The Era -- Day By Day

[LizzieMaine]

It's an interesting comparison.

Dan has a dopey sidekick named Irwin. Dick has a dopey sidekick named Pat.
Pat will one day become police chief. Edge: Dick.

Dan has a trouble-bound girlfriend named Kay. Dick has a trouble-bound girlfriend named Tess. Dick and Tess will one day get married. Edge: Dick.

Dan has a hanger-on kid who's always getting in trouble named Babs. Dick has a hanger-on kid who's always getting in trouble named Junior. Junior founds the Crimestoppers Club. Babs just complains a lot. Edge: Dick.

Dan fights a cheap crook who looks like John Barrymore. Dick fights a cheap crook who looks like a catfish. Edge: Tossup. Dick will get the edge when the freaky deformed thugs start showing up, but right now they're dead even on this one.

Dan has a Face Eating Dog. Dick has Chief Brandon. Edge: Dan, by a mile.

Dan has a DC-3 with a crime lab in it. Someday Dick will fly around in a weird anti-gravity thing that looks like a tall wastebasket with a crutch in it. But not yet. Edge : Dan.

Dan is drawn by Norman Marsh, a man with no sense of artistic proportion. Dick is drawn by Chester Gould, a man with no sense of social proportion. Edge: tossup.

So at this point, Dick has the edge and will probably keep it. But let's hope that Dan, being number two, will always try harder.

 

[LizzieMaine]

And speaking of which, in today's Daily News....

Light dawns over Marblehead, as we say in New England.

I wonder how Pat's checker game is coming along?

And what of poor, dumb Harold Teen -- too besotted even to maintain his blood sugar level. Hey, maybe Mary Worth is writing a letter to Truck McClusky, telling him he can do better than Lillums.

 

[Fading Fast]

⇧ That Cheery is a peach. Also, quite the wordy strip, isn't it?

 

[LizzieMaine]

Milton Caniff was known all his career for his intense dialogue -- he was the Preston Sturges of adventure strip artists. His Sunday pages can be even more baroque.

 

[David Conwill]

So we shouldn't expect to see Warren Beatty in a Dan Dunn movie anytime soon? More's the pity.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Dan may be kind of a frowsy also-ran in the newspaper-strip hard-boiled detective derby, but he was the lead character in the very first all-original comic book ever published, "Detective Dan," in 1933 -- and when a kid named Jerry Siegel picked up a copy of that comic off a newsstand in Cleveland, it catalyzed a series of events that led directly to Action Comics #1, the introduction of Superman, and the creation of the entire superhero genre.

So suck it, Dick Tracy.

 

[tonyb]

I think it's because those who remember the "good old days" invariably remember them from the perspective of a child, who was constantly being told to sit down, be quiet, stop picking their nose, and get their elbows off the table, and who had only limited exposure to the loud, nose-picking, elbow-sitting, face-slapping, hair-pulling habits of their elders. When you grow up it rarely occurs to you to think that the adults of your parents' day were just as obnoxious and hypocritical in their behavior as your own generation.

I suspect that in most cases it’s a combination of jealousy of youth and selective memory at work.

I know for a dead certainty that neither I nor the Old Man (nor the Old Man’s Old Man) would these days get away with the ill-mannered things we said and did back when I was a young fellow. I shudder to recall it.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Allied fleets continue to mass off the coast of Uruguay as the German pocket battleship Graf Spee is reported to have started its engines, in apparent preparation for an attempt to leave the neutral port of Montevideo. The Uruguayan Government has insisted that the ship must leave Montevideo by 4:30 pm Brooklyn time tonight or face internment. Allied ships are blockading the waters just outside the harbor to capture or destroy the ship if it attempts to leave.

Meanwhile, six curiosity-seekers from Long Island have chartered a plane for Uruguay in hopes of seeing the action when the Graf Spee makes its move. Six "businessmen" paid Lawrence Airport operator Harry Gordon $5000 each to ensure them a "grandstand seat for a swell fight."

Mayor LaGuardia wants to know why the Grand Jury hasn't indicted the men named in a sealed presentment to Brooklyn Supreme Court Francis McCurn by the Amen office, especially since the Police Department, in turning the names over to investigators, agreed to hold off on departmental trials for those names pending full prosecution. The Mayor particularly wants to know why Police Lieutenant Cuthbert J. Behan, arrested and indicted in connection with the removal of official records from the Bergen Street station house, has not yet been brought to trial. It is believed that the presentment will go next to Police Commissioner Lewis J. Valentine for departmental action. Much of the contents of the presentment are believed to be connected to recent testimony by fur-trade racketeer Isidore "I Paid Plenty" Juffe. Juffe, whose claim to have "paid plenty" for police protection kicked off the borough-wide probe of police corruption, received immunity from prosecution in exchange for his testimony to the Amen office, and is today a free man.

Civil aviation authorities can do nothing about the noise complaints stemming from low-flying planes approaching the new LaGuardia Field at North Beach. The Civil Aeronautics Authority told the Eagle that planes on approach are allowed to come in at any altitude the pilot believes to be prudent.

