The Era -- Day By Day

[LizzieMaine]

And from the Daily News...

You see, those "all wave" radios really do give you a wider choice in entertainment.

C'mon, Howard -- the least you can do is smile.

C'mon, Judge. Twirl the moustache. You know you want to.

And to make matters worse, this ridiculous Gus Edson person keeps scrawling his name on my walls!

"Horse Face? Vatch vat you vrites, Mister Title Vriter!"

Well, at least they're clean.

Ever wonder who writes those crazy letters in "Voice Of The People?" Now you know.

She's crying and he appears to be sweating actual drops of blood. Yeah, this'll end well.

 

[Fading Fast]

...Phonograph records of an alleged tryst between Mrs. Mabel Kiss and her husband's cousin produced little but scratches as noise today in Brooklyn Supreme Court. The recordings, made by a hidden microphone placed in a garage room by Irving Kiss, and played today for jurors in the Kiss divorce trial, were largely unintelligble, with few words audible to the jury. Technicians promised that subsequent records would be more clear.....

I was surprised yesterday when it was implied that these would be good recordings. IRL, as opposed to Hollywood (which is how this story reads), successfully making those type of recordings with the technology of that day would have been really hard to do. I'm curious to see what the "better" recordings are like.

... View attachment 206612
(Just out of curiosity, I wonder where the Mayor gets his milk? Sheffield? Borden? Some little independent? Nah, he probably goes out to the barn in muck boots and draws off a quart right from the tap.)....

Had he lived at the Ansonia in NYC, pre 1907, he'd have been able to get goat's milk that way (from Wikipedia):

"Stokes had a Utopian vision for the Ansonia—that it could be self-sufficient, or at least contribute to its own support—which led to perhaps the strangest New York apartment amenity ever. "The farm on the roof," Weddie Stokes wrote years later, "included about 500 chickens, many ducks, about six goats and a small bear." Every day, a bellhop delivered free fresh eggs to all the tenants, and any surplus was sold cheaply to the public in the basement arcade. Not much about this feature charmed the city fathers, however, and in 1907, the Department of Health shut down the farm in the sky..."
​

The Ansonia:

...Young Eddie Arcaro is already on track to be the top jockey of 1940, if early season results from the Florida racetracks are an indication. Arcaro led all riders at Tropical Park with twelve winners, and in four days at Hialeah he won six races....

And quite a career he'd go on to have: "Eddie Arcaro. George Edward Arcaro (February 19, 1916 – November 14, 1997), known professionally as Eddie Arcaro, was an American Thoroughbred horse racing Hall of Fame jockey who won more American classic races than any other jockey in history and is the only rider to have won the U.S. Triple Crown twice."

... In a moment, my dear, in a moment. But first, would either of you happen to have any moustache wax handy? I seem to be drooping a bit.....

Exactly how "secretive" can it be if he's wearing a uniform - doesn't the uniform identify for whom he's working; otherwise, what the heck is the point of the uniform?

...
You see, those "all wave" radios really do give you a wider choice in entertainment...

Somebody needs to tell Leona that, in her new job, policemen are probably not a good choice for a customer.

... Well, at least they're clean....

I'm suddenly reminded of Geraldo and Al Capone's vault.

... Ever wonder who writes those crazy letters in "Voice Of The People?" Now you know....

She's worried about him - that guy - cheating, really!

 

[LizzieMaine]

I hope Hartford remembered to take the "Hotel St. Regis" shoulder patch off his uniform.

 

[LizzieMaine]

A special trench mortar ammunition developed for the Army's Chemical Warfare division was found among items seized by the FBI from the accused Christian Front terror plotters in Brooklyn this week, and the Ordnance Division is mounting its own investigation to determine how the ammunition got out of Army hands. Ordinance Division officers say the FBI has so far not contacted them about its own investigation of the plot. It is suspected that the mortar ammunition may have come from an Army ordnance depot near Baltimore, via a unit of the Chemical Warfare Corps based on Governor's Island, said to be the only unit in the Second Corps area to handle this type of ammunition.

Also identified among the materials seized from the plotters was at least one three-inch Stoakes trench mortar shell -- although no mortar has yet been found -- and a quantity of British-made Enfield rifles rechambered to accept American ammuntion. The Army states that no stock of such rifles is maintained in the Second Corps area, but such weapons are common on the surplus market, and are popular among collectors of war trophies. At least one German Mauser rifle was also seized, with investigators as yet unable to determine its origin.

