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Show WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS IIY JOSEPH W. LaltlNE G. 0. P. Centers on Vandenberg Despite Tom Dewey's Showing In Popular Opinion Samplings (EDITOR'S NOTE When opinions are expressed In these columns, they re those of the news analyst and not necessarily of this newspaper.) p' by Western Newspaper Union. INTERNATIONA L : Armaments What constitutes absolute "neutrality" "neu-trality" In wartime has never made itself quite clear. Superficial neutrality neu-trality under the U. S. law bang sale of arms and munitions "lethal weapons" yet under the amendment amend-ment of Ohio's Rep. John M. Vorys such Indispensable war-making equipment as trucks and commer-cial commer-cial airplanes may be sent abroad. Early July, when the neutrality bill was making Its way through congress, con-gress, found the agriculture department depart-ment proposing government subsidized subsi-dized export of cotton in a program whose chief benefactors would be aggressive Germany and Japan, both of whom need cotton to stuff into theii ammunition. But U. S. participation in dictator rearmament is only part of the picture. pic-ture. Though France has just banned shipment of scrap iron to Germany, though Britain's new ministry min-istry of supply will have the right to ban such shipments, profit-con- 1939's first four months was only 73 per cent of 1929, the farmer's essential es-sential purchases cost substantially less. In the past 10 years mortgage mort-gage debt has dropped 28 per cent; interest charges, 35 per cent; hired hands and expenditure for labor has dropped; taxes in 1937 were 33 per cent less than 1929. Result: Overhead Over-head and operating costs are down and a larger portion of farm income in-come Js available for buying Industry's Indus-try's products. But if this increased portion goes exclusively to mail or- POLITICS: c. o. p. shift As recently as one year ago politicians poli-ticians feared such highly successful success-ful public opinion samplings as the Gallup poll might make party nominating nom-inating conventions needless. Example: Ex-ample: New York's racket-busting District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey is No. 1 popular candidate for the Republican presidential nomination next year. But popular opinion is one thing and common sense another. Astute Republicans know Tom Dewey has no administrative record, know also that he might be elected and still prove a failure, thus destroying the party's chances in 1944. In Wash-ington, Wash-ington, where political schemes are hatched, the G. O. P. now seems bent on nominating not Tom Dewey ; S3 ' '''Tf fx Li der houses and not to local merchants, mer-chants, observers wondered how permanent prosperity could reach the rural U. S. WHITE HOUSE: Initials Hint to uninformed newspaper readers: Added this month to Washington's Wash-ington's alphabetical agencies are FWA. FLA and FSA - Federal Works, Federal Loan and Federal Security agencies. Another change: Though WPA retains its battle-scarred battle-scarred Initials, it must now be called Works Projects administration, administra-tion, not Works Progress administration. adminis-tration. BELGIUM: Isolation In 1914 German troops marched to France via Belgium, meeting little lit-tle resistance en route. In 1939 a Reich war machine would be stopped on Belgium's frontier, thanks to a fortification system far out of proportion to the little kingdom's king-dom's size. But Belgium has not cast her lot with France and Britain, Brit-ain, has Instead followed King Leopold's Leo-pold's pronouncement of 1930 when Belgium declared herself free from MJIl'lilIIIIMW)UlilWltlilJllllmljyMMUlw.w,,1 if ' ' SCRAP IRON SHRAPNEL British steel, British deaths? scious democracies and dictatorships dictator-ships have no moral compunctions about such tilings; scrap iron or any other material of Mars is sold abroad to the highest bidder until domestic rearmament demands that it be kept at home. Samples: Last month Britain's liberal Lord Davies told how scrap iron and steel exports from the United Kingdom King-dom to the Reich rose from 4,500 I tons In July, 1938, to 17,000 tons in August, 21,000 tons in September (month of the Munich crisis) and 23,000 tons in December. uctureu nerseu