Coulee City dispatch. [volume] (Coulee City, Wash.) 19??-19??, 1937-06-17

WHO'S NEWS
THIS We
BY LemueI F. Parton

Circus Tycoon Unwerried by
ohnr Tunv,hIn EIr,v~

with Samuel w. Gumpertz, general
manager of the mammoth Ringing
Brothers Barnum and Bailey show,
completely untroubled, serenely un.
rufled, by a furry of labor trouble
at the national capital which in
vOlved a campaign by Ralph White
head of New York, head of the
American Federation of Actors, for
recognition of the union by the cir
Gus authorities.
Always a diplomat, quiet-spoken
but nonetheless poised and, when
necessary, incisive, Gumpertz does
not appear to have made any strong
objection to the unionization of va
rious elements not now organized,
including members of the ''bull
gang" as roustabouts and others
who put up tents and do general
heavy work are known. Business,
he admitted, has been very good
indeed, so why break the amiable
processes of prosperity on the wheel
of feudal pride and economic rec
usancy?
When we first knew Sam Gum
pertz, he was the great American
freak impresario, exhibiting his col
lection of curious and abnormal hui
mainly at the Dreamland circus
side show on Coney Island, part of
a varied entertainment provided by
the late Senator William H. Rey-
nolds over a course of several years
in the middle 19OOs.
Since he was a boy of nine, Cum
pertz has been of the circus, be-
ginning his career as an acrobat
with the Montgomery-Queen show.
Seventeen years later, he was win
ter manager for Col. John G.. Hop
kins, operator of a chain of seven
teen theaters, while he helped con-
duct the Barnum and Bailey and
Buffalo Bill shows in the good old
summer time. Later came his as
ISOLATION with Senator Reynolds at
Dreamland and he was thus en-
gagged when, as a result of the
illness Of his old friend, John Ring
ling, he was drafted to the biggest
circus of all.
Taking hold in the years of de-
preston, he saw the need of a great
er efficiency in the conduct of bust
less and in certain radical revisions
in the form and variety of enter
tainment. Consequence was that
the circus remained a going con-
Germ, a very progressive concern,
in fact, al witness financial state
ments showing that the "Greatest
Show on Earth last year played to
record business.
Gumpertz rules with an iron hand
encased in a velvet glove. Supreme
in authority over a community COM
prising 1000 men, women and chill
dren, representing forty-nine races,
he knows everyone, from the low
Hest roustabout to the highest-paid
entertainer, by first names, is their
confidant in all their troubles and
declares he has less difficulty with
his personnel than he would have
with "a little wagon show"
French Journalists Visit.
M ANY Americans with memo
4VA .ries Of their war days have
been greeting Jacques Chastenet,
editor of LIE Temps, who arrived
here on his first visit to this coun-
try. Asserting he should have come
here long ago, M. Chastenet pur-
poses a survey of conditions in the
United States in the course Of a
trip which will carry him through
the Middle West.
A liaison officer with the second
division, A. E. F., during the World
war, now editor of one of the worlds
leading newspapers, the visitor is
renewing many old American
friendships.
The paper of which M. Chastenet
is the distinguished editor deals
very prominently with foreign af-
fairs, including, of course, those of
the United States and is considered
in the chancelleries as a first class
authority on international questions.
Born in Paris in 1893, educated at
the Lycee Condorcet he has writ
ten several books of profound legal
character, is a chevalier of the Lee
giOn of Honor.
What a NaZi Thinks.
p ETURNING to Germany after a
~ tour Of the United States, Prof.
Friedrich Schoenemann asserts in
a lecture that public opinion in the
United States could be modified for
a war against Germany Gin a few
hours" if such a war were pictured
as a great crusade for a great ideal.
Referring to the recent Nazi press
attacks on Mayor La Guardia Of
New York City, he laments the folly
"of Judging all Americans by La
Guardia."
Director of the American section
of the English seminar at the Uni
versity of Berlin, Professor Schoen-
emann has degrees from Gotten
gin and Heidelberg, where he stud
led. He is well known in this coun-
try through his long sojourns here
and from his analytical essays.
Himself a Nazi, albeit a calmly
noicod ono ovidonfJv hic rom odu