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Show Notes of a Reporter to His Editors When "Old Acquaintance" troupe played command performance at White House, understand Peggy Wood left FDR practically speechless speech-less when she burst forth with: "Please, Mr. Roosevelt, dear Mr. President, don't send our dear boys over there to fight. I have two arms, I have two legs, take me but not our dear boys!" etc. . . . Leon Henderson Hen-derson may ease out of defense board tired, ill ... I hear Nelson (Sears-Roebuck exec on same board) will eventually inherit Knud-sen's Knud-sen's post. Intimates of Camacho believe he would follow any war policy adopted adopt-ed by U. S. within 24 hours . . . Jolson not stalling, really ilL . . . Peem's short-wave story about new British superplane (The Tornado) as reported by BBC from London appeared ap-peared in last "Things I Never Knew 'Til Now" col'm month before be-fore BBC confirmation. Appeasers who claim England can't win should read what Hitler wrote on that subject in Chapter XII of his book, viz: "The British nation na-tion can be counted upon to carry through to victory any struggle that It once enters upon, no matter how long such a struggle may last or however great the sacrifice that may be necessary, or whatever the means that have to be employed; and all this even though the actual military equipment at hand may be utterly inadequate when compared with that of other nations." Long-winded Long-winded soandso, isn't he? Hear an afternoon N. Y. paper is readying a new colyumist, not a professional pro-fessional writer "but a famous personality" per-sonality" as a circ builder. Starts in March. Understand it is not D. Thompson, who starts same time. Radio key men have been conferring confer-ring secretly in Washington on the part radio will play in maintaining public contact in case we are actively ac-tively involved in a war. Even during dur-ing possible bombardments . . . The Nazis have a neat method of trying to win favor with U. S. radio commentators abroad. They classify classi-fy them as heavy laborers for ration ra-tion card reasons. This entitles them to two pounds of meat instead of one. P. S. It doesn't work. There is talk of increasing the draft period to two years. . . . Ye ed salutes Homer Price for this form of criticism . . . People, he says, who claim the home town paper doesn't print all the news should be glad it doesn't! W. W. Notes of an Innocent Bystander The Wireless: P'raps they don't settle many problems on the American Ameri-can Forum, but they get them out in the air and provide a lot of listen-able listen-able brawling. The back alley tangle tan-gle between Morris Ernst and Cong. Starnes a recent Sunday could be a sell-out at the Garden. The way to handle 5th Columnists was the temper trigger . . . Raymond G. Swing asked why, if Hitler has 36,-000 36,-000 planes, he didn't pour them at Britain when the conditions for it were good. We are, he hints, eating eat-ing too many Nazi figures without salt ... It was hard to get worked up over "Rebecca," even with R. Colman, I. Lupino and Judith Anderson Ander-son in excellent jobs. England has taken too much lately for anybody to care about one man's love storms. The tear jerks were too pro-blitz . . . Jas. Thurber makes a discovery discov-ery about quizzes. They reveal how much the contestants don't know, which is colossal. The Front Pages: Lots of the anti-FDR anti-FDR dailies are making it tough for future historians. The same journals jour-nals that exalted Willkie up to Nov. 5 are calling him A Thing now. Because Be-cause he doesn't care ii licking Hitler Hit-ler is a party matter or a matter for humanity . . . The Berlin journals are easier on him than some of his old supporters . . . Ray Clapper says events are not consistent, "therefore why should I be consistent? consist-ent? Some people once they adopt an idea, bury it in the ground and go on the rest of their lives defending defend-ing it, without ever re-examining it to see whether time and the elements ele-ments have caused it to decay into a worthless handful of dust. In that way you can always be consistent and often wrong." ... A columnist in Hawaii observed: "I have written writ-ten many lines that have been stolen. sto-len. By numerous radio gag writers writ-ers solemn. But then, it is comforting com-forting to know. That somebody really reads this column." The Story Tellers: Sen. Sheridan Downey found himself labeled "Morton Downey" in New Horizons. His squawk ought to convince the editors he's no tenor . . . Leland Stowe, by-lining "I Saw Mussolini Humbled" (in Look), said: "The Greeks have very little respect for the Fascists' fighting qualities because be-cause the Fascists almost never fight hard when the terms are even" . . . "The Reader's Digest Reader" is must reading. It is a collection of that miniature mag's choice selection se-lection over an 18-year period. |