The Era -- Day By Day

[ChiTownScion]

The potential day to day reality of having battleax Lena Lovewell as my mother in law would scratch Lillums off the list of potential life partners for me... but then, I'm not Harold Teen. Glad that I didn't write the comic strip: someone might have "accidently" pushed Lena in front of that train... and that really isn't comedy.

 

[Haversack]

The German soldier who escaped the POW camp in New Mexico and was never caught was Georg Gaertner. After going under the wire he hopped a freight and ended up in Norden, California where he became a ski instructor at Sugar Bowl. He eventually moved to Colorado and retired to Hawaii. He turned himself in in 1985 when his wife threatened to leave him because he kept his past hidden from her. He died in 2013. He coauthored a book about his life and escape titled Hitler's Last Soldier in America.

A rather special POW camp was established in Northern California near the Sacramento River Delta. The War Department took over the former Byron Hot Springs resort and converted the facility into a well bugged, luxury interrogation center called Camp Tracy. Hosting both German and Japanese POWs, Camp Tracy followed the adage about favoring sugar over vinegar as a better way to gather intelligence. Apparently the resort was specifically chosen to accommodate the Japanese liking for relaxing in hot springs.

 

[Harp]

^^^Gaertner's book I will seek out, Amazon probably has a line. Fascinating ba***rd.

When I was in Germany I met a former German soldier whom escaped Yugoslavia and Soviet capture
at war's end, joined the French Foreign Legion and packed off to Indochina. Discharged from the Legion
with French citizenship he eventually hooked up with CIA and remained in Germany for the length of his career.
Interesting how some of the ordinary enlisted pursued post war pursuits.

 

[Haversack]

When I lived on the economy while stationed in Germany, my landlord and his wife downstairs were Hungarian Germans. Never learned what he did during the war. I did learn though that he didn't get released from a Soviet POW camp until 1953 after Stalin died.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Congressional leaders forecast today that President Roosevelt will announce, within another fortnight, that American warships will convoy British merchantmen across the Atlantic in to assure safe delivery of war materials to Great Britain. A dissenting views, however, as expressed in "cloakroom conversation," is that the President will refrain from the used of "armed convoys," due to his previous statement that "convoys mean war."

A new single-seat military pursuit plane using a 2000-horsepower motor will be "the match for any airplane in this war." So declare officials of the Republic Aviation Corporation of Farmingdale, L. I., in announcing the new plane, designated the XP-47B "Thunderbolt." The new monoplane is reported to have performed well in aerial tests this week before being turned over to the Army Air Corps for additional testing. The fourteen-cylinder engine, built by the Pratt and Whitney Corporation, is able to achieve air speeds of up to 375 miles per hour, and the new plane equipped with this engine is said to be comparable in weight to the Lockheed P-38, although of slightly smaller dimensions.

A $2,000,000 project to widen Hicks Street from 60 to 160 feet between Hamilton Street in the Carroll Gardens section and Atlantic Avenue downtown is expected to receive approval today from the Board of Estimate. The project, based on proposals by Parks Commissioner Robert Moses and Borough President John Cashmore, will also connect the Belt Parkway and the new Brooklyn-Battery Tunnel with Brooklyn Heights and the new Crosstown Highway.

Underworld chieftain Louis "Lepke" Buchhalter will be arraigned tomorrow in Kings County Court for the murder of Joseph Rosen, former truck driver, who was shot down in front of his Brownsville candy store on September 13, 1936. Buchhalter, who is already serving a fourteen-year sentence at the Federal prison at Leavenworth, Kansas, is presently being held at the Federal Detention Prison in Manhattan, after marshals brought him east by automobile. It is charged that Buchhalter, Emmanuel "Mendy" Weiss, and Philip "Little Farvel" Cohen killed Rosen to keep him from testifying to Manhattan District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey concerning the extent of Buchhalter's racketeering activities. Two other defendants charged in the Rosen slaying will not be tried -- Harry "Pittsburgh Phil" Strauss is already awaiting execution at Sing Sing Prison for the murder of Irving "Puggy" Feinstein, and James "Dirty Neck Jimmy" Ferraco remains at large.

The roundup of all persons from Axis nations "who have overstayed their welcome while visiting the United States" continues today under the supervision of U. S. Attorney General Robert H. Jackson, with Federal agents also instructed to call to account all aliens whose "status is questionable," whether or not they are of Axis nationalities. Among those taken into custody today was Manfred Zapp, New York manager of the TransOcean News Agency, said by Federal authorities to be "a German propaganda service," and his assistant Guenther Tonn. Both men have been taken to Ellis Island for interrogation pending deportation proceedings on grounds that they have failed to register with the State Department as agents of a foreign power.

One German national arrested yesterday on a vagrancy charge is demanding immediate deportation, after an angry confrontation with Magistrate Charles Solomon in Brooklyn-Queens Night Court. Thirty-five year old Joseph Engel was picked up after setting up a camp in a vacant lot at the corner of Main and Plymouth Streets near the Brooklyn Bridge. "You get arrested for nothing here," snarled Englel, after admitting he has been in the United States illegally for thirteen years and has ignored the Alien Registration Act. "And," he added, "Roosevelt runs this country lousy." Magistrate Solomon turned the case over to Federal authorities, suggesting that, instead of sending him back to Germany right away, Uncle Sam may invite Mr. Engel to enjoy "a change of scene" at one of his "internment centers in the Middle West that we've been hearing about."

A claimant has already come forward for that $7500 roll of bills found on a Greenpoint sidewalk by a 32-year-old Manhattan Street woman. An attorney whose name was not divulged, representing an unnamed client, contacted the Police Department's chief property clerk this morning to put in a claim for the money found by Miss Kathryn Lee on Tuesday. The attorney will be interviewed today to determine the basis for that claim.

(Meet a man who's going to drink that whole case of beer before noon, and then end up knocking himself out cold with that rake.)