A former regional director of the National Labor Relations Board, ousted from his job for attending a "champagne dinner" thrown by a lawyer who had cases pending before him, has now moved to the other side of the table. James P. Miller of Cleveland now operates as a private $150-a-day "Labor Consultant" advising businesses how to beat unions, and claims the NRLB is nothing more than a labor "goon squad" designed to strike fear into the hearts of businessmen. An NLRB report on Miller's dismissal notes that he had been "making bids in every direction for a 'juicy job' in industry" for some time before his ouster.

The Governor of Ohio, under fire for his handling of relief problems in his state, has lashed back at his leading critic, President Roosevelt. Governor James Bricker spoke before the Ohio Society in a meeting at the Hotel Pennsylvania in Manhattan last night, and excoriated what he termed the "unblushing political immorality" of the New Deal, and claimed to have been singled out for criticism because he refused to allow relief administration to become the "football of disgraceful partisan politics in Washington, New York, and the Department of the Interior." Thousands of people thrown off relief by the Governor's budget-cutting policies have rioted in Ohio cities in recent weeks.

Vice President John N. Garner is an official candidate for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 1940. The Vice President made formal what has long been known in a speech from his Texas home. The declaration is expected to fan into open conflict a split in the Democratic party between those who support and those who oppose a possible third term for President Roosevelt.

The New York City Housing Authority has thrown the naming of the new Bedford-Stuvesant housing project open for suggestions from the public. The Eagle invites residents of Central Brooklyn to submit their ideas for a name, declaring that "any name would be better than Bedford-Stuyvesant."

(And that's all there is. No story, no followup. Guess all those trapped workers must've gotten out just fine, and there's a perfectly innocent reason why they were "trapped" in the first place. Right? C'mon, Mr. Schroth, we expect better from the "conscience of Brooklyn.")

A Brooklyn doctor has developed what he calls a foolproof fireproofing compound that anyone can make at home to ensure safety at the Christmas season. Dr. Charles Pabst of the Kings County Medical Society recommends dissolving one pound of ammonium phosphate in two quarts of cold water, and spraying the solution on childrens' playsuits, lace curtains, Christmas decorations, Santa Claus outifts, and any other material that might come close to open flames during holiday celebrations. He especially recommends using the solution on flimsy childrens' cowboy and Indian suits, which very often catch fire due to their dangling fringes.

Coats trimmed "with a lavish hand" in Fromm Pedigreed Silver Fox, $100 at Russeks. (Personally I think they look better on the foxes.)

Christmas dinner at the Sip-n-Snak? That's for me!

Barbara Stanwyck and Ezra "Henry Aldrich" Stone join Jack Benny and his gang, tonight at 7 over WEAF.

The Eagle and Loew's Theatres will take holiday cheer to local hospitals this week with their "Christmas Caravan." Current feature movies, including "Goodbye Mr. Chips" and "Mr. Smith Goes To Washington" will be shown by special arrangement to patients at Kings County Hospital, Cumberland Street Hospital, Greenpoint Hospital, and the Jewish Sanitarium. Accompanying the films, a radio show featuring local amateur talent.

Cover boy for the Trend section this week is Baron Carl Gustav Emil Mannerheim, hero of Finland, and a former officer in the army of the Russian Czar, who in 1918 marched on Helsinki with his "White Guard," which teamed with the German Army to eradicate 20,000 Finnish Bolshevists.

It'll be a Merry Christmas in Germany, with each woman entitled to purchase one pair of stockings, and each man one necktie without deduction from their clothing ration cards.

The Saturday Evening Post reported this week on the "colorless love affair" between Fuehrer Adolf Hitler and "blonde Bavarian beauty" Eva Helen Braun, who now fills the role of a run-of-the-mill German hausfrau at the Fueher's headquarters. Rumors of a love affair between Hitler and a German woman have long been rumored, but the Post article makes her name known to Americans for the first time.

Bustles are the big thing in bathing suits for the coming season. (If they're inflatable, sign me up. I can't swim.)

Bandleader Fred Waring lost a bet to sports commentator Paul Douglas, and as penalty had to lead an actual live bull thru a Manhattan china shop this week. The bull placidly considered the situation and caused $1.17 worth of damage.

Hollace Shaw went from being an obscure vocalist with Mark Warnow on the radio to the lead role in the current Kern-Hammerstein hit "Very Warm For May" at the Alvin Theatre. Shaw's rendition of "All The Things You Are" is a high point in the show.

Benny Goodman, Count Basie, and their Orchestras return to Carnegie Hall next Sunday for their second "Spirituals to Swing" concert. The two bands will participate in a joint jam session, and will share the stage with "Negro guest stars" including "Holy Roller" hymn singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe, blues singer Ida Cox, and pianist James P. Johnson.

"The Nazarene," a story of the life of Jesus from a Jewish perspective by Yiddish-American novelist Sholem Asch, leads the Fiction bestseller list this week, finally pushing "The Grapes of Wrath" to second place.

Herbert Cohn declares that "Gone With The Wind," whatever else may be said about it, has the cast of the year -- and urges local naysayers to reserve judgement until they've seen the picture. It opens in New York at the Astor and the Capitol on Tuesday.

