Monday, Sep. 09, 1929

"Names make news." Last week the following names made the following news:

Colonel Edward Rowland Robinson Green, famed invalid son of the late multimillionairess Hetty Green, received a new automobile to add to his fleet of 25. Built by General Electric Co. and Rauch & Lang Corp., it has a gasoline engine which drives a dynamo and, from the electric current so created, a motor which is connected by a shaft with the rear axle.* Of all Colonel Green's cars only one does he drive, a small electric storage battery car which he uses to go sight-seeing on his estate. Last week, however, he took the wheel of the new car which has no clutch, no gear shift, merely a brake and accelerator. So pleased was he that he ordered a similar model limousine and was reported planning to buy a touring car with a raised driver's seat in the rear.

Ingenious Colonel Green has many mechanical interests. He has a radio station at his estate in South Dartmouth, Mass. He cooperates with Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Goodyear Rubber Co. in aircraft and is considering building a 1,000 foot beacon for airship guidance (a taller structure than any in the world). He is said to use an adding machine to compute mah jong scores. He spends his winters in Texas, his summers in Massachusetts, has five girls as wards whom he educates. He disapproves of charity and charge accounts.

To George V, at Sandringham, was delivered an all-British, six-wheeled motor car, built for maximum speed of 60 m. p. h. Col. Francesco de Pinedo, round-the-world Italian flyer in the ill-fated seaplanes Santa Maria and Santa Maria II (TIME, April 18, 1927), resigned as Chief of Italy's General Staff for Aviation. Successor: General Valle.

Mrs. Dwight Filley Davis, wife of the Governor-General of the Philippines, denied a rumor that her daughter Alice was engaged to marry Allan Hoover, the President's son. The two are "barely acquainted," said Mrs. Davis. She explained: one day on the Army's proving ground at Aberdeen, Md, (while Mr. Davis was Secretary of War), Allan Hoover and Alice Davis happened to stand near each other when a camera clicked.

John Coolidge, railroad clerk who this summer started work for the New York, New Haven & Hartford R. R. at $30.16 per week, signed a lease on a $78 apartment (4 rooms) in New Haven, Conn., for himself and wife-to-be, Miss Florence Trumbull. Miss Trumbull approved modern conveniences already installed, ordered washtubs. Wrote Citizen Calvin Coolidge last month: No newly married couple should pay more rent per month than the husband earns per week.

Joseph O. ("Iron Man") McGinnity,

57. famed oldtime National League baseball pitcher (Brooklyn, New York) was successfully operated on in a Brooklyn hospital, for an intestinal disorder. He got his nickname in 1904, when he helped the New York "Giants" win a pennant by pitching and winning three "doubleheaders" (two-games-in-one-day) in close succession.

Helen Bonfils, daughter of Publisher Frederick G. Bonfils of the Denver Post, was pictured and described in her father's newspaper. The description:

Vivacious, sagacious,

Describe a publisher's daughter, True-blue and gracious-

Oh, bless the gods who wrought her.' Last March John Macrae, president of E. P. Dutton & Co. (books), called the Book-of-the-Month Club "an octopus that sucks away the life blood of the book business." His specific charges: i) Club judges were influenced in book selections by the Club management; 2) discount rate of book purchasing by the Club sometimes exceeded its announced rate; 3) the Club's purpose was misleading. Piqued, the Club sued President Macrae for libel, asked $200,000 damages. Admitting he was "wrong," President Macrae last week retracted his charges. The Club dropped its suit. President Macrae, however, reiterated his disapproval of such clubs, said his company would continue to submit no books to them.

Margaret Sanger, American Birth Control League President, returning from Europe, prophesied Roman Catholic opposition to birth control would soon end. Said she: "A pronouncement from the Vatican denying that the Church is opposed to the practice of the dissemination of necessary information is certain to come." Her alleged discoveries abroad: In France, State opposition is greater than Church opposition; in Germany, Roman Catholics practice birth control without the clergy's criticism.

Georges Carpentier, French onetime fisticuffer, lately cinemactor, traded a portion of ear for a "new" nose. He explained: "When some 200 prize-ring opponents work on your beak, why the old beezer is bound to deteriorate to a point of disadvantage in the pictures."

Maurice Chevalier, cinemactor (Innocents of Paris), adored playboy of Paris music halls, returned home from the U. S. Cried he to a surging crowd of welcomers at the Gare St. Lazare: "L'Amerique, c'est swell! Nouveau York, c'est swell! L'Hollywood, c'est la plus swell!"

Capt. Harold A. Cunningham navigated the S. S. Leviathan westward from Cherbourg with a record-breaking number of passengers aboard (2,730). With millionaires bunking with the crew, dowagers traveling third class, Captain Cunningham wired a berth-seeking friend: "Would put you up in my own cabin but every locker is full. Reserving bottom shelf for you next trip."

Alfred Emanuel Smith was thus publicized in a Japanese newspaper which reached the U. S. last week as a merchandise wrapper: "Mr. Alfred E. Smith, ex-candidate for the presidency of the Democratic Party, has secured one-fifth interest in the management of the Giant baseball team . . . and, according to unconfirmed reports, he will be chosen the chief player of that team."-- Senator William Edgar Borah of

Idaho, in the course of his Jewry v. Islam speech at Manhattan's Madison Square Garden (see p. 26), said: "Generally, when I do not reflect, I say what I think."

*Already Westinghouse Electric & Manufacturing Co. makes gas-electric buses (to save gear shifting in traffic) and oil-electric rail cars (which need neither third rail lines nor great power plants). Recently Canadian National Railways put into service a great oil-electric locomotive on its Toronto-Montreal route. *For a confirmed report of Mr. Smith's newest occupation, see p. 55.