Statecraft

The great outdoors' Bernarr Macfadden, 79, scaled his hat into the ring for Governor of Florida. He had no platform yet, said the everlasting strength-through-carrots-and-sex champion, but: "Naturally I will play up in a big way the health angle."

Memphis' boll-headed Boss Ed Crump told the press that he had got a note demanding $50,000 on pain of death. Crump paid, said he--one cent postage due on the letter. He took a brown grip to a designated spot and left it there for 40 minutes, but nobody came for it. So Crump cleared his throat and read to reporters the contents of the grip: "To the coward perpetrating this dastardly thing: anyone could take a white mouse with baby teeth and run you in the Mississippi River."

North Carolina's Governor Robert Gregg Cherry had automobile trouble. His stately, plump black Packard was one of the first cars to be examined under the state's new compulsory-inspection law. It flunked. Faulty lights.

Russia's Joseph Stalin had his usual amazing political luck: he ran for city deputy of 1) Tiflis, 2) Frunze, 3) Alma Ata, got every last vote cast.

The Restless Foot

Leopold, exiled King of the Belgians, prepared to sail from Lisbon for Cuba as the Belgian Parliament approached the task of deciding whether to take him back or not. He let it be known that he was just taking a little vacation. He might just possibly look in on the U.S.

The Duke & Duchess of Windsor, back in Florida to break the back of another winter, were pretty well set: the Duke applied for, and was awarded, his quail-shooting license.

Virginia-born Lady Astor, back in the U.S. for her third visit in two years, would winter in Arizona--and, of course, lecture a little. Her opening statement: "We've got to get Germany back on her feet. It's not only the decent thing to do, but it's a matter of self-preservation."

The Troubled Heart

Lana Turner, just back from a much-publicized vacation with Cafe Sportsman Bob Topping, was suspended by MGM. Her sin: she had refused to play Dumas' seductive villainess, Milady de Winter, in The Three Musketeers. Nevertheless, grumbled the studio, she had drawn a $25,000 advance on her salary for the vacation. Gossipist Louella Parsons predicted that husky-voiced Lana would be back in harness in 24 hours; but 72 hours later she was still on vacation.

Actress Annabella, wife of Tyrone Power (next-to-next-to-latest friend of Lana), got around to suing for divorce after almost nine years of marriage, 15 months of admitted separation. The day she filed suit, Husband Ty welcomed Actress Linda Christian home from Mexico.

Charles Chaplin felt the pinch of inflation. A Los Angeles court took notice of the cost-of-living increase, ordered him to pay an extra $25 a week for the support of Carol Ann, his four-year-old daughter by ex-protegee Joan Berry. That meant $100 every week, instead of $75.

The Furrowed Brow

Broadway's Judith Anderson, hair-raising star of Medea (adapter: Robinson Jeffers), responded to a request by the Saturday Review of Literature for a list of her current reading. Besides the collected poems of Robinson Jeffers, Actress Anderson, who plays eight hard shows a week, listed one current novel, a couple of biographies, Kahlil Gibran's The Prophet, Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain, Somerset Maugham's Of Human Bondage, the collected works of Charles Dickens, the collected works of William Shakespeare, James Joyce's Ulysses, the Bible.

"No grand, good soldier ever made a good politician," generalized General Jonathan Wamwright. He particularized. Eisenhower and MacArthur "are fine soldiers," said he, "and I think it would be a mistake for them to get into politics."

"Should I have the power to order it," declared Belgium's Premier Paul-Henri Spaak, "I would ban any headlines . . . on international affairs bigger than one-half inch." Newspapers, the Premier complained, treat such matters "like crime and other sensational affairs."

"The present is a time of high civilization rapidly declining," reported Poet Robinson Jeffers in the New York Times Magazine. "It is not a propitious period for any of the arts; men's minds are a little discouraged, and are too much occupied with meeting each day's distractions or catastrophe. Yet there is no final reason why great poetry should not be written by someone, even today." The great poet, hazarded Jeffers, would have something to say, and say it clearly--unlike most contemporary poets.

The Bended Knee

In Philadelphia, General Dwight D. Eisenhower got the Poor Richard Club's 1948 Medal of Achievement.

In Manhattan, Brigadier General Carlos P. Romulo, the Philippines' chief U.N. delegate, got a gold medal for distinguished statesmanship from the International Benjamin Franklin Society (ex-High Commissioner Paul V. McNutt called him "the Benjamin Franklin of the Philippines").

In Washington, General Henry H. ("Hap") Arnold paid a call on Harry Truman, cocked a snappy hat over his eye, and went off to shoulder his responsibilities as the newly elected president of the California Fish & Game Commission (salary, none; expense allowance, $10 a day for not more than five days a month).

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