BOOTLEGGER OF THE AIR

Evening Star, Issue 20985, 26 December 1931, Page 9

BOOTLEGGER OF THE AIR

PROBLEM FOR AMERICA VANCOUVER, December 20. For hours on end these winter evenings in Canada, United States radio broadcasting is overwhelmed by a super, bootlegger of the air, who is having a marvellous chuckle at Uncle Sam. Old “ Doe.’’ Brinkley has made a for-tune-selling man and horse nxedicine through Kansas and Nebraska, and with his son, Johnny Boy, became a broadcasting sensation throughout the southwest of the United States. After enduring him for two years the United States Government suppressed him as far as tho use of the air was concerned, but not before tho “ Doc.” had acquired a still greater fortune by his bizarre broadcasts. Tho caso got national notoriety, and this was bis cue for bis latest move, which was to Mexico. On the south bank of the Rio Grande River, within a stone’s throw from Texas, tho old man nightly “ takes the air ” with 65,000 watts, the highestpowered station on this continent. At will he blots out any programme from San Francisco, Vancouver, Chicago, or Nexv York, and it is safe to say that 80,000,000 curses arc aimed at him nightly. But tho “ Doc.” laughs and goes merrily on. The Mexican Government so far has declined a convention with Uncle Sam, who is just about worried to death, as the ostracised citizen jocularly nibs salt nightly into his radio wounds.;