One<br >ON FRIDAY， MARCH 4， the<br >world. The Great American<br >dead at seventy-two.<br >news flashed around the<br >hero 12eif Dahlquist was<br > w<br > It had been many years since the na~me of Dahlquist<br >had made headlines， for his aversion to any kind of<br >publicity was almost as famous as his deeds. What<br >started as a trickle of last-minute spots in television<br >news shows quickly grew into a flood. In the following<br >days his life was covered in detail， the emphasis always<br >on two early events.<br > First， his legendary feat in 1927， a feat that endeared<br >him forever to a youthful and romantic nation whose<br >citizens would remember him best as the tall， slight<br >twenty-five-year-old who smiled out at the cameras<br >with hands tucked shyly into his pockets.<br > Second， the tragic kidnapping and murder of his<br >firstborn son in 1932. This part of the story was usually<br >illustrated by a photograph of a child in a white<br >romper， seated in a small chair with a toy sand bucket<br >and shovel at his feet. In the three months prior to the<br >11<br ><br >