R_. C_.,
Shaughnessy,
Vancouver,
Canada
Dear Father:
I am dashing off a note, before heading straight from a radio party for the christening, which the royal family most inconveniently scheduled for the middle of the night, to the Professor Ks. It seems, impossible as it is to believe, that my audition there last month was not a complete disaster, and I have been invited to Thanksgiving dinner, which is very nice of them, especially when Reggie is detained on matters mathematical (if I had to put an exact moment to the point when I finished this letter, it would be well after dinner, and several glasses of a so-so Gallo to the good, so excuse me for being a bit whimsical). Where was I? Dashing? Well, you shall have all of me, and for a rather long time, it seems, this Christmas, and we can catch up then.
Yours Sincerely,
Ronnie
Time, 15 November 1948
This week is the Anastasio Somoza issue of Time, since due to an technical bug, it can't be the Thomas E. Dewey issue.
Letters
After an obnoxious letter from W. Walter Hayum to the effect that the Navy shouldn't be paying for the new WAVE formal uniform (as with all dress uniforms, it isn't), it's on to many, many letters for and against psychiatry, in response to Will Menninger's recent article. The consensus is that it is somewhere between fraud and the answer to good mental hygiene, if you were wondering. H. R. J. MacAvoy protests that the recent article on the Airlift should have at least mentioned the RAF. Time concedes that the RAF has contributed 30% of the total effort, at 137,000 tons. The Finnish ambassador writes to say that Detroit shouldn't bother building its own Olympic stadium in case Finland can't host the 1952 games, as it can, and it will, and Detroit seems to have no idea how many stadiums it will need. Everyone hates Westbrook Pegler.
National Affairs
Time reports that everyone is shocked and stunned by Truman's victory, except for the majority of people who voted for him because they liked him better than Dewey, especially labour and farmers and everyone who doesn't like the GOP. Thomas Dewey explains that it is because so many Republican voters stayed home, while Joe Martin thinks that there are too many plutocrats in the party, Irving Ives thinks that it was a reaction to the do-nothing 80th Congress, Senator Aiken blames the Old Guard who would rather let the party be defeated than give up control. Ed Strachan says that the Dewey campaign had too much excess baggage, Fred Hartley blames Dewey, and Taft points out that it is almost impossible to put an Administration out at the height of a boom. The rest of the world is pleased as punch. Time is less so, because it has to fill up many, many pages with jokes, T. S. Elliot poems and Central Americans dictator named Trujillo and Anastasio Somoza, who sound terrible.
The new Administration is expected to fight inflation, advance civil rights, and repeal Taft-Hartley. Also --gasp-- there will be new faces in the Cabinet. In Congress, Truman had some notable coat-tails, sweeping a number of new faces in, such as Cecil White of California, Hugh Mitchell of Washington, Fred Marshall of Minnesota, Robert L. Coffrey of Pennsylvania, M. G. Burnside of West Virginia, James Noland of Indiana and Richard Bolling of Missouri. Also, Henry Wallace is terrible and the Dixiecrats are running for cover. A bookmaker in Detroit who paid out $100,000 covering "Dewey gets less than 200 electoral votes" is in the news, along with a guy who jumped in the river and the Nassau County Federation of Republican Women, who had to change their next talk. A Democrat also won in Puerto Rico, although that story is under Latin America, not National Affairs.
A story about the Army receiving its first peacetime draft class notes that the sergeants have to be nice to the new basic training class, or their Moms will be mad. Some of their Moms will be mad. Mine would be cheering him on. Good reason to not get drafted!
Foreign News
Mukden has fallen, Tom Dewey won't be sending more money after all, and 185,000 Communist troops under General Chen Yi are advancing on Suchow. Our correspondent flew up to Tiyuan in Shansi province to see how Marshal Yen Hsi-shan is holding out. He says he will be fine if he gets an airlift of 5000 tons of supplies a month, six divisions, and a foreign legion of 200 American mercenary pilots under Claire Chennault to clear out the Communists with napalm fire bombs.
"Honor System" Princess Elizabeth is still expecting, so you have to hold a story open in case, so this is the story you put in it. Aargh bargh warming pan baby.
"Flurry" Time doesn't really know how to do this journalism thing, so it makes a rookie mistake and sends a reporter down to the London docks to find out what the Butler's Wharf strike is about, instead of making good use of its page count by making a strained allusion to something that happened fifty years ago, like The Economist would. The story is that Butler's Wharf bought a (British-made) forklift that can "do the work of four men," and so laid off 14 men from a team of 21, which sent the lads out on strike, because a 1929 law says that the employer has to consult the workers first. Time then launches into a discussion of the Anglo-American Council on Productivity, which has now released a 5 1/2 page preliminary report that mainly calls for British workers to be sent to "notably efficient" American plants to see what's what.
Business
"The Fears of Wall Street" The current Wall Street selloff seems to be caused by small investors spooked by the election results, and not by any change in the economy. All the (Republican) papers say that you should keep on buying stocks.
"Slightly Confusing" The Department of Justice can't decide on whether Alcoa is a monopoly, or too small. Could it be both?
"Fair Trade?" Discount selling is spreading in American retail, because consumers have enough stuff and can afford to be choosy.
"The Dollar Grin" The auto show in Earl's Court, London, was something else, because everyone likes the looks of the new Daimler Convertible, MG Tourer and Midget, and Alvis 14 Sport Special.
There must have been a Dewey story spiked in Business, because the section ends with a ramble down to the Manhattan fish market. Did you know that fish are caught at sea, landed at wharfs, and shipped to the market on ice? It's all true!
State of Business reports that the airlines are turning their business around with price cuts, and that the auto industry is also humming right along. Howard Hughes' proposal to separate RKO from its theatres is coming along through the courts. Harry Franks, of Boston's Richards Clothing Manufacturing Co., is giving out free fabric samples to shoppers so that they can assess it close up. Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian has carved out a piece of the action on the Iraq Petroleum front by signing over his claim to an Aramco share. By the time it expires in 1968, Gulbenkian expects to be very old, and every richer.
Science, Medicine
This year's Nobels go to: Chemistry, Arne Tiselius, for electrophoresis, a way of handling the "macromolecules" that are the building blocks of life; Physics, P. M. S. Brackett, for various experimental things.
"Mystery of the Flying Heads" Someone, sometime, long ago, erected 50 ton stone heads on the remote Easter Island in the South Pacific. A new book, Werner Wolff's Island of Death, proposes that the old-time Easter Islanders were terrifying, bloodthirsty cannibals who massacred the original stone-head builders, the Long Ears, and ate them. It seems to me that this just transfers the mystery from the ancestors of the current Easter Islanders (Short Ears) to the old ones; but I am not the psychological theorist who has proved this with science!!!
Alcoholics Anonymous held its fourteenth anniversary ball in the Manhattan Commodore this week. It was awkward, with people standing around making uncomfortable small talk, until an excuse came up to go home and get to bed by nine.
"Pro-White Bread" For the last 25 years, American millers have been using nitrogen trichloride, under the brand name Agene, to bleach flour, saving months on the aging process. It is used in 80% of American flour, but various doctors have been feeding agene-treated bread to dogs, cats, rats, minks and even, in some extreme cases, people to find out if it secretly kills them. This week, the FDA decided that there was enough evidence to ban agene.
"Campaign of Fear?" Psychiatrist Daniel Blain says that the American Cancer Society's cancer publicity is a counter-productive propaganda campaign. Meanwhile, Dr. Charles Cameron, the ACS' medical director, says that cancer is a disease of civilisation, caused by all that science and industry stuff we put in our bodies nowadays, accidentally or on purpose. On the other hand, D. Ryojun Kinoshita, of Japan, says that some cancers might be caused by a virus.
"Less Irritation, Please" Dr. Maurice Fishbein, editor of the AMA Journal, says that the AMA is noticing an increased tendency for cigarette ads to make health claims, for instance, the one about a brand being less irritating, and wants the industry to knock it off via "self-regulation."
Press, Radio and TV, Art, People
"Study of a Failure" How did the press miss signs that Truman would win the election, especially with Senator Taft now saying that it was a lock in retrospect? One possible explanation is offered, buried notes, four paragraphs down in the second story, is that more than two-thirds of American papers have endorsed every Republican presidential candidate since 1936, even including Willkie!? This, Time tentatively suggests, is because newspaper owners like Republican presidential candidates. But not because they're rich, no sir! Because they have a principled opposition to "imperial presidents," which is what you call all Democratic Presidents since . . . well, since Roosevelt. Obviously, though, the real question is why the pollsters told the newspapers what they wanted to hear. You'll be glad to hear that the election turns out to have been well within Gallup's "margin of error," while the Whittlesey and McPhee poll in Colorado actually showed Truman winning, so the pollsters changed the numbers to show a Dewey victory, because that was what everyone else was getting. The Crossley poll detected a shift to Truman, and so did the Chicago Sun-Times poll, but neither thought it significant enough to merit publication, and Crossley now says that it wasn't wrong, just premature. The papers all say that they're going to stop relying on the polls so much and get back to good, honest, on-the-ground reporting.
TV coverage of Election Night was pretty terrible.
William Faulkner is upset that his neighbours keep trying to borrow money now that he is famous, Margaret Truman might go on tour in Britain, Max Schmeling lost a fight, August Piccard is going to try to set a world record by diving to 2 1/2 miles depth, Hewlett Johnson, the "Red Dean of Canterbury," is touring North America, Queen Elizabeth has the flu, Walter Reuther is on the mend from exploratory surgery to remove shotgun pellets form his right arm, ex-King Michael of Romania and Princess Anne of Bourbon-Parma are expecting in April, General Patton has a tank named after him,
Arthur Wermuth has been elected court marshal in Wichita, Field-Marshal Timoshenko is back in favour, Hattie Carnegie won an award. Henry Ford has another grandchild, Martha. Joan Fontaine has had a daughter at 31. Randolph Churchill has remarried, because some girls haven't the sense to come in out of the rain. Dr. Herbert Dickey, famous discoverer of lost tribes and lost rivers, died at 72 in Ecuador. As have George Ruppert[!], Albert Stanley, Carl Thomas Anderson, and Mommie.
