People, Apr. 26, 1937

“Names make news.” Last week these names made this news:

Driving in Dublin, Irish Free State President Eamon de Valera and his daughter Maureen collided with a butcher’s truck.

Friends gave Illinois’ Governor Henry Hornet a cigar store Indian. He had always wanted one.

Under house arrest at his estate in Snagov, Prince Nicholas of Rumania, stripped by his brother King Carol of all royal and military rights (TIME, April 19), assumed the name of Mr. Bran (from one of his mother’s castles in Transylvania), wrote a letter shushing the Iron Guard’s Nicholas-for-King agitation which had alarmed Carol.

Manhattan Lawyer Alfred Emanuel Smith Jr. was summoned to court in Syracuse, N. Y. for failure to pay his wife $150-a-month alimony pending trial of her separation suit.

In Manhattan arrived Giulio Marconi, 26, only son of Guglielmo Marconi, inventor of wireless telegraphy, to spend two years studying with Radio Corporation of America.

At Brown University Charles Evans Hughes III won the $150 Gaston Prize in oratory with a speech on The United States and the Next War, was thereby entitled to deliver one of the student addresses at Commencement this June, as were his father and grandfather, the Chief Justice, at their Brown Commencements.

Off Cinemactor Lee Tracy’s yacht Adore fell his 72-year-old mother into Santa Monica harbor, whence she was rescued by her son who dived in fully clothed. Treated for shock and exposure, Mrs. Tracy was removed to her Beverly Hills apartment, where three days later the gas heater caught fire, burned up $250 worth of her clothing.

Felix, Count von Luckner, famed Wartime sea raider, sailed from Stettin, Germany in the schooner Seeteufel (“Sea Devil”) on a two-year, 16,000-mi. world cruise “not after ships, but out to capture hearts for Germany.”

A Croydon, England police court imposed in absentia a $5 fine for speeding upon Aviatrix Amy Johnson Mollison, who cabled from the U. S. expressing “extreme regret at the unintentional offense.”

Eccentric Harry Kendall Thaw, 67, who killed Stanford White for seducing his wife, turned up in Berlin after eye treatments in Paris, regretted that he could not enjoy “the best blondes and beer in the world.” Said he: “I wish I could see them better. The blondes, I mean. Going to a nightclub when you can’t see is like going for a ride on a scenic railway during an eclipse.”

At Yokohama, famed blind & deaf Helen Adams Keller debarked with her secretary Peggy Thompson amid thunderous cheers to begin a Japanese lecture tour during which she was to be received by Emperor Hirohito. Newspapers greeted her as “the American miracle woman,” and she cried to the welcoming crowd in Japanese: “Hail, beautiful Japan! I have received a most wonderful greeting which has strengthened me. I shall bear myself with strength forever.” Few minutes later a pickpocket stole her purse containing $60. Next day an anonymous Japanese vindicated his country’s honor by leaving $60 at Miss Keller’s hotel. Miss Keller donated the $60 to Japan’s blind relief fund.

Into B-Bar-H dude ranch north of Palm Springs, Calif, rolled the armed motorcade of Broker Franklyn Laws Hutton, father of Countess Barbara Hutton Mdivani Haugwitz-Reventlow. Mr. Hutton promptly set his force of guards around his encampment to keep out intruders. One morning, a week later, he awoke to find he was missing two pearl cuff links, two black pearl studs and a scarf pin, worth $25,000.

New York’s Representative Theodore A. Peyser introduced a bill in the House to provide a $5,000 pension for Mrs. Mary Lord Harrison, relict of the 23rd President.

To legislators who censured his frank murals of Missouri life in the State Capitol in Jefferson City, Painter Thomas Hart Benton replied: “I really made one mistake—I didn’t paint some of those jackasses with their mouths open. . . . The Representatives seem to think the pictures should be more delicate. This is strange, because the Representatives are themselves the saltiest kind of fellows.” Asked why he had omitted Missourian John Joseph Pershing from the murals, Benton cracked: “Pershing is of less importance in the social history of the State than a bucksaw. I intended to put the bucksaw in, but, strangely enough, I left it out.”

Ousted in 1925 from his municipal clerkship and reinstated by court order in 1933, the Secretary of the Interior’s brother John Ickes sued the City of Chicago for $51,462 back salary, had his case declared mistrial when the judge received an anonymous letter charging that he would profit by ruling for Ickes.

Touring Tucuman Province where malaria epidemics have ravaged the populace, Argentine President Agustín P. Justo was pleased to observe the rosy faces of a group of school girls, complimented the Provincial Governor on their healthy appearance. “Your Excellency will have noticed,” discreetly observed the Governor, “that while nature has been kind to the little girls, it has neglected the little boys.” Upon closer inspection President Justo discovered that the little girls’ cheeks had been rouged by their teacher.

In Copenhagen, ex-U. S. Minister to Denmark Mrs. Ruth Bryan Owen Rohde announced that her husband, Guardsman Boerge Rohde, would sail with her to the U. S. next month to accept a position with a film company.

While crowds cheered and cameras clicked, quadruplets Frances, Frank, Felix & Ferdinand Kasper were christened in a Passaic, N. J. church, were eulogized by their business manager, the mayor, and their godfather, Governor Harold Giles Hoffman. Protested Father Emil Kasper: “I didn’t want all this business.”

Italian Automobile Racer Tazio Nuvolari smashed into a tree on a practice run in Turin, suffered abrasions about the head and a few cracked ribs, said that would not prevent him from defending his Vanderbilt Cup on Long Island July 5.

Absent from the New York Yankees’ bench as the season opened was crack Outfielder Joe Di Maggio, who had just had his tonsils & adenoids removed, was scheduled to have an infected tooth extracted, all of which his doctor hoped would eventually cure his lame arm.

After two years’ retirement from the films, Leroy Winebrenner (Baby Leroy), 5, announced he would attempt a Hollywood comeback.

From the Washington apartment of Julia Dent Grant Cantacuzene a thief stole the miniature portrait of General Ulysses Simpson Grant which he, her grandfather, gave her grandmother on their wedding day.

Cinemactress Rosalind Russell was fined $50 for driving 50 m. p. h., ordered to attend traffic school in Hollywood for two months.