("Wott'hell," says Butch. "It's an election year. Not that I'm actually running yet, y'unnerstan...")

The Brooklyn Eagle today received a scroll designating its eligibility for membership in the American Press Century Club, recognizing newspapers that have been published continuously for one hundred years. In a letter to publisher Frank D. Schroth, John H. Perry of American Press magazine, sponsor of the award, declared "when a newspaper lasts for 100 years, it is evident that the newspaper has served its community well, and has upheld the best traditions of American newspaper life."

(It's truly unsettling how much this looks like my actual back stoop, with the wooden steps and the seedy cellar door there. The fence fell down years ago, but that house across the street looks very much like the actual house across the street from me. And yes, I know all about avoiding bill collectors. BUT I'M NOT THAT FAT! Sheesh!)

For the third year in a row, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer chief Louis B. Mayer is the highest-paid man in America, with a salary of $697.048 according to corporate reports filed with the U. S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Eugene G. Grace of Bethlehem Steel, George Washington Hill of the American Tobacco Company, Hunt Stromberg of Loew's Incorporated, Charles E. Wilson of General Motors, actor W. C. Fields, Paul H. Hahn of American Tobacco, Vincent Riggio of American Tobacco, and Charles F. Kettering of General Motors make up the rest of the top ten. Actress Deanna Durbin is the highest-paid woman in America, with a salary of $209,883 placing her 11th on the overall list.

("Ten cent control with a $150,000 arm?" Watch it Holmes, if Hig read anything but comic books you'd be in big trouble for that crack. And note the attendance figures -- 22,787 for a day game in the middle of the work week. At that pace, this is going to be a record-setting year at the gate. And I think that headline down the bottom of the page is the first time we've seen "Bums" linked to the Dodgers in the Eagle -- although Williard Mullin started drawing his "Bum" cartoon icon for the team in the World Telegram a couple years back, the name itself is not popular with either Larry MacPhail or Frank Schroth, and you will not see it in common use if they can help it.)

(There's a New World Coming. The ANT will serve as a major incubator for the wave of fine Black actors who will start showing up in Hollywood in the 1950s.)

Minerva Pious and Charlie Cantor, ace dialecticians of the Fred Allen show, will team up for an act of their own this week on the Kate Smith Hour. Miss Pious appeared as a solo last season on the Smith program to fine effect, and having worked with Mr. Cantor for years in the Mighty Allen Art Players, their teaming up in a humorous sketch should make for outstanding listening. Hear them tomorrow night at 8PM over WABC.

Fred Allen himself, meanwhile, will appear tonight with Amos 'n' Andy, in return for their guest visit to his program last night, in which they participated in a "paniversary" celebration of Jack Benny's 10th anniversary on the air. No one's saying what Mr. Allen will do in his appearance tonight, but given how rare it is for Amos and Andy to have any guest stars, you won't want to miss it.

Mr. Benny himself, meanwhile, will be honored with a testimonial dinner tomorrow night in Hollywood hosted by NBC president Niles Trammell, with Rudy Vallee as master of ceremonies and an array of guest speakers. The Benny formula for radio success is one that might be emulated by other, less proficient comics. "Never laugh at the other guy," says Jack. "Always let the other guy laugh at you."

(Come on now. You can't tell me with all the junky gadgets Doc has lying around the place, he doesn't have a second-hand pulmotor.)

(There are many iconic images in the long history of the American comic strip -- Dick Tracy's yellow raincoat, Orphan Annie's frizzy hair, Clark Kent tearing open his dress shirt to reveal his "S" insignia, Snoopy lounging atop his doghouse. If fate had been kinder to Harry J. Tuthill, the image of George Bungle rampaging around his apartment waving his fist in the air would be right up there with them.)

(And speaking of icons, Mary Worth is somehow still very much in business here in the third decade of the 21st Century, and I submit that this moment, on May 8, 1941, is the defining moment in which she receives the brief that will guide her actions for the next eighty years.)

(Maybe not quite iconic, but I think a strip called "On The Road With Charlie Blake" would have real potential -- an amnesiac truck driver going from town to town and city to city, getting involved in the lives of the people he meets, as he tries desperately to pay off his hospital bill.)

 

[LizzieMaine]

And in the Daily News...

That "New York's Picture Newspaper" line in the masthead isn't just for show. Wow.

It's nice to see that King Carol is keeping busy.

I hope Mr. Lang realizes it could be worse. In 2021 he'd be going around in a Batman suit.

Warbucks isn't quite Uncle Bim, but give him time.

"Teeth?" You forgot to put them in.

"Did he tell you about that time I kissed him? Ah, those were the days."

Even if Harold and Lillums don't get married, I bet Josie and Tuffy will.

What ride? You've been stopped in front of that same billboard for what, four days now?

I never forget a face, but in his case I'll make an exception.

Hey, you've got cash in your pocket, which is more than anyone else around here does.

 

[Edward Reed]

 

[Fading Fast]

...Underworld chieftain Louis "Lepke" Buchhalter will be arraigned tomorrow in Kings County Court for the murder of Joseph Rosen, former truck driver, who was shot down in front of his Brownsville candy store on September 13, 1936. Buchhalter, who is already serving a fourteen-year sentence at the Federal prison at Leavenworth, Kansas, is presently being held at the Federal Detention Prison in Manhattan, after marshals brought him east by automobile. It is charged that Buchhalter, Emmanuel "Mendy" Weiss, and Philip "Little Farvel" Cohen killed Rosen to keep him from testifying to Manhattan District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey concerning the extent of Buchhalter's racketeering activities. Two other defendants charged in the Rosen slaying will not be tried -- Harry "Pittsburgh Phil" Strauss is already awaiting execution at Sing Sing Prison for the murder of Irving "Puggy" Feinstein, and James "Dirty Neck Jimmy" Ferraco remains at large....

We've said it before, candy shops were some of the most interesting places in the '30s and '40s and you could even buy candy in them.