Meanwhile, a group of twelve prominent New York clergymen and educators sent a wire to FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover urging a full investigation by the Bureau to determine the nature of Father Charles E. Coughlin's connection to the Christian Front. The wire expresses the belief that the seventeen conspirators now under arrest could not have organized their plot without financial and organizational support, and notes that Coughlin has called in print for the formation of "platoons" to carry out his program "in the Franco way." It is also noted that John F. Cassidy, local Front leader who is among those arrested, is positively known to have traveled to Detroit to meet with Coughlin last July.

Margaret P. Cassidy, sister of John F. Cassidy, tells the Eagle that "anything my brother does couldn't possibly be wrong." Miss Cassidy disclaims any knowledge of the Christian Front or her brother's activities within it, other than to say that "It's a men's organization -- women are not allowed to attend the meetings."

Senator William E. Borah of Idaho is near death today, following a cerebral hemorrhage. The 74-year-old dean of the Senate has been in a coma since Tuesday, when he was found unconscious on his bathroom floor, a day after a doctor pronounced him in excellent health. President and Mrs. Roosevelt have telephoned Mrs. Borah to express their sympathies.

The House Naval Committee is considering a $500,000,000 cut in the $1,300,000,000 naval expansion program included in President Roosevelt's proposed 1940 defense budget. Thirty-four proposed new destroyers would be eliminated from the package if the cut is approved.

A Finnish communique today claims that Russian troops have been pushed back twenty-eight miles in the Salla region of Lapland near the Arctic Circle. The Finnish report also states that eleven Russian planes were shot down in yesterday's fighting.

Mayor LaGuardia stepped into the ongoing coal drivers' strike today, calling on both sides to meet with him tomorrow morning at City Hall to get negotiations moving again. "The city cannot shiver while you quibble," the Mayor declared.

The Board of Estimate, with only one negative vote, today gave formal approval to a six-month appropriation of $124,000 to continue the Amen Office thru June 30th. The only dissenting vote came from Queens borough president George U. Harvey.

A prominent racetrack figure and Forest Hills resident will serve thirty days in the Riker's Island workhouse on a perjury conviction. 44-year-old Frank A. Erickson, well known to racing habitues, was found guilty in December of lying about his occupation on an application for a pistol permit. Erickson, whom Mayor LaGuardia once denounced as a "tinhorn punk" and ordered to leave town, had claimed he was being persecuted by the Mayor. He will begin his sentence tomorrow.

Federal authorites in Manhattan today presented five witnesses in the passport fraud trial of Communist Party secretary Earl Browder. The prosecution revealed that Browder had in 1937 applied for permission to travel to Spain as a correspondent for the Daily Worker, at a time when ordinary American citizens were forbidden to travel to that country. Browder was given permission for that trip by the State Department. Most of the day's testimony was devoted to dull explanations of passport procedure.

A 17-year-old robbery suspect who broke out of Queens County Jail today with three other prisoners is back in custody after police caught up with him at his Pacific Street Home. Sylvio Mazzei, who had been held on a burglary charge, will now face an additional charge of escape. His three confederates are reported still at large.

Eighty-three new cases of pneumonia were reported in Brooklyn this week, with thirty deaths reported.

DRESS UP YOUR COMPANY DISHES THIS SIMPLE WAY -- With HEINZ KETCHUP's Racy Oriental Spices!

MEETING PLACE OF THE THRIFTY -- YOUR A&P SELF SERVICE SUPER MARKETS! Extra-Fancy Milk Fed Roasting Chickens -- 21 cents/lb!

The Marx Brothers in "At The Circus" start today at the Patio, along with "Daytime Wife."

Ahhh-cha-cha-cha! Wonder if he'll do that bit where he smashes up a piano with an axe?

A 37-year-old St. Marks Place man smashed sixty windows in an East 17th Street apartment house after he was fired from his job assisting the building superintendant. James Woods told the magistrate in Brookyln-Queens night court that he was just trying to get his job back. Woods will be held on $100 bail on a disorderly conduct charge.

The beefsteak dinners put on by the "Coal Holers" will no longer be men-only. The Brooklyn Club has voted to admit women to their dining room, "The Coal Hole," as of February 5th, ending the male-only eating tradition at the borough's oldest social club.

(As far as I've seen this is the first time Walter F. O'Malley's pudgy pan has shown up in the pages of the Eagle. It will, unfortunately, not be the last.)