Frank Thomas, who made his name coaching at Alabama, is the new coach of the Football Dodgers. The appointment was expected after Thomas was spotted nightclubbing with Grid Dodger owner Dan Topping. Thomas replaces Potsy Clark, who resigned last month after three seasons with the club.

A new American League rule barring the current league champion from trading with other American League teams would never have been approved if Jacob Ruppert were still alive. So claims Yankee general manager Ed Barrow, who says the late team owner would have fought the rule, generally believed to specifically target the Yanks.

Connie Mack turns 77 this week, and is looking forward to another pennant as manager of the Philadelphia Athletics. The A's finished seventh in 1939, and haven't competed since 1933. Mack says he won't step down as manager until he finds himself slipping.

"An Old Timer" writes in to reminisce about all those Irish people who used to live in the 6th Ward.

Ace Hanlon and his sidekick "One Eye" are sitting in the stands to watch Red Ryder compete in the rodeo -- and have bet a large sum on his rival. Of course.

Jane Arden, Girl Reporter promises to help track down the bomber.

(I can't even.)

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas.

And while Dan rushes Kay and the Face Eating Dog to the hospital, Irwin makes empty threats against Dook, who can no longer bring himself to even care.

"Who, me? And what's with your torso, anyway?"

 

[Fading Fast]

Allied fleets continue to mass off the coast of Uruguay as the German pocket battleship Graf Spee is reported to have started its engines, in apparent preparation for an attempt to leave the neutral port of Montevideo. The Uruguayan Government has insisted that the ship must leave Montevideo by 4:30 pm Brooklyn time tonight or face internment. Allied ships are blockading the waters just outside the harbor to capture or destroy the ship if it attempts to leave....

...Meanwhile, six curiosity-seekers from Long Island have chartered a plane for Uruguay in hopes of seeing the action when the Graf Spee makes its move. Six "businessmen" paid Lawrence Airport operator Harry Gordon $5000 each to ensure them a "grandstand seat for a swell fight."...

Usually, one hopes for the smallest amount of collateral damage possible, but every rule has its exceptions.

...Mayor LaGuardia wants to know why the Grand Jury hasn't indicted the men named in a sealed presentment to Brooklyn Supreme Court Francis McCurn by the Amen office, especially since the Police Department, in turning the names over to investigators, agreed to hold off on departmental trials for those names pending full prosecution. The Mayor particularly wants to know why Police Lieutenant Cuthbert J. Behan, arrested and indicted in connection with the removal of official records from the Bergen Street station house, has not yet been brought to trial. It is believed that the presentment will go next to Police Commissioner Lewis J. Valentine for departmental action. Much of the contents of the presentment are believed to be connected to recent testimony by fur-trade racketeer Isidore "I Paid Plenty" Juffe. Juffe, whose claim to have "paid plenty" for police protection kicked off the borough-wide probe of police corruption, received immunity from prosecution in exchange for his testimony to the Amen office, and is today a free man.....

You go Little Flower and don't let up on this one.

...Cover boy for the Trend section this week is Baron Carl Gustav Emil Mannerheim, hero of Finland, and a former officer in the army of the Russian Czar, who in 1918 marched on Helsinki with his "White Guard," which teamed with the German Army to eradicate 20,000 Finnish Bolshevists.....

I had to read that a few times and think about history to make sense of it - a lot of moving historical parts.

...

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas....

You've noted it before, but man is that some impressive illustration work.

 

[LizzieMaine]

I wish the digitization had been done in color -- I've seen some of Dale Connor's Sunday pages in their original format, and her use of color was very effective.

She'll stay with the strip into 1942, so we've still got plenty of time left to appreciate her work. The guy who takes over for her, Ken Ernst, will draw the strip until 1985, and make it much more "realistic," but he'll never quite capture Connor's nuanced expressions and her ability to handle comedy as effectively as melodrama.

 

[David Conwill]

"Businessmen" in quotes just makes me think of mobsters. I wonder if they got to see the somewhat anticlimactic fate of the Graff Spee.

The Saturday Evening Post reported this week on the "colorless love affair" between Fuehrer Adolf Hitler and "blonde Bavarian beauty" Eva Helen Braun, who now fills the role of a run-of-the-mill German hausfrau at the Fueher's headquarters. Rumors of a love affair between Hitler and a German woman have long been rumored, but the Post article makes her name known to Americans for the first time.

I give it five, six years, tops.

 

[LizzieMaine]

And in the Sunday News, the Coloroto section devotes a page to Miss Ruth Doyle of Woodhaven, burly truck driver by day, dainty lady by night. The Eagle ran a feature on her a while back, and now you get to see her in action.

And Stooge Viller -- does the unexpected.

And Cap'n Blaze has some 'splainin' to do. First comic page I've ever seen from the Era in which one of the main characters is an actual pimp. Hey kids, ask Dad to explain the Cap'n's "conneections in the city."