...One German national arrested yesterday on a vagrancy charge is demanding immediate deportation, after an angry confrontation with Magistrate Charles Solomon in Brooklyn-Queens Night Court. Thirty-five year old Joseph Engel was picked up after setting up a camp in a vacant lot at the corner of Main and Plymouth Streets near the Brooklyn Bridge. "You get arrested for nothing here," snarled Englel, after admitting he has been in the United States illegally for thirteen years and has ignored the Alien Registration Act. "And," he added, "Roosevelt runs this country lousy." Magistrate Solomon turned the case over to Federal authorities, suggesting that, instead of sending him back to Germany right away, Uncle Sam may invite Mr. Engel to enjoy "a change of scene" at one of his "internment centers in the Middle West that we've been hearing about."...

Oh no, right back to Germany where he'll soon be in the army. Won't that be fun for him? Those US internment centers were much nicer than being in the German Army, especially as the war progressed.

...A claimant has already come forward for that $7500 roll of bills found on a Greenpoint sidewalk by a 32-year-old Manhattan Street woman. An attorney whose name was not divulged, representing an unnamed client, contacted the Police Department's chief property clerk this morning to put in a claim for the money found by Miss Kathryn Lee on Tuesday. The attorney will be interviewed today to determine the basis for that claim....

Hmmm.

...
(Meet a man who's going to drink that whole case of beer before noon, and then end up knocking himself out cold with that rake.)...

If he's planed his day out correctly, it's yard work in the morning, while the beer chills in the refrigerator (or ice-box or in a tub with ice), followed by an afternoon of sitting on the porch, listening to the baseball game on the radio, while drinking the now-cold beer.

...
(Maybe not quite iconic, but I think a strip called "On The Road With Charlie Blake" would have real potential -- an amnesiac truck driver going from town to town and city to city, getting involved in the lives of the people he meets, as he tries desperately to pay off his hospital bill.)

You've just described some iteration of several 1960s and 1970s TV shows.

Also, shouldn't Charlie look more like Dan, at least, shouldn't they have the same jawline?

... View attachment 333125 That "New York's Picture Newspaper" line in the masthead isn't just for show. Wow.

It's nice to see that King Carol is keeping busy....

If the Esposito brothers actually get executed in June, the time from crime to execution will have been five months. That is just stunning.

... "Did he tell you about that time I kissed him? Ah, those were the days."...

I see people regularly in movies, books and, now, the comicstrips from the era formally introducing people as Skeezix does with Nina and Trixie. Other than in formal situations and done by older people, that wasn't common even growing up in the '70s and, today, of course, people just start talking after they've fire out their first name. I guess formal introductions belongs in one of our "disappearing things" threads.

 

[LizzieMaine]

We have a new winner in our Best Gangster Nickname Derby, stand up and take a bow "Dirty Neck Jimmy" Farraco.

I look forward to Skeez going out for the evening with both Nina and Trixie as Trix regales Nina with tales of life in the old neighborhood. Hey, tell her about that time the two of you spent the night together trapped in an old cellar, and everybody thought you got kidnapped. Or that time Uncle Walt took Skeez and a couple of the other boys on a camping trip and Skeez found out you were in a girls' summer camp across the lake and snuck over to peek at you doing calisthenics. "Oh, we had SUCH FUN!"

Mr. Engel should have held out and stayed put. Real estate in DUMBO has gone thru the roof.

 

[LizzieMaine]

A Burns Agency detective delivering a $6,084.37 payroll was kidnapped and robbed this afternoon in Manhattan, before being driven to Queens and dropped off in Long Island City. Twenty-four-year-old Stanley R. Korzynski of Woodside had just picked up the payroll of the Mangel Stores Company of Manhattan at the Empire State Building branch of the Manufacturers Trust Company and was exiting the bank on the 33rd Street side when two armed men ordered him into a nearby car. He was forced into the back seat, and relieved of both the payroll and his revolver. The car headed east across the Queensboro Bridge and drove aimlessly around Queens for about an hour before the bandits pushed Korzynski out at the corner of Hunter's Point Avenue and 31st Place and told him to "beat it." The detective hailed the first car that passed and was driven to the nearest police precinct, where he told detectives there that the car was a four door sedan bearing license number 9N-16-47. Those plates were found to belong to William Bolz of Jamaica, and there were no reports of Bolz's car or the plates having been stolen. Police intend to question Mr. Bolz this afternoon.

The Dodgers have been rained out today in Philadelphia, where they were to have begun a 13-game road trip against the Phillies at Shibe Park. Yesterday, Brooklyn closed out a two-game sweep of the St. Louis Cardinals at Ebbets Field with a dramatic 5-4 win in 12 innings.

Kings County Judge George Martin today scored police for turning his courtroom into an "armed arsenal" as gangland chieftain Louis "Lepke" Buchalter appeared for arraignment on charges that he murdered Brownsville candy-store operator and police informant Joseph Rosen in 1932. Buchalter, who was brought to Brooklyn under heavy guard from Leavenworth Federal Prison, where he is serving a sentence on a narcotics conviction, was surrounded by a total of forty-seven heavily-armed detectives, deputy sheriffs, U. S. Marshals and patrolmen as he was led into the courtroom. "This is ridiculous," declared Judge Martin, looking over the gun-bristling entourage surrounding the prisoner. "Why don't you send down to Fort Dix for a company of Marines, and to the Police Department for the riot squad?" Addressing the row of plainclothes detectives seated in the front row of the spectators' section, Judge Martin further snorted, "Why don't you put your badges on, boys, and show him how pretty you look?" The judge then pointed out that Buchalter "never had enough nerve to hurt anyone himself. He always had other people do it."

Following his remonstration to the guards, Judge Martin granted the defendant's request for a delay of the arraignment proceedings in order to allow Buchalter time to secure legal counsel. He will appear again in court a week from today.

