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Show WHITE HOUSE: Home Again Outward from Panama Into the Caribbean headed the cruiser Tuscaloosa, Tus-caloosa, bearing Franklin Roosevelt home from a fishing expedition. South of Panama he had fished for fish: in the WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS BY JOSEPH W. LaVANE Merger of Two Wars Feared If Allies Send Aid to Finland; Poles Drill Big Army in France (EDITOR'S NOTE When opinions are expressed In these columns, they are those of the news analyst and not necessarily of this newspaper.) Re lea fled by Western Newspaper Union . ' f ; Canal Zone I he had fished for informa- I tion, getting i himself con- I vinced that j America's Gi- I braltar is in- i adequately I guarded. At a press i conference U.S. and the Wars: After Six Months .Si months had pasted since Germany invaded Poland, since President Roosevelt summoned congress to safeguard U. S. neutrality. neu-trality. Good intentions notwithstanding, the II. S. found itself deeply concerned with Europe's wars politically, financially, economically, socially. Items in a week's news: Agriculture During senate hearings on the reciprocal trade act, Secretary of Agriculture Henry Wallace hinted the U. S. may seek means to help the farmer, whose exports have been reduced since the war started. start-ed. Main reason for woe: Allies claim they need all their foreign exchange to buy munitions. One possible remedy is an excise tax on munitions exports which might be paid to farmers. Trade U. S. exports exceeded imports In January by $128,589,000, the largest larg-est margin in recent years. One unhappy trend: Gold and silver holdings of the U. S. piled higher and higher as foreign nations used this method to pay for their purchases. pur-chases. Industry Latest item In the $1,000,000,000 worth of allied war purchases in the U. S. was a $20,000,000 contract placed with Douglas Aircraft company com-pany for construction of bombers for Great Britain. Civilians A California youth, stopped at Rockford, 111., admitted he and 20 other Americans had been recruited recruit-ed by one Col. Charles Sweeney (believed an American soldier of fortune) and ordered to report in Toronto for aviation training. The FBI went to work. Maritime The U. S. had two British blockade block-ade problems: (1) Britain sought Canadian co-operation in establishing establish-ing a contraband control system in the Pacific to stop U. S. rubber and tin from reaching Siberian Russia, from whence it may be going to Germany; (2) Pan-American clippers, avoiding British mail seizures at Bermuda, decided to fly direct from the U. S. to the Azores and Lisbon. Congress Ironed out were senate-house differences dif-ferences in the measure to raise the Export-Import bank's lending power by $100,000,000, thus providing provid-ing $20,000,000 for non-military purchases by Finland. PRESIDENT BOYD aard te Tuscaloosa he He U co-operate. . gave reporters report-ers some news which startled congressmen con-gressmen who read it in Washington Washing-ton next day. Not only must the present number of guns and planes at Panama be doubled, said the President, but a long-range defense program must be arranged to extend ex-tend throughout Central America and as far south as Ecuador, Colombia Colom-bia and Venezuela. Reason for this, he said, was the need for a better opportunity to discover dis-cover an attacking force at a much longer distance from the canal. Even the new Caribbean fortresses were inadequate protection from the east, he maintained. An interested observer was Augusto Boyd, president of little Panama, whose country will profit by heavy U. S. expenditures in the Canal Zone. Said he, after a conference con-ference aboard the Tuscaloosa: "I think we're all in the same boat. Latin America must co-operate with the United States in defense of the canal . . . We are in there 100 per cent as far as co-operation is concerned con-cerned . . ." DOMESTIC: Nose Count Of all questions in the 1940 census, none has drawn more fire than those regarding personal income. When census takers begin their rounds 1 EUROPE: The Wars Finnish Front. Around Viipuri on the Karelian isthmus and near Petsamo Pet-samo in the far north, Finland's defenders continued retreating before be-fore Russian pressure. But the Finns held their ground at the "waistline," halfway up the border. Western Front. Increased patrol and artillery activity was acknowledged acknowl-edged by both high commands. Heavy German troop movements were reported near Luxembourg, and the Nazis were said to be extending ex-tending the Siegfried line along the Belgian and Dutch frontiers. In the Air. British reconnaissance planes Hew over Berlin two succes- April 1 many a citizen will probably prob-ably refuse to answer these questions ques-tions despite the threat of a fine. Adding weight to the G. O. P.-sponsored P.