The Pittsburgh Press (June 29, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
Well, the San Francisco Conference has given us a charter for peace, and from now on it’s up to us. Fortunately, peace is different from things like butter and lamb chops. You see, the more people who want peace, the more there is to go around.
I can imagine those delegates arriving home with their new knowledge of American customs. I can just see one of the Arabian delegates riding proudly up to his ancestral tent with bobby socks and several camel loads of breakfast food. Or an Egyptian representative greeting his wife with a stack of Benny Goodman records under one arm, and a bag of buttered popcorn under the other.
Goodbye, peace delegates. And if anyone asks you about the beautiful California weather, please keep the peace. Don’t tell them.
Youngstown Vindicator (July 2, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
Well, I read where that nasty old Pierre Laval at his place of detention in Spain is knitting himself a sweater, and as the people of France are yelling for the part of Laval that it pulls over, the man must be an optimist.
If you ask me, I think it’s peculiar that Laval has gone in for garment-working, too. Only, a few days ago, there was a story that Hitler had fled to Spain in women’s clothes. And when the Americans opened his safe at Berchtesgaden, all they found were some designs of women’s gowns.
It’s too bad all those dictators didn’t go in for making clothes in the first place. The world would have been a lot quieter place if they’d had to keep their mouths full of pins.
The Pittsburgh Press (July 3, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
I see the telephone company says that pretty soon they’ll have phones installed in autos. My goodness, aren’t the men upset enough about women drivers now? Imagine how nasty they’ll be when we women are driving while carrying on a nice conversation about Charles Boyer over the auto-phone.
Now when a woman bumps into someone in traffic, she can roll up the window and not listen to the bad language. But with a phone in the car, the other car driver could call up right away and say what he thought.
And a married man getting bawled out all the way home over an auto-phone for bringing a friend to dinner would be too nervous to notice stop signals. But if the traffic officer was married himself, he’d probably be sympathetic and send the ticket to the telephone company.
The Pittsburgh Press (July 6, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
FORT LEWIS, Washington – Well, I see that when a strike prevented delivery of some New York newspapers. Mayor La Guardia rushed into the crisis, and read the funnies to the children over the radio, so they wouldn’t miss any installments. It seems he growled and puffed and made such wonderful sound effects like “eeek” and “blam” that the newspapers are worried for fear the children will demand the mayor as a supplement with the funnies from now on.
Goodness, if Mayor La Guardia were running for reelection, he’s probably have rushed right into the kiddies’ homes and given his readings in costume.
I think Congress is going to get some ideas from him, as it is. Reading the funnies over the air is a lot easier than kissing all the babies in your district, and besides, it saves transportation.
Youngstown Vindicator (July 6, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
SEATTLE, Washington – Goodness, that line about “let’s give the country back to the Indians” is certainly no joke to the people of Troy, New York. It seems that a long time ago the Mohawk Indians rented Troy to the white man for four bolts of calico a year to every member of the tribe.
Some Mohawk chief must have been smart enough to foresee the wartime textile shortage. You girls know how hard it is to find a bolt of good calico now. Think of those officials who have to dig up four bolts for every Mohawk.
Remember those other Indians who thought they were so smart selling Manhattan Island for $24 in cash? Most of that money has probably been squandered by now, but an income of calico is an income you can live within.
The Pittsburgh Press (July 9, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
Well, the latest war communiqués are in from Decatur, Illinois, and it seems as though the chief of police there is winning his fight against the freedom of the dress. Women wearing halters and shorts are in full flight back to the parks and beaches.
It was a close fight, at that. Police volunteers from a special suicide squad began the campaign by telling women dressed in shorts to go home and change their clothes. These forces fell back under a fierce barrage of tongue lashing, pocketbooks and shopping bags. But mechanized units in the form of police squad cars came to halt the onslaught.
Female resistance collapsed only as a result of fifth-column activities of husbands at the breakfast table complaining about the way their wives looked in shorts. It was a good try, girls. You lost, but your spirit will inspire freedom in women’s clothes everywhere. Remember Decatur!
The Pittsburgh Press (July 10, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, Chicago has always been a glamorous city to people of all ages, but right now it has an attraction that makes it practically irresistible to small boys. It seems that in Chicago there’s a shortage of soap.
Goodness, I hope that with all the other transportation problems we won’t have the roads clogged with hitchhiking little boys carrying signs like “On to Chicago – Where You Don’t Have to Wash Behind Your Ears.”
It’s too bad this had to happen to Chicago this summer instead of last. Because when I was there then covering the national political conventions, they were certainly handing out enough soft soap to go around.
