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Show Washington, D. C. MOBILE HOUSING Harried by the national criticism of failure to provide housing for defense de-fense workers. Defense Housing Coordinator Co-ordinator Charles F. Palmer finally has proposed to Roosevelt that the government buy fleets of trailers and rush them to the most congested congest-ed Industrial spots as temporary living liv-ing quarters. In submitting his plan, Palmer carefully avoided the term "trailers" "trail-ers" and has cautioned his staff to refer to them as "mobile units." But never mind the fancy terminology. Plain, ordinary auto trailers are what he proposes to use. Palmer contemplates the pur-chase pur-chase of thousands of these homes on wheels, but where he is going to get them remains to be seen. A check of trailer manufacturers disclosed dis-closed two interesting facts: First, available at present are not more than 2,000 trailers, a drop in the bucket compared to the tens of thousands of housing units needed. Second, the plants are working day and night on urgent orders for the army, and unless they suspend such operations, can't make trailers. Meanwhile, with a vast army of migrated workers jammed into makeshift quarters, the defense housing problem daily becomes . I L.nltk nil. more alarming, ruuim ucam. - thorities are scared stiff over the danger of epidemics. ALIENS IN CONGRESS Amid all the breast-thumping on Capitol Hill about aliens, it Is Interesting In-teresting to note that 20 members of the new congress are foreign-born. Three are veteran senators Robert Rob-ert F. Wagner, New York New Dealer, Deal-er, author of the Labor Relations and Social Security acts, born in Germany; James J. Davis, Pennsylvania Pennsyl-vania Republican, former secretary of labor, born in Wales; and James E. Murray, Montana Democrat, born In Canada. The 17 In the house came from all parts of the world and some of them still have strong foreign accents. ac-cents. ' B. J. Gehrmann of Wisconsin and Leonard W. Schuetz of Illinois were born in Germany. Karl Stefan of Nebraska and Rudolph Tenerowicz of Michigan were born In Austria. Incidentally, when Stefan gives a radio talk for the folks back home, he says good-by in four different languages, Including German. Two were born in Russia Samuel Dickstein of New York and Herman Kopplemann of Connecticut. Rep. Samuel Weiss of Pennsylvania was born In Poland, and Adolph Sabath of Illinois, the genial, popular dean of the house, in Czechoslovakia. There are two Canadian-born members of the house Charles Eaton of New Jersey, and Albert Rutherford of Pennsylvania. William Wil-liam Barry of New York was born in Ireland; and Frank Crowthcr of New York and Robert Ramsay of West Virginia in England. Robert Crosser of Ohio rind George Gillie of Indiana were born in Scotland; Noah Mason of Illinois in Wales, and Pehr Holmes of Massachusetts Mas-sachusetts in Sweden. Outside of congress a number of high placed officials are foreign born, prominent among them Defense De-fense Commissioners Knudsen and Hillman. But the delegate from Alaska, Anthony J. Dimond, was born In New York! FINGER-PRINTERS Most sought-after jobs in the government gov-ernment recently are finger-printers in the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Investiga-tion. One reason for this it that finger-printers often are promoted to G-men. There was an inundation of appli- cations for these Jobs after enactment enact-ment of the Alien Registration law, many from young lawyers. The starting pay is $1,440, and being a finger-printer Is no sinecure. For one thing. It Is hard on the eyes. Finger-printers are required to classify an average of 90 prints a day, and after a time the optical strain becomes serious. The average aver-age "life span" of a finger-printer is four years, and most of them seek promotions or transfers to other positions, po-sitions, the ablest becoming G-men. G-men have a new method of taking tak-ing finger-prints. The old Ink pad, with smears, is out. Instead, they use a nice clean pad saturated with an invisible iron salt solution. The fingers are pressed on the pad, then the Imprint is made on a card which is sensitized with another an-other chemical responsive to the iron solution. This produces a perfect Impression of the finger's loops and whirls without toiling the skin. MERRY-GO-ROUND According to the congressional anti-monopoly committee, there are 5,800,000 uninhabitable hornet now being occupied by tenant! In the U. S. For Its ultra-modern army, the quartermaster corps actually is buying buy-ing tomahawks. This it the proper catalogue term for a certain type of small hatchet used In the army. Wendell Wlllkie is signed up to write a book on the campaign and hit British experiences. Bobbs-Mer-rill hat the publishing contract. |