The ousting of Fire Commissioner Joseph McElligot by Mayor LaGuardia over allegations of graft within the New York Fire Department and the appointment of Acting Fire Chief Patrick J. Walsh as his successor is only the first stage in a department-wide shakeup, with Fire Inspector Albert Becker having been found guilty in a departmental trial of accepting "small gratuities" during inspections. The Mayor contended in removing the Commissioner that McElligot and his First Deputy Commissioner George L. McKenna had "condoned the graft" proven in the Becker case. But Becker's attorney is challenging the findings of the departmental trial, and is demanding his client's immediate reinstatement. If that does not occur, attorney Leon D. Schacter promises to take the matter to the civil courts.

Policewoman Mary Shanley has been placed on a year's probation by Police Commissioner Lewis J. Valentine as a result of the March 27th incident in which she fired her service revolver to punctuate an intoxicated argument about "an insult to the Irish" in a Jackson Heights bar. Mrs. Shanley was demoted from the rank of Detective, First Grade as a result of the incident and has been assigned to serve as matron at the East 104th Street Precinct in Manhattan.

A record-breaking force of between 300 and 400 British bombers rained fire and destruction on the German cities of Hamburg and Bremen last night, for the heaviest British assault on German soil since the start of the war. Tens of thousands of incendiary bombs ignited fires across the target cities, along with hundreds of tons of high explosives. The resulting devastation is said to be equivalent to the worst destruction rained upon London by German bombers.

(In a world like this, who wouldn't want to run away?)

More women and fewer comedians are what the Army wants, if a performance last night before 6000 selectees at Fort Belvoir, Virginia is any indication. That's the conclusion of veteran funster Ed Wynn, who was heckled off the stage by rowdy soldiers just minutes after kicking off a camp show. "Some of you fellows think you're funnier than I am," responded the comedian to the gibes and catcalls issuing from his audience, "so you tell the jokes and I'll do the laughing." When that didn't silence the hooting and booing, Wynn walked off the stage and sent singers Jane Froman and Betty Bruce out to "pacify the troops." "I had fifty very funny jokes I was going to tell," fumed the comic. "I was just trying to give the boys what they wanted." Wynn and his troupe perform tonight in Fort Meade, Maryland, where, he indicated, the six chorines in the show will be given greater prominence.

(Now, come on, boys, is that nice? Mr. Wynn is a very gentle, kind-hearted man who's been on the stage since your parents were kids, and you should be more respectful. I hope Froman sang a Wagnerian aria to "pacify the troops.")

(And here's another gentle, kind-hearted old gentleman. I bet those Army jerks would boo him, too.)

(Formerly billed as "Luck E. Strike.")

The Eagle Editorialist endorses recent comments on academic freedom made by Brooklyn College President Dr. Harry Gideonse, especially his remark criticizing instances when a political party "exacts discipline from its membership" as contrary to the spirit of "Civil Liberties."

(Having had to give up my daily paper due to recent reversals, I miss the days when you could dip into any street corner trash can and get a free paper.)

("I'm stoppininna cannystore onnawayta school," says Joe. "You need anyt'ing?" "Call up MacPhail," says Sally. "Odda Woil' Series tickets. An' rememba, baby's due in Septemba, so get t'ree strips 'steada two.")

Dodger home attendance for the 1941 campaign now stands, after eighteen dates at Ebbets Field, at 291,081, which is really quite something. The Boston Bees, now again the Braves, in 1940 drew 241,616 -- for the entire season.

The Dionne Quintuplets will go on the air as guests on the Ned Sparks program Sunday night to sing a Mother's Day salute to "Mere." The Quints, now seven years old, will perform an old French folk song, although their nurse told CBS she is teaching them to also speak English.

(Raising the dead? Healing the sick? Somewhere deep in Occupied Europe, Sam the Presser says "hey, that's MY racket!")

("What crust! This isn't even notarized!")

(And when they get there, they're going to find out that the state is planning to cut a new highway right thru the pasture. "BURN DOWN MY HOUSE, WILL YOU?" growls Gov. Blackston.)

(The part of Kay Fields will be played today by Miss Glenda Farrell.)

 

[LizzieMaine]

And in the Daily News...

Let the speculation begin.

"Everybody Wants To Get Into The Act..."

Coming Events Cast Their Shadows Before....

Axel's back -- having had plastic surgery to look like his old arch enemy Nick. "WHAT A JOKE ON THAT FAT AMERICAN SWINE!"

"OW-W!" Oh, is that what you say when you have your head sheared off by a solid concrete wall? I always wondered about that.

Wait'll April Kane finds out you're stealing her material.

Another one of those Group Theatre kids, getting too immersed in her role.

Snipe wouldn't miss this for the world. "Never mind the fourth grade, Trixie, tell us about what happened in Junior High."

Don't mess with old people.

Hmph. Last time *I* was in the hospital, *I* didn't get a Big Diamond.

 

[Fading Fast]

A Burns Agency detective delivering a $6,084.37 payroll was kidnapped and robbed this afternoon in Manhattan, before being driven to Queens and dropped off in Long Island City. Twenty-four-year-old Stanley R. Korzynski of Woodside had just picked up the payroll of the Mangel Stores Company of Manhattan at the Empire State Building branch of the Manufacturers Trust Company and was exiting the bank on the 33rd Street side when two armed men ordered him into a nearby car. He was forced into the back seat, and relieved of both the payroll and his revolver. The car headed east across the Queensboro Bridge and drove aimlessly around Queens for about an hour before the bandits pushed Korzynski out at the corner of Hunter's Point Avenue and 31st Place and told him to "beat it." The detective hailed the first car that passed and was driven to the nearest police precinct, where he told detectives there that the car was a four door sedan bearing license number 9N-16-47. Those plates were found to belong to William Bolz of Jamaica, and there were no reports of Bolz's car or the plates having been stolen. Police intend to question Mr. Bolz this afternoon....

A lot of crime happens right outside the Empire State Building. First the Esposito Brothers, now this and I can't remember what it was, but I think something else happened around 34th and 5th in the past few months.