Georges Rouault is a famous artist, even though he is still alive, because he recently managed to secure 315 of his early paintings from a dealer and burn them, because they were early works that disappointed him. We should all be so lucky! Southern California's Pomona College has secured a 30ft scroll by Early Ming painter Ch'iu Ying, and is exhibiting it. Oronzio Maldarelli is a famous American sculptor, even though he is alive, because his sculptures are somewhat rude, and a newsmagazine can be very daring and put pictures of them on the "Art" page.
The New Pictures
Joan of Arc is the big film of a week when you expect to start seeing potential Academy Award films. Time almost liked Ingrid Bergman's performance, because it was almost perfect, and thinks that if the rest of the movie had lived up to it, it would be "very close to excellent." Instead, it gets an "A for effort," WHICH IS THE WORST GRADE OF ALL!!!!! Robert Montgomery and Bette Davis in June Bride don't get that award, because they know how to be funny in a funny movie, and this movie is funny. Maybe it is "B-grade" funny because it dawdles in the middle, but actual Bs are better than As for effort. Road House is slightly weird but has Ida Lupino. Interlude is a depressing Swedish movie, but has Viveca Lindfors, while Back Streets of Paris is a French gangster melodrama, but has Andree Clement.
Somehow, I have a feeling that if Whittaker Chambers is back at Time, he's not doing movie reviews. Miaow! Last up is Millicent Fenwick's Vogue Book of Etiquette, so take my comments on Rose and give it super-vitamins.
Books
Robert E. Sherwood Ronnie takes a gun and kills all book reviewers everywhere for all time. After six columns about how Harry Hopkins and Franklin Roosevelt used to hang out back in the day, we get on to a book by Billy Rose. Culture! In almost as many words as Harry and Franklin sitting in a tree! What kind of book reviews would you have to spike because Dewey isn't President??!? Okay, I admit that I have a guilty interest in the Rose book, but it's not serious, you know? Last up is Millicent Fenwick's Vogue Book of Etiquette, so take my comments on Rose and give it super-vitamins.
Flight, 18 November 1948
This week is the Anastasio Somoza issue of Time, since due to an technical bug, it can't be the Thomas E. Dewey issue.
Letters
 |
| Nearly everyone. |
After an obnoxious letter from W. Walter Hayum to the effect that the Navy shouldn't be paying for the new WAVE formal uniform (as with all dress uniforms, it isn't), it's on to many, many letters for and against psychiatry, in response to Will Menninger's recent article. The consensus is that it is somewhere between fraud and the answer to good mental hygiene, if you were wondering. H. R. J. MacAvoy protests that the recent article on the Airlift should have at least mentioned the RAF. Time concedes that the RAF has contributed 30% of the total effort, at 137,000 tons. The Finnish ambassador writes to say that Detroit shouldn't bother building its own Olympic stadium in case Finland can't host the 1952 games, as it can, and it will, and Detroit seems to have no idea how many stadiums it will need. Everyone hates Westbrook Pegler.
National Affairs
Time reports that everyone is shocked and stunned by Truman's victory, except for the majority of people who voted for him because they liked him better than Dewey, especially labour and farmers and everyone who doesn't like the GOP. Thomas Dewey explains that it is because so many Republican voters stayed home, while Joe Martin thinks that there are too many plutocrats in the party, Irving Ives thinks that it was a reaction to the do-nothing 80th Congress, Senator Aiken blames the Old Guard who would rather let the party be defeated than give up control. Ed Strachan says that the Dewey campaign had too much excess baggage, Fred Hartley blames Dewey, and Taft points out that it is almost impossible to put an Administration out at the height of a boom. The rest of the world is pleased as punch. Time is less so, because it has to fill up many, many pages with jokes, T. S. Elliot poems and Central Americans dictator named Trujillo and Anastasio Somoza, who sound terrible.
The new Administration is expected to fight inflation, advance civil rights, and repeal Taft-Hartley. Also --gasp-- there will be new faces in the Cabinet. In Congress, Truman had some notable coat-tails, sweeping a number of new faces in, such as Cecil White of California, Hugh Mitchell of Washington, Fred Marshall of Minnesota, Robert L. Coffrey of Pennsylvania, M. G. Burnside of West Virginia, James Noland of Indiana and Richard Bolling of Missouri. Also, Henry Wallace is terrible and the Dixiecrats are running for cover. A bookmaker in Detroit who paid out $100,000 covering "Dewey gets less than 200 electoral votes" is in the news, along with a guy who jumped in the river and the Nassau County Federation of Republican Women, who had to change their next talk. A Democrat also won in Puerto Rico, although that story is under Latin America, not National Affairs.
 |
| It was like this. See Press, Radio, Art, People, below.(*) |
 |
| Democrats in disarray! |
Foreign News
Mukden has fallen, Tom Dewey won't be sending more money after all, and 185,000 Communist troops under General Chen Yi are advancing on Suchow. Our correspondent flew up to Tiyuan in Shansi province to see how Marshal Yen Hsi-shan is holding out. He says he will be fine if he gets an airlift of 5000 tons of supplies a month, six divisions, and a foreign legion of 200 American mercenary pilots under Claire Chennault to clear out the Communists with napalm fire bombs.
Suchow falls next week.
In France, the Eighteenth Brumaire of Franco De Gaulle Figaro is making slow and steady progress towards next week's story that says the same thing. Though, in all honesty, I enjoyed the way Time plagiarises de Tocqueville in this one. They say no-one appreciates the classics!"Honor System" Princess Elizabeth is still expecting, so you have to hold a story open in case, so this is the story you put in it. Aargh bargh warming pan baby.
 |
| Hattie Carnegie front cover ad, Ladies Home Journal |
Business
"The Fears of Wall Street" The current Wall Street selloff seems to be caused by small investors spooked by the election results, and not by any change in the economy. All the (Republican) papers say that you should keep on buying stocks.
"Slightly Confusing" The Department of Justice can't decide on whether Alcoa is a monopoly, or too small. Could it be both?
"Fair Trade?" Discount selling is spreading in American retail, because consumers have enough stuff and can afford to be choosy.
"The Dollar Grin" The auto show in Earl's Court, London, was something else, because everyone likes the looks of the new Daimler Convertible, MG Tourer and Midget, and Alvis 14 Sport Special.
There must have been a Dewey story spiked in Business, because the section ends with a ramble down to the Manhattan fish market. Did you know that fish are caught at sea, landed at wharfs, and shipped to the market on ice? It's all true!
State of Business reports that the airlines are turning their business around with price cuts, and that the auto industry is also humming right along. Howard Hughes' proposal to separate RKO from its theatres is coming along through the courts. Harry Franks, of Boston's Richards Clothing Manufacturing Co., is giving out free fabric samples to shoppers so that they can assess it close up. Calouste Sarkis Gulbenkian has carved out a piece of the action on the Iraq Petroleum front by signing over his claim to an Aramco share. By the time it expires in 1968, Gulbenkian expects to be very old, and every richer.
Science, Medicine
This year's Nobels go to: Chemistry, Arne Tiselius, for electrophoresis, a way of handling the "macromolecules" that are the building blocks of life; Physics, P. M. S. Brackett, for various experimental things.
 |
| Did I mention cannibalism! Cannibalism! |
Alcoholics Anonymous held its fourteenth anniversary ball in the Manhattan Commodore this week. It was awkward, with people standing around making uncomfortable small talk, until an excuse came up to go home and get to bed by nine.
"Pro-White Bread" For the last 25 years, American millers have been using nitrogen trichloride, under the brand name Agene, to bleach flour, saving months on the aging process. It is used in 80% of American flour, but various doctors have been feeding agene-treated bread to dogs, cats, rats, minks and even, in some extreme cases, people to find out if it secretly kills them. This week, the FDA decided that there was enough evidence to ban agene.
"Campaign of Fear?" Psychiatrist Daniel Blain says that the American Cancer Society's cancer publicity is a counter-productive propaganda campaign. Meanwhile, Dr. Charles Cameron, the ACS' medical director, says that cancer is a disease of civilisation, caused by all that science and industry stuff we put in our bodies nowadays, accidentally or on purpose. On the other hand, D. Ryojun Kinoshita, of Japan, says that some cancers might be caused by a virus.
"Less Irritation, Please" Dr. Maurice Fishbein, editor of the AMA Journal, says that the AMA is noticing an increased tendency for cigarette ads to make health claims, for instance, the one about a brand being less irritating, and wants the industry to knock it off via "self-regulation."
Press, Radio and TV, Art, People
"Study of a Failure" How did the press miss signs that Truman would win the election, especially with Senator Taft now saying that it was a lock in retrospect? One possible explanation is offered, buried notes, four paragraphs down in the second story, is that more than two-thirds of American papers have endorsed every Republican presidential candidate since 1936, even including Willkie!? This, Time tentatively suggests, is because newspaper owners like Republican presidential candidates. But not because they're rich, no sir! Because they have a principled opposition to "imperial presidents," which is what you call all Democratic Presidents since . . . well, since Roosevelt. Obviously, though, the real question is why the pollsters told the newspapers what they wanted to hear. You'll be glad to hear that the election turns out to have been well within Gallup's "margin of error," while the Whittlesey and McPhee poll in Colorado actually showed Truman winning, so the pollsters changed the numbers to show a Dewey victory, because that was what everyone else was getting. The Crossley poll detected a shift to Truman, and so did the Chicago Sun-Times poll, but neither thought it significant enough to merit publication, and Crossley now says that it wasn't wrong, just premature. The papers all say that they're going to stop relying on the polls so much and get back to good, honest, on-the-ground reporting.TV coverage of Election Night was pretty terrible.
William Faulkner is upset that his neighbours keep trying to borrow money now that he is famous, Margaret Truman might go on tour in Britain, Max Schmeling lost a fight, August Piccard is going to try to set a world record by diving to 2 1/2 miles depth, Hewlett Johnson, the "Red Dean of Canterbury," is touring North America, Queen Elizabeth has the flu, Walter Reuther is on the mend from exploratory surgery to remove shotgun pellets form his right arm, ex-King Michael of Romania and Princess Anne of Bourbon-Parma are expecting in April, General Patton has a tank named after him,
Arthur Wermuth has been elected court marshal in Wichita, Field-Marshal Timoshenko is back in favour, Hattie Carnegie won an award. Henry Ford has another grandchild, Martha. Joan Fontaine has had a daughter at 31. Randolph Churchill has remarried, because some girls haven't the sense to come in out of the rain. Dr. Herbert Dickey, famous discoverer of lost tribes and lost rivers, died at 72 in Ecuador. As have George Ruppert[!], Albert Stanley, Carl Thomas Anderson, and Mommie.