In the wake of recent free-agent rulings in baseball, hockey players are wondering if their sport needs a two-fisted commissioner like Judge Landis. National Hockey League magnates are reported to be extremely hostile to the idea of turning their power over to a dictatorial executive, but the players wonder if their financial and professional lot might be improved by such a change in a league where integrity and above-board dealing are not especially common.

Ernest Kehler, small-time boxer accused in the beating death of German consular secretary Dr. Walter Engelberg, could escape the electric chair if convicted. Court documents in the case suggest evidence is lacking that the murder was premeditated.

"Does America need compulsory health insurance?" will be question debated in tonight's "America's Town Meeting Of The Air," 10 pm over WJZ.

Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha! And just as neat as you please, Jo slips him the shank. And doesn't she look pleased with herself about it.

Demonstrating mattresses in the front window at Gimbel's? Oh, Leona, you can do better than that.

Seriously, Dan? A black powder bomb with a fuse on it? Like in a two reel comedy? Cordite's all the rage now, Dan. Don't you read the papers?

 

[LizzieMaine]

And in the Daily News...

"It's the milkman, I'm paying the bill."

Arch Oboler puts down the paper, pushes his old felt hat back on his head, and thinks to himself, "A live chicken heart in a lab! What an idea for a radio play!"

Wait, no concrete galoshes? No cement overcoat? I'm disappointed, Judge, you take all the fun out of this.

Won't Andy and Min feel foolish when it turns out Baby is the secret mastermind of a car-stripping ring.

"Hold off the climax," huh, Pat? Interesting choice of words.

You know, if you really want to keep a low profile, lurking around a train station in a black veil probably isn't the way to do it.

*Sigh.* All right, Miss Lillian Lovewell, you probably don't want to hear this, but you're gonna hear it, and you better listen close. You and I both know there's only two reasons why you're in this situation. Your mother, bless her soul, set up this whole thing with Cigarface McBlowhard there to keep you from running off again with that rattle-brained hepcat boyfriend of yours, and you went along with it because you thought flouncing around town with a man old enough to be your father was a good way to put said boyfriend in his place after he botched up the whole elopement thing last year. And now here you are, all nice and stuck. Well, kid, you've been play-acting at being a grownup ever since you got out of that hokey junior college you were at, but now it's time to actually *be* a grownup. Go tell Truck the whole thing's off, and then go tell that mother of yours to butt her fat face out of your personal life. You're not ready to get married, that's for certain, and neither is that pop-eyed butcher boy of yours -- I mean, seriously, you really think he "forgot" to get that marriage license? No, you're both just a couple of confused kids and you need to figure out who you are before you'll be ready for any kind of real relationship. For gawd's sake, you're only nineteen. You got a long way to go before you hit "too late." Now go on, get going. You'll catch your death of pneumonia out here. Hey, that'd be a plot twist.

And as for you, Mamie Mullins, it's time to give Uncle Willie the skids, and take a trip to China. There's a fella over there you will get along with just famously.

 

[Fading Fast]

...and notes that Coughlin has called in print for the formation of "platoons" to carry out his program "in the Franco way." ...

Showing again how the movies reflected the culture (yes, it can flow both ways), in 1936's "The Petrified Forest", a group of men in quasi-military uniforms - who have formed some sort of club or "unit -" puff themselves up with big talk about defending the country while strutting around in their outfits, but have no connection to the gov't. See them held captive by gangsters below:

...Mayor LaGuardia stepped into the ongoing coal drivers' strike today, calling on both sides to meet with him tomorrow morning at City Hall to get negotiations moving again. "The city cannot shiver while you quibble," the Mayor declared.

..

Commerce, especially for basic needs like heat, is like water, no matter how "they" try to stop it, it usually finds a way to flow. That's also pretty much been the raison d’etre for every blackmarket ever.

...whom Mayor LaGuardia once denounced as a "tinhorn punk" and ordered to leave town,...

Does a mayor really have any authority to order someone "to leave town?" Sound more Hollywood Western cliche' than real-life thing.

...A 37-year-old St. Marks Place man smashed sixty windows in an East 17th Street apartment house after he was fired from his job assisting the building superintendant. James Woods told the magistrate in Brookyln-Queens night court that he was just trying to get his job back. Woods will be held on $100 bail on a disorderly conduct charge....

Combining this with the present day actor of the same name, perhaps the lesson here is to not name your child James Woods.