... View attachment 333271
(Having had to give up my daily paper due to recent reversals, I miss the days when you could dip into any street corner trash can and get a free paper.)...

Back in the '80s, in the final hurrah for the physical newspaper, Wall St. was chockablock with news vendors as thousands upon thousands of papers were sold every day including "extra" and "final" editions rushed to the street to capture the commuting-home crowd.

As the day progressed, the ridiculous number of wire trashcans on the surrounding streets would become filled up with discarded ones. It was an interesting comment on the economics of it all - people would pay for the paper, consume the news and discard it all in hours.

Also, within offices, you'd see papers swapped around all day, "You done with that?" "Can I borrow the sports pages?" etc. Also, many had informal agreements: you buy the Post, I'll buy the News and will switch later in the morning.

It was an amazingly fun culture that's now all gone.

... View attachment 333272 ("I'm stoppininna cannystore onnawayta school," says Joe. "You need anyt'ing?" "Call up MacPhail," says Sally. "Odda Woil' Series tickets. An' rememba, baby's due in Septemba, so get t'ree strips 'steada two.")...

"Odda Woil"

Maybe they should leave the baby with Sally's mother as we all know they'll be living with her by then anyway.

... ("What crust! This isn't even notarized!")...

The only thing worse than having to listen to real lawyer speak is having to listen to fake lawyer speak from your neighbors.

... (And when they get there, they're going to find out that the state is planning to cut a new highway right thru the pasture. "BURN DOWN MY HOUSE, WILL YOU?" growls Gov. Blackston.)...

The unedited Mary comment in panel three: "Goodbye Son, work hard at the bank and try not steal any of the money."

... (The part of Kay Fields will be played today by Miss Glenda Farrell.)

Wonder if Kay ran into Mary Shanley.

Also, are any of the police in on this? Otherwise, Kay had to be questioning her decision right about the time she was being examined and said with fear and horror in her voice, "You have to look where?"

...[ Let the speculation begin.....

No kidding, that name IS the story - come on Page Four, do your job.

Also, the best lesson for both of them would be for the gold-digger model and lying-salesman husband to have to stay married to each other for awhile.

.. "Everybody Wants To Get Into The Act..."....

Imagine if , instead of a roll of cash found in the street, it was, I don't know, a suitcase full of money found in an apartment building's basement?

...
Coming Events Cast Their Shadows Before........

Greenburg's $55,000 a year is almost more than the entire Dodgers payroll.

... "OW-W!" Oh, is that what you say when you have your head sheared off by a solid concrete wall? I always wondered about that.....

"Tra la-la..." Really?

... Wait'll April Kane finds out you're stealing her material.....

But when April says it, it's true.

What's amazing about Caniff is we have an entire cast of characters - Pat, Blaze, Raven, Dude, The DL, April and, of course (cue the angelic music) Hu Shee - who haven't been in the strip in, what, well over a month, yet the strip is still incredible.

... Snipe wouldn't miss this for the world. "Never mind the fourth grade, Trixie, tell us about what happened in Junior High."....

Let's not forget that, IRL, Skeezix has slept with all three of these women, which makes this a much-more-interesting meeting than if you take the comicstrip at face value (which I don't think adults were supposed to do).

.. Don't mess with old people.....

Settle down there gramps, even at 18, you weren't "calling" on women twenty times a day.

 

[LizzieMaine]

New York City's new Fire Commissioner is promising an intensive campaign to stamp out petty grafting among departmental officials. Seventy-three-year-old Patrick Walsh, a forty-year department veteran, was sworn into office today to replace John McElligot, who was removed from office this week by Mayor LaGuardia on charges that he had turned a blind eye toward the acceptance of "gratuities" by fire inspectors. "Any man guilty of accepting any sort of gratutity will walk the plank," vowed Commissioner Walsh after taking the oath of office this morning. The new Commissioner admitted to an antipathy toward "tipping" that is so severe that he is reluctant even to tip railroad porters, but he insisted he will make every effort to stop the practice in the Fire Department. Meanwhile, it was learned that Mayor LaGuardia's action to remove McElligot and First Deputy Commissioner George McKenna from office was prompted by complaints from eighteen officials of oil-burner concerns about Fire Inspector Albert Becker, who had accepted "gratuities" ranging from $1 to $5 on fifty-eight separate occasions.

The Royal Air Force heavily pounded the great German inland port of Mannheim last night, attacking industrial objectives there and in Ludwigshaven. Additional raids were made against German targets at Calais, Ostend, and Boulogne, as well as harbors in Holland and Norway.

Federal immigration officers, G-Men, and local police worked swiftly today to complete their roundup of Italian aliens accused of overstaying their legal time in the United States, raiding fashionable hotels in the city and marching a total of 72 waiters, busboys, dishwashers, and kitchen help into police vans, and then to Ellis Island, where they will be processed before being sent to internment camps. Among those arrested were thirty former employees of the Italian Pavilion at the World's Fair who were required to leave the country within thirty days of the Fair's closing, but failed to do so. Federal officials denied that this week's roundup of German and Italian nationals in the New York area presages any general action against the mass of German and Italian aliens elsewhere in the United States.

Contractor Cornelius Vanderbilt Jr., also known as Cornelius G. Vanderbilt II, did not die of drowning, according to a preliminary report from the Medical Examiner's office, released yesterday. The president of the Vanboro Construction Company of Staten Island, and a key witness in the Amen Office's probe of paving-industry corruption, was found face down in the Richmond Creek in Ellingsville, S. I., on April 29th, just hours before he was to testify before an Amen grand jury. The preliminary report did not specify Vanderbilt's cause of death. Although wealthy, Mr. Vanderbilt was said not to be related to the famous Commodore Vanderbilt family.