Georges Rouault is a famous artist, even though he is still alive, because he recently managed to secure 315 of his early paintings from a dealer and burn them, because they were early works that disappointed him. We should all be so lucky! Southern California's Pomona College has secured a 30ft scroll by Early Ming painter Ch'iu Ying, and is exhibiting it. Oronzio Maldarelli is a famous American sculptor, even though he is alive, because his sculptures are somewhat rude, and a newsmagazine can be very daring and put pictures of them on the "Art" page. |
| The one on the right is not Mitzi Solomon. Gross, by the way, Time. I'm guessing that Whittaker Chambers is back from finking leave? |
Joan of Arc is the big film of a week when you expect to start seeing potential Academy Award films. Time almost liked Ingrid Bergman's performance, because it was almost perfect, and thinks that if the rest of the movie had lived up to it, it would be "very close to excellent." Instead, it gets an "A for effort," WHICH IS THE WORST GRADE OF ALL!!!!! Robert Montgomery and Bette Davis in June Bride don't get that award, because they know how to be funny in a funny movie, and this movie is funny. Maybe it is "B-grade" funny because it dawdles in the middle, but actual Bs are better than As for effort. Road House is slightly weird but has Ida Lupino. Interlude is a depressing Swedish movie, but has Viveca Lindfors, while Back Streets of Paris is a French gangster melodrama, but has Andree Clement.
Somehow, I have a feeling that if Whittaker Chambers is back at Time, he's not doing movie reviews. Miaow! Last up is Millicent Fenwick's Vogue Book of Etiquette, so take my comments on Rose and give it super-vitamins.
Books
Robert E. Sherwood Ronnie takes a gun and kills all book reviewers everywhere for all time. After six columns about how Harry Hopkins and Franklin Roosevelt used to hang out back in the day, we get on to a book by Billy Rose. Culture! In almost as many words as Harry and Franklin sitting in a tree! What kind of book reviews would you have to spike because Dewey isn't President??!? Okay, I admit that I have a guilty interest in the Rose book, but it's not serious, you know? Last up is Millicent Fenwick's Vogue Book of Etiquette, so take my comments on Rose and give it super-vitamins.
Flight, 18 November 1948
Leaders
"Boosting Air Transport" Flight is pleased to report that the Tudor 4 has been granted an airworthiness certificate at an all up weight of 82,000lbs, up from 80,000, thanks to the Merlin giving an additional 35hp for takeoff and climb, achieved through a 1 1/2lb increase in boost. This means that it will be able to carry the full 32 passengers westbound to via Keflavik and Gander, vice 25. BSAA will continue to use the northern route until tropical trials at Nassau clear it for 82,000lbs on the southern route.
"Crystal-Gazing" Air Commodore Banks gave a talk about "The Gas Turbine and Its Place in Service Aviation" to the Royal United Services Institution and said that in some ways it would have been better if the gas turbine hadn't been invented, because no-one can predict the future and plan now. The turbo-jet and turboprop will both have military uses, he thinks, and the axial type will beat out the centrifugal by being more compact and getting higher fuel efficiency from higher pressure ratios. He is not so sure that the ducted fan will be used; but, if so, it will be on bombes, not fighters. He can't see the long range escort fighter having a future, but the parasite might. The future fighter will probably be a single-engined type with greatly increased thrust, perhaps 10,000lbs, and better fuel economy from a better aerodynamic design. Jet bombers will have more engines, but there may eventually be a specialised bomber engine, at which point the ducted fan may come to the fore, although he prefers the compounded jet, with two compressors in series on different shafts. The really long range bomber will probably have a turboprop, because a slightly higher fuel consumption compared with compounded jet engines will be balanced by lower drag from smaller cooling requirements.
H. Neubroch, "Gliding and the Royal Air Force" The glider people are back to tell us, once again ,that gliding could be a good way of training pilots. Reggie says they're still wrong. I didn't even bring up the later article about "Joys of Ballooning Revived," which seems to have been written by the staff, which seems to suggest that a big story was spiked this week. If so, I have no idea what it might have been.
"American Choice: Outstanding North American Fighter Goes Into Production" The USAF has ordered 700 F-86s. Everyone likes it, and it probably goes 670mph.
 |
| C. Mike Freer |
For jet bombers, it is likely that within the next ten years, turbine engines will be giving cruising efficiency about 20% greater than existing engines, but this will require cruising height of around 45,000ft. For speeds up to 500mph, the ducted fan will be better. Cruising at higher speeds (the word "cruise" cries out in agony as it goes to the rack!)will require a new generation of, yes, compact, compounded axial turbines. Future bombers, he conjectures, will have a crew of two and, rejoice Uncle George, "every possible device for blind-flying and for searching or scanning." The very long range bomber will have either turbojets or the compound piston, and Banks says, again, he prefers the turbojet as, while it is likely to have a fuel efficiency of 0.42lb/hp hour, compared with the compound piston's 0.38, the compound piston will be heavier and have more drag due to cooling requirements, and the propjet will cruise at a higher proportion of full speed, that is, faster. Building a bomber with a 12,000 mile range remains a "formidable" challenge. The math for a plane with a cruising height of 40,000ft at 400mph with a useful bomb load at that range gives a 500,000lb aircraft, twice the weight of the Brabazon, and requires an airscrew efficiency of 80%, "which might be difficult to attain." When, at the end of the last war, a new reconnaissance aircraft with 25h endurance, and 7500--10,000 mile range was considered, the difference between a compounded piston engine with a 0.34lb/hp-hr and a conventional piston engine with 0.44lb/hp hr was 60,000lb auw, which, if I'm not imagining things, was almost the auw of the old patrol B-24s! Banks does not believe that the tailless aircraft has a future, except perhaps in the form of the delta wing. He believes that military aircraft should continue to use gasoline, not because it was the most efficient fraction, rather the contrary, but because wartime refining capacity would need to focus on making gasoline, which is more in demand in war than kerosene, and making kerosene cuts into the amount of gasoline that can be produced.
A short feature covers preliminary accounts of two Swedish turbine engines. The Svenska Turbinfabrika AB Ljunstrom of Finspang engine, designed by Curt Nicolin and Eric Ostmar, has a two stage centrifugal compressor, currently only used on the Rolls Royce Dart. So that's interesting, because the Dart has a lot of good buzz, and it can be difficult to sort out which of these details is important. I guess the moral is that the two-stage centrifugal compressor is a good gadget.
Civil Aviation News
BOAC is proposing to order 25 Bristol 175s, which are a development of the "MRE" specification from 1947. They will have either the Bristol Centaurus or the Proteus. With a Centaurus, the 175 would be superior to the Constellation, while with the Proteus it would cruise at least 75mph faster, while being quieter and less uncomfortable, and using kerosene rather than gasoline. A 60 passenger version would be as comfortable as the Constellation, although it could also carry 70 passengers in a more austere cabin. The Tudor 4's maximum auw has been raised by 2000lbs to 82,000lbs, allowing it to carry 9500lbs payload on the east-west Atlantic route, so that it can carry all 32 passengers and more freight. This was achieved by increasing the boost pressure at the intake manifold from 20 to 20 1/2lbs per square inch, giving an additional 35hp per engine. Boost for climb has been increased from 12 to 14lb/sq in at 2850rpm, allowing the Tudor to climb with three engines "satisfactorily."
The Stratocruiser has received CAA approval at an all up weight of 142,500lbs, which is 7500lbs more than originally guaranteed. It has a service load of 30 tons, and can cruise at 25,000ft, at which altitude the cabin will be pressurised to the equivalent of 5500ft. A Dragon Rapide diverting to Speke after circling Ronaldsway for twenty minutes, ran out of fuel and crashed in the Mersey, killing 7 of 8 passengers. The pilot, Captain J. C. Higgins, had extensive experience on the route, and was flying as "managing director" of "Mannin Airways" at the time. The Chief Inspector's report on the BEA Viking accident on Irish Law Mountain, near Largs, Ayrshire, was caused by a faulty market beacon receiver installation. The Viking crash landed on the mountain side because the crew could not find the beam and strayed onto high ground. Crew and passengers escaped from the wreck, but the plane was destroyed by fire.
BEA's ground engineers are on strike, and ace BOAC flying boat pilot E. S. J. Alcock is returning to active duty from training to fly the Springbok route. It is news that you can detect thunderstorms on a radar set again. It appears to be a big deal because the NPL is actually doing it at four ground stations, which makes it all super accurate. Various services have been extended, expanded or otherwise improved. Qantas sent a flying boat to prove the Indian Ocean route to Johannesburg. The Viking's Hercules engine has had its life between overhauls extended from 650 to 700 hours. ANA has bought four DC-4s that became available from Douglas when the Scandinavian airlines merged, for the British Pacific Commonwealth service.
"Feederliners" Flight does a pictorial featuring the De Havilland Dove, Percival Prince and Short Sealand, because apparently Britain "excels" in building small airliners. I'm not sure I grasp the market as a whole, but it seems as though every country builds feederliners, because they are a smaller investment, and you could make the argument that the shortage of British-built engines for them is a bit of an embarrassment. (Either that or the fact that de Havilland won't deliver them means that the market isn't nearly as lucrative as the aircraft builders would have us believe, in which case, who cares?)
Here and There
Forrestal says the Berlin Airlift is going at the cost of a cool hundred million a year, which is "a good investment for peace." America has a civil defence report out calling for a peacetime ARP and telling everyone to stop being such sissies about radiation, because, really, a mere 100,000 casualties from any given atom bomb explosion is a rounding error in a population of 150 million, and with a civil defence force of 15 million, there would be more than enough to bury the dead. I'm sorry. I found the tone a bit revolting, even in Flight's summary. The Brabazon's structure weight is only 50lb more than the original estimate, which is good news, as that is, if my figures are right, less than 1lb for every million dollars of taxpayer money. William Jessops, Ltd. reminds everyone that they make a fine jet turbine blade-quality steel. Rotol reminds everyone that they build airscrews for everything between 300 and 4500hp. The Aircraft Golfing Society has some vacancies! The American ground establishment at Burtonwood supporting the Berlin Airlift has increased to 3000. The Australian government has loaned £10,000 to a firm that will fly cold-stored beef around the country, in hopes of increasing the amount that can be exported to Britain, which I mention because it shows just how keen the Australians are to earn every pound sterling of exports they can right now. Speaking of money, keenness and flight, £6000 in gold was recently discovered in the fuel tank of an Orient Airways Dakota in Hong Kong, while it was in final preparations to depart for Karachi. My, however did that get there? Innocent mistake, I'm sure, officer. The New Zealand government is pleased as punch with an experiment to convert some of its Avengers as fertiliser spreaders, and is now working on upgrading to a Miles Aerovan for top dressing steep areas.
