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Show Notes of an Innocent Bystander: William L. Shirer's Book, "Berlin Diary," is now out. Shirer was CBS He tells of the German mother of an airman who was notified by the Luftwaffe that her son was dead. A few days later, BBC in London (which weekly broadcasts a list of Nazi prisoners) announced that her boy had been captured. Next day she got eight letters from neighbors telling her they had heard by shortwave short-wave that her son was alive in England Eng-land ... It is against the law in Germany to listen to foreign broadcasts broad-casts . . . The mother had all eight arrested for "breaking the law" . . . When Shirer wanted to use the story on his broadcast the Nazi censor deleted it on the ground "that Americans would not understand under-stand the heroism of the airman's mother" ! The way the foreign correspondents correspond-ents now use the phrases "informed sources" and "according to reliable lniormation because stories in Europe Eu-rope are difficult to confirm, recalls this classic about the cub reporter . . . He was on a small town newspaper news-paper and was assigned to cover a bridge party. He was told never to write anything as a fact that he was not absoultely sure about . . . His story came out in the paper this way: "It is rumored that a bridge party was given yesterday by a number of reputed ladies. Mrs. Smith, it was said, was the hostess. The guests, it is alleged, with the exception ex-ception of Mrs. Brown, who says she comes from Illinois, were all local lo-cal people. Her husband says he is rich . . . The hostess, Mrs. Smith, claims to be the wife of Alexander Smith." Two outstanding appeasement newspapers are very quietly preparing pre-paring to become patriotic. Preparations Prep-arations have been made to get behind be-hind the gov't at the next break in U. S.-German relations. A face-saving device is being worked out for their editorial about-face . . . Uncle Un-cle Sam has just cracked down hard on a "refugee" who was caught doing do-ing Nazi propaganda here. His final citizenship papers are being withheld. with-held. His draft board got after him and visas for kin refused ... His initials are H. C. . . . Immigration officials have just discovered a big illicit traffic in Puerto Rican birth certificates for aliens. New York Heartbeat: The Story Tellers: Chas. Lindbergh Lind-bergh Sr. is profiled in the SEP by his one-time law partner, Walter Eli Quigley, who calls the piece "Like Father, Like Son" . . . Read the senior Lindbergh's speeches in the book, "Your Country at War," and you'll see how "like" they are. The arguments the father made against invasion in 1917 (sensible then, maybe) may-be) show up in the son's soapboxing in 1941 ... Jack Oakie has a good phrase, in Liberty, for those sentimental senti-mental memories of hard times, "all that," he says, "reads better than it lived" . . . National is a newcomer, new-comer, taking its name from its chief subject, national defend Tt ic common-sense-ational. Read it and give your brain a break. Typewriter Ribbons: Zona Gale: He not only could neatly cock an eyebrow but could also produce in his victim a feeling that he had aimed and fired it ... A. Devere: Prejudice, which sees what it pleases, cannot see what is plain . . . Jean Richter: Recollection is the only paradise from which we cannot be turned out . . . Oscar Wilde: Unselfishness is letting other people's lives alone . . . Alvin C. York: By our victory in the last war, we won a lease on liberty, not a deed to it ... Jay Russell: A good test of man's character comes when he's getting ahead without getting get-ting one on the way . . . Mark Twain: Don't part with your illusions. illu-sions. When they are gone you may still exist, but you have ceased to nve . . . j.ne Akron Beacon-Journal: Fate does its part, yet most of the things we regret or resent could have been avoided if we had tried. Drama critics aren't always meanines . . . When George Bernard Ber-nard Shaw was a critic a young actress ac-tress asked him what he thought of her ability . . . Shaw told her to get married, have two children, learn something about life, then she would be able to act . . . She followed fol-lowed his counsel . . . Five years later she returned to the theater and became a great English actress Sybil Thorndike. Sounds in the Night: At the Fa- mous Door: "If you had my brains you wouldn't have anything to worry wor-ry about" . . . "Gawan, if I had your brains, I wouldn't have anything to worry with!" ... At the Havana-Madrid: Havana-Madrid: "Don't get him angry, he's liable to hit you with his bank book" ... At the Glass Hat: "She's very good to her folks. Keeps away from them" ... At the Riviera: "After the horse is stolen they close up all the consulates!" ... At El Morocco: "He's popular with kids they like the rattle in his head " |