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Show Washington, D. O. FIFTH COLUMN 'GUNS' IN U. S. Attorney General Bob Jackson's -pfra for a federal law requiring registration reg-istration of all privately owned firearms fire-arms had more behind it than he : disclosed. Inside fact is that this constitutes one of the most serious problems facing the government ' in its war against fifth columns. Following the World war, one armament company alone disposed of 15.000 "Tommy" guns to private purchasers after trying unsuccessfully unsuccess-fully to sell them to the army. About 10,000 of these deadly weapons are "unaccounted for." How many are in the hands of potential fifth columnists col-umnists the government, under existing ex-isting laws, has no way of knowing. Jackson's proposed statute would provide the power to find out. Another unmentioned factor troubling trou-bling officials is the tremendous increase in-crease in the sale of guns and ammunition am-munition in the last two years. Tax collections by the internal revenue ; bureau give the following figures on this astounding traffic in our "peaceful" country: Total sale of taxed firearms, rifles, shotguns, pistols, revolvers, to private pri-vate persons in 1938 $24,959,048; in 1939536,010,684. In the past three years these sales leached the amazing total of $97,-403,730 $97,-403,730 which is almost one-fourth of the army's 1937 appropriation. It is also vastly in excess of average sales for sporting purposes and law enforcement. Note The U. S. is far behind oth-,er oth-,er powers in regulating firearms. England, France, Germany, Italy, .Japan all have drastic laws on the private possession of weapons. The national firearms act of 1934 imposed im-posed a limited regulation on the .sale of machine-guns and sawed-ofl shotguns by requiring manufacturers, manufactur-ers, dealers and pawnbrokers to register reg-ister sales and transfers. But the many thousands of these lethal weapons sold before 1934 still are unaccounted for. OIL TO ITALY Italy's entrance into the war has at least one harmful effect upon her ally, Germany. It means the end of U. S. oil shipments to Italian ports for trans-shipment to Germany. Ger-many. These shipments, especially of lubricating lu-bricating oils, have been heavy since the first month of the war. With Italy at war, however, U. S. ships are bqvritl. j - This will stimulate Axis efforts to open up oil resources in the Near East, and Italy is sure to make a drive for the British and French ' oil fields in Iraq. Or getting through the Suez canal, she will strike at the oil fields of Iran, under control of the Anglo-Iranian company. Meanwhile British oil shipments from these sources will be diverted from the Mediterranean route, and the result probably will be a heavy increase of U. S. oil shipments to Britain and France. APPEASING MUSSOLINI Allied and Roosevelt diplomacy . struggled behind the scenes until almost the last minute to keep Mussolini Mus-solini out of war. It was on a Monday that the Italian Ital-ian dictator shouted his hoarse-voiced hoarse-voiced proclamation of war. And as late as the preceding Saturday, the French were still dickering with him. At that time they offered him the island of Corsica, birthplace of Napoleon, as well as the important -African colony of Tunisia, plus French Somaliland with its Red Sea port of Djibuti. But Mussolini wanted more. PmI faM nrnhahlv was that he could not afford to antagonize Hitler Hit-ler by failing to declare war. A Nazi victory looked too certain, in which case Mussolini would have been left facing the triumphant and resentful hordes of Nazi Germany just across the Brenner pass. Note A lot of people think Mussolini Mus-solini will face an aggressive Nazi army anyway. ROOSEVELT'S MOVES President Roosevelt came to realize real-ize that nothing counted with Mussolini Musso-lini except (1) what he was going to get in return for keeping the peace; ' and (2) whether he was going to be on the winning side. Accordingly, the last week's announcements an-nouncements from the White House that the United States was selling army and navy planes direct to the allies, plus surplus army equipment, equip-ment, was calculated to have a double dou-ble effect One was the actual help . It would give the allies. The other I was the hope that Mussolini would be influenced by the fact that the United States was talking in deeds, not mere words, and that these deeds might turn an allied victory. POLITICAL CHAFF One of Alf Landon's hardest jobs Is scotching booms for himself. I Practically every day, by long dis- ; tance phone or telegraph, he has to nip the plan of some admirer to start -a drive for him. Following reports that Communist and Nazi agents are working along the Mexican-U. S. border, Senator Josh Lee of Oklahoma proposed con- struction of a series of forts, each within sight of the next, to shoot any foreign agent seen sneaking into the U. S. I |