...Ernest Kehler, small-time boxer accused in the beating death of German consular secretary Dr. Walter Engelberg, could escape the electric chair if convicted. Court documents in the case suggest evidence is lacking that the murder was premeditated....

I was wondering what was going on with this story.

..."Does America need compulsory health insurance?" will be question debated in tonight's "America's Town Meeting Of The Air," 10 pm over WJZ....

Very little is new.

... Hahahahahahahahahahahahaha! And just as neat as you please, Jo slips him the shank. And doesn't she look pleased with herself about it....

I'm staying with the call that if he moves on Peggy again, Jo's going to kill him. (I know that can't happen in comics, but IRL, she just might.)

... Demonstrating mattresses in the front window at Gimbel's? Oh, Leona, you can do better than that....

I didn't think they could advertise for her line of work in the paper.

... Seriously, Dan? A black powder bomb with a fuse on it? Like in a two reel comedy? Cordite's all the rage now, Dan. Don't you read the papers?

"And in the dead of night -- up the deserted street, a car moves slowly towards Irwin's store." Very Dashiell Hammett.

... View attachment 206782
"It's the milkman, I'm paying the bill."....

Oh my God is that the money line.

... View attachment 206785
Won't Andy and Min feel foolish when it turns out Baby is the secret mastermind of a car-stripping ring....

⇧ Nice cross-comic connect. Wait till Dick Tracy catches Leona in her new profession (I'd say Dan Dunn, but Leona would have retired from old age by the time Dunn would put all the pieces together).

... "Hold off the climax," huh, Pat? Interesting choice of words.....

You went there.

... *Sigh.* All right, Miss Lillian Lovewell, you probably don't want to hear this, but you're gonna hear it, and you better listen close. You and I both know there's only two reasons why you're in this situation. Your mother, bless her soul, set up this whole thing with Cigarface McBlowhard there to keep you from running off again with that rattle-brained hepcat boyfriend of yours, and you went along with it because you thought flouncing around town with a man old enough to be your father was a good way to put said boyfriend in his place after he botched up the whole elopement thing last year. And now here you are, all nice and stuck. Well, kid, you've been play-acting at being a grownup ever since you got out of that hokey junior college you were at, but now it's time to actually *be* a grownup. Go tell Truck the whole thing's off, and then go tell that mother of yours to butt her fat face out of your personal life. You're not ready to get married, that's for certain, and neither is that pop-eyed butcher boy of yours -- I mean, seriously, you really think he "forgot" to get that marriage license? No, you're both just a couple of confused kids and you need to figure out who you are before you'll be ready for any kind of real relationship. For gawd's sake, you're only nineteen. You got a long way to go before you hit "too late." Now go on, get going. You'll catch your death of pneumonia out here. Hey, that'd be a plot twist.....

Based on the speed of comics' storytelling, you just gave him a couple of months of material for free.

 

[vitanola]

Is our darling little Leona among to play the Crawford rôle from “Dance, Fools, Dance!”?

 

[Fading Fast]

Is our darling little Leona among to play the Crawford rôle from “Dance, Fools, Dance!”?

I still think this is Leona's next career move:

And she wasn't there "waiting for him," oh no.

 

[LizzieMaine]

Well, after that business with the artichokes back in '35, I think the Mayor can just about do anything he sets his mind to. Frank Hague over there in Jersey City wishes he had as much power.

Jo will slit Oakdale's throat with a razor-like rejoinder one of these days, and then she will stand there smirking and watch him bleed. She's had seventeen years now to get her tongue nice and sharp.

"It's the Milkman, I'm Paying The Bill" sounds like the B-side of a Charlie Barnet record. A real hot one that the jitterbugs love.

Tracy wouldn't bother with Leona, he'd go right after Madam Mary herself. While off to the side Pat Patton and Bill Biff argued about the fine points of comedy relief.

As we can see, melodramatic teenage angst was very much a thing long before "Riverdale." (And incidentally, if "Archie" looks a lot like "Harold Teen," it's pretty much because it's a complete knockoff. All the Riverdale crowd added was a blonde.)

 

[vitanola]

Then there’s that silly Joe Saunders song from a 1929 Maytag Frolic broadcast which plays in heavy rotation on Radio Dismuke:

 

[LizzieMaine]

And there's a fun little Warner Bros. B picture from 1934, with dancer Hal LeRoy perfectly cast as Harold...

