The Pittsburgh Press from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania • Page 23

DECEMBER NOVEMBER 1M 1 4 1 JO 11 12 13 14 IS 14 17 14 1 30 31 23 23 34 3S 34 27 24 29 30 Rambling Reporter By Ernie Pyie rpj Pittsbiirffh. PfGSS 7. 14 ABOARD S. S. EXETER We have lust 31 nas- 1 2 3 4 8 6 8U9I10 11 12 13 13 16 17 18 19 20 22 23 24 28 26 27 29l3Ql31 I (COPYRIGHT.

1940. by Pittsbnrgh Press Co. All Rights Reserved) and are superbly educated. Each speaks about six languages. One of them is the only person on 21 JAM ARY 141 13 3 4 1 10 11 12 IS 14 IS 14 17 14 10 30 21 33 23 34 23 34 27 24 29 30 31 board who can talk to every passenger in his own sengers aboard this ship bound for Europe.

That is only a fourth of the ships normal capacity, and only a sixth of what it carries on the return trips. Coming back, they put cots in the PITTSBURGH, MONDAY, DECEMBER 16, 1940 SECOND SECTION PAGE 23 EDUCATORS ASK Battle Roy al of Music Familiar Tunes To Go Off Air Jan. 1 Unless Old Radio Feud Is Settled lounge ana pact In 180 and 190 people. Every westbound ship is booked solid, cots and all, for two months ahead. We have six women aboard, and 25 men.

There are so few of us that everybody has a cabin to himself. Mine is a big one with two beds, a sofa-couch, a private bathroom and two portholes. Furthermore, it has a sunny veranda just outside the door. It is, I believe, the most comfortable cabin I've ever had aboard ship. There is plenty of 14' 'Jh AID IN FIGHTING 'ERSATZ' MUSIC Urge Intervention by Government in ASCAP-Radio Dispute Broadcasters Won't Renew room, lots of closet space, and the lights are good.

Their Contract With Composers' Group By The United Press NEW YORK, Dec. 16 Ten prominent music educators charged today that broadcasters were trying "to deny the public its own property and force it to accept 'ersatz' music." They formed a committee, which will circularize 2000 educational in Barring settlement of a fight between ttco organisations called ASCAP and BMI, radio listeners may miss most of their favorite songs after Jan. 1. This is the first of two articles telling just trhat ASCAP and BMI are all about, how their battle now stands, and ichat it means to you. By TOM WOLF Special to The Pittsburgh Press NEW YORK, Dec.

16 stitutions to demand intervention of the Federal Communications Commission before Jan. 1, when all of the major networks and stations aii i need to set up housekeeping is a base-burner and a side of bacon. Two 'Home Growns' on Board George Lait, my fellow newspaperman, and I are the only home-grown Americans on board. There is one other American citizen, but he is a naturalized German. The passengers are slow getting acquainted with Pach other.

There ts a restraint. I don't think we suspect each other; I think it's more that we respect each private and personal reason for making this voyage. On this ship you don't sidle up to a fellow-passenger at the rail and ask where he's from and where he's going and why. For it is entirely possible that it's none of your business, and he might tell you so. But we do know who a few are, and where they're going.

Our naturalized German, for instance, is going to Portugal. He has lived in the States for 35 years. His wife and baby are in Germany, and he Is trying to get them out. He ls a mild man, full of a Midwestern simple trust in everything, and he just can't understand why they won't let her return to the States. His life ls full of despair.

We have heard his story many times, and we are sad for his tragedy. Then we have two Swedish girls returning to Sweden. They wear slacks and lumberjack shirts Fair Enough NEW YORK Well, what do you know about this? Mrs. the lady who knows so much about the practical economic problems of the dirt-poor American working stiff, has discovered that a man with a wife and six children dependent on him, The radio bells which ring in the New Year of 1941 will toll the knell of much of the music outlaw music controlled by the American Society of Composers, Au thors and Publishers and substitute If if A Americans know and love the best. the tunes and arrangements of Broadcast Music, a radio-subsidized organization.

