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Show i i I s I k v. J WHO'S NEWS THIS WEEK I I By LEMUEL F. PARTON N EW YORK. At the old beanery for the hired help in the New York World building, a few years ago, there was quite a stir and stew of ambi-Dream ambi-Dream Book tion. Swapping Came Through dreams, one As Advertised Maxwell Ander-son Ander-son was going to write a play; Louis Weitzenkorn had the same idea; big, jovial Phil Stong had written 16 novels, to the quite considerable indifference of all publishers, pub-lishers, but Mr. Stong said all this was just a little practice workout and he promised to deliver later on. Swarthy, saturnine James Cain thought he might have the making of a book or two in his system, but said little about it. Young, whippy Dudley Nichols, a demon reporter, trained as an engineer, had a writing writ-ing career neatly blue-printed. Paul Sifton, burned up by social injustice, injus-tice, was going to write a few plays and tear the lid off things in general. gen-eral. Ben Burman, whom Phil Stong could carry around in his pocket, was going to be a bell-ringing novelist. nov-elist. A kindly Destiny presided over the old beanery. The above playwrights, play-wrights, novelists and Hollywood Holly-wood big shots probably could have bought the then sinking world with their collective resources re-sources of today although Mr. Sifton, after pulling two or three lurid Broadway plays, now is sunk voluntarily in the somewhat some-what undramatic federal wage board, as its assistant director. The spot news of this chronicle is that Mr. Burman has been honored with the Southern Authors award for his recently published novel, "Blow for a Landing." This is the highest literary award in the gift of the South, in which non-fiction also was judged. His previous books include "Steamboat Round the Bend," which became Will Rogers' last screen play, and several other Mississippi Mis-sissippi yarns. He has more or less of a personal copyright on river tales. Mr. Burman once told me how his dream was almost sidetracked. He quit the World, to become an author with no luck, and, at long last, only a dime. The fragrance of freshly fresh-ly baked buns in a shop window dethroned de-throned his reason and he shot the dime for four buns. Back in his garret he found a letter from a magazine, saying they liked 'his "Minstrels of the Mist," which they had had for months, and which he had given up as lost. Would he come up and consult them on a minor mi-nor change? He would, but lacked carfare. He had seen a pretty girl In a . nearby studio. He didn't know her, but he told her his troubles. She was similarly situated, but staked him to three two-cent stamps. He raised a nickel on them at a stationery store, saw the editor and got not only a check, but a big hand on his story. And, naturally, he returned and married the pretty girl, who thereafter illustrated his books as they traversed, not only his pet river, but Damascus, the Sahara Sa-hara desert, Bagdad and other such mother-lodes of literary ' raw material. T OUIS SHATTUCK CATES, sil-L-' ver-gray .and semi-corpulent, heavy-spoken and decisive, is a Bourbon whose Wall Street office looks out over Miners Salute the House of Topnotcher in Morgan and the Copper World New York stock exchange, and yet thousands of small mining men up and down the Rocky mountains today are sending him congratulations. congratula-tions. The American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers Engi-neers awards him the William Lawrence Saunders gold medal for "signal accomplishment" in mining and metallurgical enterprises. enter-prises. This honor goes to Mr. Cates as a depression-made leader in the copper industry. His methods have facilitated copper recovery from low-grade ore. However, much of the cheering comes from the small mining men of the West for his successful efforts for a four-cents-a-pound import tax on foreign for-eign copper. He is a miner's miner and no swivel-chair industrial captain this 57-year-old president of a $350,000,-000 $350,000,-000 corporation. For every mile of bridle path which he may ride in suburban Connecticut today, he has spent long hours in the saddle years ago, directing mining operations in Utah and Arizona He is M. I. T., 1902, a native of Boston. His dossier dos-sier clicks ofl "timekeeper, shift boss, foreman, superintendent, general gen-eral manager, vice president and president of the Phelps Dodge Corp." and now a medal. Consolirtnttv. ivs Features' WNU Service. |