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Show STASSEN GETS LIBERAL ADVICE WASHINGTON. Governor Harold Stassen took away with him three pieces of advice from G. O. P. congressional con-gressional leaders on his keynote speech: 1. Make It liberal in tone. 2. Bear down strong on the New Deal's failure to solve the unemployment unem-ployment problem. 3. "Go the limit" in talking Isolationism. Iso-lationism. The young Minnesotan was strongly strong-ly advised to take his cue from the moderate Glenn Frank program committee report. He was warned to avoid any Old Guard strictures and to tread lightly on agriculture and relief. On these he was counseled to. follow fol-low the Glenn Frank strategy of a left-handed AAA endorsement, with administration of unemployment relief re-lief by the states instead of the VVPA. The jobless problem, Stassen was told, should be tied up with the $45,000,000,000 national debt and failure to balance the budget by pointing out that although the Democrats Dem-ocrats had spent billions, the coun- try still was faced with unemployment unemploy-ment of eight to ten million persons. On the war issue, Stassen was urged to stress two points: (1) that a Democratic regime got the U. S. into the first World war; (2) that while this administration professes devotion to the principles of neutrality, neu-trality, its conduct is characterized by a strong undercurrent of jingoism. jingo-ism. As illustrations of this the G. O. P. leaders cited the warlike pro-ally remarks of James Cromwell, U. S. minister to Canada, and the sensational sensa-tional statement of Rear Admiral Joseph K. Taussig that "war with Japan is inevitable." Stassen was told to picture the G. O. P. as the great "peace party" of the country, pledged to oppose any step that might lead to involvement involve-ment in a foreign conflict. NORWAY TROUBLES Most spectacular British naval victory vic-tory since the Graf Spee was the sinking of seven German destroyers in the northern Norwegian port of Narvik. What most people do not know, however, is that despite that victory, the town of Narvik remained re-mained in German hands. What happened was that the Nazis were able to remove several three-inch three-inch and five-inch guns from their destroyers, beached in shallow water, wa-ter, and placed them in the Narvik fortress. These have been able to hold off British troop transports. Meanwhile the railroad to Sweden has been kept open, and the Swedes have been sending in food labeled "Medical "Med-ical Supplies." AH of this illustrates the odds against which the British are operating operat-ing in Norway. In the first place, the fiords are narrow, easy for the Germans to defend, and difficult for large vessels to maneuver. Second, tanks and artillery are even harder to land than troops, so the British have no tanks to oppose the heavily armored forces of the Germans. Some of these difficulties partially are being overcome. But for a time, British general staff officers were so concerned over the prob- lem of landing troops in Norway and doing battle on a large scale, that they argued vigorously against sending a Norwegian expedition. It was only the table-pounding of Winston Churchill, who demanded that an army be sent to Norway immediately, that overruled the British high command. You are going go-ing to hear a lot of internal political polit-ical rumbling in Great Britain over this.. TAUSSIG OMITTED ONE Rear Admiral Joseph X. Taussig's remark that "war with Japan is inevitable" in-evitable" wasn't the only bombshell in his sensational speech before the senate navai affairs committee. There was another that at the last minute he didn't fire. Halfway in his manuscript, immediately imme-diately following the paragraph warning that the consequences of modern warfare are so far-reaching that the "overthrow of our form of government" is not improbable, was this startling statement: "Our financial structure, none too sound at present on account of the huge public debt, cannot stand such a strain." Taussig skipped this hot dig at the New Deal when he read his prepared pre-pared paper, but newsmen didn't know it because no 'copies of the speech were distributed. A member mem-ber of the committee, who later happened hap-pened to glance through the manuscript, manu-script, discovered the interesting omission scratched out in pencil by Taussig. ... KENNEDY MAY RESIGN You can write it down as certain that Joseph Patrick Kennedy, one of the most colorful and hard-working envoys ever sent to London, will resign as ambassador to the Court of St. James just as soon as the President will let him. Joe is not in very good health, Is a bit bored with the job, and also he has been a little too frank for the British. His statements indicating indi-cating that the empire might be in for a tough time before this war was won, did not sit so well in London. |