 

[LizzieMaine]

German sources report thirty-four RAF bombers were shot down today in a terrific air battle over the North German coast. A total of forty-four planes are said to have participated in the bombing raid over Helgoland, a German naval base located on an island off the northern German coast. Two German planes are reported lost in the battle, and German claims state that the wreckage of British aircraft is washing ashore all along the German coast. "Several" of the British planes are reported to have survived the battle, and were said to be pushing on toward Wilhelmshaven.

The German pocket battleship Graf Spee was scuttled yesterday off the coast of Montevideo on orders of its commanding officer, Captain Hans Langdorff, who is reported to have acted under the direct orders of Adolf Hitler. The ship's 1039 crew members will be interned in Argentina. Uruguayan patrol vessels were examining the tangled wreckage this morning. Explosive charges detonated thruout the ship sent it to the bottom within three minutes after the order was given.

The British Admiralty announced today that the British submarine Ursula destroyed a 6000 ton German destroyer carrying a crew of 571 men. The statement indicates that the sinking occured last Thursday.

Reports from Finland state that Finnish forces have pushed Soviet troops back across the Mannerheim Line along the Taipale River in a move intended to reduce pressure on the Finnish forces near Lake Lagoda.

Eleven high-ranking police officials from Brooklyn and Queens have been suspended without pay pending departmental trials in the wake of a presentment issued by the office of Assistant Attorney General John T. Amen. One of those officers, Lieutenant Thomas F. J. Cavanaugh of the Sheepshead Bay Precinct, was called to the office of Commissioner Lewis J. Valentine, where he was first reinstated to duty and then immediately charged with knowingly making a false record and releasing prisoners on insufficient evidence. He will go before a departmental trial at Brooklyn Police Headquarters on Wednesday. "The investigation is by no means over," declared Amen. "It has barely begun."

A fifteen-year-old seventh-term student at James Madison High School attempted suicide today after her unemployed mother told her there would be no Christmas presents this year. Ellen Stern collapsed at her home at 1648 E. 12th Street after swallowing a handful of her grandfather's sleeping tablets, and was taken to Coney Island Hospital, where she is listed in serious condition. The girl and her mother, Mrs. Mildred Stern, who has been jobless for over a year, had quarreled about Christmas yesterday, and again today during a visit to Mrs. Stern's father, who is critically ill.

Prominent newspaper columnist, and the head of the Newspaper Guild, Heywood Broun has died of pneumonia at the age of 51. Broun, long connected with the New York World and the New York World-Telegram had just last week transferred his famous column "It Seems To Me" to the New York Post. Broun fell ill with the grip last week, and was hospitalized last Thursday in a comatose condition. He had shown improvement over the weekend, but took a turn for the worse yesterday and died shortly before 10 this morning at Columbia-Presbyterian Hospital.

The disassembly of the Soviet Pavillion at the New York World's Fair is underway, with work crews removing marble panels from the exterior of the structure in order to make an opening large enough to remove refrigeration equipment from the restaurant area inside. The Pavillion will be reassembled for use as a museum in Moscow after returning to the USSR aboard two steamers now en route to the United States.

A Brooklyn pencil salesman who had tried to lure an 18-year-old hat-check girl into marriage by posing as the heir to the Kellogg's Corn Flakes fortune has been unmasked after writing bad checks in Manhattan. David Levine of 474 76th Street had Broadway columnists buzzing after he appeared on the scene under the name of David "Kellogg," and began a whirlwind romance with Maxine Montgomery, hat-check attendant at the Stork Club. The ruse collapsed when "Kellogg" paid a $25.90 tab at Leon and Eddie's, 52nd Street swing club, with a worthless check. In the wake of the bad publicity, the Stork Club fired Miss Montgomery. (Where's Mary Worth when you need her?)

THERE'S MUSIC IN THE AIR -- At Loeser's! Today night at 6:30 the Men's Chorus of the Dime Savings Bank of Brooklyn will offer a program of Yuletide favorites from the street floor balcony. All are Welcome!

"Noel" writes to Helen Worth with a pet peeve -- the phrase "exchanging Christmas gifts." Noel feels the phrase implies obligation, which runs against what should be the spirit of the season. Helen agrees, and says the phrase makes her blood rise as well.

Season's Wheezings!

Sports Editor Jimmy Wood says it's pretty much a certainty that there will be no Olympic Games in 1940. The Games, which were to have taken place in Finland, were in doubt even before the current conflict broke out there, given the general war conditions in Europe, but the Soviet-Finnish war makes cancellation of the Games unavoidable.

The Dodgers and Yankees will again barnstorm their way north to wrap up their spring training exhibition season, continuing a tradition that dates back to 1924. The two clubs will play nine games against each other after breaking camp in Florida, concluding with a three-game series at Ebbets Field April 12th thru April 14th to lead into the opening of the regular 1940 season.

The Rangers and the Detroit Red Wings battled to a scoreless deadlock last night, the second consecutive tie game between the two clubs.

The Americans continue to sink out of sight in the National Hockey League standings, with a record of 4-12-1 and only nine points scored in the entire season so far. The Amerks' latest humiliations came at the hands of the Toronto Maple Leafs, who beat them two straight.

HEAR YOUR CHILD SPEAK OVER A REAL MICROPHONE -- in the Toyland Department at Abraham & Straus!