Interestingly, a key plot point in this picture has Lillums involved with a skeevy man old enough to be her father. Hmmmm.

 

[Fading Fast]

And there's a fun little Warner Bros. B picture from 1934, with dancer Hal LeRoy perfectly cast as Harold...

Interestingly, a key plot point in this picture has Lillums involved with a skeevy man old enough to be her father. Hmmmm.

Darn good casting all around.

 

[LizzieMaine]

The US Justice Department will soon open a formal investigation into ties between Father Charles E. Coughlin and the Christian Front, with the probe to be headed by US Attorney Harold M. Kennedy of New York. The investigation follows a request by 16 New York clergymen and educators to FBI Chief J. Edgar Hoover and Attorney General Robert H. Jackson for such a probe in the wake of the discovery in Brooklyn of a seditious and anti-Semitic plot by 17 alleged Christian Front members.

Meanwhile, a leading figure in the plot has now changed his story. William Bishop, one of the 17 men arrested this week, has now told the FBI that his real name is Hrneck, that he was born in Vienna, Austria, and that he had fought for Franco during the Spanish Civil War with the Spanish Foreign Legion before deserting -- despite having spoken before audiences of his experiences as "Franco's heroic Number 1 Soldier. Bishop admitted entering the United States illegally in 1926 as a stowaway aboard a Red Star liner.

As investigations continue in an attempt to document the origin of the armaments and ammunition seized in the plot, the FBI will neither confirm nor deny reports that the Christian Front arrests in Brooklyn grew out of a Bureau probe in Boston tracing sources of supply for the outlawed Irish Republican Army.

Senator William E. Borah is sinking rapidly today and is said to have only hours remaining before the end. Senate Democratic Leader Alben Barkley this afternoon visited Borah's bedside and found the Senator unconscious. "He may last thru the day and into the night," reported Senator Barkley, "but it can't be for long."

Representatives of striking coal truck drivers and officials of coal companies that have locked out their own drivers resumed negotiations today at City Hall, and Mayor LaGuardia was reported confident that coal deliveries will resume soon. Union members insist that they are striking only the Central Coal Company, and they are entirely willing to return to work for the other companies -- but report that as of this afternoon the "sympathy lockout" ordered by the other firms has not yet been lifted.

Despite ambitious programs that have led to a 200 percent increase in park and playground facilities in Brookyn since 1933, Parks Commissioner Robert Moses says the borough is still far behind the rest of the city in offering recreational facilities to its residents. In a report presented today to Mayor LaGuardia, Commissioner Moses called for the construction of new parks and playgrounds in seven additional districts around Brooklyn, along with the necessary budgetary increases to finance the construction of such projects.

Ten raids at private homes and offices in Brooklyn and Manhattan by the Amen Office seized stacks of files and documents seen as vital to the ongoing investigation of official corruption in the borough, but Assistant Attorney General John H. Amen says that key documents are missing from these files, and that he will continue efforts to track down these papers. The materials seized in the raids relate to various cases of bribery of public officals by business firms and individuals connected with these firms for the securing of public contracts. As his men inventoried the seized files, Mr, Amen stated that the documents are "full of dynamite."

With the prosecution in the passport fraud trial of Communist Party secretary Earl Browder moving rapidly to a conclusion, witnesses testified today in Manhattan Federal Court that Browder was seen in the Soviet Union in 1921 and 1933, during which times he did not posses a valid passport under his own name.

Big-time bookmaker Frank A. Erickson, sentenced to thirty days in the Riker's Island Workhouse for lying about his occupation on a pistol permit, has been released on a certificate of reasonable doubt, with bail set at $2500 and immediately met by the National Surety Company. Erickson will remain free pending consideration of his appeal of the perjury conviction.

A chambermaid at the fashionable Plaza Hotel in Manhattan is charged with looting guest rooms to the tune of $100,000. Margaret Long, who for the past four years has earned $11.40 a week cleaning rooms at the Plaza, was spotted by detectives in a department store, where she spent "well in excess" of the contents of her pay envelope. Charged along with Miss Long was her sweetheart, 48-year-old Ralph Palmer, waiter at a bar and grill in Jackson Heights. Police recovered a large quantity of stolen jewelry and other expensive goods from the couple's one-room Manhattan apartment.

Reports out of Finland claim that Finnish troops have captured Russian positions on the Eastern frontier near Lake Lagoda. The reports state that the Finns captured four machine guns and destroyed four Russian tanks in repulsing Russian patrols.

