What Won

A model young woman is modest Henrietta Leaver of McKeesport, Pa. who until three months ago worked in a 5-c- & 10-c- store. One to whom Miss Leaver was not entirely unknown was Manager George Tyson of Pittsburgh's Alvin Theatre who recalled that two years ago she was runner-up for the title of "Miss McKeesport," that she tried again this year and won the title of "Miss Pittsburgh" in a beauty contest of his organizing. Two months ago when "Miss Pittsburgh" was glorified at Atlantic City as "Miss America of 1935," he became her manager. And last week "Miss America" was the centre of a ringing squabble in Pittsburgh's art world.

An able Pittsburgh sculptor named Frank Vittor lately asked Manager Tyson's permission to do a statue of "Miss America." Chaperoned by her grandmother, Mrs. Hettie Ebert, modest Miss Leaver went to Sculptor Vittor's studio, was photographed, posed twice in a bathing suit. During her last visit she was horrified to notice that there was no bathing suit on Sculptor Vittor's statue. Outraged, she stormed, threatened suit.

At this point last week Manager George Tyson stepped in. With the rich scent of publicity in his nostrils, he summoned the principals, lawyers, photographers, newshawks. A jury of six prominent Pittsburgh esthetes was drummed up and Manager Tyson began broadcasting statements from all concerned.

Said Miss Leaver: "I'm a bit modest. Even if I did pose in a bathing suit, you know how people will talk. ... I don't think a little drapery will hurt."

Said Grandmama Ebert: "It's a nice piece of work, but it ought to be draped and it's going to be draped. I've brought Henrietta up right."

Said their lawyer: "This is a violation of personal privilege."

Said bewildered Sculptor Vittor: "Napoleon's Josephine posed for Canova without a bathing suit. After all Miss Leaver didn't pose in the nude and there's nothing to offend her. . . . My brother Anthony and I had every measurement. We had photographs of her. We had a chart!"

To a man, the jury of prominent Pittsburgh artists backed Sculptor Vittor.

Said Professor Joseph Bailey Ellis of the Carnegie Institute of Technology: "A drape would be more suggestive than her statue."

Said Sculptor Sue Watson Marshall: "It's a matter of convincing the girl. She is only 19, which is very young, and she has those foolish old-fashioned ideas."

Said Architect Henry Hornbostel, designer of the Harding Memorial: "If she's so modest, why did she enter the Atlantic City contest? The girl is belittling what won her the prize!"

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