-sponsored campaign of protest, Miss Catherine Curtis of New York appeared ap-peared before the senate sub-committee on behalf of women investors. inves-tors. Said she: Congress will have to enlarge the jails to house protesting protest-ing women if income questions are not stricken from the census. Nevertheless Census Director William Wil-liam Austin went ahead with his plans, hoping his nose-count will not be completely sabotaged. Meanwhile Mean-while the department of commerce announced creation of a new national nation-al income division which will "analyze "an-alyze and interpret the flow of income in-come from various sources and its expenditure in the final analysis for goods and services." For its source material the division will probe Maginot line already well manned, observers had reason to wonder where Poland-in-exile will send its first five divisions which will be ready for action by midsummer. Finland seemed the best bet, for behind be-hind a ceaseless barrage of rumors and counter-rumors flooding Europe this month, could be seen an ever-narrowing ever-narrowing breach between the two wars. Both London and Paris reported it was certain the allies would land an army at far-north Petsamo, supplementing sup-plementing spasmodic aid which has dribbled to the Finns through Norway Nor-way and Sweden. In the light of this possibility, German overtures in Scandinavia seemed ominous. The overtures: Nazidom has sought a Finnish-Russian truce to stop consumption of Russian war materials and thus get more for herself; her-self; Hitler has also threatened Intervention In-tervention on Russia's side if an allied al-lied expeditionary force is sent to Finland's aid. He had also hinted to Norway and Sweden that it would be best for them to block allied aid to the Finns if they wanted to escape the war. But at the same time he had not overlooked the value of Scandinavian friendship, for Swedish Swed-ish iron ore would be cut off if the northern countries joined Britain and France. Peace Gesture every source of personal income data available, including social security se-curity records, bureau of internal revenue and the 1940 census. LABOR: Biggest Election At Washington the National Labor Relations board issued orders for the largest collective bargaining election ever held. "As soon as possible," pos-sible," approximately 150,000 employees em-ployees in 59 General Motors plants in 11 states will cast their ballots, the principal issue being affiliation with C. I. O. or A. F. of L. POLITICS: Victory in Ohio Both Republicans and Democrats conceded that Ohio's six-county seventeenth sev-enteenth congressional district was a sounding board for Ohio's political cross-currents. In that district, Republican Re-publican J. Harry McGregor was fighting it out with Democrat Byron Ashbrook, nephew of the late Rep. William A. Ashbrook. In the twenty-second district a Republican Re-publican victory was not unexpected, unexpect-ed, provided Ohio would send a woman to congress. Hoping it would, socially prominent Mrs. Frances Payne Bolton sought to succeed suc-ceed her late husband. When the votes were in Mrs. Bolton Bol-ton found herself elected. So did TOLAND'S SIKORSKI Where will his army go? (See Below) sive nights, while Nazi planes were chased away from Paris. At Sea. Allied warships, massing in the Arctic sea to block Russian-German Russian-German sea commerce, sank two Nazi merchantmen near the Finnish shore. An undenied report of naval activity off Petsamo was considered by observers as the first sign that Europe's two wars may merge. Behind Scenes Somewhere in France correspondents correspond-ents discovered Gen. Wladyslaw Sikorski of Poland drilling almost 100,000 troops peasant boys, students, stu-dents, miners and professionals men who escaped from Poland after Germany's blitzkrieg. With France's i I Republica n McGregor, j which was a j signif ic ant victory if the prophetic seventeenth district wasn't fooling. fool-ing. At Wash-i Wash-i n g t o n the G. O. P. congress con-gress i o n a 1 campaign MRS. BOLTON committee T. , , hailed Ohio's 0hw accePd her. results as a sign that "the tide of national sentiment continues strongly strong-ly toward a Republican sweep next November." Despite gloomy news, irrepressible irrepressi-ble peace rumors still bobbed to the surface. In London Lord Tavistock, chairman of the British council for Christian settlement, said he had received re-ceived a set of peace terms through Germany's legation in Dublin. These he had passed on to Foreign Secretary Secre-tary Viscount Halifax. The terms: (1) Independence to Slovakia; (2) independence to Poland, with an outlet out-let to the sea; (3) a plebiscite in Austria, maybe; (4) disarmament, if others will do likewise; (5) German Ger-man re-entry to the League of Nations, Na-tions, provided Britain doesn't continue con-tinue to run the show. To most observers, ob-servers, they looked like the same old set of peace terms brightened with a new coat of paint. Mr. Welles Goes Calling Hastily concluding his preliminary discussions in Rome with Benito Mussolini, Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles hurried to Switzerland Switzer-land and thence to Berlin. What had been advertised as a pure-and-simple fact-finding expedition was developing (as everyone had expected) expect-ed) into a queer peace offensive. Premier Mussolini had evidently told Mr. Welles his terms, and it was widely advertised that Adolf Hitler would do likewise. Everyone, obviously, would talk tough. Other political news: CFour Democratic senators (Massachusetts' (Mas-sachusetts' Walsh, Iowa's Herring, Michigan's Brown and Indiana's Minton) indicated they could conceive con-ceive of an international situation which would make it wise to nominate nom-inate and. elect Franklin Roosevelt for a third term. C. Thomas E. Dewey had his name filed in the Nebraska G. O. P. primary, pri-mary, where he will fight it out with Michigan's Sen. Arthur Vandenberg. C Vice President John Nance Garner Gar-ner let his name be entered in New York. |