The Pittsburgh Press (July 11, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Our nice President Truman only recently returned from a vacation, and now Prime Minister Churchill has gone on his. I think it’s kind of cute to see how vacation habits differ between these leaders of two great nations.
Churchill took his paint box with him. George says an American President wouldn’t dare do that, because his political opponents would criticize his paintings. Our Presidents always play safe and go fishing. Goodness knows, it’s hard to criticize a fish, especially these days, with food so hard to get.
Also I notice Mr. Churchill took his butter along with him to France. He probably wanted to finish it before his meeting with Truman and Stalin in Potsdam. The whole world may be divided up at that meeting and Churchill apparently didn’t want to take any chances with his Butter.
The Pittsburgh Press (July 12, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, at this writing Adm. Halsey isn’t getting much cooperation playing post office with the Japanese fleet and air force. He keeps sending nice invitations to the Japs telling exactly where his fleet is, and what nice luscious ships are in it. But, still no answer.
The Japs are probably scratching their heads, trying to think up their next move. On second thought, with a thousand of our planes attacking Tokyo, they’re probably moving now. I don’t think they’d come out even if Hedy Lamarr was there on the Admiral’s job.
Gracious, if you ask me, I wouldn’t be surprised if Adm. Halsey’s action in telling the enemy exactly where he is and what he’s got might revolutionize the war business. My guess is, the first result would be a lot of spies either retiring or going into the fish business.
Youngstown Vindicator (July 13, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
A Swedish scientist says he believes that wars are caused by the effect of sunspots on people. Well! Can’t you just see Hermann Goering standing up in the war criminals’ court as though Danish butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth, saying: “Not guilty on account of sunspots!” And Hirohito would have even a better defense. He claims descent from the sun goddess, and could argue that he was simply a victim of heredity.
If you ask me, this whole idea of sunspots affecting people is pretty dangerous. Just think, your husband could walk right up to a strange girl and kiss her, and then calmly blame the whole thing on sunspots. Still, it could work to advantage, too. Girls, we could come home with a new coat or a couple of hats and say “I’m sorry, dear, but I simply couldn’t help myself. It was very sunspotty out today.”
The Pittsburgh Press (July 16, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
I can remember when all you had to do to make a movie audience “ooooh” and “aaaah” was to show them a nice long romantic kiss, or Marlene Dietrich’s legs, or a cute dog or baby. But those are nothing these days to a scene showing an actor tucking away a steak or a platter of fried chicken.
And no bobbysoxers ever screamed louder over Sinatra than some movie fans over just seeing corn on the cob (with butter) in technicolor.
Talent scouts keep watching the Hollywood restaurants in the hope of seeing a visiting beauty-contest winner eating a steak or chop. Then they sign the steak or chop.
So wait, folks, for the big movie hits, coming soon, like Little Old New York Cut, The Dessert Song and Ali Baba and the Forty Beeves.
The Pittsburgh Press (July 17, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – I see where a Chicago judge told a woman charged with shooting her husband that too many women are shooting their husbands these days. Well, I agree with him.
A lot of us women go to the trouble of saving every drop of grease to turn it in and make bullets for the Army and then some selfish creature wastes ammunition on her husband. As that judge said, it’s no wonder there’s a husband shortage.
Some silly women just can’t get it through their heads that they can’t go out and get a new husband or a new washing machine or a new girdle simply because the earlier models don’t appeal to them anymore.
Where these scarce articles are concerned they might as well make up our minds to get along with the ones we have. Please, ladies, pull yourselves together.
The Pittsburgh Press (July 18, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – My goodness, if American housewives had any inkling how the delegates were going to live during the Big Three Conference in Potsdam, that cruiser carrying President Truman would have been full of stowaways.
The story says the living quarters there are furnished with 20 electric refrigerators, 50 vacuum cleaners and 90 electric irons. The eyes of every woman will be on that conference waiting to see the fate of all those scarce appliances. Twenty lawnmowers and a hundred bedside lamps were also mentioned. I guess the lawnmowers are there because President Truman doesn’t want any grass to grow under his feet.
And those bedside lams probably were provided so the American delegates won’t miss their comic strips. It will be nice for them to read about characters who have more problems than they have.
The Pittsburgh Press (July 19, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Girls, did you read what that nice Admiral McCain said about American women?
Why, according to him, we’re practically winning the war because of the way we toughen up the American man at home.
The Admiral says the Japanese men get an inflated ego because their wives aren’t allowed to criticize them. Then when they go out and pick on a stranger like Uncle Sam and he smacks them down, they don’t understand it.