The hearts of the radio BMI meanwhile gathered another ally in Harry Brandt, president of broadcasters and of the Amer- can Society of Composers, Authors, the Independent Theater Owners of America, who denounced the ASCAP system of licensing motion picture houses. and Publishers do not beat in three-quarters time. The broad casters will not renew their con Extra Fee Charged He said exhibitors had to pay an tongue. They will go overland by ran, through France and Germany. And we have two cultured Belgian gentlemen who have been in the States since the fall of Belgium.

They speak excellent English. I don't know why they are going back. The British authorities at Bermuda examined their papers minutely, over several hours. They took $700 away from one of them, gave him a receipt, and left him $400. The British were courteous, and the Belgians didn't resent the grilling, for they had expected as much.

French Actor Returns to We have also Jean Murat, a French movie actor and director. He was in the States on a government war mission when France fell. He eats alone and sits on deck alone, although he seems friendly and rather lonesome. I have talked with him, and found him a broad and thinking man. He is returning to his little farm near Cannes.

Once there, he doesn't know what. He is going simply because he feels that Frenchmen should be in France. He is (and I think I'm the only passenger who knows this) the former husband of Annabella, the actress. They are still good friends and he saw her In New York. We have a Hungarian priest trying to return to his homeland, and a young man going back to the oil fields in French Morocco.

We have two British army officers, and several other English passengers. We have a young Portuguese going back home. We have about a dozen Frenchmen. Two of them came on at Bermuda, where they had been taken off the previous ship of this line, and questioned for a week. Six of the Frenchmen eat together at one table.

I don't know what their story is. They speak no English. They wear blue berets and play cards and shuffleboard a great deal, and get excited and all talk at once. There are only two married couples aboard. One is a young Swedish couple.

The others are nearly middle-aged, they keep to themselves, and I don't know their nationality. All I know is that the man came aboard with the most beautiful black eye you ever saw in your life. It is the envy of the whole ship. It is the only thing we have to make jokes about. By Westbrook Pegler is a racket, Mrs.

R. had better be careful what she says. Why, in Jersey, last week, a fellow applied for legal adoption by his wife's parents so that he could become technically eligible for membership in the local Electricians' Union, because preference was given to the sons of members, and his father-in-law was a member. I checked this with the judge, and he said, yep, that was right all right. The judge turned the fellow down, so the best he can hope for is that he may become a member-in-law.

And, oh, yes; did it ever occur to you that the Hon. Mary Norton, the chairman of the House Committee on Labor, who has been getting a big play as a friend of the working stiff for years and years, has the support of Frank Hague's political mob, and that in the state which she has the honor to represent the AFL is an important part of Hague's machine. The AFL in Jersey is more properly a gang than a labor organization, and the Hon. Mrs. Norton receives her labor support from some of the worst unioneers in the movement.

How About the Army Camps? I don't see how Mrs. Roosevelt can have failed to observe in her travels that in practically all of the cantonment jobs the AFL keeps sentries astride the roads leading up to the works to shake down thousands of American citizens, and has extorted, in all, for its many locals, a fabulous amount of graft the total of which we will never know, however, because this graft has come to be regarded as a vested right, and the American citizen as the proper, legitimate victim of the racket. Maybe Mrs. Roosevelt listens too much to the pleasant conversation of people who agree with her, for, say what you will, there is a sort of here-comes-the-queen atmosphere about her visits. I observe that this congressional committee, or some other one, is likely to be authorized to investigate union practices, and just as a helpful suggestion.

I would propose that they call Umbrella Mike Boyle, the ex-convict racketeer boss of the Electricians in Chicago; Joe Fay. the Jersey labor hoodlum who belted out Dave Dubinsky at New Orleans; Gangster Browne; Joe Padway, the general counsel of the AFL, who represents two big unions that are crawling with crooks; Tom Dewey and Tom Courtney, the prosecutors in New York and Chicago, respectively; and a lot of the poor, desperate workers who have been writing me about their persecution by unions. Then they will hear something about fees and rackets. tracts with ASCAP, America's most powerful group of music copyright holders; and ASCAP will take its extra fee to producers when ASCAP music was used with pictures, in Addition to monthly royalties to ASCAP. copyrighted music off the air.

