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On the eve of his 75th birthday celebration, Poet-Author Carl Sandburg (see BOOKS) told a New York Times writer why it was that, in 1899, he flunked out as a West Point cadet: "It was arithmetic and grammar. Those verbs again. They are terrible things. Nouns are definite, the names of persons or things, but verbs cause all the trouble in the world. All lawsuits are about something coming between two nouns—those verbs."
Charlie Chaplin and family prepared to live in Switzerland for a while. In the mountain village of Corsier-sur-Vevey overlooking Lake Geneva, Chaplin paid $200,000 for a 13-room manor, paid another $93,000 to fill it with rented furniture for six months.
Israel's new President Isaac Ben Zvi, a plain-living and frugal man who lived for 26 years in a tar-papered wooden shack, refused to let the government buy him a mansion befitting his title. He finally settled for a small house with office space on the first floor, living quarters on the second, and a large hut in the yard for official receptions.
Playwright Truman (The Grass Harp) Capote gave a reporter in Rome a hint about his next play, to be partly in verse. It will be located in the West Indies, he said, with an almost all colored cast, and is "about life in a house of ill fame or brothel or whatever you call these houses with women inmates."
Despite chills and a cold, Artist Henri Matisse marked his 83rd birthday by working in his studio in Nice.
In Albany, Thomas E. Dewey began his eleventh year as governor of New York, the second longest tenure in the state's history. The record: 21 years (1777-95, 1801-04) served by George Clinton, first governor of the state.
The Imperial Household Board in Tokyo released some New Year's poetry written by Emperor Hirohito. Samples:
Like symbols that show how abundant was the year,
Rich in fruitful yields stand the rice stalks row on row,
Far across wide paddyfields.
Always to pursue
The study of ancient writings,
Yet to understand
The knowledge that is new;
Then shall peace reign over the land.
In Manhattan, Sob-Singer Johnnie Ray finally admitted that his seven-month marriage to Marilyn Morrison ("the first girl who ever made me feel like a man") was over because of "complete incompatibility." Said Marilyn: "I was very much in love with Johnnie the day I married him. I love him today. But I cannot live with him." Said Johnnie: "Man, it wasn't that chick's fault. Because that chick tried."