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Show 1 1 ' WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS BY JOSEPH W. LaBINE U. S. Ships May Be Registered Under European Neutral Flags In Effort to Circumvent Law (EDITOR'S NOTE When opinions are expressed In the,se columns, they are those of the news analyst and not necessarily of this newspaper.) . Released by Western Newspaper Union. MARITIME: Neutrality Having fought for and having won "cash and carry" neutrality, the United States promptly sought ways to circumvent it. While American vessels and seamen loafed along the waterfronts, crafty minds were thinking up at least two ways of maintaining maritime traffic despite neutrality: (1) chartering foreign ships, a perfectly legal method used i f 1 'v I ' I MINISTER BRENNAN The President sympathized, by Black Diamond Lines, Inc.; (2) registering U. S. ships with other nations, also legal but carrying a few potentially unpleasant implications. implica-tions. With its next meeting still a week away, the maritime commission was almost certain to refuse requests for transfer of some 90 U. S. vessels to Central or South American registry. regis-try. When the idea was first broached, President Roosevelt supported sup-ported it. Later, after getting a lecture lec-ture from Secretary of State Cor-dell Cor-dell Hull, he told reporters that the more he thought about it, the more convinced he became that it wasn't right. Reason: It would place sister American republics in a neutrality position different from our own. Loud as the complaints of American Ameri-can ship owners were those of lesser European neutrals whose thriving U. S. commerce was stopped by the neutrality law. Two loudest objectors objec-tors were Eire and Belgium. The former sent its minister, Robert Brennan, to tell the state department depart-ment that Eire should be excluded from the "combat zone" because be-cause she is neutral and will remain re-main so; because Eire needs U. S. products; because Eire doesn't be-" be-" lieve U. S. ships would be endangered endan-gered visiting her ports. Belgium sent her Ambassador Count Robert Van Der Straten-Ponthoz to inquire about transferring U. S. ships to Belgian Bel-gian registry. Certainly, commented the President, Presi-dent, objections to Latin-American transfers wouldn't prevail in the case of European neutrals like Ireland. Ire-land. It was a pretty safe guess, therefore, that U. S. ships may soon sail under European flags. EUROPE: The War Gone like sudden sunshine on a cloudy day was the Belgian-Dutch effort to make peace between Hitler and the allies. And after the sun came threats of rain, for it ended the last hope of armistice. There was still much saber rattling, such as Winston Churchill's speech calling call-ing Der Fuehrer a "cornered maniac," but the foes were ready to start slaughtering. Sea and air warfare went ahead precipitously. One day Berlin announced an-nounced (by inference) that henceforth hence-forth all British-French merchantmen merchant-men would be torpedoed. Reason: They're all armed. Next day, after a successful but pointless air attack on the Shetland islands, Berlin warned it would "show the British what it means to be at war with Germany." In 72 hours 11 ships were sunk, one a British destroyer. Britain, for her part, sank two Nazi merchantmen and a U-boat. The week's most thought-provoking news dispatch came from John T. Whitaker of the Chicago Daily News, who cabled from Rome that Der Fuehrer's position looked desperate. des-perate. Said Whitaker: Hitler had indecisively retreated after massing troops on the Belgian-Dutch frontier; fron-tier; he can pierce the Maginot line only by wasting a million men; he can't break the British blockade; Scandinavia opposes him, and a strike at the Balkans will bring down the wrath of Russia and Italy, each of which "has his measure." Conclusion: "He finds, for the first time . . . that the cards are not stacked against his immediate foe. And as he delays, confusion and defeatism de-featism are inevitable at home . . ." Finlandia Leaving Moscow without customary cus-tomary diplomatic formalities, Finnish conferees returned to Hel-singfors Hel-singfors where awaiting officials already al-ready knew they had refused to grant Russian demands. Immediately Immedi-ately the Soviet press began a withering with-ering anti-Finnish campaign which could only be a prelude to armed action. First, Moscow's I'ravda claimed Finland was on the brink of economic ruin, but Helsingfors quietly replied the Finns could get along. Next, the Soviet news agency, Tass, accused Finnish ruling circles of fostering anti-Russian policy. Helsingfors