A head-on collision on Coney Island Avenue between a car and a trolley claimed the life of a 34-year-old 64th Street man last night. Leo F. Frawley was killed shortly before last night's heavy snowstorm led to a number of traffic accidents around the borough. In one of these, 39-year-old Howard Reilly of 55 2nd Street was killed when his car crashed head-on into another vehicle at the intersection of 45th Street and 2nd Avenue, injuring four other people.

A Brooklyn man convicted of the 1938 murder of a Brownsville poultry dealer went to the electric chair today at Sing Sing Prison. Twenty-one-year-old Sidney Markmab was put to death for the murder of Isidore Frank, shot to death in front of his home while resisting an attempted robbery. The youthful slayer met his end without a single word, after boasting in the death house that he could "take it."

"Mrs. Solitary" writes to Helen Worth to declare that she lives alone -- and likes it! She says the liberty of the single life is its greatest benefit, the ability to do what you want, how you want to do it, on your own terms.

Flatbush Republicans To Dance Tonight! (And in Bensonhurst, Sally declares to Joe, "Gee, I bet that'll be something to see." And Joe replies, "Nah, I hate them kind of acts. Let's go see Durante instead.")

Il Schnozzola is in fine form, in fact, at the Flatbush Theatre this week -- doing his famous piano-smashing "Wood! Wood!" routine along with a barrage of gags and songs that keeps the show moving at a fast pace. You either like this type of show or you don't, says reviewer Robert Francis, who emphatically does. The other acts on the bill are good, but nothing tops Durante. Meanwhile, the Flatbush has a new policy for the screen portion of its shows -- instead of a feature picture, you'll see a package of half a dozen short subjects in a diversified program sure to offer something for everyone.

The Eagle editorialist weights in on the question of Ann Sothern's appendectomy scar, and is grateful that her request for a fancy design was not granted -- else the public would be confronted by a whole fad for glamorous scarring that could have led to a whole new movement in American social life.

Ha!

Free agent Benny McCoy, the one bona-fide big leaguer freed from the Detroit Tigers by the recent edict of Commissioner Landis, could be coming to Brooklyn if Larry MacPhail has anything to say about it. The Red-Headed One confirmed today that he has contacted McCoy via intermediaries in Detroit, and has expressed interest in the player. McCoy cannot sign with a new club until January 28th, and it is believed that any bonus offer for his services below $25,000 won't even be considered. McCoy is a resident of a community near Laughing Larry's home town of Grand Rapids, and the Dodger president is said to have enlisted the aid of "mutual neighbors" to influence McCoy's consideration of Brooklyn as his next baseball home. McCoy was impressive for the Tigers last year as a fill-in at second base for the injured Charley Gehringer, but MacPhail sees the fleet-footed, hard-hitting left-hander as a possible solution to the perennial Brooklyn outfield dilemma.

"Really, Mr. Oakdale? I didn't realize that cake-eating counted as military experience."

"Ten cents a dance -- that's what they pay me...."

Yes, Irwin, it's a very nice bomb, very pretty. NOW PUT IT DOWN.

 

[LizzieMaine]

And in the Daily News...

(This fellow Given isn't just "financially interested in the Heinz pickle firm," he is the grandson of pickle king H. J. Heinz himself. And he is also, believe it or not, a distant cousin of Mister Rogers. "What do you do with the mad that you feel?")

Bandleader Ben Bernie underwent an emergency appendectomy in Hollywood last night. No word on the shape of his scar.

The News: Offending Everybody Since 1919.

And Annie, shadowy chessmaster who orchestrated the whole thing, looks on with a blank, inscrutable smile. Fear this child. Fear her with every fiber of your being.

"It's the milkman. I'm paying the bill."

"Sea cow?" You're standing on pretty thin ground there, goose face.

"I'mmmm play-ing with fire....I'mmmmm gon-na get burned...."

It's a tossup as to who cartoonists hate more -- wives or insurance salesmen.

When everybody is trying to tell you something, maybe you should listen.

 

[Fading Fast]

...As investigations continue in an attempt to document the origin of the armaments and ammunition seized in the plot, the FBI will neither confirm nor deny reports that the Christian Front arrests in Brooklyn grew out of a Bureau probe in Boston tracing sources of supply for the outlawed Irish Republican Army."....

The tentacles are all over the place on this one.