In ASCAP's library of perhaps Since many producers controlled two million melodies are a great publishing houses affiliated with ASCAP, they received fees "coming majority of the favorites standard, popular, and classical of "the past and going," he said. The Educators' Committee charged that the National Association of Broadcasters threat to "scrap the 50 years. These copyrights extend for two 28-year terms. The radio broadcasters will be hard put to replace varied perennial favorites ranging from "Sweet Adeline," was unable to go to work as an electrician on a defense job at Fort Meade, because couldn't dig up $300 for his initiation into the Electricians' Union. Mrs.

R. learned about this one day last week in a congressional hearing on interstate migration of destitute families. Asked "What is your thought about that?" Mrs. Roosevelt said she did not believe a man would be kept out of work, where (here was work, just because of a fee, unless there was a racket experience and achievement of a generation of artists is a calamity to music itself and a deprivation for the public amounting to musical starvation." The Stars and Stripes Forever," and "Mademoiselle From Armen- It named 163 composers of stand ard music whose works would be barred. tieres" to "Stardust," "St.

Louis Blues," and the present top popular hits. As ASCAP goes, so go the melodies of America's best-known modern composers, from Victor Her Aid Sought "We call upon educators through bert. John Philip Sousa, and out the country to join us in protest against the purely commercial aspect which this dispute has taken Ferde Grofe to Berlin, Cohan, Gershwin, Hart, Hammerstein, Kern, Porter, Rodgers, Romberg and You-mans. Rival Established Neville Miller, president of the NAB, said that ASCAP wanted to "enslave the radio industry," and added: We are entering a new period in radio's history, when radio audi Hold that baton, maestro, and consider that song, Hildegarde! Is it an ASCAP tune and will it be okay for the radio to send to that listening family? ences will have the thrill of watching while a new group of American composers, hitherto oppressed by a monopoly, make their bid for fame and fortune on the air." small group of men who have what radio needs. To fill this gap, the broadcasters, rompted by the big networks, called a special convention in September, 1939, to establish a rival to ASCAP Broadcast Music, Inc.

To date, some 452 stations, representing over 90 per cent of the industry, large and small, have bought shares Of BMI's $1,500,000 stock. BMI's first catalogue appeared early last April with five tunes. Today it has grown to cover over 200,000 including most of the Latin-American music heard on the air; No one can predict how this fight going on. She also wanted to know whether this was an AFL or CIO union. Well, now gather closely, and I will give you fill-in which might enlighten also the members of the committee who seemed very blurry on the fiib.ject for men who ought to know the simple facts of life under union rule.

Pinning the Blame Just off-hand and without calling up anybody, 1 will take a chance on saying that this was an AFL union and not a CIO. because this practice is characteristic of the job-trust unions of the AFL which have been known to boost the ante to $3000 in one of the locals of Gangster George Browne, the hoodlums' Fifth Column in the executive council. And the Electricians' Union of the AFL is one of the worst offenders, even in regions where its officials are not racketeers. In Chicago the administration of this union is notoriously crooked, but we will hang that particular item on the G. A.

T. hook, meaning good any time, and get back to our subject. I don't quite know how to untangle Mrs. Roose-X'rlt's remark that she didn't believe a man could be kept out of work, where there was work, just because of a fee, unless there was a racket going on. Because men are kept out of work where there is work, just because of fees, by unions of the AFL, and this has been going on for years, and the suggestion that it is a racket is resented furiously by the unioneers thereof.

Although this obviously will end. That will largely depend the underlying bone of contention. Conferees might iron out differences were it not for a background of 20 years of mutual distrust. Ever since commercial radio was born in 1922, ASCAP says it has had to fight broadcasters' attempts to plunder its music in the courts and on how strong ASCAP really is He said that the outlawing of ASCAP might deprive the public of "some tunes," but it would still hear "the great music you love and new, exciting music." And that, in turn, is largely de cern ASCAP's proposed price, which would come to nearly twice the $4,100,000 radio paid ASCAP last year. They also say some pretty unpleasant things about ASCAP's management and about who gets the money ASCAP collects.

