People, Oct. 1, 1934

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

Onto the stage of a Manhattan theatre walked gruff, chubby George White Rogers, chief radio operator of the T. E. L. Morro Castle, to greet an apathetic audience with: “You people have made a hero out of me. . . .” For his appearances “Sparks” Rogers expected to receive $1,000 a week.

To beg the autograph of Negro Bandmaster Cab Galloway (“ho-de-ho”‘), 100 white girls and their tipsy escorts crowded about the platform of Memphis’ Casino Ballroom. While they pawed his trousers, grabbed at his coat, Galloway, whose skin is much lighter than his players’, referred to his “boys” as “Mr. Payne. Mr. Maxey. . . .” At the first “Mister” the crowd grumbled. At the second chairs began to fly. Off the stage scuttled resplendent Bandmaster Galloway and his frightened blacks. Up over the platform swarmed resentful whites, brawling, falling over each other until police cleared the Casino.

Sailing to attend the Paris Automobile Show, Signius Wilhelm Poul (William) Knudsen, executive vice president of General Motors Corp., who wonders why grass is green, predicted: “This country will never submit to regimentation and it will emerge from the Depression because it has too many Charles M. Schwabs.”

Back from Europe and ready to leave for Hyde Park, Bernard Mannes Baruch gazed out upon Manhattan, philosophized darkly: “They were all crazy and I think a lot of them still are. They have the same delusions they had in 1927 to 1929. They are striving to restore the same values that were in existence during those years, not realizing that such a thing is impossible. Do you see those buildings over there? They are the pyramids of today. Nobody knows exactly why the pyramids were built but they were used as tombs for ancient kings. Those pyramids of today are also tombs, only they are the tombs of the public.”

On the allowance given her by her father, President Thomas Sovereign Gates of the University of Pennsylvania, Mrs. Virginia Gates McCafferty took her new hitchhiking husband Dan on a motor honeymoon to California. Near Dixon they crashed head-on into another car, fatally injuring a young girl, suffering head injuries themselves.

In the early-morning darkness on a lonely New Jersey road President George D. Strohmeyer of Child’s Restaurants (“The Nation’s Host”) focused his eyes on a roadside sign: Maridell Inn. Restaurateur Strohmeyer and two companions made their way to the sign, yanked it down, drove on in high spirits. On a street corner in Spring Lake a patrolman found them few minutes later gazing happily at a bonfire blazing from the splinters of the sign. For their prank Funster Strohmeyer & friends divided a fine of $75 and $19.50 costs.

Dr. Georges Valot, secretary of France’s Bureau for the Study of the Liquor Problem, completed a nine-month survey of the influence of liquor in the U. S. His findings: “Localities which are regarded as dry are invariably wet. Take, for instance, Charlotte, N. C. . . . open saloons and the most awful whiskey I have ever tasted. They make it out of corn. Three drinks of it will make a man climb trees. And Kansas City? Ah, Kansas City! I have seen the streets of Paris at their best or worst, but they are nothing like the streets of Kansas City. If you want to have a good time, go to Kansas City!”