A Queens radio patrolman is near death this morning after being shot by the notorious "Bandit in Blue." Patrolman George W. Fowler of Whitestone exchanged gunfire with the bandit, who has terrorized the area recently while dressed in a blue suit, scarf, and overcoat. Two other patrolmen intercepted the Bandit as he fled and shot him five times. He was taken to Roosevelt Hospital in Manhattan where he was identified as 28-year-old Richard David Cushion of Lansing, Michigan. Patrolman Fowler walked in on Cushion while he was in the act of robbing a gas station at 47th Street and 11th Avenue in Manhattan.

The latest Charlie Chan picture shows the famous Chinese detective slipping into oblivion. Herbert Cohn says "Charlie Chan in the City of Darkness" is a "murder muddle."

Now playing at the Patio, it's Dorothy Lamour and Akim Tamiroff in "Disputed Passage," along with Joe E. Brown and Martha Raye in "$1,000 a Touchdown." (You can imagine each of these pictures in detail, despite not having seen them, just from the titles and the casts. Why even go?)

Comedian Fred Allen has, he hopes, gotten angry Philadelphians off his back. In a recent sketch featuring his old vaudeville crony Jack Haley, Allen remembered staying in a Philadelphia actors' hotel where the rooms were so small even the mice were hunchbacked. This remark roused the ire of boosters in the City of Brotherly Love, who threatened boycotts and deluged Allen, his sponsor, and NBC with offended complaints. Last week, Allen attempted to soothe the conflict by pointing out that his remark referred to conditions twenty-five years ago, and that today's Philadelphia hotels are "so large you can fly a kite in any room."

The striking S. Claus settles himself in George's armchair, with all indications of becoming The Man Who Came To Dinner, complete with whiskers. Jo is still not convinced he's anything but another one of these nuts George is always bringing home -- but what of the sleighbells?

Watch out, Prince -- Murdock will have your five sheep if Mary doesn't get them first.

As you can see from his recent jaw implant surgery, Dan Dunn is not Dick Tracy at all. He's Batman.

 

[Fading Fast]

German sources report thirty-four RAF bombers were shot down today in a terrific air battle over the North German coast. A total of forty-four planes are said to have participated in the bombing raid over Helgoland, a German naval base located on an island off the northern German coast. Two German planes are reported lost in the battle, and German claims state that the wreckage of British aircraft is washing ashore all along the German coast. "Several" of the British planes are reported to have survived the battle, and were said to be pushing on toward Wilhelmshaven....

Very "12 O'Clock High"

...A Brooklyn pencil salesman who had tried to lure an 18-year-old hat-check girl into marriage by posing as the heir to the Kellogg's Corn Flakes fortune has been unmasked after writing bad checks in Manhattan. David Levine of 474 76th Street had Broadway columnists buzzing after he appeared on the scene under the name of David "Kellogg," and began a whirlwind romance with Maxine Montgomery, hat-check attendant at the Stork Club. The ruse collapsed when "Kellogg" paid a $25.90 tab at Leon and Eddie's, 52nd Street swing club, with a worthless check. In the wake of the bad publicity, the Stork Club fired Miss Montgomery. (Where's Mary Worth when you need her?)...

About ten years ago, there was a guy at a private bank I was working at whose last name was Cronkite. He told all of us he was Walter Cronkite's cousin. His private banking career was based, in part, on that background.

It then came out it was all a lie - he was working a few other scams if vague memory serves - and, of course, was fired. Everything just keeps getting recycled.

...

Watch out, Prince -- Murdock will have your five sheep if Mary doesn't get them first.....

These are not impressive conmen - more like the Keystone Cops of conmen.

 

[LizzieMaine]

There was a guy in Boston a few years back who was working the same kind of angle by posing as a Rockefeller, and actually conned a woman into marrying him on that basis. Then it turned out he was wanted on a murder charge in California and when they arrested him he turned out to be a petty German crook who'd been living around the US under a whole mess of aliases for years.

People who don't like screwball comedies because they aren't realistic have never read 1930s newspapers.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Meanwhile, in today's Daily News....

The part of Tess Trueheart will be drawn by guest artist P. Picasso.

Bored and lonely in the big city in 1939, Skeezix Wallet finds a hole in space-time and posts about his new leather jacket on the Fedora Lounge, where he is immediately ridiculed and chased away by more experienced jacket collectors who mock his cheap purchase for the poor placement of its slash pockets, and tell him to stop popping the collar because it's not authentic.

While in the Hat Forum, collegial fellow Loungers assist member Shadow Smart in adjusting the bash of his crown.

 

[EngProf]

British naval forces are reported to be "on the watch" for the German pocket battleship Graf Spee, currently bottled up in the neutral port of Montevideo. The British have dispatched the cruisers Ajax and Achilles to patrol the waters outside Montevideo to ensure the German ship does not escape. The Graf Spee was forced into Montevideo after a fourteen-hour attack by British ships that left the German vessel pocked with damage and thirty-nine of her crew dead.