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| It turns out that the Aircraft Golfing Society is an industry networking thing, and not guys who fly from golf course to golf course. Shucks. |
"Activities at Ypenburg: Servicing and Charter in Holland: The Work of the Frits Diepen Companies" I hope that the story Flight lost this week was a doozy, because this is getting embarrassing.
"Socema Aircraft Turbines:Record of a French Development Programme" As you can tell from the weird name, these are the jet turbines that the French nationalised aircraft engine company is making. It turns out that this is actually a lecture on French turboprops and jets by "P. Destival," and is a description of French work during the war years, when they had no access to German or British work, and went their own way. As might have been predicted from other independent national efforts, it mainly involved axial turbines with ridiculous numbers of compressors to push up the thermodynamic efficiency at the expense of losing everything in all of the mechanical movements. Unlike the British, who gloss over the work, Destival emphasises how hard it was to get a combustion chamber working with sufficiently high combustion rate. As James likes to point out, British builders really did have an "unfair" advantage, thanks to Royal Navy work. The French are quite proud of their turbine blades, in that they had good steel for it. French steel is good, he says. It sounds as though aerodynamic design was the weak point.
"Ramjets: A Contribution to their Theory and Performance" This is a summary of NRC (National Research Council [of Canada]) report 1674, by Demetrios Samaras, and is in the way of a general summary of the aerodynamic losses associated with each feature of the ramjet from inlet to nozzle.
Correspondence
Geoffrey Dorman and R. G. J. Nash write to tell us about the old days. (C. S. Rolls had an accident once, and there is a Richtofen Circus D. VII preserved in America.) G. R. Barratt extends L. E. Baynes joke. This is a hard thing to do for anyone, and I don't think he succeeds, but points for trying! W. S. Worner gets down in the weeds over altimeter errors. Hans Joachim Kowsky writes to say that German sports gliding is for sport, not secretly building up a secret air force, because that is as stupid as building up an army by going on walks. Adrian Bishop points out something else that is silly, H. F. King's hopes for the future of the skidded jet fighter. John Eliot is upset that the Americans have a "Fury" jet fighter, as this will lead to confusion with the British Sea Fury, and thinks that something should be done before all the good code names are taken, and Supermarine has to name a fighter the "Attacker." Oops!
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| A Pemberton-Billing original |
Engineering, 19 November 1948
Thomas Bedford, "Radiant and Convective Heating," Concluded. The Engineer beat Fortune to a discussion of forced-air heating (remember, that's when a fan blows outside air across the surface of a closed furnace and then perhaps through some kind of conditioning set-up that humidifies it, and then into the house, which is convective heating), but Fortune beats The Engineer to a discussion of radiant heating, which is when a hot surface such as a fire, stove, radiator or heated panel is directly exposed to the room. By piecing the sequence of events together, we frame a story of cause and effect that will bring the jury on our side, or so someone told me, talking about something. (They look like they are having all the fun in the movies, but I'm not sure I actually want to be a trial lawyer.) This particular story is that forced heating is going to win. Bedford clearly doesn't agree, and he doesn't agree in a very English way, which I guess isn't that surprising from a guy who has been publishing in the Journal of Hygiene for many years. He leans heavily on the experience of "comfort" and its relationship to heat and to heat sources. It takes an increase of 2 degrees in a radiant heat source of (big enough) size to produce a detectable feeling of increased warmth in skin that is (far enough) away. I'm making fun, but for a story in this magazine, we're a bit short on facts. From this finding he moves on to humidity, air speed, "stuffiness" and "mental acuity" to find that, once you've thrown out all the "science" that supports convective heating, you are left with the inescapable conclusion that people should huddle in their sweaters in front of a tiny coal grate in a freezing-cold room, because they are really more comfortable then, even if they think they aren't. People! What do they know?
"Exhibits at the Public Health and Municipal Engineering Exhibition" The Exhibition is held every two years and is very interesting, especially this year, which is the centennial of the original Health Act. Many machines were exhibited this year, and hey cover so many fields that it is hard to organise them, so Engineering won't. Instead, it will show a new Petter stationary diesel engine with some interesting features, (I didn't find them interesting. Hopefully I'm not missing something that's actually bold and original.) Then it will show three excavation machines, just because it can.
Frederick Snow, "Applied Mathematics and the Structural Engineer" This was a contribution to the British AAS, and it shows. Snow tells us about the old days, when he learned the maths up to calculus in school, and notices how, nowadays, instead of of working out the math for himself, he just looks it up in the library. So it goes for most old civil engineers, he might say, but doesn't, moving on to a recent example of applied math in structural engineering, when some Germans used the mathematics of rotation to show that the shells of concrete roofs can be thinner, thus cheaper. By and large, the most important thing a civil engineer has to do is estimate the cost of a proposed structure. They use math to do that. It would be great if they had better math!"Rugby Locomotive Testing Station, Concluded." Locomotives are not just tested by mobile testing stations that take dynamometers and various instruments to them. Sometimes they go to a big shed in Rugby that is full of instruments that don't move, which raises the fascinating question of how dashpot mechanisms are best connected down to the foundations. I am using "fascinating" in the sarcastic sense.
Launches and Trials
Launches and Trials said last week that the electromagnetic coupling on the British Polar Engines-equipped motor ship Fulham X was by Polar Engines. It was by British Thomson Houston. Launches and Trials regrets the error. Other MS launched or trialled this week include Kaitawa, a twin-screw general cargo vessel; and Westbank, a single-screw cargo vessel for fruits, vegetables or general cargos. This was a good week for steamships over and against their scruffy, dirty, heavy-oil cousins. Kingston Sardius is a single-screwed trawler that will probably need a figurehead just to fit its name plate to the hull. Salvia and Stevia are also single-screw trawlers. El Presidente Peron is a twin-screw general cargo liner with 14 first class cabins, about 14,500t GRT, 14,500hp for 19 knots.
British Standards Specifications
Solid-Draw Non-Ferrous Metal Tubing is a separate volume on this highly controversial topic, specifically for the petroleum industry, which will no longer suffer from non-ferrous metal tubing drawn to the specifications of other, lesser industries without the law. Water Treatment for Marine Boilers is a stocking stuffer for your and Uncle George,to remind you of long ago days on Scapa Flow water, tooling from destroyer to destroyer to fight the dreaded condenseritis. Were you the only RCNVR(E) there? Were you the only RCNVR(E), period? Ah, the hidden advantages of being cordially asked to leave Britain for the "benefit of all concerned" back when Good King Edward was setting such a fine example of keeping his pants on in the face of temptation. Anyway, a lesser plague raged in the last war, mainly in the merchant marine, and now the Standards Association is here to tell us what additives, detergents and descalers are appropriate when.
Regional Notes
South-western Notes has a colliery strike to complain about, but the rest of our regional correspondents have an itchy feeling of loss where their grumpiness should be. Scottish Notes harrumphs that the industry might not have enough coal stockpiled to make it through the winter of 1949, but otherwise everything, even the scrap supply, is fine. South Yorkshire digs up a complaint about demand for low-carbon steel being short, while Cleveland and the North is tetchy about the "heavy demand" from home consumers, who don't seem to understand just how much the industry has to deliver abroad under bilateral trade deals, above and beyond their normal export quotas. Hmm! I knew that people were grumbling about the Russian trade deal, but I had no idea that there was a connection with British builders not getting their steel.
Leaders
"Cinematography In Scientific Research" I think, although I'm not sure, because my mental acuity bounced off this one hard, that Engineering went to see a documentary about filming experiments. Or maybe a Conversazione or a Symposium or a Conference. There's no way to be sure without reading grindingly long indirect sentences from beginning to end until I come upon the carefully buried facts of the case. I'm not going to do that when i can just notice that filming slow-moving and fast-moving things can improve our understanding of things, and marvel at the complaint at the end that sometimes documentary makers edit things to make research seem more interesting, even at the expense of being --gasp!-- inaccurate!
"Production Efficiency" Engineering points out that the amount produced per person per day determines a nation's standard of living, and that the British have been talking about it for years. Once upon a time, they talked about "efficiency," and brought up growing German manufacturing. Then, they talked about "rationalisation," which no-one could rationalise. Then it was "planning," which seems to have come to an unintended, unplanned, if you will, dead end of late. During the Depression, people reversed course to talk about "technological unemployment." Nowadays, we have reversed course again. Technology no-longer causes unemployment, but more employment than we can handle, says The Economist. Thus the need for "production efficiency," a point where I'm drifting away from Engineering, which first says that there should be more production efficiency regardless of anything else, then suggests that probably the unions stand against full production efficiency (because of "technological unemployment," perhaps), but that that is not an excuse for management not to do its best to achieve full production efficiency. The engineering industry probably has the most production efficiency, because it is very scientific, which is why it mentions the Engineers' Associations' recent pamphlet, Production Efficiency: The Contribution of the Engineering Industry, which is very worthy and interesting, and brings up the fascinating point that it is very hard to cost research and therefore determine its "production efficiency." Here, again, Fortune is a bit ahead of Engineering. It will be admitted that the American engineering industry has more production efficiency, but that is because they have more capital per operative, and it would be well for the government to contemplate how tax depreciation favours investment in American more than Britain.
Notes leads off by summarising the debate on the Iron and Steel Bill, announcing that Sir Andrew Duncan, of the Iron and Steel Federation, gave a "powerful speech" with lots of statistics, showing that nationalisation was not the answer. [Wonders of the Internet] Then it is off to the Institution of Mechanical Engineers for a colloquium on fluid shock on turbines. Sir Stafford was up for a press conference to explain how achieving full production efficiency with more capital, ie, more machine tools, was to be squared with the export drive that called for British machine tools to be exported. To America, if at all possible, how about them apples? The Minister evidently did that thing where you put your finger down your wing collar and flop out giant beads of sweat. The Ministry of Supply had a thing where they talked about disposing of surplus machine tools by scrapping or export at low prices.Why, yes, I am getting whiplash, too! In defence of this particular right hand that hasn't checked in with the left, the discussion is mainly about machine tools that are deemed to be mostly useful for making armaments, and which are in vast surplus. Since the export of armaments-making machine tools is already controlled, no-one has to worry that Britain is exporting its arms industry to the warmongering East Ruritanians. The President of the Buying and Selling British Machine Tools For Money Association (Title slightly improved) responded tartly about rearmament booms and World War IIIs. Engineering went to the "Sheffield on the Mettle" Exhibition and was impressed by all the Sheffield steel.