"Brooklyn is now the cleanest single community in the world from the point of view of crime," declared Kings County Judge Samuel J. Leibowitz today, "although its Raymond Street Jail is one of the dirtiest prisons imaginable. Judge Leibowitz made his remarks in an address to 1,000 persons at Abraham Lincoln High School, Coney Island. "We are living in a community almost 3000 persons," explained the Judge, "Yet at the present time there are only 47 persons in the Raymond Street Jail awaiting trial in the County on felony charges. There are only 45 persons awaiting Grand Jury action in the entire borough." Judge Leibowitz strongly denounced the continued existence of the old jail building, calling it "a filthy, dirty, vermin-infested pile of bricks and stones" that "should not be associated with the name of Brooklyn."

In San Francisco, shipbuilders are on strike against eleven shipyards, demanding higher wages. Members of the Bay Cities A. F. L. Metal Workers Council will begin picketing the yards on Monday, despite the protests of shipbuilding executives that the strike violates a no-walkout, no-lockout pledge signed by West Coast shipyard workers in Seattle last month.

(You know, you want to support Renken's as the plucky independent battling the Sheffield-Borden milk juggernaut, but if they're going to use freaky looking kids like this in their ads, I'm just gonna punch open a can of Carnation.)

The Eagle Editorialist shrugs and says that as long as Mayor LaGuardia has the authority to hire and fire commissioners, there's no point in taking issue with his dismissal of Fire Commissioner McElligot and his assistant. "The Mayor's attitude toward anything savoring of irregularity in city departments is well known," he says. "If he sometimes may be overzealous in his desire to avoid even the suspicion of scandal, we must remember that too much zeal is far better than too little in that direction."

(Yeah, why doesn't Robert Benchley write a book about the war?)

("Y'know," says Sally, "'at Boston's a nice town. R'memba we wen' lass summa, had t'em fried clams at t'ball game? A nice town. Good place t'bring up a kid. An' I bet t'ey even got a pickle fact'ry t'ere, c'd use 'sperienced skimmas." "Zat so?" mumbles Joe. "Yeah," says Sally. "T'inkabouttit.")

Owner Max Rosner of the Bushwicks says the local appetite for baseball is such that he expects his club to draw as many as half a million fans out to Dexter Park this year. Rosner notes that when the Dodgers draw will, so do his semipros -- and the Dodgers are drawing very very well. Last year the Woodhaven squad drew over 300,000 spectators, and Rosner is confident his turnstiles will spin this summer at a much more rapid clip. The Bushwicks, presently in second place in the Metropolitan Baseball Association race, will face the first place Springfield Greys tomorrow.

The Dodgers make their concert-stage debut next Friday night, in a way, when WOR broadcasts the premiere performance of composer Robert Russell Bennett's "Symphony In D for the Dodgers," a "musical novelty in four movements" that attempts to capture the whole experience of Brooklyn baseball. The titles of the four movements give an idea of the flavor of the piece: 1. "The Dodgers Win." 2. "The Dodgers Lose." 3. "MacPhail Tries To Trade Prospect Park to Cleveland for Bob Feller." 4. "The Giants Come To Town." The fourth movement features a vocal solo by Red Barber who will provide a play-by-play accompaniment against a rousing orchestral background.

(I have a recording of a 1947 broadcast of this piece, slightly adapted, and, well, it's quite a musical accomplishment.)

(A circus picture starring Bogart, Sylvia Sidney, and Eddie Albert? So that's where Tootsie ended up.)

(Whoa, son, slow down. You've just come back from the dead. At least have a toasted cheese sandwich and a glass of milk and, I dunno, tell us of the unaccountable mysteries of the afterlife before you go storming off again...)

(George's life would be so much easier if he'd just switch to Postum instead of coffee.)

(It's too bad they didn't tack that sign to the other side of the pole, at least then she'd have some warning.)

(The fact that Mr. Marsh seems to have forgotten to draw a magazine, book, paper, or any other form of reading matter anywhere in this scene gives the whole thing an implication that I'm sure he could not possibly have intended to imply.)

 

[LizzieMaine]

And in the Daily News...

(You're hanging from a strap on the BMT and you look across and see a fellow passenger reading the News and you see this headline and the thought flickers thru your mind that you live in a very strange and unpredictable time indeed.)

"Attorney also representing Lionel Atwill, well known actor?" Way to let the cat out of the bag. And ATWILL??? Seriously? Errol Flynn I could believe, but LIONEL ATWILL?

Yeah, Max, you're a real looker.

Watch it, Pete, the Asp does not appreciate your racist remarks.

"Oh!" says Tess. "You mean I won't have to sit waiting by the phone night after night wondering if he's ever going to take me out or even remember that we're engaged or anything? You mean he's laid up in bed and I'll always know where he is? Well, gee, that's swell!"

"Hey," says Trix. "Whattaya say we go get some rocks and knock out a few street lights? You know, for old times' sake?"

Wheels within wheels.

"LIZ???" Now just a damn minute there, Pruny, you know her name's Lena. Don't be dragging ME into this thing.

Not the payoff I was expecting, but I did laugh out loud. Well played, Gus.

Stop trying out for a part in a Damon Runyon story and give me the address of this hospital.

 

[Harp]

The Hollywood casting couch again.... Surprising how bold lurid these headlines.

 

[Fading Fast]

New York City's new Fire Commissioner is promising an intensive campaign to stamp out petty grafting among departmental officials. Seventy-three-year-old Patrick Walsh, a forty-year department veteran, was sworn into office today to replace John McElligot, who was removed from office this week by Mayor LaGuardia on charges that he had turned a blind eye toward the acceptance of "gratuities" by fire inspectors. "Any man guilty of accepting any sort of gratutity will walk the plank," vowed Commissioner Walsh after taking the oath of office this morning. The new Commissioner admitted to an antipathy toward "tipping" that is so severe that he is reluctant even to tip railroad porters, but he insisted he will make every effort to stop the practice in the Fire Department. Meanwhile, it was learned that Mayor LaGuardia's action to remove McElligot and First Deputy Commissioner George McKenna from office was prompted by complaints from eighteen officials of oil-burner concerns about Fire Inspector Albert Becker, who had accepted "gratuities" ranging from $1 to $5 on fifty-eight separate occasions...