answered by announcing there would be no resumption of conversations. CRIME: O'Hare-Capone Who killed Cock Robin was never a greater mystery than who killed Edward J. O'Hare, Chicago racetrack race-track owner whose assassination in early November set off the biggest gangland witchhunt since Alphonse Capone went to prison in 1932. Reasons: Rea-sons: The murder came just before Capone was released, and O'Hare was known to have associations with Capone. Two theories to date: (1) That O'Hare, as interim manager man-ager of the Capone gambling syndicate, syndi-cate, was "rubbed out" because he refused to turn back the reins when "Scarface Al" was to be released. (2) That O'Hare was slain by dissenting dis-senting Capone mobsters who feared he would return the reins to Scar-face Scar-face Al. The deeper federal and city investigators in-vestigators probed the mystery, the more complex it became. The more embarrassing, too, especially for one Judge Eugene J. Holland of Chicago Chi-cago municipal court, who was associated asso-ciated with O'Hare in a real estate enterprise. Officials wondered if there could be any connection between be-tween this and the fact that only 28 of the 12,624 Chicago gambling cases I --i" i JUDGE HOLLAND Embarrassed. handled by Judge Holland in the past 15 months had resulted in convictions. con-victions. Two days before Capone's mysterious myste-rious release in Philadelphia, a 21-year-old named Russell Stoddard was held by Los Angeles police after a mysterious stabbing. Not only did he claim to be a former O'Hare bodyguard, but officials found in his possessions a letter indicating that Stoddard knew who killed O'Hare. COURTS: 5 to 4 Only two years have passed since Franklin Roosevelt sent the senate his first nominee to the Supreme court Alabama's Sen. Hugo L. Black. Since then, one by one, have come Liberal Stanley Reed, Liberal Felix Frankfurter and Liberal Bill Douglas. With only four Roosevelt appointees, the nine-man court was still theoretically anti-New Deal. This month died Justice Pierce Butler, 73-year-old conservative, a Catholic from Minnesota. When his successor is named, the New Deal will have an undisputed liberal majority ma-jority which will last at least another an-other generation. Among possible successors observers listed another midwest Catholic, Michigan's Frank Murphy. CONGRESS: Annuities Exempted from social security are some 10,000,000 self-employed persons, agricultural workers and domestics, who thus receive no retirement re-tirement income at age 65. Also exempted are minor groups like seamen. sea-men. At the next congressional session, ses-sion, announced New York's Sen. Robert Wagner, he will introduce a I "XL x ' x " SENATOR WAGNER How much saved? government-sponsored voluntary annuity an-nuity plan whereby anyone making the necessary payments can buy an annuity paying $1,200 a year at age 60 or 65, . e., $100 a month. The chief Wagner argument: That such annuities can be handled by the U. S. at a substantially lower cost than private insurance companies. A high insurance exeputive, he said, had raised no objection to the plan. Nevertheless, critics got to work immediately. Though admitting private firms now make a substantial substan-tial profit, it was asserted the U. S. must use the same mortality tables and can therefore save no more than an approximate 2.1 per cent agent's commission on its annuities. Tax Fight Tax revision may be No. 1 on the congressional agenda January 3. A hint that not even the administration administra-tion knows what to do about it, appeared ap-peared when Acting Secretary of the Treasury John W. Hanes criticized the proposal of Marriner S. Eccles, federal reserve chairman, to adopt higher taxes and thus pay for next year's fiscal deficit. Commented Mr. Hanes: ". '. . I don't think he spoke for the administration ... I doubt if he spoke for congress . . ." INDUSTRY: Man With Stick . When the justice department's Trust Buster Thurman Arnold shows his face, any well-trained industrialist industrial-ist rushes to get his books in order. or-der. Thus far Mr. Arnold's big stick has struck at the railroads, movies, building industry, aluminum, medicine medi-cine and many a lesser trade or profession. This month he struck again: At Los Angeles a federal grand jury indicted 41 major and secondary second-ary oil companies and two associations associa-tions on charges of conspiring to raise artificially and maintain gasoline gaso-line prices on the Pacific coast (Oregon, (Ore-gon, Washington, California, Arizona and Nevada). In this region, says the indictment, the defendants con- trol 95 per cent of gasoline sales. |