Obituaries
E. B. Vignoles, best known for his "Megger" portable insulation tester, has died at 93. W. M. Selvey, born 1880, was trained in the dockyards, but was associated with electrical plant for collieries and then equipment for precision testing of power plants. Dr. C. S. Broadhead, Engineering's favourite engineering librarian, died at 70 on Saturday. He published original papers on the kinetic theory of gasses and molecular theory of solutions.
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| A blast furnace and three Cowper stoves along the Allegheny. |
"Brittle Fracture in Mild Steel Plates, III" Engineering tells us that when it set out to reprint this conference, it was originally not going to include any of the original tables, but people protested. A particularly interesting series of brittle fractures in mild steel plates occurred in some Admiralty 3 drum boilers, made in the 1914--18 war and used intermittently afterwards, and given a full workout in 1937--8, whereupon they failed. The tables included give the alloying metal percentages in the steel that fractured. There are also microscopic photographs.
"The Electricity Supply Industry" Mr. C. O. Boyse gave a talk to the Institution of Electrical Engineers this week in which he talked about how the industry had expanded three-fold since 1934 and now supplies 900 kW/h for every person in Britain. This is wonderful, and it is "difficult to understand" why the government is restricting the expansion of the industry to only another 8000 mW/h in the next four years. I'm not sure what's difficult about reading The Economist blah-blah-blather on about disinflationary not-investing, except maybe as how you are, if you are in London, only a tramride away from Geoffrey Crowther and the opportunity to give him a piece of your mind! He talked about the difficulty of siting new power plants, about which we've already heard --not enough estuary locations with cooling water-- and new plant, about which we've also heard, mostly in terms of the even higher-voltage National Grid-within-a-Grid, but also, and this is new, some experimental oil-fired plant. Then he went on about high voltage transmission lines, dropping a comment about "international agreements--" as in, standardising equipment, or power lines to and from the Continent!?!! [If this makes you think about Brexit. . . .] From there, it is on to transmission design issues. Did you know that high tension power lines can start "galloping" under the right conditions? I think that is an over-dramatised by actual physical analogy, and the issue is the spacing between vibration dampers. The more you have, the less the problem, but the heavier the masts have to be.
"The Supply of Radioactive and Stable Isotopes" People have been asking, and the Atomic Energy Research Establishment responds. The Gleep slow reactor operates for 60 hours a week and produces 10 quadrillion fast neutrons per centimeter per second for irradiating-isotopes purposes, as well as slow, thermal neutrons, suitable for some uses. A suitable flux is not guaranteed, but industrial users can bring their materials down, and see what Gleep can do for them. The Institute, and the associated medical institute at Harlow also has limited assay facilities for testing isotopes for industry.
F. C. Johansen, "Cinematographic Studies of the Motion of Railway-Vehicle Wheels" This paper was originally given at the recent conference on applied mechanics in London, and is what Engineering was talking about in that tortured Leader I couldn't be bothered to puzzle out. Much is to be learned about misbehaving wheels from filming them misbehaving in slow motion, which is not the kind of film who attend with your sisters on a dare, muffled up in an overcoat and asking for a ticket in your deepest, most masculine-sounding voice in hopes that no-one will recognise your sex, much less your name.Not worth it, by the way. Disgusting.
Where was I? Oh, films of rail wheels doing horrible things to rails.
Notes on Books has some railway books, an entire monograph on Economy of Timber in Building, and a review of the Ministry of Civil Aviation's London Airport, which is a popular account of the ongoing building of London Airport at Heathrow. It sounds like a page turner, and I am not being sarcastic. Speaking of repenting my cheeky ways, it looks as though it is definitely going to be "London Airport," and not "Heathrow Airport," so I am going to stop complaining.
Time, 22 November 1948
Letters
Nominations for Man of the Year are open. Everyone except Bernard K. Frank, of Portland, Oregon, thinks it should be Harry Truman, but Bernard thinks it should be Joe Stalin, because communism is bad. L. Joseph Connors thinks that psychology is doing a good job of steering clear of the excesses of the psychoanalytic movement (don't ask me or I'll tell you!!!!) and wishes that Time would reflect this. John Rogers, of Portland, Oregon, thinks that the British middle class pay too much in taxes. Time apologises to the editorial staff of The Washington Post for printing a sensationalist story about the death of former owner, Charles Porter. Time also blew its review of Three Musketeers. The Publisher's Letter recounts those times people wrote in asking for back issues because they were historic.National Affairs
"Collapsing Front" Enough with the election! It's time to focus on the Berlin Airlift being "clapped under new Russian pressures," the longshoreman's strike on the East Coast, the wobbling Sophoulis cabinet in Greece, and the imminent fall of Suchow. The US is sending rice to Shanghai in Navy ships, but it is too little, too late. Collapse is everywhere! Well, everywhere in China, and that's the main thing. Meanwhile, the President is on a Florida vacation, and Blair House is being refitted for Vice-President Barkeley, as the fittings to accommodate President Roosevelt have never been removed. On the bright side, the West Coast longshoreman's strike may be on the brink of being settled, and Harold Stassen is getting ready to run in '52 and heal the Republican Party."Howlin' Mad v. the Army" General Holland M. Smith, from whom you might have heard from Michael and Judith, on the general theme of "the butcher who killed our grandson," has a serialised memoir out in the Saturday Evening Post. The latest explains why he relieved Ralph Smith, GOC 27th National Guard.
"Ike's Crusade" National Affairs seems to Time like a good place to review Crusade in Europe for several pages.
Manners and Morals reports that Colorado had an appalling hunting season with a record haul of 68,000 mule deer, 12,000 elk, 99 bears, "countless" horse, cattle and sheep, 17 hunters. The Colorado Fish and Game Department is thinking of having rules next year. The last Hudson River Day Liner has been retired, because people don't do river cruises any more. Westbrook Pegler hates Felix Frankfurter, because he uses too many big words, and not because he is too liberal. James Masterson and Wendell Phillips' Federal Prose is funny because the government uses too many big words.
International
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| For example, Nagy did an American tour with a Communist colleague who thought that mobile homes were tacky. |
Last week's feature of political jokes from around the world continues this week. I didn't find it funny, but maybe that is because I already get more politics than I care for.
"Crescendo" When Time went to press, Suchow hadn't fallen yet. Nanking is crammed with refugees, with refugees also now fleeing Shanghai ahead of the Communists, but not the rice shortage. Meanwhile, in Britain, they are dedicating a nice memorial to FDR, because he fought for Britain's freedom. I think Mr. Luce might be implying that there is a double standard here, because you'd think the lead story from Britain would be the next one, about the BIRTH OF THE PRINCE!!!!!!!!!!!
"Counterpoint" The Thirty-First of May of Duclos Cachin Thorez continues, although it is hard to tell it from a little spat at L'Humanite. Time amuses itself with a story about flirtatious girls in a town named Slutsk, in Russia. Whittaker? Is that you?
In Canada, Mackenzie King has offered his resignation to the Governor General. "My day's work is done." I wouldn't have covered that, tear in my eye or not, if I didn't have something else from the Canada section, which is a reported uranium strike from far to the north of the Great Lakes.
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| Perfectly safe unless it flies through turbulence, and when does that ever happen, says the CAA? Incredible. |
The selloff on Wall Street continues, and Cyrus Eaton has won a delay in the SEC investigation into his alleged wiggling out of underwriting Uncle Henry's stock offering. The Bureau of Labour finds that factory wages have risen 33% since V-J Day, but that this has not kept up with the cost of living. The New York Times, which prefers January 1943 as a start date, finds that the cost of living is up 75%, but that weekly earnings are up 98%. Something called Transocean Airlines is the newest player in the airlines game, and the Buick Riviera is the nicest '49 yet.
State of Business reports that GE has been fined $56,000 for trying to corner the world's hard metal alloys market in the Thirties. The Department of Agriculture estimates that this year's corn crop will hit 3.65 billion bushels, 15% above the record of 1946. Business inventories are up again, although the Department of Commerce thinks that the number is not dangerous. Exports dropped for a third straight month in spite of the ECA. Milton Reynolds is going to offer a transparent lighter soon, which is the next big thing. Publicker Investments is going to buy the remaining 1948 crop of Cuban molasses to secure its position as the number one producer of industrial alcohol, and head off an anti-freeze shortage this winter.
Science, Medicine, Education
"Milkman's Comet" The brightest comet of 1948 is visible this week, but only to early birds and milkmen.
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| Dr. Barkdale is better known by her married name. |
"Back to Earth" GE's I. B. Benson has developed a "Rotochute" for the scientific instrument payload of research rockets.
"Arterial Plumbing" A team of French surgeons, led by Dr. Jules Bazy of Paris' St. Louis Hospital, has found a way to split up and clean out vital arteries in danger of being clogged by dead tissue, calcium and fat-like substances that can clog the arteries and cause gangrene.
"Sight for the Sightless" The Eye Bank for Sight Restoration has had further successes in transplanting corneas from the dead to the sightless eyes of the blind, with great success, thanks to the tireless work of Aida de Acosta Breckenridge, who raised the money to found the Eye Bank, and works there as a volunteer. Also, the American Public Health Association says that America's public health is actually getting worse in some ways due to the spread of polluted water.
"Next to Godliness" The New York School Board's Committee on Hand Washing and Drying Facilities reports progress.
"One Road, Two Busses" The NAACP has taken King George County to court for providing separate-but-not-equal facilities at the King George High School (for whites) and the King George Training School (for Coloureds.) When the board didn't come through, a judge ordered the high school to drop its science courses to make it "equal" to the Training School, which finally inspired the county board to come through for the Training School. After all, while two school busses on the same road is wasteful, as a Board member put it, "I would rather pay higher taxes and have segregation."
