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Show THE RICH COUNTY REAPER, RANDOLPH, UTAH T N. Y. State Police Lift Mask from Hollywoods Wonder Man i ADVENTURERS John Montague Beat Bing Crosby at Golf Using Baseball Bat, Shovel and Rake; i By WILLIAM C. UTLEY ft CHUCKS,, said Bing Cros- Obys burly golf partner, I could beat you using a ball bat, a shovel and a rake! Now, if you have ever .seen Bing Crosby play golf you will J realize j By, FLOYD GIBBONS Famous Headline Hunter EVERYBODY: HELLObet have felt . pretty tough, too, if this had' hap youd to pened you! If you were lying at the door of death depending for your very life on the efforts of two or three of your pals who were trying to save you and you heard one of them say, Aw, heck, fellows, were not getting anywhere with this. Lets give it up for a bad job, well in a case like that I wouldnt blame any man for getting discouraged. And so was Don Ward discouraged, on that day back in May, 1932, when that identical thing happened to him. Don has a job now at the Pilgrim State hospital at Brentwood, N. Y. He doesnt go out any more to shoot trouble among the electric wires and cables of Long Island, but in 1932 he was a lineman employed by a that this challenge age is about 74, which is golf of a professional caliber. The arrogant gentleman had been in the habit of spotting Bing a stroke on each of five holes and collecting with withering consistency. Its a bet, said Crosby, and it was decided to play one hole, for ' i - v $200. s V.,1, Bing, using the regulation bag of clubs, took two shots to the green ,and two putts for a perfect par four. The other party to the arrangement strode to the tee, gave his ball a little toss in the air and I John Montague, strong man golfer equipped with the in taking 'a $200 used he clubs, golf bet from Bing Crosby. ' of Hollywood, whaled it with a baseball bat, swinging in a manner that would ,have turned Babe Ruth green with envy when he was in his prime. ,The ball traveled 350 yards into a trap. With an ordinary shovel this remarkable athlete played an explosion shot to a point within eight feet of the cup. Wielding the rake like a billiard cue, he hold out the putt for a birdie three.., crooned Crosby, "is That, enough for me. He wandered uncertainly in search of the nearest had whipped from three psychopathic hospital, poorer by whispered) to six men at one time. $200. But these exploits pale 'beside Wonder Man Shuns Publicity. feats on the links. He Montys Some screwy, magnificently drives straight as a die, and conscrewy, stories have come from sistently from 40 to 60 yards farHollywood, where press agents have ther the. longest drive Bobby the imagination of an Edgar Rice Jonesthan ever made. Driving balls Burroughs and the conscience of into a wind he has averaged Baron Munchausen. But the screw-- more slight than 300 yards per drive. With the same slight wind in back of him, 375 to 400 yards per drive! He seldom putts; his approach shots are so perfect they leave him putts conceded by his partners. To win a bet he drove a ball from the first tee of the Lakeside club across Dead Canyon road three quarters of a mile in five shots, with plenty of room to spare. George von Elm, a member of the club and former national amateur champion, .testified that he played with Montague for a month and Monty never voas over 68; such golf could win any championship in the world! At Palm Springs, Montague broke the course record four times in four consecutive days. The last day he turned in the unbelievable card of 61! He wears out the exclamation marks on a reporters typewriter. Still John Montague preferred obscurity. He refused to play in tournaments. Only once, after much screen radio and pleading on the part of his friend Bing Crosby, star, who got trimmed in the re- Hardy, did he consent to compete. markable golf match, but befriended That was in the annual club championship play. He sprained his anof need. the victori in a time , kle on the sixth hole, .but finished 18 lest thing about this story is that it holes anyway with a 64! Then he is true. It happened two years ago, dropped out. . ' Turns Down $20,000 Offer. and since that time John Montague Moore or LaVerne Moore or Bull He refused to talk to reporters. (depending upon your point of He would never allow himself to view) has been the most talked-o- f be photographed. Once when a phoman in the golfing world. tographer, concealing himself in John Montague, as the, film colo- bushes, managed to expose a few ny knows him, came to Hollywood plates before Montague discovered three years ago. , His ability to play him, Monty smashed the plates and He was paid the man $100 for the damage. golf was astounding. Offered $20,000 to demonstrate his handsome in hiA burly way. His manners were delightful. He was ability in a moving picture short, chivalrous with women. He appar- he said: I wont permit one picture ently had a bank roll. He had two to be taken, of me; why should I Lincolns and a Ford. He could drink pose for a whole reel? a fifth of Scotch