The Heart of the Matter

"You need not be anxious," declared Field Marshal Viscount Montgomery as he looked over the state of the world. "I think that everything will work out all right in the end. Teach your boys & girls to grow up into decent men & women, and as long as you do that you need not worry."

"Personally," said Senator Alben Barkley of the spy investigation as a campaign issue, "I don't see that it is an issue. Nobody likes a Communist."

"The world has been through a period of hysterical excitements and stark realism," announced Musicomedy Dancer Ray Bolger, as quoted by rococo Litterateur Lucius Beebe. "Now it seems only natural that people should want a contrast to modernity and hysteria, and the placidity and ordered mannerisms of Victorianism supply that contrast."

"When you put your own money in a picture," observed Actor-Producer Dick Powell, "you discover that you eventually run out of money."

"I've never been so insulted in my life," steamed Glenn Cunningham, 39, barrel-chested mile king of the '305. The outrage: while he was giving his oratorical all to the "Temperance Tornado" drive across Kansas, on a Great Bend lecture platform, someone offered him a foaming glass of beer.*

"How is it possible," exclaimed UNESCO's Julian Huxley, on the subject of yoga, ". . . for a man to control his breathing ... or get himself into a state of complete mystic exaltation? If we could find out how, there might be some way to turn these practices into a beneficial force for Western civilization."

The Literary Life

In Portland, Me., the police chief found some of Erskine Caldwell's writing (see BOOKS) "distasteful," banned God's Little Acre (published in 1933), Journeyman (1935) and Tragic Ground (1944).

In quiet Aix-en-Provence, France, Winston Churchill settled down for a few weeks in a hotel suite to finish Vol. II of his memoirs, between painting junkets.

In London, George Bernard Shaw's advice of the week was to avoid war by producing a dictionary of political terms, in which the meaning of each word would be made quite clear. "The matter is extremely urgent," declared Shaw. ". . . Negotiation is impossible unless the parties use the same words for the same things and understand what the words mean . . . I myself find it impossible to make myself understood . . . Even liars need a language that will enable them to lie unambiguously."

Columnist Eleanor Roosevelt, who gets around, got around finally to an enterprise that immediately looked like a natural for her. Five times a week, beginning Oct. 4, she would be on the air (ABC's) with a motherly chat on almost everything. Her co-chatter: daughter Anna Roosevelt Boettiger. Things were being arranged so that mother could broadcast from wherever she happened to be at the moment. Her first chat would probably be from Paris, where she was going next month to attend the UN conference. Accompanying her as her secretary: grandson Curtis ("Buzz") Boettiger, now 18 and lately an assistant producer (handyman) on radio's Bride & Groom give-away show.

The Solid Flesh

President Chaim Weizmann of Israel settled down to ten days of isolation in a Geneva hospital after a cataract operation.

Chanteuse Hildegarde was in a Rome hospital after a spell of flu.

Irene Castle, dance favorite of 30 years ago and latter-day dog & cat protector, was ordered by her physician not to appear in court any more against people accused of cruelty to animals. The emotional strain was too much for her.

Justice William O. Douglas of the Supreme Court was in good shape--by the skin of his teeth. He went camping on Oregon's Darling Mountain after a brief distraction along the way. A truck carrying Douglas, a friend, and their saddle horses skidded off a trail, rolled 100 feet down a canyon, came to rest on its wheels. Douglas, friend and horses all emerged uninjured.

The Beautiful People

In Hollywood, things were about the same.

Deanna Durbin was sued by Universal Pictures for some wages she got while she was on a leave. The studio wanted $87,000 back.

A bank preparing to open a new Hollywood branch reassured the public that everything would be quite correct: Dorothy Lamour would take a roll out of her sheers and make the very first deposit, and Lassie would deposit a bone.

Actor John Payne and Actress Gloria De Haven, who married in 1944, separated in 1946, presently reconciled, then separated again last May, and reconciled last month, announced that they were getting a divorce.

-The "Tornado" would get more strong-winded support this week, Cunningham announced, with the addition of the Rev. Gil ("The Flying Parson") Dodds, bespectacled mile king of the '40s.

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