"Bad Fad" Princeton President Harold W. Dodds is tired of his students flocking to courses that seem to have a higher pay off in life, because they are mostly fads, and bad fads.
Press, Radio and Television, Art, People
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| See it before the Air Force kills the story! |
In other press stories, the initial bulletin had Princess Elizabeth giving birth to a girl, a New York columnist's random speculation that the President might go to Moscow turned into news before anyone bothered to check, and the British press is getting some additional newsprint, which explains the additional ads, in The Economist.
"Network on the Way" ATT's coaxial hookup from the East Coast to Cleveland will be finished, probably in time for the inauguration, but the California hookup will take longer.
Walt Kuhn is a famous painter even though he is alive, because he does scandalous nudes ("Miss D," indeed!) that a newsmagazine can put in the Art page, in case too many women are reading the paper.
Gladys Swarthout stabbed someone on stage, but it was in Carmen, so it is okay. Eleanor Roosevelt has a new commentary show, and Du Mont Television has a new show, Du Mont Kindergarten, in which Pat Meikle tries to keep the small fry out of Mom's hair for thirty long minutes. She's part of the trend that has put daytime tv into the black already. Evening tv may take a bit longer, and the networks are nervy about it, because that will hurt their radio golden goose.
The New Pictures Blood on the Moon is a really good "cow opera." You Gotta Stay Happy is mildly entertaining, and Joan Fontaine is good. Miss Tatlock's Millions "skates on thin ice" in its humour, but is very funny. Hollow Triumph wastes the effort that Paul Henried and Joan Bennett put into their roles.Books
E. S. Turner's Boys Will Be Boys is a deathdefying, page-turning, thrill-a-minute study of blood and thunder penny dreadful fiction. Sounds like fun! Lloyd C. Douglas' novels are also fun, but in an uplifting way, because they are bible stories. The Autobiography of Benjamin Rush, edited by George W. Corner, is almost more interesting for the way that it was published than for what Dr. Rush had to say about the world of almost two centuries ago.
Flight, 25 November 1948
Leaders
"A Canadian Lead" Canada is giving its aero clubs money. Britain should do the same.
"Problems and Solutions" That's what I like about Flight. Problems and solutions. The counterpart in The Economist is "Problems and Problems." On the other hand, The Economist does run dozens of articles on the subject of "helicoptering is harder than it looks," which sort of article this leader introduces.
"Argosies and Costly Bales" Too many people work at BOAC, says a recent official report on how BOAC came to lose a cool eleven million pounds. Please fire some, says Flight. It seems as though the magazine could afford to be nicer to its subscribers!
"Primer Progress" The Fairey Primer is being built, and possibly test flown, and, who knows, sold as well. Details of this very exciting initial trainer are given.
Here and There
BEA is flying a Russian delegation to Sydney, Australia in a Dakota charter. This is news because it is fifteen more Soviets who will never fly again. (Voluntarily.) Mrs. Morrow-Tait and Mr. Townsend have had an accident in Anchorage during their round-the-world Proctor flight. Six Tempests are going to India, which is even more important news than word that seven jet flying experts are going to be giving lectures to the RAAF. or maybe it is RAAF experts on jet flying giving lectures, I'd have to care to be sure, Pbbt. "Serious concern is felt in Australia at the alleged neglect by which large numbers of RAAF aircraft have been allowed to deteriorate." Flight says: Please take my words-writing-down license away! Sperry Gyrosyns and Electrical Artificial Horizons are going into the BOAC Canadair Fours.
An article on a model convention follows. Maybe I was wrong about last week's issue? Maybe there just isn't any aviation news this month?
Civil Aviation News
India's civil aviation is advancing in leaps and bounds, ever upwards. Malta Airways is advancing in leaps and bounds . . . The Civil Air Lift is a hundred days old, and now boasts 10 Haltons, 4 Tudors, 5 Lancastrian tankers, 2 Vikings, 2 Hythe flying boats, 17 Dakotas, 2 Wayfarers and 1 Bristol Freighter. Or did until the Dakotas and Vikings were withdrawn from the service and replaced by 11 more Haltons, due to the Haltons having twice the lift, and Dakota spares running short. More Tudors will soon be added. Now that the single Globemaster has been withdrawn, the Tudor has the heaviest lift of any aircraft in the Airlift, up to 20,600lbs of flour, although the tankers are more important.
'Favonius,' "All-Jet Bomber Force? US Air Policy and Bomber Development" The question mark is because there might be a halfway point between piston in jet, either the turboprop or the compound piston engine. The reported potential 460mph at 30,000ft top speed of the B-50C (B-54) is an argument for the Wright R-4360-VDT. Favonius explicitly says that the turboprop heavy bomber is a British development, so I guess there is a British turboprop heavy bomber in development. The Americans plan to put a 500shp Wright turbine, the T-35 Typhoon, on the 400,000lb(!!!) B-52. The YB-49 is to be a jet bomber, as soon as it can fly without "blowing up in the air."
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| Every single completed YB-49 hull was lost in an accident, but it was never Northrop's fault. I'm told. |
We then go on to the North American B-45, Martin XB-48, and Boeing XB-47. The former are two "conventional" jet bombers with straight wings and massive clusters of early American axial turbines under the wings. The latter is the daring, swept wing bomber that's been showing up in the press lately. It is also noteworthy for giving up almost the entirety of its defensive armament, having only two .50s in a remotely-controlled tail turret, allowing it to carry a crew of only three, all in the cockpit. The whole cockpit is jettisonable. The hope is that the Stratojet will hit 630mph at 35,000ft, providing that it can get off the ground, since at a normal gross weight of 125,000lbs and a wing area of 1400sq feet, it has a wing loading of 90lb/sq ft, which is a bit much for a static thrust of 24,000lbs at sea level, calling for abundant JATO boost. It is said that the B-47 has a 2000 mile range with a fuel load of 15,000 gallons, which both might be right in some limiting sense, although at 15,000 gallons (100,000lbs) and a bomb load of 22,000lbs, it would have an auw of 190,000lbs, "which seems hardly feasible at this stage of development." Assuming a more normal overload weight of 155,000lbs, corresponding to 10,000 gallons of kerosene, and 22,000lbs of bombs, the maximum range is 5600 miles, "flying up the hill" from 232,000 to 46,000ft at a near constant cruising speed of 465mph. It is likely that the B-47 will eventually fly with its enormous integral tanks full, that is, with 15,000 gallons of kerosene on board, and at the noted overload weight. Although this implies a frightening 136lb/sq ft wing loading, the uprated J-47 5000lb turbo jet will be enough to get it off the ground, with enough JATOs. With the engines giving 75--80% of maximum power, and a stratospheric cruising speed of 560mph, a 9000 mile range with a 22,000lb bomb load might be in reach. (Reggie says that this is complete rubbish, but pulled up short when I asked him about the math. He has promised a position paper when he is done midterms.) I'm not sure that he can deliver, because his argument is that the wings would fall off at that speed and altitude, so we're in the realm of transonic aerodynamics, which is tough enough for him, and will be completely beyond me to understand anyway!!!
All of this futuristic stuff shouldn't obscure that the USAF's bomber force of 1952 will be made up of B-29s, B-50s and B-54s, plus as many B-36s as the Air Force deems it suitable to accept. Favonius says that the shift to the turbojet bomber will be a shift to a "stratospheric combat weapon," and that the jury is still out on the wing planform to be accepted, but roots for an all-wing design extended out to become a delta wing, and that the prop is dead. So I guess that's a "no," on the turboprop bomber, after all?"Corporation's Annual Reports: Heavy Losses Continue, but Overall Picture and Outlook Brighter" I will take the headline writer's word for it.
"Discussing the Helicopter: All-day Joint Meeting of the Royal Aeronautical Society and the Helicopter Association of Great Britain" Helicopters are expensive to operate, mainly due to maintenance, as they are very complicated. Captain Liptrot, which is a real name, speaking on mechanical issues, points out that the existing helicopter designs were hurried into the air under the strain of war, and are rather unsatisfactory designs that strain the parts too much. But, on the other hand, most plans to improve this just make them more complicated and harder to maintain. The Gyrodyne sounds like it has just gobs and gobs of potential, while the Bristol 171 has actually being in service going for it.
The Canadian paper on ramjets continues in this issue with a discussion of the chemical engineering of the fuel detonation in the combustion chamber, where sufficient fuel dispersal is an issue, and so is corrosion and heat dissipation and fuel and air supply.
Flight hears from Armstrong Whitworth that the Apollo is making steady progress and will soon begin flight trials.
Correspondence
Everyone who matters in British aviation writes to ask that the excise tax on fuel being levied on BEA be removed, as it is penalising them against foreign competition. K. J. G. Barrett was struck by the article about the Hook Hydrofin and writes to tell a tale of the old days at Bristol, where they had hydroplanes and monplanes and aeroplanes, back before the last war. Geoffrey Dorman writes to point out that flying boats made a solid contribution in the airlift, but were limited by the number of lakes in the Berlin region, and that if only Britain had had the foresight to build up a massive fleet of Sealands, it would have done even better. Gordon Collins writes to discuss his personal experiences of fixed versus variable pitch airscrews on the old Dragon Rapide.
Flight's obituary of Air Commodore H. G. Brackley, who died in a swimming accident off Copacabana Beach in Rio last week while touring BSAA stations and routes in South America, is fullsome and generous. He flew a Handley Page O/400 in a 1920 London-Capetown flight (race?) that did not go well, was in the British aviation mission to Japan, and joined Imperial Airways at its founding as Air Superintendent. He rejoined the RAF at the outbreak of war as Deputy Air Officer, Admin, in 19 Group, Coastal Command, and followed Bowhill to Transport Command when it was set up. He was with BOAC for a time after the war before joining BSAA in 1947, and no doubt played a part in BSAA going all in for the flying boat, a type that Brackley believed in deeply.
Engineering, 26 November 1948
G. N. Harvey, "Developments in the Correction of the Magnetic Compass" Magnetic compasses deviate because they are a flighty lot that cannot set their pole star on the pole star, even if they somehow escape the attractions of great masses of iron closer at hand. I know the feeling! Many is the time I have been so distracted by the great mass of iron that is your son's hard head. . . . Oops! No, I won't rewrite that. Pbbt!