iree irom all former obligations with these nations. na-tions. Significantly, no French or British general can today examine King Leopold's defenses. Last month France's General Chauvineau protested, declaring a French-Belgian defensive formation was the best for all concerned. A few weeks later France got her answer an-swer in Brussels' newspaper, Der-niere Der-niere Heure. The Belgian stand: If Germany respects Belgium's independence in-dependence in a general war, all will France gave Germany 350 tons of pig iron Inst August when the Czech crisis was Just rising, gave her 19,-000 19,-000 tons in September when the crisis cri-sis was at its peak, and 75,000 tons in November. Still more revealing are Germany's Ger-many's 1938 foreign trade statistics, statis-tics, showing that 1,059,800 tons of Germany's total 1,146,027 tons of 1938 scrap iron came from Belgium, Bel-gium, Luxemburg, France, Great Britain, Holland and the U. S.. all potential enemies. In March, 1939, il. STYLES BRIDGES A'o 7' in campaign literature, but another Michigan product, Senator Sen-ator Arthur II. Vandenberg. Reasoning: Rea-soning: Most conservative politicians politi-cians favor him and most G. O. P. editorial support falls In his direction. direc-tion. What such seers have not considered consid-ered is that 1936 found Gallup polls. Fortune polls and several other samplings much less fallible than U. S, editorial opinion, which the public rejected to elect a Democratic Demo-cratic President. But since 1936 the public has followed a newspaper-inspired newspaper-inspired trend to conservatism, which probably makes today's editorial edi-torial opinion less erring. Biggest Vandenberg asset in win-ning win-ning both G. O. P. and Democratic votes ls his middle-of-the-road record rec-ord and a reputation for working harmoniously with both friends and enemies. In May he led a victorious victori-ous fight against the Florida canal project in which he was supported by 22 Republican and 23 Democratic Democrat-ic senators. Better than anyone else, observers think he could win anti-Roosevelt Democratic votes. Other G. O. P. boomlets: Bridges. In 1936 New Hampshire's ex-governor and present senator, H. Styles Bridges, missed the vice presidential pres-idential nomination with Alfred M. Landon simply because strategists thought a Landon-Bridges combination combina-tion sounded too much like "London Bridge is falling down." This month thousands of booklets captioned: cap-tioned: "For President in 1940 - - f Li I ' . . f the same countries contributed 161,-344 161,-344 tons, which would make 1,936,128 tons if the same import level were maintained throughout the year. From the U. S. in 1938 came 462,782 tons; in March, 1939, came 20,175 tons. Other import figures for Germany: Ger-many: Iron Ore (tons). 1930 1937 1938 Sweden 8.725.432 9.083.751 8.992,331 Franca 2.779.8t8 5,739.513 5.056.121 Spain 1.824.880 310.540 1.082.551 Copper Ore (tons). G. Britain .. 20.121 60.081 32.055 France ... 96,297 86.227 155,869 Belgium .... 64.970 66.752 53.710 Manganese Ore (tons). V. S. S. R. ... 173.653 61,338 60,924 Brit. India .. 78.353 121,318 17,226 Australia .. 63,668 S. Africa 290.679 268.044 Nickel Ore (tons). Brit. India ... 2.711 3.593 60 Greece 8,839 .... Canada 99 13,250 13.368 Most logical deduction is that the next World war may And British, French, Canadian, Belgian and possibly U. S. troops dying of wounds inflicted by arms made of metal from their homelands. KING LEOPOLD lie prefers to be friendless, foeless. j be well, although France's line oi defense would be shortened by 155 miles. But if Germany again penetrated pene-trated Belgium, France would possibly pos-sibly evade a German attack on its northern frontier and might not aid Belgium as immediately as it did in 1914. If past experience is any indication, indi-cation, France might even squeeze out of a war via the time-tested appeasement ap-peasement route. Meanwhile the Belgians have good reason to rush their fortifications. Knowing a German drive would hold France as its ultimate goal, shrewd King Leopold also knows the Reich might avoid a conflict with him if there is a good chance it would delay de-lay the attack on France. i Styles Bridges" are being distributed distribut-ed in his behalf by a New Hampshire Hamp-shire