The bones of many a famed '49er left San Francisco's Laurel Hill Cemetery to make way for a real estate development. Dug up were the skeletons of California's Senator David C. Broderick, killed in the West's most noted duel, in 1859, by California Supreme Court Justice David S. Terry; Nevada's Senator William Sharon, Comstock Lode proprietor who entertained President Grant on gold plate in 1879; California Circuit Court Judge M. Hall McAllister, who sired Socialite Ward McAllister; William M. Bourn, whose money bought the Killarney Lakes for the Irish Free State.

From somewhere in Manhattan a "Mr. Crawford" sent Singer Lotte Lehmann a magnum of champagne, 72 roses and an apology. Late one night Singer Lehmann's telephone had buzzed, a stern voice had said: "This is Mr. Crawford of NBC. Why haven't you appeared for the March of Dimes broadcast? It starts in three minutes." Sleepy Miss Lehmann sang Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes into the telephone, later learned that there was no Mr. Crawford at NBC. With the champagne and roses Mr. Crawford sent a note, written on Hotel Waldorf-Astoria stationery: "With these spirits won't you drink to me not only with thine eyes but with a spirit of forgiveness? Your gentle sweetness . . . has made me deeply ashamed." There was no Mr. Crawford at the Waldorf-Astoria either.

Well fed and thoroughly roasted at a National Press Club dinner in Washington were 1,679 pounds of potential candidates for President: U. S. Attorney General Robert Jackson, 165 Ibs.; New York's Representative Bruce Barton, 174; Montana's Senator Burton Kendall Wheeler, 195; Socialist Norman Mattoon Thomas, 185; Missouri's Senator Bennett Champ Clark, 205; Federal Security Administrator Paul Varies McNutt, 195; Michigan's Senator Arthur Hendrick Vandenberg, 180; Federal Loan Administrator Jesse Holman Jones, 230; Manhattan District Attorney Thomas Edmund Dewey, 150. Each gave a five-minute address (off the record) on "Reasons Why I Am Not Qualified To Be President." Then all posed happily together.

Hollywood's swank Cocoanut Grove was aflutter with ermine wraps and shimmering gowns as the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences made its twelfth annual awards. To Robert Donat for his role in Goodbye, Mr. Chips and to Vivien Leigh for her Scarlett O'Hara in Gone With the Wind went Oscars signifying the year's best performances by an actor and actress. Nobody was surprised. Academy selections of the best supporting actor and actress met with general approval: 1) Thomas Mitchell, for his whiskey-soaked doctor in Stagecoach; 2) Hattie McDaniel, for her sentimental performance as the hard-boiled mammy in Gone With the Wind. Cinemactress McDaniel was the first Negro to receive the prize. Posthumous were two awards: 1) to the late Douglas Fairbanks Sr. for international services to motion pictures; 2) to the late Playwright Sidney Howard for his Gone With the Wind script. Of the 17 major Oscars handed out, ten were copped by G.W.T.W. Producer David O. Selznick, pretty proud and getting richer by the minute, said he would send an extra check to Author Margaret Mitchell.

Clutching an anthology of American verse to an olive drab tunic with chromium collar tabs bearing the letters IN (for "International"), shy Kermit Roosevelt told London interviewers he was no longer a Major in the British Army. Henceforth he would be "commanding officer of the British contingent of the International Expeditionary Force in Finland," he explained, dropping the book on the floor. He was still a U. S. citizen, said he, picking up the book, since he had not been required to take an oath of allegiance to the King. Dropping the book again, he mentioned that his mission might be termed a "crusade to keep the world fit for our children to live in." Once more Colonel* Roosevelt picked up his book, opened it, diffidently suggested that some verses which had been taught to him by his Rough Rider father might serve as a "battle song of the democracies against both Naziism and Stalinism." He read one of the verses:

He has sounded forth the trumpet that shall never call retreat;

He is sifting out the hearts of men before His judgment seat;

Oh, be swift, my soul, to answer Him! Be jubilant, my feet!

Our God is marching on.

Famed Indian scout Kit Carson's grandson, Jesse C. Carson, 26, waited for a passport on his mother's Colorado ranch after volunteering for service in Finland. Said he: "I felt an urge for adventure...."

L'Oetivre of Paris told its readers the following wartime story: Stopping in a small-town hotel "somewhere in France," French Generalissimo Maurice Gustave Gamelin was handed a "fiche," police questionnaire all travelers must fill out. Amused, the Generalissimo complied. Back came the proprietor to point out that Gamelin had omitted his nationality. Gamelin thereupon remarked he had supposed everyone knew he was French, but the proprietor insisted that the gendarmerie was very firm about this point. Said Gamelin: "Ah! If the gendarmerie insists -- alors!" and proceeded to write it in.

* His title must be confirmed by Finland's Field Marshal Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim.

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