The League of Nations voted today to expel the Soviet Union over its invasion of Finland, with Finland, Yugoslavia, Greece, and China abstaining from the vote. Those nations voting to expel were Bolivia, Britain, the Dominican Republic, Belgium, France, Egypt, and South Africa.

Meanwhile, Finnish troops retreating from the blazing border city of Salmajaervi fought a delaying action today in the face of a Russian advance across northern Finland. Norwegian troops watched from their side of the border, with fires visible from Norwegian soil.

A two-alarm fire early-morning at an old-law tenement on Bartlett Street claimed the lives of a mother and her seven-year-old child. Mrs. Ramonia Malave and her son Edward burned to death near a window in their top floor apartment. Firemen concluded that Mrs. Malave was trying to get the window open when she fell to the flames. The blaze broke out on the third floor of the four-story building, blocking escape via stairways. The other tenants of the building, including Mrs. Malave's mother and sister, escaped thru windows and down the fire escapes. Investigators are unsure of the cause of the fire, but a portable heater may have been involved.

View attachment 200683

The wan 53-year-old wife of accused bail-bond racketeer Max Lippe took the stand in his defense today in Brooklyn Supreme Court. Mrs. Bertha Lipschutz testified that the properties her husband used as security in posting bail bonds for clients were bought and paid for by him, and that she contributed not a cent to her husband's activities. On cross-examination Mrs. Lipschutz admitted that she had used the deed to one of her husband's properties in posting bond for an accused hot-fur racketeer. Max Lippe, whose legal name is Lipschutz, faces eighteen counts of perjury in connection with his bail bond operation.

A department manager at the Brooklyn Navy Yard has been promoted to Rear Admiral. Captain Charles Alfred Dunn has been in command of the Yard's industrial department for the past five years.

A Manhattan Traffic Court magistrate is accused of forcing a man into pleading guilty to fourteen counts of illegal parking by threatening to tell tales about his wife. Harry I. Greenspan and his wife Gertrude are suing Magistrate Anthony P. Burke for false arrest and malicious prosecution to the tune of $200,000 in damages. Greenspan insisted that he pleaded guilty to the charges only after Magistrate Burke took him into his chambers and threatened to reveal the results of a "prison examination" of Mrs. Greenspan.

War toys are unpopular this holiday season. The big Brooklyn department stores are "soft pedaling" toy soldiers, toy guns, and other military-oriented toys in favor of a "Peace On Earth" spirit. Donations to the WPA's toy drive for underprivileged children in the borough have not collected a single war-themed toy out of more than 70,000.

A Queens man is being held on $200 bail for "annoying" a woman at a movie. Harry Wolff of 92 Hooper Street is accused of annoying Mrs. Lydia Williams of Woodhaven during a show at a theatre in Jamacia. Appearing in Brooklyn-Queens Night Court, Wolff claimed he was merely reaching down to pick up the overcoat that had slipped off his knee when Mrs. Williams struck him in the face and chased him out of the theatre.

The San Francisco World's Fair will reopen in 1940 after all, with officials of the Golden Gate International Exposition having secured agreements from creditors to hold off demands until the receipts from next year are in.

For Christmas -- Remember all your friends who appreciate really FINE beer! Give them Ruppert's Old Knickerbocker -- the new beer with the old-time lip-smacking flavor! At neighborhood stores in neat cartons of 24 cans or bottles!

CUT YOUR FOOD COSTS WITHOUT CUTTING CORNERS FOR QUALITY -- At your A&P Self Service Super Market! 5 Stores in One! Extra-Fancy Milk Fed Fowl! 19 cents/lb! Boneless Chuck Pot Roast 25 cents/lb! Fresh Spanish mackerel 13 cents/lb! Order your Christmas turkey today!

Leona Lane, concert-singing member of the Lane family of movie fame will join sisters Rosemary, Lola, and Priscilla for a quartet performance on next week's Lux Radio Theatre.

A new series of detective films from MGM starring Walter Pidgeon as "Nick Carter, Master Detective" begins this week at Loew's Criterion. Herbert Cohn went into the City to to see the initial entry, and says that old Nick has a bit of Buck Rogers in him in his new screen incarnation, with an emphasis on super-scientific crimefighting devices and a "stratospheric rocket plane."

At the RKO Albee, see Basil Rathbone and Boris Karloff in "Tower of London" -- BLOOD ORGIES OF MAD MONSTERS! A great family show, bring Grandma and the kids.

Brooklyn is the borough of beautiful girls, says Harry Conover, head of the modeling agency that bears his name. Conover says many of the fresh faces you see on magazine covers and in advertisements are Brooklyn born and bred. (In Bensonhurst, Sally Punchclock tosses back an untrimmed strand of hair, wipes a spot of soot off her face, and sticks her tongue out at Joe, who's slumped in a kitchen chair snoring, with his suspenders hanging down and his feet in the stove.)

Kenny Washington, "great Negro halfback" from UCLA is the top gridiron ground-gainer for 1939. Washington gained 828 yards rushing and 537 passing for a total of 1365, edging out runner-up Tommy Harmon of Michigan by 9 yards.

