Show THE TIlE DAILY WASHINGTON Round Merry nd 1 Trade Mark MarkBy MarkBy MarkBy By DREW PEARSON EARSON and RO ROBERT ERT ALLEN W WASHINGTON President WASHINGTON President Roosevelt made a personal telephone call to Senator Gerald Nye chairman of the munitions investigating committee committee com corn the other morning at And thereby hangs a roost extraordinary tale tale- At 10 a. a m. m Donald head of the theN theN theN N R A was scheduled to take the witness stand before the munitions committee to testify re regarding regarding regarding re- re garding the Colt Firearms makers of machine guns an and automatic revolvers Rich- Rich berg had written several reveral letters tt rs to the committee committee commit tee indicating great reluctance t to testify y Reason for this reluctance was the fact that a astrike astrike astrike strike has been in ir progress in the Colt plant for some weeks and the national labor relations bo board rd had held in m favor of the workers de decreed decreed decreed de- de creed that the Colt company was wrong In accord with this the N NR R A board snatched the blue eagle When a company loses the blue eagle cagle every department of the government automatically is notified in order that hat it ma may mar cease to do business busi busi- ness with that firm Government Pet PH But in the case of the Colt company government government govern govern- overn- overn ment departments were notified The war department which v had placed various orders with the company received no notice that Colt was violating NnA NiiA codes In fact the munitions munitions munitions muni muni- committee unearthed a letter signed by Secretary of V War f Dern Bern stating that until the war department departments as notified he would continue to do business Unofficially Secretary Dern knew that the Blue Eagle had been snatched Officially he did no not know know- The Colt company gels gets a large amount of it its ith profits from the government Government orders probably mean the difference between its profit ard and loss The government pressure therefore probably could have settled the strike Yet for the filst time in its history notification notification notification cation of the Blue Eagles Eagle's removal was not sent out Ob Obviously lou ly Donald had to todo todo todo do some tough tough- explaining So 15 minutes s before e ore was to take the stand Roosevelt telephoned Senator Nye He asked Nye not to summon sun Obviously Obviously Obviously it would h have ye been embarrassing Senator Nye Nyc is not an ardent supporter of the president He Re is also a bitter critic of the Finally he would like to run for the vice presidency on on ori the Republican ticket Nevertheless Nevertheless Nev Nev- he played ball with the president He postponed appearance before the senate committee committee- With s some me of their colleagues Senators Wagner Vagner and Cos Costigan itan have become the most unpopular unpopular unpopular un un- un- un popular m numbers of congress Reason is their championship of the bill Especially in the border states this bill bUI is putting several on the spot In Maryland Maryland Mary Mary- land for instance the eastern shore helped to defeat Governor Ritchie because he championed negro ro victims of lynch mobs At the same time there is a arge ne negro r electorate in Mary Mary- land Whichever way Maryland senators vote they are on the spot And senators senator from various other st states tes are in the same boat As a result they are saying sa Why did gan Co-gan and Wagner Vagner want to t bring this thing up anyway As a defense enemies of the Wag Costigan ner ncr b bill ll are preparing an argument that the bill interferes with the sovereignty of individual states to prosecute criminal acts acle within its bor bor- ders Senators Wagner r and Costi Costigan an recently visited visited visited vis vis- vis- vis the White 1 luse se secured Roosevelt's pled pledge e to back th them m in In bringing a vote vole on the anti- anti lynching b bill at this session 1935 by United Feature Syndicate te Inc lac nc |