So you'd think that the question of correcting errors was put in hand long before the days when the Founder sailed the Pacific blue. ("In 1492. . . " and all that.) But no! And in fairness to the scientists of the Admiralty Compass Observatory, repeating compasses raise new questions, although the other topic in this paper is binnacles on Flinders bars . . . The math looks appropriate Godawful.Literature has Allan Brandt's Industrial Health Engineering, which is a comprehensive approach at all of the ways that industry affects the health of those who work in factories. Professor Say's The Performance and Design of Alternating Current Machines is for a select, excitable and rapidly changing readership. Engineering is upset that it omits turbo-alternators, but accepts that they would add too much to its length. This is the second edition of a 1936 edition, and it is broadly implied that students can get by with the old edition, because there is not that much new material.
"Brittle Fractures in Mild Steel Plates --III" is about testing and measuring methods. With what we know now, there isn't much of a point to measuring the after effects of plate fracture in ship's plates, which makes all of the discussion of "locked in stresses," "energisers" and "susceptible steels" a bit moot. Boiler fractures, being less catastrophic, are a place to look and better understand these potential contributors to failure. Some papers usefully suggest possible indicators of these in boiler failures.
"Public Health and Municipal Engineering Exhibition at Olympia, Part II" Engineering continues its slow stroll along the exhibit stand with a stop at some that can be grouped as "stationary" spoiler-movers. Things that get the dirt you're digging out of the hole that don't involve tracks and wheels.
G. G. Macfarlane, "Variation Methods in Applied Mathematics" Engineering attended at least one more talk at that British Association session on mathematics in engineering, Dr. Macfarlane on "the calculus of variation." This is mainly used in theoretical physics, but Macfarlane thinks that it could have wide application in engineering --and not just engineering-- if only engineers would get their heads around it.
"Beer Bottling Plant" From the calculus of variation, to --Messrs. Ind. Coope and Allsopp, which is a real name, have a new one at Burton-upon-Trent. It was to have been put up in 1939, was delayed by the war, authorised in 1943 by the Ministry of Food as an urgent necessity, and begun in 1945. I am not sure what the big deal is. Bottling beer doesn't require much in the way of machine tools, but I am not the editor.Launches and Trial Trips has steam ships Bencleuch, a single-screw 11,200t cargo liner with double-reduction gearing from David Brown, Avondene, of similar size and propulsion, but good old triple-expansion on a single gear, Orcades, a twin screw cargo liner carrying 773 with general and insulated cargoes. Motorships this week include British Strength, a single-screw, 12,000t oil tanker, and Folias, a single-screw cargo vessel for navigating in ice.
British Standards Association Specifications completes its important work for the petroleum industry with Flexible Metal Tubes. Portable Fire Extinguishers applies to everyone.
A brief note inserts an obituary for R. Murdin Drake, who died on 21 November of an operation for appendicitis(!!!) He was only 46, and the joint manager of the British Chemical Manufacturers.
Regional Notes is still tragically short of things to complain about. Scotland puts in that there is room for the current improvement in deep mined coal deliveries to be bettered, Wales notes that, although the miners have voted to go back to work, they haven't opened up the collieries yet, Yorkshire Notes has the interesting observation (not complaint!) that it has received a thousand tons of reparations machine tools from Germany, and Cleveland and the North continues to complain about the unreasonably high demand for their product. We should all, etc.
Leaders
Engineering is very impressed with the international unification of screw threads which is old news around here. Then, it dives into the Debate on the Iron and Steel Bill, which occurred after last week's issue was mostly to bed. "The Debate on the Iron and Steel Institute Bill" is mostly devoted to summarising, in unctuous I-told-you-so tones, Sir Andrew Duncan's speech, though other speakers are noted, mostly on the question of stock repurchase valuations. I took the trouble of looking up Duncan's speech in Hansard, and have gone to the further trouble of telexing you a photostat, since it seems so very important, and there is some happy medium between reading a telegram and going down to the university to look it up for yourself. He certainly does seem to make it clear that the bill is a mistake, if you ask me.
Notes
The Institute of Mechanical Engineers heard the 35th annual Thomas Hawksley Lecture from R. Baumann, chief mechanical engineer of Metro-Vick, which was devoted to revisiting the 1917 Lecture, by the late Captain Riall Sankey, and seeing whether his predictions have come to pass. He has been proven correct about reciprocating steam and diesel engines, but hopelessly pessimistic about aero-engines and steam turbines, and could not predict dual-fuel engines, the expansion of reheat and of natural gas and producer gas engines.
As we've heard, the British airlines have made losses (except BSAA), but passenger and freight traffic continues to increase, and the future is bright. The Government has announced the extension of the London Transport Central Line west from Guildford to Ruislip, and east from Woodford to Loughton and Hainault. Some of the work was already under way, having been held up by shortages of material and labour, and the release of the German prisoners of war working on it, so this is in some respects just announcing major pieces involving some construction along the way. This is the centenary of the birth of Johns Hopkins electrical engineering professor John Rowlands. A symposium on the use of electronics heard about coordinating information on measuring devices for industry, from Sir Edward Appleton. ICI is expanding its Winnington works, which make soda via the Solvay process. British Rails has 16mm instructional films about railways available for schools. Just as long as they don't involve trains rushing into tunnels, because, well, teenagers.
Letters
Ian Campbell writes on the theory of control in engineering courses. He thinks that there is a crying need for more simplified overviews that students and small-brained men like himself can understand. Hear! Hear! I. Hardhome, which is a real name, writes from the National Physical Laboratory in support of the metric system of measurement. E. W. Golding, of the British Electrical and Allied Industries Research Association writes in response to an article in one of the issues we skipped on a windmill that generated electrical power in central Vermont that has been taken down, because it was uneconomical. He points out that this was a question of competition more than anything, and the matter deserves a more comprehensive trial with a larger plant.
Obituary
Lieutenant Colonel John Douglas Kendall Restler was born in 1880 and died at a more convenient time for Engineering's typesetters than R. Murdin Drake. (Who dies in an appendicitis operation these days? Could it have been drink? I know, I know, don't speak ill of the dead, but I feel the chill wind of mortality. It's almost as bad as Vickie's delivery, when Grace's life hung in the balance for those two long days) ahem. Colonel Restler. Was in municipal water supply, and is mostly associated with driving tunnels through mountains, although he was in charge of reconstructing Belgium's water supply for a year or two after the war.The Iron and Steel Institute heard from its statistics department in this week's installment of coverage of the Fall meeting, mainly in the matter of using statistics to predict the efficiency of coke ovens. Then it heard about oxygen enrichment in converters.
"The Bicycle and Motorcyle Show at Earl's Court" Engineering did a valiant job of trying to care about the way that frame tubes are made nowadays, the use of "unit construction" of cylinders and gearboxes, and the strange absence of V-twins, but what's the use? It is all about brightly coloured 500 to 600cc motorcycles for the American and Canadian markets. I would argue with the boys, but on this, the boys and I agree! Vroom, vroom!
"Reconstruction Work on the French National Railways" Three years after the war, bridges are still being put back up and stations rebuilt, but much of the matter of the very long report from SNCF is about the restoration of rolling stock and signalling equipment.
Letters
Random House's editor is happy with the article about St. Nicholas Magazine, but the St. Joseph News-Press is upset that at the base allegation that it supported Roosevelt in '44. Several San Diegoites write to point out that it is only smoggy in L.A. C. W. Boldyreff writes from New York to say that he really does have a counter-revolutionary army in Russia just waiting for the support needed to overthrow Communism. The editor's letter thanks the Post Office for getting the election special out on time, notes that it received far more letters praising the special than criticising it (373 to 174), and far more letters claiming to have predicted the election correctly after the election than correctly calling it (23 to 0). The editor is pleased that last week's frank interview with General Franco (who is not a Fascist, and who does not know any Fascists) has been picked up around the world. This week's cover picture is further proof that Israel exists, and will continue to exist.
The Periscope
In the wake of the election, up to seventeen Congressmen might be in trouble for taking kickbacks, starting with J. Parnall Thomas, Ambassador Bedell Smith, General Marshall and Secretary Forrestal are going to retire soon, the CIO wants rent control, Tito is cutting back aid to the Greek Communists, American support for Chiang will be purely moral, as only a "blank cheque" can save him now. Antitrust actions will accelerate in the new Administration, farm supports will remain solid, a jet propelled boat will be on sale from a Midwest manufacturer in the spring, used car prices continue to fall, Bing Crosby will do a film version of Broadway Bill in the new year, Fred Allen is feuding with Stop the Music, Evelyn Waugh and Harnett T. Kane have books coming out.
Washington Trends reports that a two billion dollar tax increase is in prospect to balance the budget next year, and may take the form of an excess profits tax, increased corporate tax, or increased personal income tax. Truman wants the excess profit, but the corporate rate increase will be a good compromise. No new credit tightening measures are in prospect, as inflationary pressure is slackening, although further wage increases might set it off again. The President will not permit retaliation against Dixiecrats or Wallacites. Uniting the party takes precedence. Taft and Vandenberg will fight for control of the GOP. The US-West European military alliance may come before the Senate in January.
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| Automatic 8" guns at the tip of your finger! |
Washington Tides with Ernest K. Lindley Bores that the seniority rule, which gives committee leadership in Congress by seniority, is a bad rule that will hamper the new Congress, although it also helped Truman get reelected by putting all the old guard GOPers in charge of the 81st Congress. Fresh new blood would have got things done!
Special Report: "How, Why and Whither" Newsweek's take is that the pollsters were no more wrong about the election than any of the other experts, but that doesn't take them off the hook. The big three have handed all their data over to the Social Sciences Research Committee, which will deliver a report next month. It seems as though they did not poll late enough, did not do a good job of allocating "undecided" voters, and had inadequate sampling methods. It now looks as though the "undecideds" went three-to-one for Truman. So how will this affect their business? Some papers have already cancelled their contracts with Roper, but opinion polling is here to stay.
Foreign Affairs
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| Meanwhile, on Earth ., . . |
"Program for Aid" Unless that "blank cheque" is signed. Here is what former Senator D. Worth Clark of Idaho thinks should be in it: Lots of money, including a $200 million gold loan for maximum liquidity, I'm sorry, I think I meant "stability," all those words that end in "ity" look alike to me in my dictionary. And command authority for American officers, which always goes over well.