Mutual Distrust But these, and an additional welter of charges and counter-charges, though important, are side issues to pendent on one man Gene Buck a founder and for 26 years the president of the American Society in the Legislatures. And radio equally some of the most important hill of Composers, Authors, and Pub Ushers. dislikes and distrusts ASCAP, which has never lost a battle. Radio squirms at being at the mercy of a billy music; American folk songs; Western songs; ballads; sacred NEXT: Gene Buck and ASCAP. music; "Songs of the Sunny PIKE EXTENSION LOAN OFFERED "Songs Children Love to etc.

Wanted: Youth! By Major Al Williams Scripps-Howard Aviation Editor 20 slow and thick-hided navy re But Commission Says Million Isn't Enoush ported for this war and found no Young men are fighting the war. The demand for younger com manders of the various fiehtin? One-track Mind By Raymond Clapper From Press Ih rrisbitrg Bureau HARRISBURG, Dec. 16 Jesse 1 I -J I) tl 4 6 These tunes, plus those songs that are in the "public domain" (i. their copyrights have expired), plus any new hits BMI can find these will compose America's radio musical fare until ASCAP and the broadcasters come to terms. Broadway wiseacres think BMI stands for "Bad Music Indefinitely." BMI replies: 1 Our music has already been heard exclusively on most sustaining programs for some time, without complaint.

2 Listeners today are more concerned with the band playing a tune than the music itself; and most of the "name" bands are playing BMI songs. 3 No one missed Herbert, Porter, Youmans, Kern and Romberg great as they are when their tunes were pulled off the air for six months in 1936. Jones, chairman of the U. S. Reconstruction Finance has WASHINGTON Some of our officials, much alarmed over the lag in defense dreparations, have been saying everything they could to spur all government defense agencies and industrialists toward the utmost speed for the next three months.

offered to lend the Pennsylvania Turnpike Finance Commission an units air, land, and sea is becoming more insistent every day. In a war of stagnation in the trenches and that's where World War I left off old men and their mental tempo fared quite well. But in this war, machinery is sweeping people for a long war. He told them to be patient, to let him wait until he saw the time to strike. This government is not sympathetic to suggestions that there be a negotiated peace now, feeling that such a peace could only be a defeat for Britain.

The one thing Hitler wants is to break British seapower, which, if accomplished, would leave us elone with potential enemies facing us from both sides with particular interest in South America, now practically defenseless. The attitude is that so long as Britain continues to fight, the United States should continue to supply equipment. That is a fixed and thus far unshaken policy here. Since there is an impression that it is President Especially is it ctestrea tnat no i new and confusing issues be introduced during this critical period. That is one reason why the administration was relieved arena in which it could fight the way it wanted to fight.

When it was challenged by airpower in the Skagerrak, where enemy lines of communication extended right smack over the open sea (and it has been seapower's job to smash sea communications), it was only the: lighter fleet elements, the hit-and-run units, such as the destroyers and submarines, which dared to contest. Airpower is and has been changing seapower's machinery and the end is not yet in sight. In addition to causing a demand for younger men and more vigorous leaders, airpower is forcing the younger naval ranks to the top and to positions where their vigorous imaginations and minds will find the new answer for seapower machinery and new naval tactics. The old men are just as obsolete as the "dinosaur" battleships. The new order would have had to come anyway new vessels, new naval leaders and new naval psychology.

But airpower and airwar have been the priming charges which broke the navies from the old stand-and-slug-it-out type of warfare to the new hit-and-run phase. that the British knocked the Hoover food plan out by announcing a refusal to lift the blockade for such effort. It is one reason why the British finance matter is being throttled down, since there i.s pressing about it. Distracting controversy is to be avoided as far as possible during this period jo that every effort can be Long-Time Quarrel The present battle royal of music is the climax of a fight as old as radio. The specific issues are manifold.

