"Names make news." Last week the following names made the following news:

Poet Nicholas Vachel Lindsay (Rhymes to be Traded for Bread, The Congo, General William Booth Enters Heaven), famed in his home town of Springfield, Ill. as much for civic enthusiasm as for poetry, recently backed the city's campaign for a lake to augment an inadequate water supply, by writing a signed and widely-circulated voters' bulletin. Excerpts: "You speculate on the practical uses of Lake Springfield. . . . The next afternoon you are inclined to loaf, take the trip over the Lake Springfield trail. . . . Climb into the family bus and hit the trail. . . . Linger through the evening. Watch the sun go down in purple splendor, and study the famous afterglow of Central Illinois, the benediction of the day."

Last week Springfield's citizens approved the project, which is to cost $2,500,000. Pleased by his role in the campaign. Poet Lindsay remarked: "This is the first practical project I've ever had anything to do with."

Mrs. Grace Goodhue Coolidge had another poem. "The Quest," published in Good Housekeeping (her first, "The Open Door," in memory of Calvin Coolidge Jr., was published in the issue of October 1929). "The Quest": Crossing the uplands of time, Skirting the borders of night, Scaling the face of the peak of dreams, We enter the region of light And, hastening on with eager intent, Arrive at the rainbow's end, And there uncover the pot of gold Buried deep in the heart of a friend. Macfadden is the name which the Chamber of Commerce of Redding, Calif, will bestow upon the central peak of the Castle Crags (near Mount Shasta) at a ceremony in August. The proposed dedication: "This peak is dedicated, by grateful fellow citizens, in recognition of the public citizenship of Bernarr Macfadden, apostle of health, in his spectacular influence in arousing the nation to the benefits of life in nature's great outdoors." Proudly reported the Sacramento Bee last week-"CLIFF WILL BECOME HEALTH MONUMENT. . . . About 200 New Yorkers will attend the rites."

Alois P. Swoboda, mass-advertising "culture rhythm" man, was enjoined in Brooklyn from selling oil stock to members of his cult by a letter describing one "Dahlgran," alleged oil well locater. Eighteen months ago, Dr. Swoboda took in $70,000 for the stock; no oil has yet appeared. Said the letter: "This man Dahlgran through his power is to serve Swoboda and Swobodians. Dahlgran has located for me what he considers a very extensive oil pool ... and is positive that the first well will be an enormous gusher. ... I personally do not care for wealth for my own sake, but merely to aid Swobodians."

To Wilbur Glenn ("The Earth is Flat") Voliva, overseer of Zion City Ill's famed Christian Church religious Colony, came word that three of his girl employes had been observed chewing gum. The Executive Board assembled, exiled the offenders.

John, 13-year-old son of Ruth Hanna McCormick, Illinois Senatorial candidate, was out walking with his dog in the woods near the McCormick farm at Byron, Ill., when a fox broke suddenly from the underbrush, streaked towards him. Faster than the fox went young John for home and mother. A nearby farmer saw pursuer and pursued go flying past, shot the fox dead. Examination disclosed that the fox had rabies. Alert H. W. Allyn, McCormick farm manager, obtained a 'quarantine order for the region, ordered all dogs muzzled, restrained or inoculated against rabies, appealed to Candidate McCormick to have Forestry Service hunters sent from Washington at once to exterminate all foxes, wolves, in the vicinity.

Guests at a New London, Conn, party given by Thomas E. Donohue, State Athletic Commissioner, in honor of Heavyweight Champion Max Schmeling, jumped and fidgeted, looked accusingly at each other. Some one was stinging the company with paper wads. At length the wad-shooter was discovered to be grinning, giggling Champion Schmeling.*

* Another public figure fond of pranks is Col. Charles Augustus Lindbergh. Favorite prank: "pieing" beds. While a guest last spring at the California home of J. L. Maddux (now president of T. A. T.--Maddux lines), Col. Lindbergh obtained a fake finger done up in a bloody bandage and pretended, to a housemaid, that he had cut his finger off. The maid fainted. Her revenge: as Col. Lindbergh mounted the stairs that night, she doused him with a bucket of water.

Another Lindbergh joke: Some friends whom he was flying from St. Louis to the Pacific Coast gave him a packet of Chiclets. The second Chiclet was a piece of soap cunningly carved. Flying along, Col. Lindbergh casually helped himself to gum, chewed, foamed, frowned. For revenge he put the plane into tumblesome acrobatics. His friends, having shrewdly belted themselves in, read magazines unperturbed.

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