"Israelis Are There To Stay" Like the cover says, "Not one soldier out of the Negeb." The UN wants the Israelis out of Egyptian possessions like Beersheba, the traditional southern limit of Palestine, an Arab city, and a major communications hub, and the Israelis aren't buying it. Then they came up with a compromise that allowed them to withdraw some troops, and the UN seized on it in relief. The Israelis get to keep its position in the Negeb, and the UN gets to be respected. Completely unrelated, Dr. Oscar Lange thinks that Americans overfeed their pigs, and graffiti writers in France disagree on whether de Gaulle is a hero or not, as this week sees further progress towards the Eighteenth Brumaire of Hitler Franco de Gaulle. And by progress I mean, "the same story again and again." Ireland is now officially a republic instead of a Dominion.
"Help Wanted" Assorted Spanish leftists would like the West to overthrow Franco for them, possibly including the Communists, but who can tell, because they don't give interviews to Newsweek any more, and are probably pro-Franco, because they are awful. The average Spanish person no longer makes seditious comments when a Newsweek correspondent is listening. Instead, they complain about corruption and political incompetence, which is very non-political. The ruling classes love America, and promise to take care of all our dollars, if we send them to Madrid.
"Corking up Mayfair" The bright young things of London are having "bottle parties," which is when restaurants and clubs get around liquor licensing rules.
Business
"Over the Shock" The Wall Street sell off is over as Senator Walter George, the new head of the Finance Committee, rejects an excess profits tax in favour of higher corporate rates and William Green of the AFL calls for voluntary curbs on inflation, since price controls just lead to black markets. However, GE and its subsidiaries have been found guilty of manipulating the price of tungsten carbide and have been fined $56,000. Malcolm Hoffman, the special assistant to the Attorney General, has asked for criminal charges against two of the GE executives involved, but GE thinks that wouldn't be fair, as it brought tungsten carbide to America, and otherwise we wouldn't have had it for machine tools and armour piercing shells, and the Germans would have.
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| Newsweek broadly implies that the Duryea brothers invented the gasoline auto. |
What's New reports that the Bigelow-Sanford Carpet Company has Cushionok, a floor covering with sponge-rubber backing that bonds with the carpet and does away with the need for a felt underpad. The Servette Company of New York has Vinylite mittens for housewives that resist heat, acid and stains, and allow complete freedom of action. The Gulf Oil Company's Gulfspray Roach and Anti killer is a killer that also drives out and paralyses. One application is good for six months. Nor-Cor's weatherproof mailbox will hold large magazines and newspapers and has a plastic window. Deve and Reynolds Company's Klear Kote treatment protects wallpaper and wipes clean with a damp rag. Zenith Radio's new "bull's eye" button replaces regular knobs with one that aligns volume, focus and brightness to signal strength.
"First Things First" The Youtz Skyhook system reverses the normal order of house construction by erecting a roof first. It is jacked up on steel supports while the walls are build in underneath."Pricing Muddle" A long article on price controls, which are in the news because of the Capehart settlement getting rid of "basing" price structures. Right now, it appears that any scheme in which the seller pays part of the freight cost might be illegal. The FTC is trying to reassure business, but two automotive companies are talking about moving plants to Pittsburgh. Companies that haven't the money to move, feel threatened, and business is interpreting the FTC decision as imposing a system of local monopolies.
None of this makes sense!
Trends and Changes reports on screw thread standardisation, the British airlines' financial reports, Ford saying that buyers will soon be able to take immediate delivery of any car costing more than $2500, but that it will be a year before less expensive cars come off the wait list. The nation's turkey flock is 31,700,000, the lowest total since 1938, and as a result, the price of turkey is averaging 41.7 cents a pound, up 5 cents over last year. GE and the American Locomotive Company have partnered to create the first gas turbine locomotive in America, which is doing track tests in Erie. It weighs 250 tons, and generates 4500hp.Business Tides With Henry Hazlitt reports that "leftists" are just silly for saying that there was a "producers' strike" when meat ceilings were reimposed in the summer of 1946. There is no collusive pricing, nor monopolistic profit-taking by meat packers. It might not seem logical that the amount of meat available is going down, and the price rising, when the price control scheme allows farmers to make a profit, but the system of prices that relates "hogs to corn, corn to hay and wheat, of hay an dcorn to steers, of steers to calves, hogs, and sheep, of the price of each to their expected future prices. . . " and so on, is so incredibly complicated that no-one can understand all of this, least of all OPA price fixers. Although it is also easy to summarise as 12 bushels of corn buying 100lbs of live hogs as a rule. Only the supreme genius of "Friedrich A. Hayek" can see that the free-market mechanism alone can establish a price for meat that ensures plentiful meat. Also, actually, meat prices really aren't that high. The real problem is that per capita consumption is up to 155lbs from 126lbs in 1935--9.
Science, Medicine, Education
"Sciences in Session" We're no sooner done the AAAS that it is time for the convention of the National Academy of Sciences, in Berkeley, California. Newsweek's correspondent was struck by Jakob Bjerkenes of Bergen and Los Angeles, who is studying tides in the atmosphere. (Air tides!), Oswald Garrison Villard and Laurence Manning, of Stanford, who are studying the electrified trail of meteors to measure their speed, Professor Richard Goldschmidt, of the University of California, who uses the Mediterranean fruit fly to study heredity, and who has deduced that the heterochromatin of the cell nucleus interacts with the genes of heredity to influence cell division and sex determination, and who believes that heterochromatin mutation might be behind the relatively quick and major changes in species that science needs to explain evolution. Glenn T. Seaborg is using Berkeley's 184" cyclotron to produce "neutron deficient" isotopes of heavy elements from bismuth to uranium. These are so unstable that they only exist for days at a time, but were probably plentiful in the earliest days of the cosmos. Dr. William Meggers of the Bureau of Standards explained how interference fringes in mercury-184 light yield a new and more accurate way of measuring length.
"The Men Who Used Fire" (Women were too busy comparing each other's fur loinclothes and talking about weddings) Several scientists are investigating the bones of a primitive hominid dubbed "Australopithecus," which is Latin for "Serves you right for not being able to find a proper scientific Chinese bilingual dictionary"). They made fires at the famous Cave of Hearths, near Johannesburg, and also ate each other, because that was the thing to do, back in those days. They weighed 80--90 lbs, walked on their hind legs, lived in grass huts, and, well, fire, cannibalism, etc.
"The Services and M.D.s" There is a shortage of doctors, although it is not as bad as in the war, when the services took most of the doctors, leaving only "90,000 for 120,000,000." The services are now short about 25% on doctors, 50% on dentists, and 30% on nurses, and the draft is going to make that worse, especially since it is weak on drafting doctors. (Numbers: the Army has 4400 doctors, needs 1500 more, 750 dentists, 4300 nurses). Under existing rules, only 250 doctors are eligible to be drafted in the event that the draft is fully restored, in a country where there are 1.2 doctors per thousand population, and the services are asking for one per 250 service personnel. The Armed forces have the further problem that they trained 12,000 doctors during the war, and their two year service is up, and they only make $3000--$4000 in army life, compared with $8000-$25,000 in civilian life. Since it seems impossible to retain, recruit, or train more, the only answer is stronger language in the draft bill, which is what the doctors and services are fighting about.
"The Rice Diet" Dr. Wallace Kempner of Duke University is advocating a "rice diet" limited to 2000 calories a day, with 20 grams of protein, 200 milligrams of chlorides, and 150mg of sodium. The article isn't clear on just how restricted the diet is --just rice, or celery and cottage cheese, too?-- But the New York Medical Association is concerned that it is short on nutrition, even if it does reduce blood pressure.
William B. Jones and Richard H. O'Riley have a hilarious sequel to For My Lovely out, called Weekend, which is a sorority sister's guide to boyfriends from the top ten Eastern colleges. (Harvard, Williams, Dartmouth, Brown, West Point, Annapolis,some others.)
Radio-Television, Press
"Gummed Up Watch Works" CBS and NBC are putting Thanksgiving specials up against each other. CBS is continuing the Elgin Watch Two Hours of Stars, while NBC is new this year with a Wrigley-sponsored Festival. The advertising sale is worth $50,000 for both networks, and the bill for the stars comes to $130,000, but the two sponsors are angry at each other for cramming Thanksgiving (and Christmas) with so much talent. Another story is an ad for Columbia's I Can Hear It Now, an album of "audio scrapbooks" of historic sounds, including Will Rogers making fun of the Depression (don't make it angry, Will!), Neville Chamberlain on Munich (he was sad), and Douglas MacArthur accepting the Japanese surrender. (He was . . . )
"Tongues and Dollars" WHOM is a foreign-language broadcaster in New York which used to have difficulty making money with Polish broadcasts for Poles and German for Germans, but has turned it around under the leadership of Fortune Pope, and is even looking for other stations to join its network.
The press section leads off with a feature on Washington political cartoonist Clifford Berryman, who has his latest collection out, moves on to scolding Margaret Truman for wearing shorts(!!!!) turns to an ongoing argument between Al Capp and Ham Fisher over who started the hillbilly humour craze in the cartoons. It is a very debatable, and they are debating now. Also, the Daily Worker was rude about the royal baby. Now there's something I can be anti-communist about!
James Cromwell, former minister to Canada and ex-husband of Doris Duke, has had a baby. King Farouk has gotten divorced. Arthur Rodzinski, Walter Beery and Warren Austin are sick. Bobby Jones is recovering, and Alexander Mann, the retired Episcopal bishop of Pittsburgh, has died, along with Rear Admiral Richard Voge, and John Delaney.
Perspectives, with Raymond Moley Defends "Reporting,Comment, and Criticism" It turns out that political correspondents weren't wrong about Dewey because they are terrible people, but because they wanted to keep their jobs,and that meant campaigning for Dewey by presenting him as a sure thing. Which is what Moley actually says, but in the middle of consecutive paragraphs that make it seem as though he doesn't really understand what he just said. It's because the press is so good and important for a free society that political correspondents have to be so good at their jobs that they all predict the wrong man winning the Presidency, and if they don't, they're fired because they are not good political commentators and just want the wrong person to win. Also, this one bestseller was a bestseller even though the critics didn't like it, and it was about Jesus, so what are you complaining about? Good work,Ray! I'm convinced, said Ronnie, wearing the sarcasm face, no matter what her Mother says about her face freezing that way.
Raymond Moley explains why he was in FDR's braintrust in 1933: Roosevelt was a secret Conservative until his brain was taken over by Hopkins.
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