Site Ed. Note: The following piece was by Franklin Pierce Adams, a member with Broun of the Algonquin Round Table.

Whether his "Conning Tower" column, which he inaugurated in the teens and lasted through September, 1941 was the inspiration for the occasional reference at The News, most usually in connection with the "Silly Season" series which began in the summer of 1937, to the "Ivory Tower", we don't know. The usage of the term began before Cash's regular tenure as associate editor at The News, though it is obvious he used it quite a bit himself.

We ourselves prefer the expansive Green in the Park to the Tower from which to take our most usual view of the world about, sometimes the sandy Beach, sometimes the open Water, also--but that perhaps is a generational preference brought about by things viewed and heard in our youth, as well the indecisiveness as to what to do to glean perspective on a particular day.

The Tower, while certainly affording a perspective on the world, can become both dizzying and overly inducive to deific tendencies on the part of the viewer from its highest latitudes. Such a perspective can lead to war if not brought to earth quickly.

We think also that "Conning" and "Ivory" have an obvious connection, the "Ivory" referencing the exalted memory with which any superior columnist must be endowed, the "Conning" being emblematic of the submarine's vaunted place in warfare from World War I forward, into the nuclear age, communicating the necessity then for columnists also to be endowed with a certain sub rosa awareness communicated in sounds sub silentio, which only comes with re-reading one's own print several times and then interjecting certain peculiarities interstitially thereto. Ourselves, when we do so, most usually find ourselves hysterically giddy by the end of the exercise, as if we were in the Tower all along, often when we were attempting in the first instance to be most serious, especially should we have a mind to discuss the Law. Which is why we steer clear of the certainty afforded by the Tower, preferring most usually the terra firma enjoyed in the Park, or the Beach, or the undulating waves out on the Sea, the latter of course being more at terra incognita.

Well, why Mr. Adams chose his initials under which to write, we don't know either, except that perhaps he felt it overly conning to be forced by mere dint of appellation at birth to represent at once the overbearing weight of three deceased United States Presidents.

FPA, In The Conning Tower

Heywood Broun's passing leaves the biggest hole in American journalism that anybody living knows or is likely to know. The impression of his personality, in print and out of print, is stronger than that of any other newspaper writer or publisher. He will be a legend, and a quoted writer, when the Pulitzers, the Danas, and Greeleys are only names.

So much for prophecy. The gap that he leaves among those who knew him long and intimately is a vacuum--permanent and ineffable. I have known Heywood longer than most of his friends; more intimately over a longer stretch of time than any of his other associates. It was a great joy and satisfaction that he was on the paper (the Post) with Kirby and me, for it must revive the vigorously and pugnaciously merry and happy days on The World. And on The Tribune, where he covered baseball and later did a three-day-a-week book column.

It wasn't until he came to The World, in 1921--he preceded me by six months--that his stuff began to soar to the stars. I was struck from time to time by what I imagine was Broun's brotherhood to Abraham Lincoln. For both had great humor, charm, and a deep and sincere feeling for the underdog. And many who knew Lincoln said that he was unfathomable. Not mysteriously, but deeply. And even to those of us who knew him best, he had depths that we never plumbed.

There was a strong Puritanism in Broun. I remember well days on The World, days when I would send a contribution up to the composing room, and mark it merely for type. Not so Heywood. Often he would print a letter from somebody--a letter a whole wide column long. But he would not insert "says so-and-so," and send the letter along. He would write, "'I am in disagreement with you,' writes Charles Wood."--and then he would type the whole letter, verbatim. It made him feel, he used to say, that he was working.

HOWARD DEMANDED HACK HOURS OF HEYWOOD

Shortly after he left the World in 1930, he joined the then unhyphenated Telegram. "Broun," said Mr. Roy Howard, his new boss, "is no mere jokesmith or phrase-carpenter, but an artistic debunker of political and official flapdoodle." Mr. Howard might have added "and journalistic." It was Mr. Howard's notion that Heywood could be more effective in type than talk, more constructive in a column than in Congress. I thought, and still think, that what Mr. Howard meant was that Heywood should devote all his powers to the column that Mr. Howard was paying him for. He didn't know Heywood, or understand him. For it never was extracurricular work or play that interfered with the excellence of his column. I have seen him at a party. I have seen him at a poker game, when he said, "Deal me out a few rounds. Got to write a column." And in a room full of chatter he would write, in 36 minutes, a column that was as likely to be one of his best--which is no faint praise--as one that he spent four hours in writing.

