Sadly, this seems pretty tame by comparison with what is considered normal today.

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Washington’s Brassy Influence Peddlers

Retired generals and admirals cozy up to their old buddies to swing billions of dollars in defense contracts!

By FRANK DEGNAN

LAST JULY, three of the largest defense contractors in the nation readied plans to entertain Air Force Lt. General Bernard S. Schriever, head of the Air Research and Development Command. Party invitations described the affair as cocktails and dinner with an off-the-record chat by General Schriever about his plans and problems.
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HISTORY WITH A BANG!

ROBERT Lewis of Tujunga, Calif., gets a big bang from his hobby—a private gun collection said to be one of the finest in the country. He began gunning for guns 25 years ago and has amassed 135 historically significant weapons ranging from the 15th Century to the present day and including flintlocks, percussion and cartridge types. All are in perfect working order and he’s fired most of them. Each item has a personal history which he can support by documentary evidence. For example, the Burnside carbine in photo below, left, belonged to famous outlaw, Harry Tracy, who was killed in a jailbreak at Steamboat Springs, Colo., in 1898.

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King of Cymbals

An ancient Turkish formula has grown into one of the world’s most fabulous monopolies.

By H. W. Kellick

IN quiet, colonial North Quincy, Massachusetts, a small vault-like structure as impenetrable as Fort Knox reverberates with a crash echoed ’round the world by 99 per cent of the professional bands and orchestras. Read the rest of this entry »

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WORLD’S LARGEST STATUE CARVED IN MOUNTAIN

THE world regards with awe the stupendous sculptural achievements of the ancient engineers who built the Egyptian Sphinx, the Colossus of Rhodes and the Pyramids, but now it has a new monumental edifice to marvel at which dwarfs the projects of the ancients to almost insignificant proportio Read the rest of this entry »

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SPIN YOUR GLOBE TO LONG ISLAND

Only Six States Have More People than the Insular Empire that Ranges from a World’s Fair Through Potato Patches, Princely Estates, and Historic Shrines

By Frederick Simpich
With Illustrations from Photographs by Willard R. Culver

WHAT if a super-tugboat could cast a line about Long Island and haul it out to sea! Left exposed would be the broken ends of all the bridges and the under-river tunnels that now tie it to Manhattan.

Riding off on the runaway island would go more than 4-1/2 million people—but only if the start were made at night, for in the daytime a large share of these people work in New York.

Off on the floating island would also go about one-fourth of the sea trade of the whole United States, Uncle Sam’s Brooklyn Navy Yard, radio towers from which he talks with 34 countries overseas, his busiest coffee and sugar mart, 3,454 trains that run daily between New York and the island, shops that make navigation instruments for the whole world, strategic airports and plane factories, millionaire estates, herds of polo ponies, Forest Hills’ famous tennis courts, five million white ducks, to say nothing of Coney Island and other resorts where millions come to play, and a World’s Fair!
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The NATION Sits in on National Conventions

Politics becomes mechanically minded in 1936, and both Republicans and Democrats are providing the machinery which will permit the nation to listen in to the proceedings.

by BOB GORDON

THE political machinery for nominating the presidential candidates of the two major parties remains as old as the parties, but in June this year the entire nation will be given ringside seats at the National Conventions at Philadelphia and Cleveland, with both parties taking advantage of every latest scientific wrinkle to bring the conventions to your home or local movie.
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Looking for Louisiana’s Lost Loot

Legends are many of the Bayou state’s buried treasure but facts prove it’s there, waiting to be taken out.

By William L. Rivers

THERE are so many legends of buried gold in Louisiana that it would seem all the would-be treasure hunter had to do was pick up a shovel and start to dig. Sadly enough all these tales aren’t true. If they were, there wouldn’t be room beneath the Bayou State for much else.

But the encouraging fact is that at least some of the many buried treasure tales are fact. Perhaps 30 all told. The problem is which 30 are worth investigating?
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HOW PRESIDENT ROOSEVELT Keeps Fit

Faced with problems that would have staggered a superman. President Roosevelt has come through his first year in better physical shape than when he took office. This story reveals the secret of his amazing vitality and what he does to maintain it.

by JAMES NEVIN MILLER

EVERY day of his official life President Roosevelt is faced with momentous decisions affecting our national life; yet his greatest problem is not the settling of affairs of state but the safeguarding of his personal health.

The White House pressure is terrific. Once officially saddled with the destinies of more than a hundred million people, our chief executive faces a task which leads, almost inevitably, to shattered nerves, premature old age, physical breakdown and sometimes loss of life itself.
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Looks like an alien autopsy photo.

X-Ray Detects Disease in Mummies

THE X-ray is the latest instrument of science being empolyed by experts in photographing Egyptian mummies to determine the nature of the diseases which ravaged the ancients. The above X-ray of an Egyptian boy’s mummy is interesting in its disclosure of the fact that he suffered from malnutrition. Scientists determine this from the irregular development of the ends of the long bones, indicating deficiency of calcium in the diet. Photographs of other mummies show distinct curvatures of the spine. Teeth condition is also studied fron the photographs.

The advantage of the X-ray is that the bone structure of the mummies can be studied without unwrapping the body, with the consequent lowering in value of the mum-my as a museum specimen.

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IF Atomic Fuel Were Shared…

The world would be healthier, wealthier and wiser, say AEC scientists, discussing President’s daring proposal to United Nations.

editor’s note: President Eisenhower’s dramatic proposal to the United A at ions that a world pool of fissionable materials he created for peaceful purposes had no greater appeal to any hearts and minds than those of nuclear scientists. Popular Science Monthly invited some of them, on the staff of the Atomic Energy-Commission’s labs at Brookhaven, N. Y., to tell yon what they think of the plan’s potentialities. Their discussion, recorded on magnetic tape, is transcribed here. The various speakers are: William A. Higinbotham, Harry Palevsky, Drs. Clarke Williams, Marvin Fox and Charles P. Baker, physicists; Mrs. Beth Baker, a chemist; and Wesley S. Griswold, of PSM’s editorial staff.
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Anybody have a similar shot from today?

NEW YORK SKYLINE NOW AND FIFTY YEARS AGO

Nearly half a century lies between the two views of New York City’s skyline shown in the pictures above. The two photographs were taken from the same point—a tower of the famous Brooklyn Bridge. The upper one was made only the other day and the lower one is over forty-seven years old.
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INVENTORS BY ACCIDENT

A mishap can make you a millionaire— if you’re alert enough to recognize a million-dollar idea when it hits you.

By Robert Cutler

WOULD you recognize a million-dollar idea if you fell over it? More than one man owes his good fortune to an accident —plus his own ability to learn and profit from it. Many inventions we enjoy today are the direct results of mishaps that have made their “victims” rich.

With Harry Waters of St. Louis, though, it was not one accident but a whole series that brought him a fortune. First, a stenographer in his office spilled a glass of water on him. Due for an appointment, Waters had to get a quick pressing job—not quick enough, however, to prevent his being late. So he had to take a taxi, even though he was nearly broke and desperate for money.
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