“Names make news.” Last week the following names made the following news:
James Joseph (“Gene”) Tunney
underwent a kidney operation in Manhattan which acquaintances declared was not a result of injuries received while a fisticuffer.
Horace Liveright, Manhattan publisher, agreed to destroy the plates and remaining copies of Josephine, The Great Lover, found obscene by the Society for the Suppression of Vice. He explained that the book had not sold well enough to make it worth his while fighting its suppression.
George Palmer Putnam, Manhattan publisher, returned from Europe with the manuscript of an Anti-Fascist book by Francesco Nitti, nephew of onetime Italian Prime Minister, Francesco Saverio Nitti. Publicity was given Mr. Putnam’s story that, in London, his life was threatened by Fascist!.
Harry Ford Sinclair, oilman, sold his Manhattan house (No. 2 East 79th St.) to Augustus Van Home Stuyvesant & Miss Anne W. Stuyvesant.
Tommy Armour, Detroit professional golfer, onetime (1927) U. S. Open Champion, played 18 holes in 59 strokes and won an invitation tournament over Cinemactor Harold Lloyd’s miniature golf course, at Beverly Hills, Calif. The course is difficult for amateurs, the holes criss-cross each other and an artificial, pump-driven stream. Other features of the Harold Lloyd estate: an oldtime English barbecue, complete with kitchen, shelter and roasting pit; a swimming pool; four tennis courts; twelve handball courts; a miniature four-room house for Daughter Gloria, 9.
Rear-Admiral William Adger Moffett, Chief of the Naval Bureau of Aeronautics, learned that his son. Lieutenant George Hall Moffett, U. S. N., had been made Assistant Athletic Coach at Annapolis.
Alister G. MacDonald, London architect, elder son of Prime Minister James Ramsay MacDonald of Great Britain, landed in Manhattan to begin a five-week inspection of U. S. architecture. Cities he will visit: Washington, Boston, Philadelphia, Detroit, Cleveland. Chicago.
The will of Stuart Wyeth, president of John Wyeth & Son (chemists), probated at Philadelphia, directed that $5,000,000 be given to Harvard University, whence he was graduated in 1884. Willed he: “The President and Fellows of Harvard University may use the money as they see fit.”
Edward Stephen Harkness, Yaleman (1897), charitarian, whose mother gave Yale its famed Memorial Quadrangle, donated a fund, reputedly more than $12,000,000, to Yale for the development of a ”house plan.” Last year he gave Harvard $13,000,000 for a similar purpose (TIME, Jan. 7, 1929). Total Harkness benefactions to date: about $100,000,000.
Lee De Forest, longtime radio experimenter and inventor, newly-elected president of the Institute of Radio Engineers, exclaimed in his inaugural address:
“The insidious influence of the avaricious advertiser and his stupid insistence on direct advertising have, I regret to observe, become increasingly effective and devastating. As the so-called Father of RadioBroadcasting. I wish again to raise my voice inprotest against this revolting state of affairs. … In all seriousnessI attribute a part of the present undeniable slackening in radio sales to the public as actually due to this pernicious advertising. The radio public is, I believe, becoming nauseated by the quality of many of the present programs. Short-sighted “greed of the broadcasters, station owners and advertising agencies, is slowly killing the broadcasting goose, layer of many golden eggs.”
Thoughtful national advertisers, long aware that radio advertising is powerful and comparatively cheap,* might well be moved by potent Radioman De Forest’s warning, mend their ways. A father also of sound cinema, Inventor De Forest felt privileged to add : “In both studio recording and theatre reproducing a most deplorable result of engineering indigestion exists. The profession has bitten off more than it can chew, and the resultant bellyache must be endured by the theatre-going public.”
*0ver the “red network” (23 stations) ot National Broadcasting Co., any half-hour after 6 p. m. costs $3,250. With an additional $1,500 for entertainment, the total cost for reaching an estimated audience of 8,000,000 people is a little over one-half the cost of a full page in the Saturday Evening Post ($8,000 for 3,000,000 people).
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