Words & Music

President Juan Antonio Rios of Chile, dining with Harry S. Truman, told the President that he had already seen one of the "wonders of the U.S.--Henry Wallace with his hair combed."

Grade Fields, bouncy British music hall favorite, decided that she had done enough (or almost enough) cartwheels to last a lifetime. "At 47, I am too old to swing my legs around," she announced to Bombay newspaper reporters. Next stop: Rangoon.

Serge Koussevitzky, prestigious conductor of the Boston Symphony, had a heady idea: just 50-c- a year from each of New England's 30 million would provide the region with three major symphonies instead of one, every city with an opera-sized concert hall, every town with a chamber-music-sized hall.

Grace Moore, clowning her way through her annual song recital at Chicago's Orchestra Hall, giggled and gagged, told the audience her accompanist was "scared to death," got him so muddled that Tribune Critic Claudia Cassidy walked out. "I left in sheer commiseration," she wrote. "I don't know what his nerves can stand, but I know my own limitations."

Adolf Hitler, onetime world's foremost book-banner, became a banned author in Germany. A German "sifting committee" blacklisted Mem Kampf, also hung verboten signs on the works of Historian Oswald Spengler, Novelist Knut Hamsun, Explorer Sven Hedin, some 2,000 other writers.

Ida Cantor, wife of pop-eyed Eddie, was scared pop-eyed but only "slightly injured" in a three-part auto accident: the Cantor car was first struck by a furniture van, then kettle-drummed by 40 bales of hay toppling from a truck.

Brass & Bounce

Generals George Marshall and Henry ("Hap") Arnold went on an armed mission into the wilds of North Dakota. Reports came back that both generals bagged their limit of pheasants the first day.

General Dwight D. Eisenhower celebrated his 55th birthday in fine style. He went to a Frankfurt am Main football game, raced his friend General Georgie Patton across the field. Into his box popped an impulsive WAC private, who bussed him soundly. Some 20,000 G.I.s rose and sang, "Happy Birthday, Dear General."

Lieut. General Robert L. Eichelberger, asked by Japanese reporters to summarize his military career, boiled it down to a nine-word order to an interpreter: "Tell them I fought from Buna to the Philippines."

Lieut. General Barney M. Giles, made commander of the U.S. Strategic Air Forces in the Pacific, stuck to his estimate of the proper amount of occupation for Japan. Said he: "I hope we will be in Japan for 100 years."

General George S. Patton Jr., embarking on his sea of paperwork as commander of the gill-sized Fifteenth Army (TIME, Oct. 15), announced that his most pressing need in the way of equipment was an eye dropper. He also announced, in response to a suggestion that he run for Congress, that he had never had anything to do with politics, "never even voted in my life." He further announced that another war was unavoidable: people who thought otherwise, said he, were wishful thinkers, or believed that wars were the result of logical events, whereas they were caused by madmen--"And who can tell if the next madman will be fully clothed, or in short pants, or diapers?"

General Joe Stilwell, who should know, volunteered a definition of a G.I.: "A special brand of American who inhabited North Africa, France, Italy, Germany, Guadalcanal, Saipan, Okinawa, Luzon, Burma, China, Iceland, India, Korea, Japan and other places, from 1941 to 1945 . . . swears in good style, likes pretty girls, milk, steak, beer, cheesecake and swing music, and is a sucker for a place called the U.S. . . . hates Japs, Germans, C rations and draft dodgers."

Tried & True

Benjamin Franklin would never have been admitted to Harvard, declared Harvard's President James Bryan Conant--at the same time conceding that failure to get in would doubtless have made "little or no difference" to him. Speaking at Chapel Hill (see EDUCATION), President Conant recalled that higher education in Poor Richard's time was largely a luxury of the wealthy, and busy-brained Ben lacked both "social and financial status."

Abraham Lincoln broke into print, on Page One of Cairo's Al Mokattam, where he was quoted in the Arab fight against Jewish colonization of Palestine. United Press translation: "A country belongs to those who live in it." The Lincoln line: "This country with its institutions belongs to the people who inhabit it."

Francis Scott Key's The Star-Spangled Banner, which officially became the national anthem only 14 years ago, was given a going-over by Cinema Burlyboy Charles Bickford, who wanted Congress to take it all back, substitute America the Beautiful. Wrote he to his Senator: the old anthem is "a great fight song,"' but inappropriately bloody now that "we're entering an era of peace."

Max Beerbohm, 73, famed British satirist, resuming BBC broadcasting after a three-year retirement, reminisced about the Victorian theater, which a great many people had frowned on. "The small son of that great actress, Mrs. Kendall," he recalled, "on his first day at . . . school . . . was asked by an elder boy, 'Your mother is an actress, isn't she?' He replied with spirit: 'If you say that again I will knock you down.' "

Tomorrow & Tomorrow

The Duke of Windsor's visit home ended, he flew back to Paris after telling reporters, "I shall certainly be coming back, and next time the Duchess will be coming with me." But he didn't say when.

George Bernard Shaw, 89, asked to verify a report that he had taken out a ten-year life-insurance annuity, replied simply, "Use your own judgment."

Major Alexander P. de Seversky, planemaker and longtime airpower enthusiast, foresaw the next war as a possible one-shot massive air attack. Given only ten years of free scientific research without any outside interference, he thought, airpower would make a fighting army and navy obsolete.

Winston Churchill II, grandson of Winston, plunged into the ordeal of his first day at school, emerged as chipper and natty-looking as a Churchill should.

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