and eight gin fizzes Despite Montagues reticence, a for breakfast and never bat light like that simply cant be hid; Montague shunned publicity. But den under a bushel. Grantland as Greta Garbo proved, one sure Rice, the eminent sports authority, way to get into the limelight is to was reluctant to believe the stories try to stay out of it. No one in which came via the grapevine from Hollywood knew who Montague was, the Lakeside club. They couldnt be whence he came or where he de- true.' For instance, the one about rived his income, not even Oliver the time Monty, calling his shot, Hardy, the rotund comedian with picked a. bird off a telephone wire whom the mystery man lived for a 170 yards away with a brassie shot. And apparently while. nobody Or the one about how he didnt get a wink of sleep for five days and cared. five nights, then shot a 70. Or the Drives 400 Yards. about how he could hit a dozen But a man cant do the things one balls from any distance within 200 Monty did and remain in oblivion. bet $100 on each one that His feats of strength were as amaz- yards, would it stop within 10 feet of the ing as his golf prowess. He held flag, and win money. Or the one up a heavy automobile while a but why go on? friend changed a tire. With one He Couldnt Prevent Fame. hand he picked up George Bancroft, determined to find out for Rice and husky moving picture heavy, stuffed him in a locker, upside himself. He went to Hollywood and down, during a moment of horse- played a round with Montague. He play. He could even lift Ollie Hardy decided all that had been said was in one hand. He ate a dozen eggs in true. During the rcftind, Monty less than half a minute. He (it was picked up on the eighteenth hole, . , an-eye- . HEADLINES FROM THE LIVES OF PEOPLE LIKE YOURSELF! Breath of Life would not be unlike telling Joe Louis, I could lick you with one hand tied behind my back. The dreamy-eye- d crooners aver- i CLUB where he could have had a 64! Impressed beyond measure, Rice told of John Montague arid his golf feats in a syndicated , sports column. Westbrook Pegler wrote a column about him, describing him as a combination of Paul Bunyan, Pop-ey- e the Sailor Man arid Ivan Skovar. Soon there were , , other stories. readers. interested These found Some were even, fascinated. One such .fascinated reader was John Cosart, of Troop D, New York state police, Oneida, N. Y. Soiriehow this Montague, with his golf genius, his strength and his huge frame, seemed familiar. Wasnt this Cosart reflected. Montague a dead ringer for LaBull Moore, as Verne Moore the boys called him whom the policeman had known seven years ago? Moore, the son of a steel worker, had been a mighty youth. He, too, had been able to lift one end of an automobile with one hand, could lick three men at once. He used to smash dozens of cue balls while breaking the rack in pool games. He had been a prep school football apd baseball star once he struck out 19 batsmen in a game. Young Moores golf had been good enough to land him a job as a professional at the Clayton, N. ,Y., country club. He once had played the nine-hol- e municipal course, at Syracuse in 28. Moore Had Police Record. Moore had & passion for making records, and some of them were police records. He got a suspended sentence in 1927 for posing as a policeman and taking $50 from a grocer accused of selling ' liquor. On the night of April 5, 1930, four young men held up a roadhouse near Jay, N. Y., taking $700 from Kin Hana, the owner. When Hanas father-in-laMatt Cobb, objected, they gave him a vicious beating. As the robbers made their getaway, one of their cars struck a culvert. One robber was killed. Two were captured and got prison, terms. The fourth, believed to Bull have been Moore, disappeared. The New York state police sent Moores fingerprints to the Los AnOn last geles police department. July 9 Hollywoods strong man was arrested in the Beverly Hills apartment which he shared with Oliver Hardy, and charged with the New York robbery. When they took him to jail he admitted that he was Bull Moore and that there was no longer any reason for avoiding publicity. He pqsed willingly for photographers, but refused to discuss the charges against him. The arrest was a bombshell to the many celebrated friends of John Montague., To a man, they backed him. Dozens of them, all influential, wrote pleas to Gov. Frank Mer-riaasking that be refuse extradition. Montague or Moore they said, had rehabilitated himself and was now an admirable citizen. The one mystery none of them was ever able to solve was the origin of Montys bank roll. He admitted he bet $200 a week on the races. He was always flashing a bills. handful of hundred-dolla- r Some rumors had it that he owned a gold or silver mine in the desert, to which he returned when in need of fresh, capital. But aijyone who ever attempted to follow him was lost in a cloud 6f dust. ' Ska-vins- ky ( thirty-two-year-o- firm of electrical engineers in Northport, L. I., and worked with a gang of six men, stringing wires all over the surrounding