Arizona Kid

"We must realize that we are faced with a serious situation. Therefore, let's throw aside the glittering generalities and flowery language of orations and consider a few practical facts. . . ."

The speaker was a dapper 16-year-old from Phoenix, Ariz, with wavy hair not unlike that of National Republican Chairman John Hamilton. His name: John Janson. He was speaking last week in the small ballroom of Washington's famed Willard Hotel, competing in the finals of a national oratorical contest for which Mr. Hamilton's committee had put up $15,000 in regional and main prizes. Young Orator Janson's platform manner was prodigiously polished for a junior high school freshman. His words had an authentic Republican ring:

''. . . It is our responsibility and must be our destiny to prove to ourselves and to a suffering and disillusioned world that democracy can exist, can grow, and can flourish in this modern age. This is not a responsibility that can be shouldered merely by the adoption of many untried social reforms, but must be solved by hard work, by intelligent citizenship, by widespread public education, by constant vigilance, by rejection of old prejudices and outworn ideas and by a determination on the part of all the people to preserve their individual liberties so that their faith in democracy will be justified. . . .

"Is it too much to ask that we today preserve the individual liberties that to us have been sacred American heritage? Upon the answer of that question, ladies and gentlemen, rests the future of America. Upon it rests the maintenance and growth of democracy; upon it rests the future of civilization."

From John Hamilton John Janson soon received the $1,000 grand first prize. The Republican bigwigs were particularly pleased to have him win because a few weeks ago he had made stump speeches supporting his father, Harold J. Janson, as a candidate for Judge of Maricopa County on the Democratic ticket. Father Harold lost in the primary.

> Mayor LaGuardia of New York City was sued for $100,000 slander by one William Weidberg, 32, Brooklyn lawyer, who charged that when he heckled the mayor at a political rally last week, the mayor called him "a ginmill bum."

>In Clintonville, Wis. persons unnamed invited contributions of 15-c- a week for a ''society to give relief to folks hearing about other folks getting from $1 to $50 every week for some darn thing or other. . . ." Instead of issuing scrip, bottle caps, ham & eggs or pension checks, the society would impound all money received until 1940, then send it to the county humane society to care for members of other pension movements who have become "deaf, blind and mentally unbalanced by present political pension persiflage."

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.