...Ten raids at private homes and offices in Brooklyn and Manhattan by the Amen Office seized stacks of files and documents seen as vital to the ongoing investigation of official corruption in the borough, but Assistant Attorney General John H. Amen says that key documents are missing from these files, and that he will continue efforts to track down these papers. The materials seized in the raids relate to various cases of bribery of public officals by business firms and individuals connected with these firms for the securing of public contracts. As his men inventoried the seized files, Mr, Amen stated that the documents are "full of dynamite."....

This story is far from over. Good thing Amen just got his financing re-upped.

...A chambermaid at the fashionable Plaza Hotel in Manhattan is charged with looting guest rooms to the tune of $100,000. Margaret Long, who for the past four years has earned $11.40 a week cleaning rooms at the Plaza, was spotted by detectives in a department store, where she spent "well in excess" of the contents of her pay envelope. Charged along with Miss Long was her sweetheart, 48-year-old Ralph Palmer, waiter at a bar and grill in Jackson Heights. Police recovered a large quantity of stolen jewelry and other expensive goods from the couple's one-room Manhattan apartment.....

$100,000 in 1940 = ~$1,825,000 in 2020. That's not a small crime.

...Reports out of Finland claim that Finnish troops have captured Russian positions on the Eastern frontier near Lake Lagoda. The reports state that the Finns captured four machine guns and destroyed four Russian tanks in repulsing Russian patrols.....

We all know the ending, but man, for a small country versus a huge one, the Finns are giving the Soviets all they have.

...A Brooklyn man convicted of the 1938 murder of a Brownsville poultry dealer went to the electric chair today at Sing Sing Prison. Twenty-one-year-old Sidney Markmab was put to death for the murder of Isidore Frank, shot to death in front of his home while resisting an attempted robbery. The youthful slayer met his end without a single word, after boasting in the death house that he could "take it."....

Oh, great, now when I hear "Sing Sing Prison," I'm thinking about "Terry and the Pirates."

...Flatbush Republicans To Dance Tonight! (And in Bensonhurst, Sally declares to Joe, "Gee, I bet that'll be something to see." And Joe replies, "Nah, I hate them kind of acts. Let's go see Durante instead.")....

...The Eagle editorialist weights in on the question of Ann Sothern's appendectomy scar, and is grateful that her request for a fancy design was not granted -- else the public would be confronted by a whole fad for glamorous scarring that could have led to a whole new movement in American social life.....

If still around today, methinks the Eagle editorialists would have something to say about the current popularity to tattoos.

... "Really, Mr. Oakdale? I didn't realize that cake-eating counted as military experience."....

And again, what is the point of a uniform if not to announce for whom you are fighting? Sure, sometimes spies wear fake uniforms, but that does not seem to be what is going on here. He's prancing around in an unidentified uniform claiming to be on some big secret mission - uh-huh.

... "Ten cents a dance -- that's what they pay me...."....

To be fair to Leona, she's not wallowing in her misfortune the way I thought she'd be. And again, IRL - if she can't pull a once-discarded society-boy husband out of a hat - she'll be "dancing" for the money alright.

... Yes, Irwin, it's a very nice bomb, very pretty. NOW PUT IT DOWN.

Who pays for the window?

And in the Daily News......
(This fellow Given isn't just "financially interested in the Heinz pickle firm," he is the grandson of pickle king H. J. Heinz himself. And he is also, believe it or not, a distant cousin of Mister Rogers. "What do you do with the mad that you feel?")...

So, was the woman in the mink coat a fifth person back at the apartment (Patricia, Given, Pricilla, Depew plus the mink-coat woman)?

It's hard to say from the article, but while Given is clearly a first-class *ss, I think Patricia might have been looking for the class-warfare fight she found.

440 Park Avenue

...
The News: Offending Everybody Since 1919.....

Physical social media.

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"It's the milkman. I'm paying the bill."....

Back to headquarters to listen on one of these:

... View attachment 207022
"I'mmmm play-ing with fire....I'mmmmm gon-na get burned...."....

But if it works, Pat will have made one of the best two-birds-with-one-stone shots ever.

 

[LizzieMaine]

One of the more uncomfortable facts of this particular period is that Northeastern Irish-Catholics often allowed their anti-British sentiments to lead them into becoming rather ardently pro-Nazi. You could see swastikas openly displayed in many Irish neighborhoods in New York and Boston, and there were quite a few instances of packs of Irish thugs going into Jewish neighborhoods to harass or attack Jewish -- or "Jewish-looking" people. A common tactic for vendors of the Coughlinite "Social Justice" paper was to offer it to passers-by who were "Jewish looking" and to jump them when declined. If arrested, they'd usually claim "self defense."

