The American Way

In Memphis, Mme. Paul Reynaud, wife of the onetime French Premier (now lecturing in the U.S.), praised the glamour and good looks of American kitchen gadgets. The equipment is so beautiful she said, "I'd probably cook in the living room if I had it."

A Tokyo car dealer had good news for Hirohito, who has been making do with a 15-year-old Packard. The Emperor could come right down and pick up his "glorious grey" Cadillac, ordered three years ago. After a trial spin, the delighted owner ordered his imperial crest (a 16-petaled chrysanthemum) put on.

To get into trim for this week's fight with Cuban Heavyweight Omelio Agromonte, Joe Louis decided to sweat out his training schedule on a Miami beach. Along with him came two faithful fans: Joe Jr., 3, and daughter Jacqueline, 8, to play in the sand and watch papa make muscles.

After serving 35 months, former Major General Bennett E. Meyers, cashiered from the Army and sentenced to 20 months to five years for wartime contract graft, walked out of the federal reformatory at Lorton, Va. to face another charge. For 1941 he reported a net income of $3,808.70, but the Government figured it was nearer $36,301.52.

A reporter ferreting through the Pentagon files found that 50 sons of U.S. Army generals are now fighting in the Korean war. Lieut. General Alfred Gruenther has two fighting sons. Major Generals Thomas F. Hickey and Albert C. Smith each has one. Lieut. Hobart R. Gay Jr. is the jet-pilot son of Major General Hobart R. Gay, commander of the 1st Cavalry Division in Korea; Captain Sam Walker is the son of the late General Walton H. Walker. Those who have lost sons in action so far: Lieut. General Thomas B. Larkin, Brigadier Generals David H. Blakelock, John Magruder and Robert W. Strong.

Asked to bring along his guitar when he makes a Lincoln's Birthday broadcast, Poet Carl Sandburg said: "I haven't been able to give it the time that I'd like to.

If I'd gotten a prison sentence sometime, I might have been good on the guitar."

The Good Book

The rare-book department of Charles Scribner's Sons announced a rare find: a nearly perfect edition of the Bible printed by Johann Gutenberg some 500years ago. Discovered in an English home, the best edition turned up this century brings the known copies to 46. The last sale of a Gutenberg in the U.S. was in 1926 for $106,000.

After attending Holy Year ceremonies, Thomas Cardinal Tien, 60, Archbishop of Peking and the first Chinese to be elevated to cardinal, arrived in Manhattan on his way to a Cincinnati hospital for treatment of an eye ailment and a heart condition.* With the aid of an interpreter, he told reporters that he was seriously worried about the uncertain future of the 12,000 priests and nuns in Red China of whom 11,000 are Chinese.

To Texas Newspaper Publisher Houston (the San Angelo Standard-Times) Harte and TIME Cover Artist Guy Rowe went a $5,000 Christopher Award for their text and drawings for the Roman Catholic edition of Old Testament stories, In Our Image.

In Chicago, Episcopal Presiding Bishop Henry Knox Sherrill, president of the newly formed National Council of Churches, said that a strong, united church cannot be built with "halfhearted Presbyterians, feeble Episcopalians, lapsed Methodists and indifferent Lutherans. We must build on vigor, conviction and enthusiastic purpose . . ."

Said 74-year-old British Theologian Maude (Sex and Common Sense) Royden: "If you want to be a dear old lady at 70, you have to begin early, say about 17."

Public Acclaim

In Washington, Texas' Samuel Taliaferro Rayburn, starting out on his 3,057th day as Speaker of the House, finally bettered Henry Clay's 125-year-old record by half a day. From members of the

House came showers of bipartisan praise and congratulations; from President Truman, a symbol of office; a gavel made from the wood of the 1817 wing of the White House.

Holding his converted Mustang fighter at an average speed of 450 m.p.h., Charles K Blair Jr., 41, chalked up a new New York-to-London speed record: 7 hrs. 48 min. (Previous record: 8 hrs. 55 min.) A veteran Pan American pilot with a record of more than 400 transatlantic crossings, Blair also made a New York-Foynes speed record in 1944 of 14 hrs. 17 min. After his latest hop, he took a passenger plane home in time for a quick visit with his wife Janice and two youngsters, before going back to the controls of his regular New York-London Stratocruiser.

Britain's Fabian Society, the little core of intellectuals who began back in 1884 to preach the inevitability of socialism without revolution, finally got around to choosing a new president. The choice: Sir Stafford Cripps, now in Switzerland un der treatment for a spinal ailment. He succeeds his aunt, the late Beatrice Webb, the society's first and only other president, who died in 1943.

Gallup pollsters announced the nation's choice of "most admired men." First by a whopping majority: General Dwight Eisenhower. General Douglas MacArthur, first choice in 1946-47, won second place.

Last year's top man, Harry Truman, ran third. Next in order: Winston Churchill, Herbert Hoover, Senator Robert A. Taft, Bernard Baruch, Pope Pius XII, Dr. Ralph Bunche, Thomas E. Dewey. In Manhattan, the Associated American Artists offered "one of tomorrow's most treasured heirlooms . . . worthy of an honored place in your home or office": ten-inch, bronze-colored reproductions of Sculptor Jo Davidson's bust of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Price: $14.50.

-In London, Bernard Cardinal Griffin, 51, ranking Roman Catholic prelate in Britain,' took seriously ill, was given the last rites of the church. His death would leave only so cardinals of the full roster of 70.

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