HE HATED MANY THINGS BUT FEW PEOPLE

Broun was the debunker of any kind of pretentiousness--political, official, or literary. He hated bunk so much that he dressed carelessly and schetchily, because a man may be a fop and a villain still: he was the sort of man who would wear three hats in an elevator because he knew that some men would consider their entire duty and responsibility to women discharged when they removed their hats.

He hated injustice and intolerance; seldom did he dislike those he considered unjust or intolerant. He was a lion in print, but a lamb in his personal relationships. Men whom he attacked in print would invite him to lunch; he'd go, and a victim of his wrath would fall to his charm.

THE ORIGINS OF A CELEBRATED SOCIETY

Heywood, for twenty years or so, must have earned lots of money. He cared less for money than anybody I know; he was the most avaricious person I knew. If he won $100 at a poker game, he'd settle for $90 cash rather than wait until the next afternoon for a check. Yet he would say that he had to get home to Stamford at midnight, call a cab to drive home, and keep the cab until 7 A. M. in the hope that by that time he would be even, or ahead. How many persons who had no claim on him were supported entirely or in part by him nobody ever will know. Certainly if he spent more than $100 on his apparel it was not evident. When he was earning at least $50,000 a year we used to say that he looked like the 1904 Puck picture of a Socialist.

For years seven or eight of us played poker on Saturday nights; the gathering got its name in the club in "Main Street," and later was expanded to the Thanatopsis Literary and Inside Straight Club. Broun was the originator of the elaborate joke, which began on a rainy night in his dining room, when he took a drink of what he called "a certain inferior liquor," and said, "Any Port in a storm." His most recent one--it took him twenty minutes to tell--involved an overgrown papoose whom the chief expelled, saying, "You big: quit us." "That," he would explain, "is the origin of 'ubiquitous.'"

In the old days on the Tribune and the World Broun and I would talk about our obituaries. How it would just be our luck that we'd be too late for the first edition of both papers.

At the end, he was an evening paper man.

Peace to his soul!

Community Christmas Service Tonight May Not Be The Last

We feel reassured about the Community Christmas Service that is to be held in the Armory-Auditorium tonight since discovering that the selection "Adeste Fidelis," in which the quartet, chorus, congregation, orchestra and organ are to join as the last number on the program, is only the familiar and joyous hymn, "O, Come, All Ye Faithful."

Altogether, this has the makings of a most enjoyable occasion, which could easily attain institutional status and become a unique expression of the Christmas spirit in this community. To gather together under auspices that are nonetheless expert for being anonymous, to listen to beautiful words and glorious music, to be given an opportunity to contribute to The News Empty Stocking Fund and, in the end, to be allowed to release in concert the song that has been engendered by an evening of song--ah, masters, you will enjoy no greater privilege during the whole holiday.

And, as we say, if this event tonight should turn out as happily as preparations indicate, who is there to say that we shall not have begun something which will endure?

Uruguayan Battle Shows Up Panama Neutrality Belt

Uruguay is going to take a report on the whole British-German battle off her coasts to the Panama powers, and a protest against this violation of the Pan-American "neutrality belt" is to be considered. But the breath might as well be saved.

This scheme was obviously untenable from the first. It is supposed to have been invented by Under-Secretary of State Sumner Welles, but it adds nothing to his reputation for clarity of logic. For it plainly violates the immemorial doctrine that the seas are free to all comers--a doctrine the United States has always until now steadfastly maintained and for which it has fought several wars. In practice we retreated from the position with the adoption of the so-called Neutrality Act, but Secretary Hull has specifically reserved all our theoretical rights. No abandonment of our own rights entitles us to demand that other nations shall abandon theirs.

What is an even more serious defect in the idea--the one on which it inevitably founders--is that England is an American power, established on both the North and South American continents, in Central America, and the West Indies. We have no more right to tell her that she can't bring her fighting ships into American waters than we have to tell Brazil or the Argentine that. The Monroe Doctrine has nothing to do with this case. It merely forbids England or any other power to acquire new territories on this side. But if we can't bar England, then we can't bar Germany, either--without in effect becoming a belligerent.

The quicker this absurd idea is abandoned the better.

Who Would Resent The Name Of Thief Most Warmly

Mecklenburg farmers are registering many complaints with the Rural Police against Charlotte citizens who calmly drive out into the countryside, enter a wood and proceed to help themselves to a Christmas tree--without a by-your-leave or a thankee-sir.

