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Show I NEWS BEHIND THE NEWS I WriHen for The Telegrem By Ray Tucker i WASHINGTON House mem- i bers' extraordinary defiance of I I'resident Roosevelt in backing the Ludlow antiwar move traces directly to his scrapping of the congressional mandate on neutrality. neu-trality. It's a modern version of the senate's rebuff of Woodrow Wilson on ths Versailles treaty. Mr. Roosevelt's handling of foreign for-eign policy convinces war-for-defense-only patriots on Capitol Hill that he suffers from a Messianic Mes-sianic complex some describe it as "Napoleonic." Instead of invoking in-voking the mlnd-our-own-buainesa law in the Orient, he branded Nippon as an "aggressor" at Chicago Chi-cago and auggested a "quarantine." "quaran-tine." He reinforced naval and military forces in the danger zone. The inevitable bombing of the Panay and the sharp note to the emperor a Japanese divinity furnished the cloakroom arguments argu-ments which won the necessary number of reluctant signatures. The implied rebuke of the White House assumes more severity because be-cause the Ludlow proposal is only an empty gesture. It requires a constitutional amendment to strip ths executive of war-making authority, au-thority, and it la doubtful if congress con-gress would ever submit it. Moreover, More-over, undeclared wars are the fashion these days. The prospect of a war involving the United States (short of invasion in-vasion of our territory) would have been deemed fantastic 10 days ago before the destruction of our gunboat High and low officials of-ficials confided that the popular mood would never sanction a conflict. con-flict. Now they're not so sure. Several Sev-eral senators entertain deep fears and suspicion. One semipacifist member, for Instance, tore up a letter in which he-informed ministerial min-isterial correspondents he would not vote for war unless it were necessary to repel a foreign army or navy. He had written the reply before the Panay affair, but deferred de-ferred dropping It in the aenate mail box. When ha read the screaming headlines, the amazing Roosevelt memo to Mr. Hull and the Utter s formal note to Tokyo, he thought it wisest not to express his extreme views in writing. Several neutralitarians planned to introduce a resolution demanding demand-ing the withdrawal of all troops and civilians from China, as suggested sug-gested by Senator Reynolds of North Carolina. But they shelved the idea pending settlement of the current crisis. They didn't dare to subject themselves to the charge of being unpatriotic in the event the White House requests an economic or naval quarantine 1 (blockade to the layman) of I Japan. j The tale of a town-and-country dicker in ths house involving the farm and the wage control bills is only a pretty myth. Not in many moons have the champions of farm and factory toilers glared so savagely at one another. The arise-and-unite movement sponsored spon-sored by Messrs. Roosevelt and Wallace is still flat on its back. The trade was simply a tribute to Chairman Marvin Jones of the house agricultural committee by pals who admire his fearlessness In resisting White House pressure. Some time ago Edward O'Neal, head of the powerful American Farm Bureau federation, assailed the Texan as neglecting the farmers' farm-ers' interests. It was a damaging attack, politically. When Marvin slammed back on the house floor, he received a rising vote and reverberating re-verberating cheers. In retaliation, the farm belt's Paul Revere persuaded key senators sena-tors to embody his compulsory ideas rather than Jones' milder methods in their bill. Meanwhile, the Texan's measure struck a stony road in the house, and it seemed to be headed for defeat. That would have hurt the chairman chair-man back home, where every neighbor is a potential rival. Only five votes saved the measure after a desperate last-minute roundup of sidewalk stragglers. In return the Jones gang signed the wage-hour wage-hour discharge petition without obligating themselves to vote for it though such tit-for-tats are too common to have overmuch significance. sig-nificance. The ruse employed to dig up expense money for the White House investigators of European coops won't speed up F. D. R.'s move to abolish the independent auditing office of the controller general. The three surveyors Messrs. Baker. Olds and Stewart were aent abroad before the 1938 campaign, cam-paign, supposedly to convince con-aumera con-aumera that the administration proposed to reduce prices by installing in-stalling a aystem of mass buying as in Sweden. They made the trip on funds supplied by Harry Hopkins' Hop-kins' W P A. although the relief law specifically states that not a penny shall be spent "outside the United States." Even Acting Controller Con-troller Elliott, although holding office only on sufferance, declined to approve the expenditure. Now a curious congressman has discovered that the funds were eventually forthcoming from the . Commodity Credit corporation though the three neither bought nor sold commodities or crops. Note: When F. D. R. learned that farmers resented the investigation lest it force them to lower prices, he instructed his eager, earnest young men to forget it. Mr. Baker is now a C I O organizer, and still getting in farm leaders' hair. Henry Morgenthau's habit of stroking Big Business with his left hand and socking it with his right may produce an era of good reeling reel-ing instead of good feeling. His day-by-day survey of individual and corporate assets above 1100.-000 1100.-000 packs a rougher punch than the undistributed profits tax now being pruned. Under the new regulation, probably Oliphant-inspired. top-notch top-notch taxpayers must report minutely mi-nutely on every single transaction purchases, sales, gifts, transfers, destruction throughout the year. If he sells or buys or gives away a dog a painting a decanter a share of stock, he must tell the pedigree of the article and its disposition. dis-position. The treasury will be more familiar with a man's affairs af-fairs than his own wife or even his secretary. Mr. M's aids are extraordinarily close-mouthed about the new see-all-know-all scheme, but underlying under-lying idea is to stop tax-dodging at ita source. Had it been in effect ef-fect previously, there would have been no need for the inquisition into "immoralities" a few months ago. It's a method for tapping money and morals at the. source House debate on the wage-hour measure produced a floor show never before witnessed in the once masculine chamber two women Bitting aide by aide at the Democratic Demo-cratic leaders' table while they handled a major bill. One was Mary Norton, chairman chair-man of the house labor committee. Ths other was her extremely capable niece-secretary, Mary Mc-Donough, Mc-Donough, whose knowledge of legislation and parliamentary law matches many male legislators'. Only 27, a college prodigy, ths attractive at-tractive secretary dished out advice ad-vice to inquiring statesmen aa frequently fre-quently as her aunt. One member remarked in an aside that he intended in-tended to make a parliamentary inquiry before time was up. "I am going to ask the speaker," he explained, "whether it would be in order to request the telephone number of the lady chairman's secretary." (Copyright, 1937, for The Telegram) |