These tensions are only going to get worse over the course of 1940.

Mystery woman in a mink coat. Mary puts down the paper and frowns. "Bill!" she shouts into the next room. "Do you know where Leona was last night?"

Whatever the deal with Hartford's uniform is, it doesn't look like anything any Allied nation was using in 1940. That high-collar, breeches, Sam Browne belt look has a distinctly German flavor to me. Or maybe Finnish. Hey, Hartford, do you ski?

At this point, Pat seems like the guy who flips a cigarette butt into a powder-house and runs away laughing. I am intrigued as to what part April is supposed to play in this extravaganza.

 

[Fading Fast]

One of the more uncomfortable facts of this particular period is that Northeastern Irish-Catholics often allowed their anti-British sentiments to lead them into becoming rather ardently pro-Nazi. You could see swastikas openly displayed in many Irish neighborhoods in New York and Boston, and there were quite a few instances of packs of Irish thugs going into Jewish neighborhoods to harass or attack Jewish -- or "Jewish-looking" people. A common tactic for vendors of the Coughlinite "Social Justice" paper was to offer it to passers-by who were "Jewish looking" and to jump them when declined. If arrested, they'd usually claim "self defense."

These tensions are only going to get worse over the course of 1940.

Mystery woman in a mink coat. Mary puts down the paper and frowns. "Bill!" she shouts into the next room. "Do you know where Leona was last night?"

Whatever the deal with Hartford's uniform is, it doesn't look like anything any Allied nation was using in 1940. That high-collar, breeches, Sam Browne belt look has a distinctly German flavor to me. Or maybe Finnish. Hey, Hartford, do you ski?

At this point, Pat seems like the guy who flips a cigarette butt into a powder-house and runs away laughing. I am intrigued as to what part April is supposed to play in this extravaganza.

So was it four or five people back at 440 Park?

 

[David Conwill]

I am intrigued as to what part April is supposed to play in this extravaganza.

She speaks good English and she's single. I'm thinking he's trying to marry her off to Singh-Singh!

 

[LizzieMaine]

If I had to guess, I'd say that this "Priscilla" *is* the mystery woman in the mink coat. Possibly she was named in full in the original draft of this story and the editor red-penciled her name out of fear of being sued or maybe roughed up by hoods in an alley, but he missed that "Priscilla's boy friend" line and it went thru anyway. That's the only way the story makes sense to me.

Wish I had a copy of the Manhattan Social Register for 1939-40. "Priscilla" is much more a blue-blood name than a hot-blood name, and I imagine with a little research one might be able to narrow down the list of Priscillas of the right age to be this particular one. A bit of research on Mr. John D. Depew offers some additional speculation -- apparently he's been in the insurance business since 1922, with the address given in the story being his office and not his home. The only John Depew in New York the 1940 census who's the right age to have been in business that long, yet young enough to be cutting up funny in nightclubs is a 40 year old gent who lives in Rye with his wife and two children -- and said wife is decidedly not named "Priscilla." That being so, I think the math here fairly does itself...

 

[Fading Fast]

If I had to guess, I'd say that this "Priscilla" *is* the mystery woman in the mink coat. Possibly she was named in full in the original draft of this story and the editor red-penciled her name out of fear of being sued or maybe roughed up by hoods in an alley, but he missed that "Priscilla's boy friend" line and it went thru anyway. That's the only way the story makes sense to me.

Wish I had a copy of the Manhattan Social Register for 1939-40. "Priscilla" is much more a blue-blood name than a hot-blood name, and I imagine with a little research one might be able to narrow down the list of Priscillas of the right age to be this particular one. A bit of research on Mr. John D. Depew offers some additional speculation -- apparently he's been in the insurance business since 1922, with the address given in the story being his office and not his home. The only John Depew in New York the 1940 census who's the right age to have been in business that long, yet young enough to be cutting up funny in nightclubs is a 40 year old gent who lives in Rye with his wife and two children -- and said wife is decidedly not named "Priscilla." That being so, I think the math here fairly does itself...

That's some old-time quality reporter-style thinking and digging.

If only it turned out to be actress Priscilla Lane, but even real life isn't that much fun.