Edgar Bergen celebrates this week the third anniversary of his first radio broadcast. When Bergen finished that appearance in December 1936 on Rudy Vallee's variety hour, and Vallee invited him back, Bergen panicked, wondering where he'd get a new script for a second appearance. He doesn't worry about that anymore.

George pulls a soot-covered, grime-bearded fat fellow out of his chimney, and this creature claims to be S. Claus himself, in person -- rehearsing for Christmas, he had a little problem. George rolls his eyes -- until he thinks he hears sleigh bells.

View attachment 200689

Calling it now -- Ted is proposing to Sue, even as we speak.

Dan is trying to land by instruments, and you know who calibrated them. Good thing the airport will have an ambulance handy.

The "Eagle Staff photo" is actually by my hero, Arthur Fellig ("WeeGee" - The Famous). Surprised he didn't demand named credit. (photo below of the fire looks like a WeeGee, also)

 

[LizzieMaine]

The murderer of German consular secretary Dr. Walter Engelberg is in custody in Toronto, Ontario and has confesses to the crime. 24-year-old Ernest Walter Kehler, alias Ernie Haas, was arrested last night outside a bus terminal in the Canadian city after a nearby police officer recognized him from photographs distributed by New York police after a store clerk reported that she had overheard Kehler talking about going to Canada. Brooklyn detective Captain Frank Bals, in charge of the Engelberg investigation, and Assistant District Attorney Michael Kern traveled immediately to Toronto by airplane and questioned Kehler for five hours. The suspect signed a full confession shortly before 10 this morning.

In the confession, Kehler admits to beating Engelberg to death in the bedroom of the house occupied by the German official in the Parkville section of Flatbush on the night of December 5th, after Engelberg made "improper advances" to him. Kehler told interrogators he could not remember the implement he used in the beating, but only that it was something he "snatched from a table or a dresser." Kehler told police he had attended a fight club in Jamacia with Engelberg and two other men, after which they stopped at a Chinese restaurant on Jamacia Avenue for something to eat, and then proceeded to Engelberg's home in Brooklyn, where they ate chicken and had several drinks. Engelberg and Kehler then "retired to the bedroom."

Kehler has agreed to waive extradition, and will be returned to New York by airplane as soon as possible to stand trial here. Captain Bals states that he does not believe that the "full story" of the killing has been told in Kehler's confession, but that the idea that Engelberg was killed by an "enraged anti-Nazi" seems to be discounted.

Kehler is a small-time amateur prizefighter and hanger-on at boxing clubs who fought under the Haas pseudonym. He was born in Winnipeg, Manitoba, and told police he is married with a five-year-old child, and he at first refused to talk to police until he was assured that his wife would not be brought into the investigation.

At least two Soviet bombers were downed over Helsinki today by Finnish anti-aircraft barrages. 11 Russian bombs fell on a suburb of the Finnish capital, but no damage was reported.

In Paris, the Allied Supreme War Council is reported to have pledged all moral and material aid to Finland without compromising their own war against Germany. Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain and French Premier Edouard Daladier were among those present for the conference.

British raiders today bombed the German naval and air base at Sylt. The RAF bombers stood off heavy attacks by German pursuit planes and anti-aircraft fire.

Father Divine paid for a real-estate transaction by taking stacks of one, five, and ten dollar bills out of a shoe box, according to testimony in the lawsuit filed against the Harlem evangelist by former disciple Verinda Brown and her husband Thomas Brown, who are seeking to recover money they turned over to Divine, who used the funds to buy an upstate poultry farm.

An all-time record for air travel out of New York City looms for this holiday season, thanks to the new LaGuardia Field at North Beach. The four major airlines operating out of the new airport are expecting to operate at full capacity as the seasonal travel rush reaches its peak this week. Waiting lists are already being kept for those hoping seats will become available on flights out of the city.

A gas station operator from Jamaica armed with an honorary deputy sheriff's badge and a strong right hook foiled a
holdup at his station last night. 42-year-old Samuel Rosen, who operates an Amoco station at 107-33 Merrick Road, was counting out his till last night in order to close for the evening, when a robber approached him and displayed a long-handled bread knife. Rosen flashed his badge, and while the holdup man was distracted, Rosen punched him. The would-be bandit crashed thru a plate glass window and fled into the night. Rosen told police he didn't know his own strength.

(Yeah, I know how it is. I too am often tempted to drive a roofing nail into my forehead when I have a cold)

Retired U. S. Marine Corps Maj. General Smedley Butler says the United States could end the war right now -- if it refused to allow the sale of petroleum products to the belligerents. The General advocated cutting off oil sales to both sides in the war, in a speech on the topic "War Is A Racket," delivered before an audience of 500 at the Brooklyn Jewish Center.

(What a shameless shill this man is. No brand loyalty at all.)

Radio programs featuring "courtroom trials" turn misery into amusement and prey upon the ignorant. So charges Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Henry G. Wenzel, in denouncing such popular broadcasts as the "Jewish Court For Peace and Justice" heard over Brooklyn station WLTH. A case had come before Justice Wenzel involving a dispute heard on that radio program in which one of the parties refused to pay the $100 settlement ordered by its moderator. The Justice threw out the case, declaring that the radio program had no jurisdiction to issue such rulings, and that the agreement signed by the participants did not disclose the true nature of the "court" as a program intended primarly for the entertainment of listeners.

