Coulee City dispatch. [volume] (Coulee City, Wash.) 19??-19??, 1938-06-23
WHO'S
NEWS
.
WEEK
By LEMUEL F. PARTON

BY LEMUEL F. PARTON
NEW YORK..France is begin
l ming to think she has another
Clemenceau in Premier Daladier,
and she still has Marshal Philippe
How Petain few survivors of
Keeps Fit the great generals
al 81 OF the World war.
Two or three
years ago, General Petain was
counseling peace and Cancellation
with Germany. Now he warns the
French people of their "serious sit
uation in Europe" and urges them
to consider realities.
1t is quite possible that rope-skip-
ping is mainly accountable for Cen
eral Petain being alive, trim, fit
and active at eighty-two. He is
an inveterate rope-skipper, elected
from his apartment in 1914, be-
cause he Jared the plaster from the
walls. This writer's record as to
that goes only to 1884, but, in that
year, he was still skipping diligent-
ly. Joffre, Foch and Maginot,
among the French, Won Mackensen,
Ludendorff and Hindenburg among
the Germans - non-skippers all
have passed, but Marshal Petain
lives on, venerated by his country
men.
1t was he who said, "They
shall not pass"-on February S,
1916, to be exact. He was the
savior of Verdun, and, in this
connection, a deft historian
might discover that rope-skip-
ping saved France. The gen.
eral spent a solid week in an
Automitralleuse without sleep,
and the London Daily News
commented at the time that no
man who was not in perfect
physical condition could have
survived such ordeals. It was
suggested that his energy and
endurance had turned the tide
of war.
He was born Henri Philippe Be-
noni Omer Joseph Petain, the son
of baker in Couchy la Tour.
Man Mountain Dean, the wrestler,
running for the legislature in Geor-
~. gia, is after only
~ one seat, but he
Girds for will need three or
Bollof Ro,,t four if he is elect
ed. In retirement
on his farm, near Norcross, he still
weighs 317 pounds. It is unique
contest for him, with no chance
for his running broad-junp attack,
in which he hurtles his body against
his opponent.
His career seems to have been
mostly his wife's idea. Born
Frank Leavitt, in New York,
known as the "Hell's Kitchen
Hillbilly," he did hitch in the
army and thereafter engaged
in some desultory wrestling and
mauling as a Soldier Leavitt.
Nothing much came of it, and
he began placidly taking on
weight as traffic cop in Miami,
Fla. Doris Dean married him
and began prodding his tagging
ambition.
He started graphing again, in
Boston in 1888, with fame still elud-
ing his half-nelson,
DO"0'e" 'o' when a German
Film Star promoter took him
as Henry VIII on a tour of the
Rhineland. This
was more successful, and brought
him to the attention of Alexandra
Korda, who needed a double for
Charles Laughton as Henry VIII in
the wrestling scene. Thus came the
famous whiskers, an important de-
tail of his wife's clever Snowman
ship in the build-up of the Man
Mountain. It was she who persuad-
ed him to take the name Dean and
who managed the histrionics which
made him fabulous creature. He
was born in West Forty-third street
in 1891, weighing 1871 pounds.
GEORGE E. @. JOHNSON, the
- slight, self-effacing, bespec-
tacled man who sent AL Capone to
Alcatraz, is devoting his life to So
u c. cial betterment.
A1e e He wants to make
Capone to cities less fertile
AIcofrnz soil for crime,
and to that end,
would flush city and country chill
dren back and forth, interchange
ably, to the benefit of each, he be-
lieves, and the nurture of good be-
havior.
1t was as United States at
torney that he deity enmeshed
Capone in silken spider-web of
evidence, laboriOusly gathered
and spun. The next year, Her
bert Hoover made him federal
Judge, but he stayed on the
bench only year and then went
back to his law practice.