Radio's biggest kick is against being charged a percentage of its additional 20 million dollars to finance extension of the superhighway to Philadelphia, it was reported here today. The RFC lent the Commission the funds with which the toll highway was constructed from Irwin, near Pittsburgh, to Middlesex, near here. It is now planned to lengthen the highway to Philadelphia at an estimated cost of 50 to 60 millions. Walter A. Jones, chairman of the Commission, told the RFC chairman, it is understod, that the 20-million-dollar offer was insufficient.

He is attempting to obtain the full estimated cost through an RFC loan to be secured by predicted revenues from the extension. Revenues from the Pittsburgh-Harrisburg stretch are exceeding original estimates. Walter Jones indicated he plans to confer soon with President Roosevelt about the proposed extension. entire income part of which comes from nonmusical The broadcasters want to pay for music on a per-program-used basis. time leaves its imprint on his mental habits.

The destroyer seaman is essentially a hit-and-run strategist. His vessel is thin hulled and cannot withstand real, gunfire pounding. It is fast and highly maneuverable. Its pu't are light and effective only at comparatively short ranges, ana then only against similarly light-armored craft. It is the greatest hazard of the suomarine.

Loaded with depth charges and possessed of the ability to get around in a hiuvy, there's nothing, except the airplane, more dreaded by the submarine commander. Carries Burden It's the British destroyers that are carrying vthe burden of convoying the vitally essential supply of munitions. The destroyer is the only warship that dares to invaae waters over which shore-based aircraft hover or exercise control. The airplane and the promise of importance in naval warfare actually forced the development of the carrier. Like the destroyer, the carrier's hull Is thin and its armament is light (generally six-incli guns and anti-aircraft cannon).

It depends, too, upon speed and the protection of its war-birds In and in spite of general naval resistance to the full development of airpower as a major weapon of war, navies have been compelled to revamp their ship design and radically modify their conception of naval tactics. The most pathetic phase of this Unemployed Dreadnoughts war to date is the plight of the British Navy with its big-gun ships, such as the mighty Hood, guarded and protected by destroyers on the surface and by airplanes aloft until a suitable giant floating steel fort can be found to fight. But the enemy has no sea giants, hence the giant guns of the great and mighty sea monarch (designed for past sea warfare are still cool, while deadly bombers hum overhead to destroy the bases, factories and food supplies upon which the Hood necessarily depends. In fact, the old type of heavy, ASCAP's president, sentimental, old-timer Gene Buck, replies: 70 per cent of every radio operation is music through the Maj. Williams skies to attack enemy objectives such as stretches of water, forts huge ground armies, artillery and fleets.

The tempo of strategy and tactics demands the mobility of young and vigorous minds. The British have been aware of this for quite a while. They have been seeking younger generals and younger air leaders, and boasting (rightly) when they make a selection of a new leader who is junior in years to his predecessor. The latest development along this line is the appointment of Vice Admiral John (Jack) Tovey, 55, to the post of Commander-in-Chief, replacing 60-year old Sir Charles Forbes. The promotion of Tovey, a destroyer is significant from a number of angles.

The type of mrcninery a man has been associated with for any length of Music is the backbone of radio. An individual program is only part of an integrated mass of radio enter Roosevelt who is impulsive and aggressive in this matter, it may be pertinent to note that no one feels more strpngly about the importance to us of British survival than Secretary Hull himself. In fact during recent weeks Mr. Hull rather than Mr. Roosevelt has shown the bulldog tenacity in hammering at this here in Washington.

Nothing New With Hull It is no recent impulsiveness with Mr. Hull but a settled judgment which he has held from the time of Munich. Mr. Roosevelt's interest has been sporadic and in spurts. Before he went away he was showing considerable hesitation about tackling the speedup problem in defense.

He was extremely noncommittal with the British and left them disturbed and puzzled. Mr. Hull never lets up. He pounds away at the importance of British survival as he used to pound away for his reciprocal trade program. During the present interregnum he is the driving spirit.

