People, Oct. 2, 1939

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George Jessel, radio showman, disclosed a pact between him and James John ("Jimmie") Walker, nimble-witted onetime mayor of New York City, by which the survivor will deliver the other's funeral oration. Showman Jessel has spoken 50 eulogies in the last 15 years. Most memorable one, over the body of Broadway Comedian Jack Osterman last June: "Mr. God, they say you've got a great big heart, so give the boy a great big hand."

Chubby (George) Orson Welles, whose radio play War of the Worlds convinced many Jerseyites that Martians had captured Newark Airport, arrived there on a garbage truck after the taxi taking him to his plane broke down. Grateful for the ride, Bogeyman Welles cleaned up an old joke and remarked: "The driver was decent enough. When someone asked him what he had aboard, he said 'Actors and garbage.' That gave us top billing."

Long-armed Governor Lewis O. Barrows of Maine triumphed for the second straight year in the annual potato-picking contest between the Governor of Maine and the Governor of Idaho, 382½ to 365 pounds. Said Champion Barrows: "I did it by just sticking my nose in the row." Said worsted Governor Clarence A. Bottolfsen: "That's hard work."

Following a visit to the President (see p. 11), San Antonio's Mayor Maury Maverick announced that he favored a third term for Roosevelt "1,000%." Mayor Maverick declared that Fellow Texan Garner's "future is behind him," said: "In a time of emergency like this we cannot afford to have a man as President as old as Mr. Garner is. He is a fine Christian, water-drinking gentleman. . . . No man has ever been elected in his seventies except Harrison* and I think he caught a cold and died in office."

Messmore Kendall, 67, wealthy Manhattan lawyer, real-estate tycoon, theatrical producer, president general of the stuffy Sons of the American Revolution, resigned his job as a Dobbs Ferry, N. Y. volunteer fireman, after 20 years in which he had attended only one fire, and that at his own house. Absentee fines cost him $150 to $200 a year, which were more useful to the fire department than his personal services. Said he: "When I was young and in my prime I was filled with civic pride. I joined the hook and ladder and they gave me the privilege of driving the hind legs." Back in the U. S. after almost three years of voluntary exile in London was William Tatem ("Big Bill") Tilden II, fresh from tennis triumphs over Henri Cochet and Donald Budge, at 47 planning to play professional tennis here again.

Idaho's furrow-featured Senator William Edgar Borah is 74. At a Washington, D. C. luncheon, North Dakota's Senator Gerald Nye told Mrs. Borah he was pleased to see his colleague looking so fit for the neutrality fight (see p. 11). Said Mrs. Borah: "I told him so, too. I said to him, 'Bill, you look like Clark Gable.' And he said, 'Who's Clark Gable?' "