Flagpole Rooster

Not a few young U. S. citizens aspired last week to the publicity, if not the glory, achieved by Col. Charles Augustus Lindbergh and his emulators, Messrs. Chamberlin and Levine (see above). In Newark, N. J., one aspirant, Alvin ("Shipwreck") Kelly affixed a restaurant stool to the top of a 50-foot flagpole rising atop the St. Francis Hotel, then sat down on the seat.

Mr. Kelly's theory was that if he thus roosted in mid-air for eight days his reward would be great.* Meanwhile he reaped a small reward by displaying from his stool a banner with the stark device: Baby Peggy at Loew's State Theatre.

Mrs. Kelly, 19, aggressive and redhaired, ministered to her husband from the base of the flagpole by a system of hoisting cords. She recalled to newsgatherers that he won the nickname "Shipwreck" after surviving the Titanic disaster (1912), then entered the U. S. Navy, and, after the War, became a steeplejack, human fly, airplane stunt performer and "marathon rooster."

"He knows what he's doing," said Mrs. Kelly. "Why should I worry ? "

In St. Louis, Mo., last January, Mr. Kelly roosted for the record period of seven days and one hour --much of the time amid chill, sleet and snow. The experience thus gained caused him to make elaborate preparations before climbing aloft last week.

Forty-eight hours before ascending he ceased to take solid food. Moreover he has trained himself to sleep for ten minutes every hour on his stool. Lest he topple off while asleep, his thumbs are thrust tightly into holes bored in the eight-inches-in-diameter wooden seat.

As he roosted, last week, Mrs. Kelly passed up to him bottles of milk, broth, coffee--but no solid food. Any surplus he poured down a pipe running alongside the flagpole. He smoked, per day, approximately four packages of cigarets. Cheery, he called down to reporters: "After 48 hours of this you don't mind anything!"

Hundreds of passersby, stopping to crane their necks backward at Mr. Kelly, loitered a moment longer to argue with one another whether or not he is a hero. Some went home and read from Webster's Dictionary: "Hero ... a person of distinguished ... fortitude in suffering. . . ." That seemed to cover Marathon Rooster Kelly.

* A "Big Time" vaudeville producer promised him $1,000 a week, in the event of success.