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Show Merry-Go-Round By DREW PEARSON aad ROBERT ft. ALLEN WASHINGTON It's all being done quietly, but Senator Bob Taft's drive for the 1940 GOP nomination really is going places. The Ohioan's managers are losing no time In corralling the key southern leaders who are able to deliver entire blocs of delegates from the southern states. Already signed up and working hard for Taft are John Marshall of West Virginia, assistant attorney general and one of the patronage dispensers under Coolidge; also the famous Perry Howard of Mississippi, colored national committeeman and veteran delegate wangler. Howard was an important figure In the pre-convention pre-convention Hoover, campaign of 1928 and has ridden herd on southern delegate groups at many OOP conventions. Moreover Taft, personally, is letting no grass grow under his feet. Last week, while attention atten-tion was focused on the closing rounds of the neutrality battle, he had a quiet luncheon in the capitol with Joe Pew, Pennsylvania's multimillionaire multi-millionaire oilman Republican boss. Pew waa the master mind behind the election elec-tion of Governor Arthur James last year, and was grooming him as a 1940 darkhorse. But ! James' bungling has cooled Pew's ardor and he is . Jooking oyer the field for . another favorite. Whether Taft will be the man remains to be lean, but politicos consider their secret powwow pow-wow most significant. Iowa Bloomer Among politicians there is genuine professional profes-sional admiration for the way Taft's campaign is being handled. But in one state the boys credit his managers with a bloomer. This Is in Iowa, where ex-Senator Lester Dickinson waa picked to act aa host to Taft when he stumps the state later this month. (Taft has been working for more than a month on the speech he will make in Iowa explaining why he voted against the farm parity price appropriation ap-propriation last spring.) Among lows iiepuDiican leaders, uicxinson.is considered a "hoodoo." Although their entire state ticket won hands down last year, he was nosed out by Democratic Senator Guy Gillette, who Is not overly popular. So when A. K. Barta, Taft advance man, visited Iowa to make arrangements for the trip, he carefully sidestepped side-stepped Dickinson on the advice of . local leaders. Thereupon Dickinson wired naive David In-galla In-galla of Cleveland, Taft manager, offering to take Taft under his wing, and Ingslls accepted. When Taft's Iowa friends got the news they sent hot wires of protest, warning that Dickinson's tie-up was a mistake, but it was too late. Neutrality Kink A big behind-the-scenes debate has been taking tak-ing place in the state department as to whether the mandated area under the League of Nations Na-tions should be included in the war zone barred to American shipping. Chief countries affected would be Palestine, which is mandated by the league to Great Britain, Brit-ain, and Syria, which is mandated to France. . So far, the inside debate haa favored leaving these countries out of the war zone even though governed by belligerents. Also exempt from tha war zone, to date, are Gibraltar, tha British naval base at the mouth of the Mediterranean, and Algiers on the French coast of North Africa. There would be nothing to prevent American Ameri-can vessels, under the present war zoning, from carrying good to Gibraltar or Algiers, then transferring them to French or British bottoms. From the viewpoint of American war risk, however, the submarine menace off the coast of Spain and near the entrance to Gibraltar may be considerable. Note A kink In the new neutrality act unnoticed un-noticed by most people Is the fact that Germany could easily purchase airplane in California, rush them by fast Jspanese steamer to the Japanese Jap-anese port of Dairen, Manchukuo, thence on the Trana-Siberian railroad to Germany. Since U.S, air factories are on the Pacific coast, this route would not be much longer than via the Atlantic. . " Rare Gift Justice William Douglas has received a rare gift from W. N. Marshal, Spokane banker and great-great-grandson of the illustrious Chief Justice John Marshall. To commemorate the elevation of a Pacific coast "boy", to the supreme court, banker Marshall Mar-shall presented Douglas with a plat and serving ' platter from a set of chinawar used by his tamed ancestor. Douglas accepted the treasured trea-sured heirlooms a a gift to the court, and while they are displayed ia hia office he haa had them recorded as the property of tha tribunal The plate are part of a set purchased by Colonel Thomas Marshall, father of the chief Justice, in China in 1754. When the son married mar-ried in IT8S, his father gave him-the set and it has remained in the family ever since. The plates are tnf heavy chinawar. decorated with a greenish-blue flower design that makes them appear much mora delicate thaa they actually are. |