You see Japanese wives, being practically slaves, can’t develop their men’s imagination. A Japanese man, coming home at 4 a.m. after losing fifty yen at cards doesn’t have to dream up a story. It’s his wife who is scared, not he.
So girls, the next time you henpeck your husband, I hope he realizes that it isn’t because you have a nagging disposition. You’re merely being patriotic!
The Pittsburgh Press (July 20, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Well, there’s one shortage we could stand and that’s a shortage of Hitler’s. The only thing more mysterious than his disappearance is the number of his reappearances. Now he’s reported in Liechtenstein, Argentina and the Antarctic. I suppose the FBI will check the Liechtenstein story as soon as they can find the place on the Map. I don’t believe the report that Hitler’s on a German ranch in Argentina. Being a cowboy gaucho might have appealed to him once, but George says he’s had one hard fall from the saddle, and doubts if he has nerve enough to climb into another one.
My guess is that Hitler’s in the Antarctic – raising an army of penguins. Those birds already have black and white uniforms, and after a few setting-up exercises should do a pretty god goose step. Also, they’re about the only things left whom Hitler could convince he’s a genius.
The Pittsburgh Press (July 23, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
I think we should all be very grateful for the least little sign that the world is getting back to normal, so I’m glad to hear that people have the time to begin seeing those sea serpents again.
Did you notice that the two reported so far were both near Europe, one off England and the other off Sweden? I guess that California and Florida had better get busy if they want to hold their tourist trade, when transportation also returns to normal.
Probably those monsters made themselves scarce while the Nazis were in charge of Europe, knowing they could not stand the competition.
That sea serpent seen near England was certainly a whooper, 10 feet broad. It was fast, too. I said maybe Henry Kaiser is turning them out to relieve the transportation problem. George said if Kaiser was doing it, we’d see a lot more of them.
The Pittsburgh Press (July 24, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
Goodness, it looks as though we bobbysoxers have begun a fad that is sweeping the country. Have you noticed that the older ladies are going in for those short little-boy pants and checkered shirts?
I know that some of the sophisticated older ladies like the style, but I somehow can’t picture Whistler’s Mother sitting there rocking in a pair of short denims.
Ladies who wear little-boy pants have a brand-new excuse for not having dinner ready when their husbands get home: “I’m sorry, dear, but the truant officer tried to arrest me today for playing hooky.”
But I’m afraid some mean husband would answer, “that officer made a natural mistake, one that I’m going to make now,” and then make it with a hairbrush right on the seat of her little-boy pants.
Youngstown Vindicator (July 25, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
It seems that when I mentioned grown women wearing little-boy pants yesterday, I only scratched the surface of the clothing mix-up.
And from the looks of things, I’d better not scratch any farther than the surface. For Sen. Homer Ferguson of Michigan told a sympathetic Senate that men are buying and wearing women’s panties because they can’t get men’s shorts and a clothing authority at the University of Illinois charged that teenage girls are using their father’s scarce shirts and work pants.
Poor father! He’ll probably end up playing Lady Godiva. She, at least, had her long blonde tresses to protect her. I don’t know what some of the fathers I know are going to do. They haven’t enough hair on their heads to make a pair of trousers for a potato bug.
The Pittsburgh Press (July 27, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – As if there isn’t enough to worry about today, a prominent New Jersey hairdresser says women will go bald if they keep tying their hair up on top of their heads n those fashionable new Psyche knots.
Goodness, that’s terrible! How are women going o catch up on their gossip if they stay home while the mailman takes their hair down to the beauty shop to be overhauled? And it would certainly look funny if the leading man opened his watch and took out a tiny lock of hair tweezed from his sweetheart’s eyebrow.
But when all’s said and done, I think that what goes on inside the head is a lot more important than what goes on outside. Look at Cecil B. DeMille and Jim Farley. It was their brains and determination that made them come out on top.
The Pittsburgh Press (July 30, 1945)
By Gracie Allen
HOLLYWOOD – Winston Churchill has shown us how he wins a war, and now he shows us how gracefully he can lose an election. Either way, he looks like a champion to George and me.
Of course, Clement Attlee, who defeated him, is pretty smart, too. While Attlee was in San Francisco, he was a dinner guest of some American friends and insisted on washing the dishes afterwards. That family doesn’t know yet whether he was being a perfect guest, or on account of the shortages in Europe he just wanted the thrill of putting his hands in real, soapy water again.
My own theory of the English election is that Churchill got some of his own brand of cigars for his campaign managers to pass out, and they did. After the managers passed out, that was the finish of the election.