Can't say I remember reading about a fire-inspector bribe scandal, so maybe they really have their hands around that, but as to other inspectors in NYC - health, construction, etc. - the bribe scandal is evergreen as it pops up every several years or so.

... Federal immigration officers, G-Men, and local police worked swiftly today to complete their roundup of Italian aliens accused of overstaying their legal time in the United States, raiding fashionable hotels in the city and marching a total of 72 waiters, busboys, dishwashers, and kitchen help into police vans, and then to Ellis Island, where they will be processed before being sent to internment camps. Among those arrested were thirty former employees of the Italian Pavilion at the World's Fair who were required to leave the country within thirty days of the Fair's closing, but failed to do so. Federal officials denied that this week's roundup of German and Italian nationals in the New York area presages any general action against the mass of German and Italian aliens elsewhere in the United States....

That piece of luggage is so iconic to the era, you almost wonder if there weren't just a few of them that everyone passed around to use. Also, it would probably make a nice gift for someone's boss, say if his boss is a police captain.

... View attachment 333554 ("Y'know," says Sally, "'at Boston's a nice town. R'memba we wen' lass summa, had t'em fried clams at t'ball game? A nice town. Good place t'bring up a kid. An' I bet t'ey even got a pickle fact'ry t'ere, c'd use 'sperienced skimmas." "Zat so?" mumbles Joe. "Yeah," says Sally. "T'inkabouttit.")...

And Joe, it puts several hundred miles between you and Sally's mother...just sayin'.

... (Whoa, son, slow down. You've just come back from the dead. At least have a toasted cheese sandwich and a glass of milk and, I dunno, tell us of the unaccountable mysteries of the afterlife before you go storming off again...)...

While I'm not much for "the universe is sending you a sign" view, at this point, I'm open to the idea the universe is sending Sparky a sign not to marry Hedy.

... (The fact that Mr. Marsh seems to have forgotten to draw a magazine, book, paper, or any other form of reading matter anywhere in this scene gives the whole thing an implication that I'm sure he could not possibly have intended to imply.)

Oh, I don't know, I doubt he missed the whole women's-prison-thing angle.

... "Attorney also representing Lionel Atwill, well known actor?" Way to let the cat out of the bag. And ATWILL??? Seriously? Errol Flynn I could believe, but LIONEL ATWILL?...

Yes, Flynn was the name we all kinda expected. But also, as you note, very subtle and not-Page-Four-like way they tied Atwill in. You wonder what is holding Page Four back?

Re the neighbors, in my twenties, I had newly married friends where the wife worked, in part, to pay for her blonde-hair upkeep. It's not just a punchline, as it does seem to happen.

.. "Oh!" says Tess. "You mean I won't have to sit waiting by the phone night after night wondering if he's ever going to take me out or even remember that we're engaged or anything? You mean he's laid up in bed and I'll always know where he is? Well, gee, that's swell!"...

"And I don't have to believe he's dead and then, despite having no training, become a detective, while he's really lost somewhere suffering from amnesia. What? So I read 'Dan Dunn,' what of it?"

... Wheels within wheels....

Cool spy guy there looks like Joe Friday.

.. Not the payoff I was expecting, but I did laugh out loud. Well played, Gus....

Agreed, maybe too much buildup, but still a good punchline

... Stop trying out for a part in a Damon Runyon story and give me the address of this hospital.

Well, how embarrassing is this, I've lost the thread of the story and will have to go back through the past few days to pick it up. Like Andy, I just won't ever admit this to anyone.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I think that safecracker Moon was last seen taking to jail conked him on the head and slipped a Big Diamond into his pocket so that when said safecracker was frisked at the police station they'd find no evidence on him. We didn't see any of this on camera -- all we saw was Mush making no effort whatsoever to extricate Mr. Mullins from the back of the patrol wagon (that's the spirit!) -- but it seems like the only reasonable explanation. Which means the safecracker, when he's been let out on absurdly low bail by the corrupt Los Angeles judicial system, will come looking for his gem. Either that or, with Plushie already in town and Willie and Mamie en route, the gem will be immediately hocked to pay an enormous hotel bill. AND THEN the thug will coming looking for it.

(Pretty snappy plot for a just-post-Code Warner Bros. potboiler starring Mr. Cagney.)

I knew that sunglasses guy reminded me of somebody, and now I can't read his lines without hearing them in Jack Webb's voice. Oooweee.

 

[Fading Fast]

I think that safecracker Moon was last seen taking to jail conked him on the head and slipped a Big Diamond into his pocket so that when said safecracker was frisked at the police station they'd find no evidence on him. We didn't see any of this on camera -- all we saw was Mush making no effort whatsoever to extricate Mr. Mullins from the back of the patrol wagon (that's the spirit!) -- but it seems like the only reasonable explanation. Which means the safecracker, when he's been let out on absurdly low bail by the corrupt Los Angeles judicial system, will come looking for his gem. Either that or, with Plushie already in town and Willie and Mamie en route, the gem will be immediately hocked to pay an enormous hotel bill. AND THEN the thug will coming looking for it.

(Pretty snappy plot for a just-post-Code Warner Bros. potboiler starring Mr. Cagney.)....

Thank you very much. I failed to keep it straight and now don't have to go back. And yes, with a little treatment from the WB script department, it would be all set for Cagney and Sheridan to star with McHugh and Blonde for comic relief.

...
I knew that sunglasses guy reminded me of somebody, and now I can't read his lines without hearing them in Jack Webb's voice. Oooweee.

The resemblance is amazing.