Some of these people, of course, are simply dubious characters, who would be likely to respond to the name of thief with no more than obviously spurious indignation. But some of them are undoubtedly people by ordinary accustomed to think of themselves as respectable and even superiorly respectable and, and who would respond to allegations of thievery with the most virtuous rage. Why, it's just a little old tree, you know, not worth anything to anybody. And just look at all the trouble we had cutting it down! Such is one of the curious things that urban life has done to the notion of [indiscernible word] and [indiscernible word] in not a few people.

Nonetheless, thievery it is. The tree happens to belong to the farmer, and to be worth something to him, because he can sell it and get a little more of that money he probably needs for Christmas on his own account. The vandals have just as much right to enter the farmer's house and start carting out his furniture without his permission as to enter his wood and carry off his trees without it. Maybe they'll get around to that in time.

She Has Completely Upset The Nazi-Red Applecart

Finland may turn out to have been distraught about the camel's back.

Until Russia invaded her, Adolf Hitler was apparently counting heavily on his alliance with the Red power, both for its material and moral effect. And the fear of an outright military combine had the Allies pretty well stymied. But observe.

It is unnecessary to exaggerate. Russia's difficulties in Finland in Winter are undoubtedly a good deal greater than were those of Germany in Poland in September. Nevertheless, the prestige of Russian arms is already pretty well exploded. Relatively, Finland--badly armed as she is--has had all the best of it, both on land and at sea.

And Joe Stalin has got himself into a hot spot. He can, indeed, raise armies which could be expected to overwhelm the little country by mere force of numbers. But he certainly hadn't counted on that. And it may be surmised that he is more than reluctant to do it--for it is axiomatic that when great armies are raised in any country, the army hierarchy is the real master. And Mr. Stalin's neck must jerk convulsively when he thinks on what the army hierarchy might do to him when it became his master.

On the other hand, he must act quickly if at all. For the Allies have grown so contemptuous of his arms, that they have not only kicked him out of the League but also are busily pouring equipment into Finland, and promise before long to have expeditionary forces ("volunteers," Russian fashion) there which will stymie him indefinitely.

But if Joseph's case is unpleasant, Adolf's is nearly desperate. Gone is that perpetually hanging threat of a military alliance with Russia. The Allies don't much care now if he does make it, on the theory that it won't much matter.

And, far more important, gone also is Adolf's chance of getting much aid in the way of food and supplies from Russia. Russia is plainly going to need them for her own armies--has no transportation system capable of properly supplying even those armies, let alone Adolf's. And with that, Adolf's claim that England's blockade is no real menace is gone, too.

He has confessed as much. That undoubtedly is the meaning of the desperate war at sea in the last ten days. For the Graf Spee to have attacked the large French freighter, Formose, in Uruguayan waters was a desperate enterprise, since the British warships were known to be in the immediate vicinity. For the German navy to venture out into the North Sea--a venture that cost it one cruiser sunk and two disabled--was a desperate enterprise, too. For the Columbus to sail from Vera Cruz with a cargo of oil was not only desperate but almost mad. But the blockade must be broken, and it must be broken within a relatively short period if Adolf Hitler's goose is not to be cooked. Hence, all the long chances.

Site Ed. Note: This then being a reminder of the real war, apart from Le Grande Illusion, among us the last hundred years or so.

Did ye ever get the feeling that the Mother is trying to tell us something?

Which is why the wheels come off every now and then, maybe.

Figured out yet what that gas leak permeating NYC this morning is? Is it Terror or is it Mother?

Some 29,000 Persons Owe Thanks For Their Existence

This year of the wars has been good to the United States in more than being at peace. In the middle 1930s it was getting so that each twenty months or thereabouts as many people were killed by automobiles as American soldiers had been killed during our whole participation in the World War. In 1937, deaths attributable to motor vehicles almost reached 40,000.

This was too much, even for a nation which must have its speed at any old price, and so a concerted effort was begun to make the streets and highways safer for use. It got results.

In 1938, deaths went down to 32,400, a decrease of eighteen per cent, and the experience so far this year has been more favorable still in spite of the fact that there are greater number of vehicles in operation than ever before. The fatality rate per 100,000,000 vehicle miles has come down from 17.4 in 1930 to 10.9 today.

And when you start to think that this has meant 29,000 fewer deaths from automobiles, and that one of those 29,000 persons might easily have been even you, messire, the statistic takes on a real importance.