-tal letters: "Argument weak here. Yell like hell!" One machine in the East doesn't miss a vote-getting trick. The boss sends toys to children of voters. He uses expensive chauffeured cars to bring voters to the polls. And on Election day he sends nurses to take care of tots while mothers vote. No one ever has estimated how much money grafting officials have filched. But the sum reaches astronomical astro-nomical figures. One fact will give you a faint idea of the rooking that the public has taken and still is taking. When Tammany was riding rid-ing high its take during one year was $75,000,000. The Influence of corrupt political bosses on national affairs cannot be overestimated. Many lawmakers are merely errand boys for local ward heelers. A reporter recently snapped: "This Is truly a mechanical mechan-ical age. Even public officials are frequently machine made." All is fair in love, war and politics. poli-tics. Sen. George Norris' political opponents once persuaded a grocer named George Norris to enter the primary against the U. S. senator. The Big Idea was to confuse voters by having similar names on the ballots. bal-lots. But the scheme was called off when it was spotlighted by the press. Mark Twain used his pungent pen to attack the shady schemes of Tammany. Tam-many. The death of a Tammany leader inspired one of Twain's famed quips: "I refused to attend his funeral. But I wrote a very nice jetter explaining that I approved of Nw York Side-Show: He started working for a Wall Streeter nearly a year ago. Under the impression his employer em-ployer was wealthy. ... He practiced forging the boss' signature sig-nature . . . After 10 months or so he tried passing a check "signed" with the employer's name to see if It worked. He wrote it out for only $50. ' '. It came back marked "Insufficient "Insuf-ficient Funds"! Mussolini's daughter, Edda, who has been "amnestied" by Italy, has applied for entry into Argentina because be-cause there's no spot in Italy where she would be welcome. But the passport pass-port hasn't been okayed yet Belgian monarchists are perturbed over the 16-year-old crown prince or Belgium, who would prefer enter-jng enter-jng a monastery to assuming the r.ne' tte king (as expected) 'tV The most haf) 1 theu.foregn bars in Shang- wi I?! mS W3y: "The Russians robab'y obtain the atomic bomb m the Shanghai marked" - Los Angeles, they say, is be. flooded witlntes'poSs be erfwuHFalke"bUrg """'moth. b---ot woogie teacher She wm ? offer of fooi,- U sPurn the o a fashion mag post in Parce 20 P caTitshrt0tmagiS d Y. ayeVpyerSter ' "l who tells tv, . j ' A mobster crossed " en hT'gets ouf"8 |