 

[LizzieMaine]

British planes last night bombarded the Axis-held Libyan port of Benghazi, even as British naval forces warded off German and Italian air attacks in the western Mediterranean. Not a single ship, it is reported, suffered harm in the latter engagement. The attacks on Benghazi are reported in official British statements as having destroyed two supply ships heading for the port, apparently carrying cargoes of war material intended to bolster the stalled German-Italian attack on Tobruk.

German air raiders raged by the hundreds over London last night in reprisal for British incendiary raids on Mannheim and Ludwigshaven. Wave after wave of Luftwaffe bombers dropped heavy explosives on the very heart of the British capital, along with loads of flares intended to light up targets for subsequent bomber waves. Meanwhile, as the attacks on the two German industrial bases continued, the British Air Ministry reported "extensive fires" burning out of control at industrial plants and river wharves in both cities.

A 27-year-old Roslyn Heights woman with what authorities described as a "police complex" is being held for sentencing in Nassau County on charges of malicious mischief, pleading guilty to going on a rampage and destroying a police booth in Glenwood Landing. Miss Barbara L. Taylor was arrested yesterday after tearing up Police Booth K, smashing nine panes of glass in the windows, destroying furniture, and tearing the telephone off the wall and pitching it into a nearby pond. The booth was the eighth police booth to be vandalized in the past three months, and police are investigating those incidents to determine if Miss Taylor was responsible for them as well. The woman is said to be enraged at "uniformed authority" because she has a total of seventeen convictions on her record for traffic violations, and especially dislikes police booths. Police are dragging the pond today in an effort to recover the telephone.

The Rapp-Coudert Committee is turning its attention to the German-American Bund after a contempt order was served upon Reinhold G. Class of 802 Monroe Street, a City College night student and self-admitted youth leader in the Bund's Brooklyn division. over his refusal to identify other members of the organization. Committee members say their investigation of Mr. Class's activities has caused them to conclude that the Bund is "particularly interested" in recruiting members among the young.

The Brooklyn Dodgers will win the National League pennant in 1941, and District Attorney William O'Dwyer will be New York City's next mayor. So predicted Mrs. Mary F. O'Malley, Democratic Party co-leader of the 21st Assembly District, appearing before an audience of 600 persons at the St. George Hotel at a dinner given in her honor by the Flatbush Democratic Club.

(No, she's no relation to you-know-who, who, in 1941, is merely a mortgage lawyer for the Brooklyn Trust Company assigned to keep an eye on the Ebbets family holdings. He'd like to improve his position, but he isn't quite sure how. Not just yet.)

Gangland songbird Abe "Kid Twist" Reles is hospitalized under heavy guard today with a case of pleurisy. Reles is a key witness for the State in pinning the murder of Joseph Rosen on Louis "Lepke" Buchalter, who is said to have conveyed "his very worst wishes" for Reles' recovery. The location of the patient is a closely guarded secret given Reles' testimony in the Murder For Money investigations.

The Brooklyn Eagle's twenty-sixth annual Current Events Bee takes place Friday May 23rd, as students from all over the borough compete for cash prizes, medals, and the coveted Eagle Cup. The Bee will be held in the auditorium of the brand-new High School for Homemaking, President Street and Classon Avenue opposite Prospect Park.

(Um, everybody knows WEAF is the NBC flagship, not CBS. Are the rest of your facts this accurate?)

Old Timer Paul Wilson of Midwood wonders who remembers the euchre games featured when Father Ludecke ran the parish church, and the time someone gave the Father a live donkey as a present. That donkey had free rein on the church lawn, and one day Christie Lewis, the daredevil who built his own sleigh, got together with some other boys and threw Bud Peeling over the fence into the churchyard and he landed right on the donkey's back. "That donkey was later given to the church janitor as a present."

("Merge? Why not? Think of what we'll save on signs.")

("PHILADELPHIA?" sputters Sally. "OHHHH no no no no no no no no no no! Not Philadelphia! An' not f't'at bum Rizza!" "Hah," hahs Joe. "T'em people in Philly tawk funny. 'Wooda' t'ey say steada 'watta.'" )

The Dodgers must drop four men from their roster to get down to the season limit by Wednesday, and two players who ought to be worried are Paul Waner and Van Mungo. Waner, despite a fine spring, has been eclipsed by the superior performance of Dixie Walker in the Dodger outfield, and hasn't played much of late. And Mungo, despite being on his best behavior since his Cuban escapade, has not impressed in his few innings of work so far this year.

(And it's pronounced "Meng-iss," not "Men-zees." Get that right. He's very particular.)

Tall, slim, blonde Warner Bros. contract player Alexis Smith will have her first leading role opposite Errol Flynn in the Technicolor adventure film "Dive Bomber." The only other feminine role in the film, which also stars Fred MacMurray, will be played by Jean Ames, another young contract actress getting her first big break.

("Next Week: TROUBLE?" I mean, whatta you call being mauled by a leopard and then held at gunpoint by a caravan of, I dunno, Mongol-Arab raiders?)

("Hey, you do all right on this fight an' we maybe can get you booked next month to get killed by Joe Louis!")

("What ho!" says Mr. Jefferson. "It's WINE O'CLOCK!")

(For an old guy Bill is pretty limber. And Kay -- just be careful not to make any cracks about the Irish.)

(It's just as well that George won't live to see the rise of WebMD.)

("Outlaw disguise?" All you did was take your hat off.)

 

[LizzieMaine]

And in the Daily News...

"Semper Fi!"

If there's one thing we can learn from our weekly visit with Mr. Hill's relatives and neighbors, it's that people never change.

"Say, Constable -- your name wouldn't happen to be 'Strohs,' would it?"

Boy, that Plushbottom really gets around.

When he puts his mind to it, Gus can really pour on the atmosphere.

At the School of Hard Knocks, Burma majored in history.

Downwind might not be much of a cargo pilot, but he's an excellent flamenco dancer.

Waffles? In a soda shop? Well, jeez, Pop, there's your trouble right there, your menu's too broad. You're not Horn & Hardart, you know.

LEAVE THE CAT ALONE.

Show biz is a tough racket.