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Show Washington If what the returning Undersecretary Under-secretary of State reported to the President and Secretary Hull is ever put in print, the volume might be titled "The Education of Sumner Welles." There is no doubt that Mr. Welles, after a month's tour of Europe in which he had long conversations con-versations with the heads of all the governments which are at war and the most important of the neutral nations, is the best-informed man in America, if not in the world, as to the aims and desires of Great Britain, France, Germany Ger-many and Italy. He is the one person living who Is able to compare and check from first-hand information the . avowed objectives of all of the European belligerents. Whether anything immediately tangible conies of Mr. Welles' exploration ex-ploration or not, the value of the information which he brought back may be very great, as a guide to the future attitude of the United States. Nothing could be more definite than Mr. Welles' statement on his i return that he took no peace pro-:; pro-:; posals with him, no peace pro-! pro-! posals were offered to him and that his government did not send him abroad to talk about peace. Nevertheless, the belief still persists among Senators and Congressmen, Con-gressmen, as well as among Statemen and observers abroad, that the principal purpose of the President in sending Mr. Welles on his mission was to put our government in a position where, If opportunity offered, it could take a strong hand in peace negotiations ne-gotiations and gain a great economic eco-nomic advantage in world affairs by using the power of our national nation-al wealth to impose peace terms which would strengthen the allied nations and be of no great aid to Germany. That Germany is trying to stn up trouble in the United States and create a public opinion in opposition op-position to supplying munitions to England and France is indicated indi-cated by the publication in Germany Ger-many of documents which the German government claims to have found in the official' files of the Polish Foreign office in Warsaw. War-saw. They consist chiefly of what are said to be reports by Polish officials of conversations with the American ambassadors in Warsaw, London and Paris. These American officials are reported as having said, In effect, that the United States was -trying to induce in-duce England to go to war with Germany and that this country would certainly be in the war after af-ter it started. Taken Seriously While nobody in Washington believes there is any truth in the statements given out by the Germans, Ger-mans, they are taken seriously as a warning to this government that if it continues to be too friendly to the Allies, Germany will regard itself as justified in considering the United States as an enemy. That was about the way Germany acted in the World War of 1914-18, with the result that we did get into the war. While nobody can interpret the presidential mind, and the belief still persists in some quarters that Mr. Roosevelt expects to find a way to convince the people of the United States that a serious ser-ious foreign crisis is at hand, in which it would be foolish to put untried men in power, the third-term third-term talk is actually growing less. Since Mr. Farley came out in the open and declared that he will be a candidate for the Democratic Dem-ocratic nomination regardless of whoever else wants it, the Administration's Ad-ministration's supporters are beginning be-ginning to talk more about other persons who would be acceptable to Mr. Roosevelt to head the Democratic Dem-ocratic ticket. That Mr. Farley and Vice-President Garner are working as a team to prevent Mr. Roosevelt's renomination is generally gen-erally believed. No New Tax Lavs Congress, as experienced observers ob-servers have been predicting, has dropped all pretense of economy and is going ahead to spend money wherever it will influence the most voters. And, as is always the case in presidential years, "it is not preparing pre-paring to enact any new tax laws. That is one reason, among others, why the very first bill introduced in-troduced in this Congress at the beginning of its first session is not expected even to get out of the Ways and Means committee and onto the floor of Congress. Putman's chain store tax bill. That is Representative Wright Ostensibly intended as a revenue reve-nue producer. Mr. Patman makes little attempt to deny that its real purpose is to put the chain dealers deal-ers out of business. Hearings are under way before a subcommittee, subcommit-tee, which has been listening to explanations by the author of the bill and some of the business interests in-terests opposed to chain merchandizing. lines of business that would be affected af-fected were the Patman bill to become be-come law. It clearly would impose heavy taxation upon chain food stores, chain cigar stores, drug stores, hardware and variety stores, automobile dealers as well as oil and gasoline dealers, and probably a great many more different dif-ferent lines of business. No measure meas-ure before Congress since the Neutrality Neu-trality bill has brought to Senators Sena-tors and Members such a volume of letters on both sides of the subject. Thus far the proponents of the tax have had their innings, but Washington hears of preparations under way for large consumer delegations desiring to be heard in opposition. That would at least add to the gayety of an otherise dull session. As originally drawn the bill imposed im-posed a tax of $50 on each store in a chain of more than fifteen, graduated up to $1,000 a store, and the total multiplied by the number of states in which the chain did business. Mr. Patman has submitted several amendments, amend-ments, reducing the amount of the tax by one-half, but including filling stations with other chain enterprises. No Clear Understanding There is still no clear understanding under-standing as to all the various |