Kankakeemen

Stock vaudeville gag for 25 years because of its funny Indian name, the little city of Kankakee, Ill. (pop. 20,000) was the hometown of the late Pen-&-Inkman Frank D. Waterman, the late Sculptor George Grey Barnard, Cinemactor Fred MacMurray. Purring contentedly in a crook in the Kankakee River 56 miles south of Chicago, it is proud of its humming industries (overalls, silk stockings, furniture, farm implements), is famed for its huge State insane asylum. Last week Kankakee purred so loudly that the whole nation heard it.

At a widely ballyhooed community banquet (1,000 guests), Kankakee toasted a pair of local boys, Harry Stella and Allen Bergner. Born within eight months of one another (the year before thg U. S. entered the Great War), young Stella, son of an Italian immigrant, wanted to be a soldier; young Bergner, son of a German immigrant, wanted to be a sailor. Playmates from boyhood, both made the football team at Kankakee High School: Stella at right tackle, Bergner at left tackle. When they were graduated, Stella went to West Point, Bergner to Annapolis.

Four weeks ago, three days apart, Cadet Stella was elected captain of the Army football team for 1939, Midshipman Bergner was elected captain of the Navy football team for 1939. At last week's powwow, Kankakeemen, puffed with pride, appointed a delegation to see President Roosevelt to try to get next year's Army-Navy game transferred from Philadelphia to Chicago.

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