People, Dec. 4, 1939

• Share

Said Britain's lion-maned, pernickety old David Lloyd George: "Perhaps after all Chamberlain was responsible for the Munich bomb outrage; the explosion was 15 minutes late."

"Women's clubs are boloney," growled Author Theodore Dreiser to 300 gasping members of the Los Angeles Junior League. Ordinarily charging $500 a lecture, grumpy Author Dreiser, who is still writing novels, was paid not a penny for these thoughts. Other Dreiser throwaways: "You could close every university in the U. S. and it wouldn't make any difference. You can get a degree today on the most asinine subjects you ever heard of. Most of the youngsters are sneaking and cheating their way through school."

In Detroit, Mich., Mrs. Frances Dodge Johnson, daughter of John F. Dodge, celebrated her 25th birthday, got a tidy present from the Dodge automobile estate: control of her $10,000,000 trust fund.

New York City's smart little ex-Mayor James John ("Jimmy") Walker, wrote his second song in 25 years (the first: Will You Love Me In December As You Do In May?). Excerpts from In Our Little Part of Town:

We may seem to be old-fashioned

In a world of changing pace,

For we cling to things enduring

Like a bit of grandma's lace . . .

We make no claim to fame

No hifalutin' name,

It's always been the same . . .

We're strong for those we love,

Don't care what creed you're of,

There's just one God above,

In our little part of town.*

Invitations to Earl Browder, U. S. Communist No. 1, to make a speech before Harvard, Princeton and Dartmouth undergraduate societies were rescinded by university authorities because he was under U. S. indictment for passport fraud. When Yale undergraduates also invited him, urbane President Charles Seymour said he would not interfere. His reason (laid down two years ago in his inaugural address): "The London policemen in Hyde Park have learned that the surest method of exposing incompetent charlatanism is to give the charlatan a protected forum."

In Harvard dormitories, on the day of the Harvard-Yale football game, staff members of The Yale Record, undergraduate funnypaper, planted a spurious edition of The Harvard Crimson, undergraduate daily. Alarmed Harvard-men read that President James Bryant Conant had resigned, would be replaced by Yaleman Robert Maynard Hutchins, president of the University of Chicago. Also headlined was a report that Football Coach Richard Cresson Harlow, who is also a Harvard associate in oology, would become a Yale professor of ornithology because "ornithology has always been my main interest and I have always maintained that birds lay bigger and better eggs than the Harvard backfield."

Arrested in Miami, Fla. by immigration authorities for overstaying her leave in the U. S. was Mme Maria Gregorievna Rasputin Soloviev, animal-taming daughter of murdered Grigoriy Rasputin,* the "Mad Monk," spiritual adviser to the late Tsarina of Russia.