The second feature-length animated cartoon will premiere tomorrow at the New York Paramount. The Technicolor "Gulliver's Travels" was produced by Max Fleischer.

The Eagle editorialist is fuming over the announcement that "Gone With The Wind" will be shown only at "advanced prices" into 1941, assuming that the extended Broadway run means it will be a long time before Brooklyn theatres get a chance at screening the Selznick super-production. He is especially offended that such cities as Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, and Pittsburgh will get the film before Brooklyn does -- cities of infinitely smaller size and lesser importance than Brooklyn.

A fake long-distance telephone call cost a Flatbush housewife more than she expected. Mrs. Andrew Wilson of 969 East 29th Street was summoned to her neighbor's telephone, where she was told that an operator was trying to reach her with a long distance call, but that her home phone was out of order. Mrs. Wilson waited in the neighbor's house for about fifteen minutes for the call to be put thru, and while she was out of her own home, a sneak thief entered and stole her purse. Her telephone, however, was working just fine.

Connie Mack has officially named his son Earle as his successor as manager of the Philadelphia Athletics -- but the Grand Old Man of Baseball added that Earle will take over only after he himself "is wearing long gray whiskers." The senior Mack is 77 years old as he prepares for his fortieth season as manager of the A's, with no intention of retiring anytime soon.

New York will get its first Frequency Modulation radio station in 1940. The Bamberger Broadcasting Service, owners of station WOR, have received a license to commence FM broadcasting under the call sign W2XOR. The new station will go on the air for the first time early in the coming year, offering "high fidelity" programs.

S. Claus decides he's had enough of the bickering Bungles and climbs out the window. Wouldn't you?

Look at that smirk. TROLL.

Now wait just a minute here. Exactly what kind of hospital is it that treats both people and Face Eating Dogs??? Who's operating on Kay, anyway? WE MEET AGAIN DOCTOR MOREAU!

 

[Fading Fast]

...Father Divine paid for a real-estate transaction by taking stacks of one, five, and ten dollar bills out of a shoe box, according to testimony in the lawsuit filed against the Harlem evangelist by former disciple Verinda Brown and her husband Thomas Brown, who are seeking to recover money they turned over to Divine, who used the funds to buy an upstate poultry farm....

The IRS might want to take a look-see into this and other Father Divine transactions.

...Radio programs featuring "courtroom trials" turn misery into amusement and prey upon the ignorant. So charges Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice Henry G. Wenzel, in denouncing such popular broadcasts as the "Jewish Court For Peace and Justice" heard over Brooklyn station WLTH. A case had come before Justice Wenzel involving a dispute heard on that radio program in which one of the parties refused to pay the $100 settlement ordered by its moderator. The Justice threw out the case, declaring that the radio program had no jurisdiction to issue such rulings, and that the agreement signed by the participants did not disclose the true nature of the "court" as a program intended primarly for the entertainment of listeners....

I assume these are the radio progenitors of the modern-TV world's Judge Judy type shows?

...New York will get its first Frequency Modulation radio station in 1940. The Bamberger Broadcasting Service, owners of station WOR, have received a license to commence FM broadcasting under the call sign W2XOR. The new station will go on the air for the first time early in the coming year, offering "high fidelity" programs....

Since there were almost no FM sets in circulation, I assume these early stations ran at a loss to "seed" the market. If they were just "sister" broadcast of AM stations, probably not that expensive. Just guesses.

...

Look at that smirk. TROLL.....

Okay, who cares about the news headlines, when tomorrow's Eagle arrives, I'm flipping right to the comics to see what Mary's got planned.

 

[LizzieMaine]

There were a lot of these types of radio shows -- it was a minor fad in the late thirties. "The Goodwill Hour," "The Goodwill Court," "Alexander's Mediation Board," "The Voice Of Experience," etc etc. "The Jewish Board of Peace and Justice" was a lot of fun to listen to -- in the examples that survive, the program is conducted by this hard-boiled rabbi who takes no guff from anybody, and switches seamlessly between English and Yiddish in mid-sentence thruout the program. Most of the cases are pretty trivial -- in one that I've heard, this woman goes on at some length about a set of slipcovers she ordered but now doesn't want to pay for, and the storekeeper gets pretty fired up about it. The rabbi gets everybody settled down and tells her to pay her bill and go home. Very entertaining stuff once you figure out what's going on.

FM was still experimental at this point -- hence the "W2XXX" call letter format, just like television --and they were getting stations on the air just so there'd be a way to field test the system before allowing full commercial licensing. I've heard W2XOR's inaugural broadcast, and it's very potted-palm, a lot of classical and semi-classical type music and dignified announcements. No swing, no singing commercials, no chuckling announcers. FM was too high-class for that kind of stuff.

There were a few FM receivers on the market -- usually expensive all-wave consoles with FM added as a throw-in that most people would never use. It never really caught on with the public until after the war, and then only with the "hi-fi" crowd.