country. , Chris Anderson was the boss of that crew, and theres another lad in that outfit whom we might as well mention now as at any other time, because- - he played a' big part in this story of Dons. His name is Kelly, and he had a couple of sore feet and a stubborn disposition, and if' he hadnt had both of those things its a dif- -' ferent yarn wed .he telling today. Kellys Sore Feet Started It All. - The crew was running a new street light circuit in Stony Brook,1 L. I. Don and Kelly were working together. ' They had strung seven or eight sections of wire when Kelly began to complain about his feet. He had on a new pair of shoes that day, and climbing up and down the poles made them sore. So Don told Kelly to stay on the ground. Hed take over the part of the work that called for climbing. Don went up the next pole. There were a lot of other wires strung on it old ones from which the insulation had worn off until they were practically bare. Don admits he should have been more careful in tack-- ld 220-pou- nd six-mont- hs 1 16-ye- ar . m, Western Newspaper Union. I Struggled and Wriggled With All My Might. ling that mess. There were safety devices in their truck that he could have used. But the fellow who works on even the most dangerous job gets careless once in a while, and this was Dons day to do it. ' Don was passing one of the two new wires he was stringing over the cross-arof the pole when it happened. His left arm rubbed one of the worn, live wires, and at the same time his right leg rubbed against an iron brace. It made a direct short circuit and sent TWENTY-THRE- E HUNDRED VOLTS through his body. It held me fast, Don says. I was powerless to break the contact. The only way I can describe the feeling is to say that it seemed as though some monstrous being like King Kong had me held, at arms length and was shaking the daylights out of me. I could hear the generators throbbing in my ears as though I was right in the powerhouse. I struggled and wriggled with all my might, but it wasnt any use. In the meantime Dons partner, Kelly, had walked down the road a few hundred feet. Suddenly he heard a moaning sound and turned, to see Don hanging on that cross-arhis clothes burning and his face contorted in a look of terrible pain. He raced back to the pole, climbed up it and cut the wire that was feeding juice into Don. m , They Thought Don Was Done For. Don, in the meantime, had slumped down unconscious, with only his safety belt holding him on the pole. Kelly took a rope from his belt, looped it under Dons arms, and lowered him to the ground. The other linemen came running from down the road a piece and gave Kelly a hand. .They stretched Don out on the ground and looked him over. He wasnt breathing and it seemed7 as if his heart had stopped. It looked bad for Don, ,but the boys went to work on him giving him arti. ficial respiration. , For twenty minutes they worked on Don, taking turns at pressing with their hands to force si little air in and out of his paralyzed lungs. Twenty minutes and no sign of life! But though there jyas no sign of it, life was still there. Just few seconds before, consciousness had started to return to Don. He was trying to get his lungs to work again doing his best to help those fellows who were doing his breathing for him, He couldnt move a .muscle couldnt' speak or- - even open his eyes but he knew he would be ill fightif his pals worked on him a little longer. .. And then estate t most disheartening moment of Dons life. Out of a clear, sky Doribeard one of the fellows say:. Its no use, boys. HES GONE,3;We might vas well quit and take him back to the truck. ' 7 . Slaved Ty Kellys Stubbornness. .... ... - , , . Don wanted to scream, but he couldnt breathe by his own efforts. Were they going to give ujl ahd leave him to die? All the terror of a lifetime was packed into his heart in that one brief moment. But the man astride his back' still kept on pressing away,, forcing the air in and out of his lungs. Again the first fellow made this terrifying suggestion. Lets quit and take him into town. And this time Don could hear the man who was. Working on him reply. It was Kelly and Kelly ' was sticking to his job. , ,, ten minutes five minutes worked For on, stubbornly refusing Kelly to give up his battle for his friends life.' Maybe Kelly remembered that it was his own aching feet which had been the cause of Dons climbthe first place. Maybe Kelly figured that the least he ing up that pole-i.eould do to a man who had almost died doing him a favor was to exert every effort to save his life. Anyway, Kelly kept on and in another two or three minutes Don started to breathe! They flagged a passing car and took Don to a hospital, and, they kept him there seven weeks! Kelly was cited for bravery and received a medal from the company for saving Dons life. But I think (Don ought to get some sort of a medal too, for living through a shock of electricity. The electric chair up at Sing Sing, Im , told, only has , twenty-three-hun-dred-v- twenty-two-hundre- , ' d. , WNU Service. . (v |