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Show T WHO'S NEWS THIS WEEK By LEMUEL F. PARTON (Consolidated Features-WNU Service.) NEW YORK. Snapping the United Unit-ed States liner, America, new queen of tie American Merchant marine, through the Narrows, into quarantine True Son of Old anrj so 0n Yankee Breed to her dock, Of Shellbacks man, master of the new leviathan, handled his ship as deftly as a lad would handle a toy. Indeed, in his various maneuverings of the 35,000-ton 35,000-ton luxury liner on her maiden passenger-carrying trip from Newport News, Va., Captain Stedman evinced sheer delight in putting his new charge through her paces. The 900 guests, United States senators, shipping ship-ping magnates and so forth, must have cast their thoughts back to days when amid mountainous waves and winds ranging from gale to hurricane hur-ricane proportions, this young skipperhe skip-perhe is only 42 years old performed per-formed deeds of daring-do on the deep, deeds that have gained for him a gold medal from the Italian government; gov-ernment; the United States navy cross; the silver life-saving plaque from the British admiralty; the Treasury department gold medal and other like testimonials of high courage and skilled seamanship. There was that tumultuous day in the mid-Atlantic, October 20, 1925, when the President Harding, Hard-ing, of which Stedman was then chief officer, steamed to the rescue res-cue of the Italian freighter, Ig-nazio Ig-nazio Florio, beaten down and sulking. Stedman stepped to one of the lifeboats and called for a .volunteer crew. Every man jack of the distressed crew was saved. Two years later, westbound and about 1,575 miles from New York, the wireless operator brought Stedman Sted-man a message from the British freighter Exeter City. The craft had lost her captain, third officer and two seamen and was sinking. The seas were a veritable witchbroth, the wind shrieking at hurricane force. No possibility possibili-ty existed for the survival of a small boat in such a sea. So Stedman maneuvered his vessel sufficiently close to admit of a line being shot aboard the distressed dis-tressed freighter. With tackle thus rigged, a lifeboat was lowered low-ered from the American Merchant Mer-chant and pulled to the sinking vessel and the crew saved. The seamanship involved was said to have represented one of the finest fin-est exploits in American annals. X.ast September, commanding ttie United States liner Washington, Washing-ton, Stedman rescued the entire crew of the British freighter Ol-ivergrove Ol-ivergrove torpedoed by U-boat. As a youngster, deciding upon a sea career, Stedman joined' the United Unit-ed States Coastguard, where in the first World war he saw two years' hazardous service in convoy work in the Mediterranean sea and English Eng-lish channel. When peace came, Stedman enrolled in the Massachusetts Massachu-setts Institute of Technology for courses in marine engineering. He joined the United States Line in 1922, was made a chief officer in 1925 and at the age of 34 received his first command. NE of the most hard-boiled citi-" citi-" zens this reporter ever knew was a bookish college dean who always al-ways spoke softly, but swung from Colonel Peck of et eL . Somewhat in marines a Full this picture is Bushel of Spunk Co1- e Witt ?eck of the U. S. Marines, who gives quiet emphasis em-phasis to plain words in Shanghai, as the Japanese menace the foreign for-eign areas and tension increases. The Japanese seem to think they need an "incident," and Colonel -Peck isn't at all likely to provide one but he doesn't back down. When he is in mufti or informal in-formal dress, he is rarely without with-out a book in his pocket and never without his pipe. He may or may not read Bergson, but he "thinks like a man of action and acts like a man of thought." He won the Victory Medal for Gallantry in the World war battles bat-tles of the Meuse-Argoune and St. Mihiel, and the Medal of the Purple Heart for doubling in negotiating and fighting in Latin-America. Latin-America. He graduated from Annapolis in 1915 and is 46. His career is a reminder that this country has had quite a workout in handling explosive situations here and there around the world In Nicaragua, Cuba, Haiti and other Latin-American countries. Colonel Peck has been a successful trouble-shooter trouble-shooter and has brought (lungs through nicely without eating dirt or leaving any hard feelings. He has built a reputation as a scholar m his studious application to prob-lems prob-lems of naval and military science He is six feet tall, slender and academic aca-demic in appearance but said to tack a powerful punch. |