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Show NEWS BEHIND THE NEWS By Ray Tucker Telegram's Washington Columnist WASHINGTON President Roosevelt should have a fairly comfortable companionship with the new congress. Both old and new members composing the vast Democratic majority stand In some awe of him because of the political ease with which he broke the third-term tradition. That fact figures in ail their cloakroom conversations. It Is not generally known, even by experienced political observers, observ-ers, but the most difficult political po-litical trial most members of the house face is reelection to a third term. During their first four years they make many friends, but also plenty of enemies. Ambitious Am-bitious rivals crop up and try to capitalize on the incumbent's blunders. Constituents frequently frequent-ly cry for a change, for "new blood." But once the sitting member hurdles this obstacle usually he becomes a valuable public servant he rates appointment appoint-ment to important committees and from then on It is rather easy sailing. It is this practical realization which accounts for the new respect re-spect veteran and freshman members hold for the president. presi-dent. Knowing how tough It is to be reelected thrice in a single sin-gle congressional district, they accord to K. D. R. the recognition recogni-tion resulting from a third-term sweep of the nation. . England's food plight Is graphically graph-ically depicted in confidential reports which various government govern-ment agencies have received from their foreign observers. Production of dairy articles has dropped In Britain and all European countries. All are rationing ra-tioning butter, while cream, milk and cheese are distributed under drastic controls. Livestock which was not destroyed during Hitler's Hit-ler's invasions has been killed off for lack of feed imports. Denmark once sold 25 per cent of her butter to Britain. There have been no exports of dairy stuff from Sweden since May of 1940, although this country once shipped an annual average of 35,-000,000 35,-000,000 pounds to England. Once an exporting nation, Finland cannot supply even her dwindled population. Thomas Jefferson, the patron saint of the Democratic party, must be resting uneasily In his grave. On September 24, 1940, congress con-gress passed a resolution creating a committee to frame plans for celebrating the anniversary of Mr. Jefferson's 2tMith birthday. Mr. Roosevelt did not get around to naming the 16 committee members until mid-December. Sol Bloom, who made George Washington famous, tried to assemble as-semble the group, but holiday pressure kept their minds on Santa Claus rather than the sage of Monticello. The due date for their report was January 1, but they had not become acquainted with each other, not to mention Mr. Jefferson. Jeffer-son. So Mr. Bloom recently asked an extension of time for i reforming reform-ing the country on how the illustrious illus-trious Democrat's birthday would be observed: With a nasty poke at Mr. Bloom, a Mississippi Democrat Dem-ocrat noted that "we have been celebrating George Washington's anniversary for eight years now," and he hoped that the Jefferson Jef-ferson fete day would be marked with the "simplicity and economy" econ-omy" to which the Virginian was devoted. As if that were not enough, a Republican Mr. Hoffman Hoff-man of Michigan objected to consideration of the Bloom request. re-quest. Jlmmle Byrnes of South Carolina Caro-lina should be the top Democratic Demo-cratic member of the senate even though he holds no official offi-cial position of leadership in that body. His peculiar role derives from the fact that he commands the respect and admiration ad-miration of both President Roosevelt and National Chairman Chair-man Ed Flynn. The latter's friendship for the South Carolinian is especially es-pecially Important. Unlike Jim Farley, the Bronx boss Is temperamental. He cannot endure en-dure political bores. He cannot can-not sit around and gossip and approach by slow and social means the main subject on tap, as is the way with voluble members mem-bers of the house and senate. He doesn't possess Mr. Farley's gift for companionship. He likes snappy, decisive, quick-thinklng-and-talking fellows, and Mr. Byrnes meets all those qualifications. F. D. R. has frequently shown his regard for Jimmie, even though he did ignore the senator's sen-ator's vice presidential ambitions ambi-tions at Chicago. Whenever the president finds himself in a jam with Capitol Hill, he consults Mr. Byrnes or Pat Harrison Har-rison of Mississippi rather than Majority Leader Barkley of Kentucky. Numerous valuable Inventions Inven-tions have been submitted to the army, the navy and the national defense commission as a result of the rearming process. It Is probable that America's new venture In war or near-war near-war will revolutionize the democratic dem-ocratic way of life as completely complete-ly as the World war did with its mechanization and materialization material-ization of living equipment. One company has designed an entirely new type of factory for construction of airplanes in Texas. Without doors or windows, win-dows, it is made of prefabricated prefabricat-ed steel and Is practically bombproof. bomb-proof. It can be constructed In less than four months, although al-though It will cover 20 acres. When completed, It will be camouflaged with an 18-hole golf course on its roof. Another proposal pro-posal under study is a new type of hangar (or factory building) which can be erected from welded weld-ed material in 20 minutes. The substructure folds into compact space, is carried on a huge automobile au-tomobile trailer and can be quickly shifted from place to place. Another ingenious Inventor has appeared with an Idea for an antibomb mechanism to safeguard safe-guard essential points such as war factories, public utilities, ports, etc. It consists of a tall metal pole topped by a constantly constant-ly whirling spray of steel arms. He maintains that the device will tend to explode and deflect falling bombs in such a way that they will not cause much damage. dam-age. He has not yet sold the idea to the military thinkers, but It is under consideration. National defense commission experts assigned to study the problem of industrial bottlenecks bottle-necks have come up with the conclusion that one skilled machine ma-chine tool worker Is worth at least six front-line soldiers. The army and navy high commands agree with the judgment, although al-though such an idea would have keen branded as preposterous even as recently as World war days. |