Editor O'Brien Boldt of the Daily Dartmouth planned to send a Christmas present to Adolf Hitler: four test tubes containing samples of Jewish, Negro, Mongolian and "Aryan" blood contributed by undergraduates, together with a letter challenging him to tell the difference. The plan fell through because the would-be donors could find no "pure Aryan" blood.

Elected to fill the two remaining vacancies* in the American Academy of Arts and Letters (membership limited to 50) were Novelist-Playwright Thornton Niven Wilder (The Bridge of San Luis Key, The Woman of Andros, Our Town) and Novelist Ellen Anderson Gholson Glasgow (The Romantic Comedians, Barren Ground, Vein of Iron).

Before an audience of 1,000 socialites in Manhattan's Town Hall, Professor John Erskine gave a lecture on "The Rise of Jazz and Swing." Swingmaster Benny Goodman & band came along to show how it was done, had some of the audience bouncing in their seats, the rest embarrassed. Swing-Scholar Erskine summed up with a slogan: "Bach plus swing equals vitality."

After attending a debutante party and getting to bed at 4 a. m., 20-year-old Archibald Bulloch Roosevelt Jr., grandson of the late President, heard that he had been chosen a Rhodes Scholar from the New England district. The scholarship board called him one of the most unusual students ever to win a scholarship. Scholar Roosevelt is completing the regular four-year course at Harvard in three years, reads 13 languages (English, Greek, Latin, French, Italian, Icelandic, German, Gaelic, Welsh, Anglo-Saxon, Arabic, Russian, Middle High German).

Off to the French Riviera to spend Christmas with the Duke & Duchess of Windsor, sailed the Duchess' aunt and one-time chaperon, Mrs. D. Buchanan Merryman ("Aunt Bessie"), from Manhattan.

Kansas City's Democratic Boss Tom Pendergast, who runs one of the most notorious political machines in the U. S. and calls politics a "business," bought a distillery near Bardstown, Ky./-

In Chicago, District Attorney William J. Campbell reported that Al Capone, due to be released from Alcatraz Island Penitentiary next month, was suffering from paresis, was out of his head one week in four. Meanwhile Convict Capone was presented with a bill for $57,692.29 from the U. S. Government. The bill was for: 1) a $50,000 fine, 2) $7,692.29 court costs of his income-tax evasion case.

New York City's scholarly, bald-domed Deputy Mayor Henry Hastings Curran was asked to help in a drive against baldness. He replied: "Why not be bald? Nobody ever made a nickel out of his hair. We cannot sell it,* or use it, or rent it, or put it in a show window. . . . Blessings on thee, baldhead man!"

Judging his 1937 Pulitzer Prizewinner, The Flowering of New England, "the most likely to become a classic" of all books published in the last three years, the Limited Editions Club presented eminent Critic Van Wyck (rhymes with "bike") Brooks with a gold medal.

Simon & Schuster withdrew from sale two highly-praised novels by Jerome Weidman (I Can Get it for You Wholesale and What's in it for Me?). Reason: their principal character, Harry Bogen, a smart-guy Jew, is enough to rouse anti-Semitic sentiments in a rabbi. Also withdrawn was Miniature Photography, by one of the firm's partners, Richard Simon. Reason: it commends some German-built cameras.

Mrs. Ruth Hanna McCormick Simms, former Congresswoman from Illinois and daughter of Mark Hanna, filed a civil suit against some 400 defendants to clear up old claims and establish positive title to the famed Trinchera Ranch in southern Colorado, which she bought last February for a reported $500,000. Some of the defendants: Scout Kit Carson (once stationed near the Trinchera as commandant), Presidents James Buchanan, Chester Alan Arthur, William McKinley.

* Elected last month were Novelist Willa Gather and Poet Stephen Vincent Benet.

/-He also owns the Ready Mixed Concrete Co. and Kansas City's largest wholesale liquor establishment, both of which local purchasers wisely patronize. *Not strictly true (see p. 35).

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