Mr. Hull draws the line at aid that would bring us into contact with the Axis because the principle of action here is aid short of war. But short of such measures as might mean actual physical encounter, Mr. Hull is driving to the limit because he is convinced that an Axis victory would leave us surrounded by a hostile combination in control of the rest of the world. By Eleanor Roosevelt thrown in with the extra grunt toward getting military supplies across to England.

This is not a matter of our going to war. Such speculation only confuses the purpose. The purpose is to help arm England so that continued resistance can be offered to Hitler. To be effective, in the judgment of some of our best informed officials, this effort must be pressed with wartime speed. We have two kinds of effort going on now, one the long-range building of our defenses, the creation of an enormous defense industry, a second navy, a large army.

The other is the immediate er Jing of emergency help to England for the spring crisis. Peace Rumors Baseless There was no basis whatever for the recent rumors of an early peace. The British rejected such suggestions as emphatically as they could, even going to the extent of registering an almost unanimous vote in Commons. Hitler has recognized the British determination to continue the war, and in his speech last week tried to prepare his tainment. Because it's an integral part of radio, charge for music SIDE GLANCES By Galbraith on an over-all, availability basis He might have added that (al though it is looking for a better system) the broadcasters' own BMI also charges stations -on an over-all basis.

Other broadcaster complaints con OFF THE RECORD By Ed Reed My Day IT. WASHINGTON I was deeply distressed to miss attending the meeting of the American Red Cross. First appointment in the afternoon was with an economist, who proved to be so interesting that I could not gee away before the time had come to Duke and Duchess To Sail Tomorrow audience. I returned in time to see a good part of the third and last act from a back seat. I went to visit one of the new alley dwellings, furnished by Friendship House in order to demonstrate how inexpensively it can be done and still be attractive.

I was impressed and encouraged to see that one can accomplish so much in making a home comfortable on so little money. I enjoyed my own party, as I always do. Our own curtain-raising skit was very light and unimportant, but the newspaper women, who carried the brunt of the entertainment, were as usual entertaining and witty. In any case, I think we always enjoy seeing each other and having an opportunity to chat without any divisions created by politics or professional attitudes. We had one professional bit of entertaining last night.

Miss Vandy Cape did some of her singing satires. I thought it was particularly appropriate of her to be with us, for this party is supposed to make kindly fun of the hostess, and Miss Cape has one number which does that extremely welL I attended Lord Lothian's funeral, and Stephen Early represented the President. David Lilienthal of the Tennessee Valley Authority visited the White mm rehearse for a little curtain-raiser which a few of us were preparing for the "Gridiron Widows" party. Some of my experiences furnished the idea, but all the work was done by Mrs. Henry Morgenthau and the other participants.

I didn't memorize the few lines that were given me very well, but it was fun to do. We went to see "Out West It's Different." Some of the scenes are extremely amusing and some of the acting is excellent, but it does not seem to me to be a. ft Bit The United Press CORAL GABLES, Dec. 16 Rested after spending a day in bed, the Duchess of Windsor was expected today to be able to make the overnight voyage back to Nassau tomorrow. The Duke and Duchess planned to sail aboard the yacht Southern Cross despite the "slight complications" in the conditioa of her jawbone which developed Saturday causing her dental surgeon to order 24 hours of complete rest.

The complications were attributed to "activities attendant upon the YE ii- Cfc- House to show us some pictures depicting tions before the work was started and condi finished play as yet. By the time it reaches Broadway, however, that will probably be accomplished. My guests must have felt that their hostess was extremely peripatetic last night. I seated them all at the dinner table and then dashed to the radio station to do a two-minute speech on the Alec Templeton hour for the benefit of the sales of work done by the blind. At the end of the second act of the play.

I had to run out again and give the speech over again for a Western radio com. ho tuovtcc. mc. t. a v.

orr move from St. Francis Hospital to 12-16 -tmmm I 0 TEED tions today. He told us some interesting stories and I found it as enlightening a demonstration of the value of that whole development as one could have. the Miami Biltmore Hotel" Saturday, which included a brief Christmas shopping tour in Miami Beach. 'This is no place for a man whose accident insurance policy has lapsed "If you'll introduce us, I won't you for anything else." I 1 i.