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Show WHO'S NEWS THIS WEEK By LEMUEL F. PARTON (Consolidated Features-WNU Service.) NEW YORK. Whether Benedict Crowell is a good prophet or not may yet be revealed. Mr. Crowell, Crow-ell, assistant secretary of war in the World Experiences of war as been CrowellGrooVed named spe- r . r ru cial consult-Into consult-Into Present Job ant on de. fense, by Secretary Stimson. Addressing Ad-dressing the Institute of Public Affairs Af-fairs at the University of Virginia, July 11, 1931, Mr. Crowell said: "Should a great war ever again engulf our country, American Amer-ican manufacturers, including the new industrialism of the South, as well as the older in-dustrialisms in-dustrialisms of the North and East, without waste of time, material ma-terial or priceless human lives, will perform their essential function func-tion of munitions supply . . . our national security is on a sound foundation." Mr. Crowell, who was a consulting consult-ing engineer before he became a Cleveland banker and industrialist, is a brigadier general in the ordnance ord-nance reserve. His specialty, as assistant as-sistant secretary of war, was in organizing or-ganizing our munitions industries for the war effort. He was widely praised for his efficiency in this and gained fame as the most ruthless cutter of red-tape in the army high command. This may have something some-thing to do with his selection as defense consultant at this moment. mo-ment. Yale university, his alma mater, recognized the above service by giving him an honorary hono-rary master of arts degree in 1918. A native of Cleveland, 71 years old, Mr. Crowell began his business career as a chemist with the Otis Steel company. He rose in executive execu-tive positions and at the same time gained technical qualifications which made him a metallurgist and consulting con-sulting engineer. He is the author of several books, including a six-volume series se-ries called. "America Went to War," of which Robert Forrest Wilson was co-author. One of these volumes is entitled "The Armies of Industry," singularly pertinent to problems and backgrounds back-grounds of our present national endeavor. Reporters, interviewing Mr. Crowell Crow-ell in the old days, frequently used to note his resemblance to ruby Bob Fitzsimmons, and deduce, from this his capacity for hitting and staying-power. staying-power. TN HIS novel, "Le Couple," pub-A- lished in 1925, Victor Marguer-ritte, Marguer-ritte, the French writer, foresaw the disaster which was to overtake French Prophet Of Doom Accepts debacle quite Conquest ForetoldaccUT&tely but put the date at 1943 instead of 1940. Today, the author accepts the conquest, which he tragically described and makes common cause with the com querors. He denounces General De Gaulle and his followers as the hirelings hire-lings of England. In present and future clinical research re-search into the fall of France and its causes, M. Marguerritte's lament and prophecy, as of 1925, will be interesting. After describing the alliance al-liance of French politicians with "Prussian and Bavarian junkers," and the subsequent collapse and conquest, he says: "And then we shall be reaping reap-ing what we have sown. It will be the result of our policy of attempting at-tempting the semblance of grandeurstupid gran-deurstupid because it is not warranted by our power, nor by our national wealth, nor by our trickling birth-rate, nor by our exhausted finances." Years of self-indulgence, mad pleasure-seeking, the softening of moral fiber and the ebbing of national vitality, he said, would precede the final destruction of the French nation. The League of Nations, he predicted, would be a ghastly failure. M. Marguerritte is the son of a famous French general of the Franco-Prussian war. In his study were medals and memorials of his father's war service. He is a stalwart stal-wart man, tall and straight with abundant pompadoured hair and a Van Dyke beard. He was a member of the Legion of Honor and honorary president of the French Society of Men of Letters. Let-ters. Poincare, no defeatist, had urged his Legion of Honor decoration. decora-tion. This and all his other honors were stripped from him when he published an offending book, "La Garconne." He had been for 10 years an officer offi-cer in the French army. In his books, which he continued to write during his army service, he championed cham-pioned virile French nationalism Now, at 73, he watched France "reap what she has sown," |