Fresh Start

Alfred Mossman London, 1936 GOPresidential nominee, finally got around to the practice of law--37 years after being admitted to the bar (he never hung out a shingle, made his fortune as an independent oil operator). Combining long business experience with his oldtime lawbook learning, he appeared before Kansas' Corporation Commission, examined a witness in an oil case.

Barbara Mutton, who has been playing on-again-off-again-Finnegan with her husband, Cinemactor Gary Grant, delivered a weighty new decision: "After much thought . . . we can be happier living apart."

General Dwight D. Eisenhower met up with a fellow Kansan, Pfc. Rolla Ummel, somewhere in France, asked him what he had done before the war. When Ummel answered that he had been a farmer, the General asked: "How about giving me a job after the war?" Said the private cautiously: "I don't know, sir, but I'll keep you in mind."

Worries of the World

Fiorello LaGuardia, taking exception to Winston Churchill's terming the principles of the Atlantic Charter "a guide, not a rule," gave out a scholarly admonition to his fellow statesman: "Winston, if I may use the language of, say, Shakespeare, or Shelley or Dante Gabriel Rossetti or other British classicists, please don't louse it up."

Commander Harold E. Stassen, 37, one of the G.O.P.'s most promising contenders for the 1948 Presidential nomination, just back from almost two years in the Pacific as flag secretary to Admiral Halsey, told reporters that his selection by President Roosevelt as a delegate to the forthcoming United Nations Conference at San Francisco was "a political liability within [his] own party"--but, of course, he would serve "without the least hesitation," and he hoped that San Francisco might "mean to the world of tomorrow what Independence Hall . . . has meant to the U.S."

The Public's Pleasure

Abraham Lincoln scored an almost 2-to-1 victory over George Washington (except in the solid South) in a nationwide Gallup poll to determine who is now considered the "greater."

Jack Benny, whose favorite catch line has long been "They love me in St. Joe," proved himself right when he finally scheduled his Sunday night broadcast for St. Joseph, Mo. Some 10,000 people turned out, gave a pint of blood apiece to the Red Cross as admittance fee.

Major Richard Ira Bong, 24, snub-nosed U.S. ace of aces (40 Jap planes), was newspictured in the snows at Sequoia National Park, Calif., where he and his bride of three weeks are honeymooning.

Pens in Hand

Lieut. General Walter Bedell ("Bee-die") Smith, brainy chief of staff to General Eisenhower, received a letter from Miss Arda Knox, his old high-school mathematics teacher, who wrote: "I don't suppose you will even remember me. When I saw your picture in TIME (Jan. 1), I could see that little . . black head down over your algebra book." Beedle answered: "I am glad to say, in case you remember my long succession of 'Cs,' that I have a lot of very able young engineers. . . . To me you were always the one bright spot in the mathematics landscape."

Edouard Daladier, barrel-chested, bull-necked Munich era Premier of France, wrote from internment in Germany that he was well.

Paul Reynaud, dapper last pre-Petain Premier of France, also wrote from internment in Germany. He said that he was in good health, requested nothing.

Old Obligations

Henry Morgenthau Jr., who keeps track of the mountain-sized U.S. debt, was introduced in St. Louis to E. E. Pershall, a Missouri lumberman, who claimed that he was one of the U.S.'s minor creditors. "I worked three months as a $1-a-year man in the Treasury," he said, "and I was never paid." The Secretary of the Treasury promptly handed over a quarter.

Vivien (Scarlett O'Hara) Leigh, who returned to her native England in 1941, went to court with charges that Hollywood Producer David Selznick was attempting to prevent her appearing in a London stage play with her cinematinee-idol husband, Laurence Olivier. Selznick likened Miss Leigh to an "exotic plant" which must be wisely exposed, said that her seven-year contract with him still had a year to run, felt that he had already been overgenerous, as her 1941 trip was "a three-months' leave" which had now stretched to more than three years. Cinemactress Leigh, who admitted that she would be subject to Britain's labor draft if she were banned, was freed by the court, which ruled the contract "extraordinarily stringent."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.