Bob Hope’s 7,400 Acres

Some conservationists, suddenly turned Bob Hope bashers, would like the world to believe that Hope is a cheapskate, a miser, a Scrooge because he refuses to donate 7,400 acres he owns.

Before anyone starts to believe such tripe, let me say, as one who knows, that no one has done more for genuinely charitable causes than has Hope.

Ask any fighting GI of World War II or the Korean conflict. They will tell you what it meant to spend an hour or two away from enemy shelling to watch a Hope USO show on a jungle airstrip, the deck of an aircraft carrier, in a field hospital or an area a few hundred yards from the front lines. An untold number of American men can attribute their lives to this man of good humor for the needed morale boost he gave them that enabled them to continue to do the job they had to do.

Ask the officials of hospitals and educational institutions which have received sorely needed financial support as a result of Hope’s efforts. Ask officials of disaster relief such as those involved in a telethon in Baltimore some years ago for the benefit of victims of floods in the Eastern states.

Hope has given his life to such activities--activities to which he has given his time and talent, more often than not paying his own expenses. And many times, when local promoters of such events failed in their ticket-selling endeavors, Hope would buy the unsold tickets, sometimes hundreds of even thousands of them, out of his own pocket. I know, because for a few years my wife worked for Bob Hope Enterprises.

Hope does not need me to defend him. There should be no reason for anyone to have to defend him. But, anyone who believes that Bob is a miser must have jelly for brains.

If he’s a Scrooge, then long live all such Scrooges!

ART MAGEE

Escondido