organization. Noticeably absent ab-sent from campaign literature is the first initial H., a concession to diplomacy. diplo-macy. Martin. House Minority Leader Joseph W. Martin Jr. was judged most popular congressman last winter win-ter by newspaper correspondents and has now become vice presidential presiden-tial possibility. Since he would rather rath-er be speaker of the house next session ses-sion than vice president (provided the election goes Republican), Joe Martin is busily fighting off boosters like Illinois' Rep. Leo E. Allen, who predicts that the man who managed Ah Landon's nomination fight at the 1936 convention will find a lot of friends awaiting him at next year's gathering. CUiXGKESS: Going Up In 1878 an economy-bent Forty-fourth Forty-fourth congress appropriated $291,-220,000. $291,-220,000. In 1909 the government's expenditures first topped the billion-dollar billion-dollar mark; 1918's war crisis brought it to 18 billion; 1919 made it 27 billion. Never since then have U. S. expenditures dropped much below the four-billion mark and last year came a peacetime record of 11 billion. By mid-July, with most appropriating (but little else) out of the road, the Seventy-sixth congress had managed to set a new record of about $13,110,000,000. Beyond its control were such costs as mounting old age pension reserve and the railroad retirement plan. Cropping up from the past, too, was an item of $3,624,812,065 for interest as n nrvrv rsnrt nnn a : a FORECAST AGRICULTURE: Good or Bad? Until Judgment day men will probably use the year 1929 as a basis for comparing economic conditions. condi-tions. This year, 10 summers after j the stock market reached its peak, a decade's experience led Standard Statistics company to probe the U. S. farmer's status, General conclusion conclu-sion is that it almost parallels 1929's, though conditions themselves differ as night from day. Today's "prosperity" "pros-perity" has a different basis. Retail sales, always a good index, seem to be up. But biggest increases are shown not by independent local merchants but by mail order houses, which may indicate no return of prosperity but simply a swing to mail order buying. Less important, but significant in lh mail order increase, in-crease, is decentralization of industry. in-dustry. Offsetting a possibly dull picture is a drastic shift in farm expenditures. expendi-tures. Though cash income for on the $40,000,000,000 national debt. Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini4 were held responsible for almost two billion of it, but not even President Presi-dent Roosevelt would acknowledge the $338,000,000 which an election-conscious election-conscious senate tacked to the agriculture agri-culture department's appropriation bill for parity payments and disposal dis-posal of surplus commodities. Most significant drop: Relief. For the 1939-40 fiscal year the U. S. will spend $1,755,600,000, against $2,915,-605,000 $2,915,-605,000 last year. Item by item expenditures, ex-penditures, with little more to come: Independent agencies $1.668.slS,340 Agriculture 1,194,173.633 Interior 172.679.765 Treasurv-post office 1,700.615,054 War (military) 508.789.824 War (supplemental) 223.398,047 War (engineering projects etc.) 305.188.514 Navy 773.049.151 Labor 30,53d. 170 State, justice, commerce ., 122.177.220 Congressional 21.851.779 First deficiency 23.765.041 Second deficiency 157.619.059 Third deficiency 3.099.377 Relief (supplemental for 1939) 825,000,000 Relief (for 1940) 1.755.600.000 CITATION - Admiral Harry E. Yarnell, who stood pat on the U. S. position during Japan's recent re-cent drive against Occidentals in China, is expected to be given the distinguished service medal by congress. UP Increased world consumption consump-tion of U. S. cotton is expected by the agriculture department on basis of current sales. For the year ending August I, consumption consump-tion is estimated at 11,250,000 bales compared with 10,900,000 bales last year. RETURN Lord Beaverbrook's London Evening Standard predicts pre-dicts a return to England this fall of the duke and duchess of Windsor. OIL T. G. Delbridge of Philadelphia, Phila-delphia, president of the American Ameri-can society for testing materials, materi-als, estimates the U. S. has ample am-ple petroleum supplies for 150 years. |
