Newscracker

Of all the people who have talked themselves into print, one of the most successful is Cowboy-Funnyman Will Rogers. The technique of a gum-chewing commentator ("Wal, all I know is what I see in the newspapers"), which he developed in vaudeville and which landed him downstage in the Ziegfeld Follies, also got him a job as a daily paragrapher.

Perceiving Funnyman Rogers' success, Funnyman Eddie Cantor, also of the Follies, and Publisher William Randolph Hearst, last week made known that Cantor would comment daily on the news through Bell Syndicate. To show how he could newscrack, Funnyman Cantor issued the following:

"At the Hoover conference I promised to do my share by keeping the country in good humor until the big corporations buy crutches for the crippled stocks. Every day beginning Monday I promise you one good laugh "Yours until my yacht catches on fire." Excerpts from his first syndicated crack: "If you are interested in the market you will notice that stocks are coming back. Yes, sir, they're coming back--but not to their original owners. . . .

"Hoover and Mellon sent a chair to Coolidge the other day. The former President, being a man of very few words, won't thank them until they have sent two beds, a table, a rocker and some kitchen utensils." On the stage, Eddie Cantor's props-- comparable to Will Rogers' gum and spinning ropes--are blackface makeup and white-rimmed spectacles. He accentuates his lines with eye-googling and eccentric prancing. When he wrote his first book a year and a half ago (My Life Is in Your Hands, autobiography), he required the aid of a ghostwriter, one David Freedman. Publishers Simon & Schuster vow that his latest book, Caught Short, about the stockmarket, was written by the author in person one rainy Sunday afternoon (TIME, Nov. 25).

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