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Show ! Washington ' Comment At this writing Washington is giving more attention to its frostbites frost-bites and its chilblains than to its Easter finery. The children's hey-1 hey-1 dey the annual Easter egg rolling roll-ing at the White House was in full swing despite the cold, and as always, was a pain in the neck for the gardners in charge of the executive grounds. What the little darlings do to the terrain drives any horticulturist to tears, but the kids have a swell time, and the "grounds" crew write off ravaged flowerbeds and despoiled shrubbery with a philosophic shrug. The new front has been considerably consid-erably enlivened by the coy emergence of Mr. Farley from his political shell, and by Mr. Roosevelt's Roose-velt's scathing repudiation of the Ernest Lindley article purporting to reveal hew he felt about Mr. Farley's candidacy in view of his religion. The incident has started j a lot of controversy along relig-. relig-. ious lines and it is interesting to i have pointed out to us the fact ; that Mr.- Roosevelt has made more appointments among Catholics than any president in the memory of man. For insance, in his original orig-inal cabinet, there were two I Catholics: Mr. Farley, and the I late Senator Walsh, who died be-j be-j fore he could take over his ap-. ap-. nointed post of attorney general. His present confidential secretary and stenographer, Marguerite Le-I Le-I Hand and Grace Tully, are both Catholics. Our ambassador to London, Joseph Kennedy, appointed appoint-ed by Mr. Roosevelt, is a Catholic, and a Catholic also is the ubiquitous ubiqui-tous Mr. Murphy, the recipient of four separate Roosevelt appointments appoint-ments the latest being the lightning light-ning skid from attorney general to associate justice of the supreme court. Among the Catholics ap- pointed by Mr. Roosevelt to serve as United States district attorneys attor-neys are Cahill at New York, Brandon at Boston, Flynn at Baltimore, and Campbell at Chicago. Chi-cago. Only recently, Mr. Roosevelt Roose-velt has sent (with some opposition opposi-tion from Protestant quarters) an j emissary to the Vatican, Myron Taylor, and as if that were not enough weight to a lengthy list, it may be recalled that twice he nominated Al Smith, a devout Catholic, to the presidency, and that his so-called favorite asso-! asso-! ciate in the New Deal didoes is i the redoubtable Tommy Corcoran, ! about whose religious , affiliations there can be no slightest suspicion. sus-picion. Here are two sides of a picture of official life the good and the bad! If you have motorist trou-I trou-I bles how would you like to be a j government official in Washing-; Washing-; ton ? At least 788 cf these for- tunate gentlemen ride free of cost, ' tax and parking worry. The j government dispenses automobiles (Continued on last page) Washington Comment (Continued from first page) with a lavish hand among departments depart-ments and bureaus. Some of the cars are limousines with bulletproof bullet-proof glass and special bulletproof bullet-proof bodies. Special "U. S. Government" license plates are issued free of charge by the district dis-trict traffic department. Special parking places are provided at most government buildings; the official car driver dosen't pay anything for gas, oil or tags; federal funds pay all the running expense's. The special car is for the lucky official's personal use during business hours only, but, can you guess the rest ? Anyway, a spokesman at the commerce department de-partment says he "doubts" if the practice of using said cars flor private business or pleasure is at all widespread, but adds cannily, "Of course, sometimes it is necessary neces-sary to use them after regular hours". And now for the dark side of the picture: Representative Representa-tive Patrick of Alabama enlivened his colleagues in the House last week with a list of the duties of an efficient congressman, who, says Mr. Patrick, must be an expanded ex-panded messenger boy, an employment employ-ment agency, an "oil pourer" on troubled waters, a glad-hand extender, ex-tender, a business promoter, convention con-vention booker, watchdog for the underdog, sympathizer with the upperdog, namer of babies, sober-upper sober-upper of delegates, binder-upper of broken hearts and financial wet-nurse along with a few other chores! During the first 20 days of April, it is announced that the Civilian Conservation corps will enroll 65,000 young men as replacements re-placements for men who have left the camps to accept employment, or who will leave March. 31 at the end of their enrollment. State C C C directors of selection report that there are approximately three applicants for each vacancy. At the end of April, the strength of the corps will be 280,400. (Crowded out last week) iBy the very nature of things, Washington has become pretty much immune to shocks, and, on the whole, rather hard-boiled about international catastrophes, but last week's developments in Europe established a new low here in sadness and pessimism. We refer, of course, to the lost cause of Finland, wnich occasioned universal uni-versal lament and was, practical ly, the sole topic of the week; all-, the "stops" were rung on it in-1 donation, secret remorse, a irood deal of guilty conscience perhaps j (on the part of congress) and,! certainly, apprehension. The re-! morse was for Finland, and the apprehension was for ourselves;! we cannot escape the significance! of the Finnish collapse in its in-' evitable effect upon ourselves its j (perhaps) eventual threat to our own peace and security, to our intolerable in-tolerable smugness. The one bright note in the whole debacle is the romantic turn given to the latest news about Finland the announcement that the handsome Finnish envoy to the United States will shortly wed an English Eng-lish beauty. A humorous angle is suggested to us (and we may be guilty of libel) if we allow ourselves our-selves to wonder whether the pretty, ladies who worked so inde-fatigably inde-fatigably for the "cause", tossed their diamond bracelets and pearl necklaces; along with their personal per-sonal services, into the melting pot whether, indeed, they would have been tiuite so enthusiastic and so sympathetic had they guessed that the dashing diplomat was already romantically involved. In congress, the Hatch bill brawl vied with the census squabble for popular interest. Mr. Roosevelt, Secretary Hopkins and Senator Tobey traded tart remarks from day to day. The anti-Tobey forces seem to see some significance in the protests against "telling a census-taker all", and rarely hesitate hesi-tate to infer that perhaps certain citizens "object" because they have a few old divorces lyinjj around in their past or maybe they're not disciples of the Saturday Satur-day night bath-tub rites! Secretary Secre-tary Hopkins conceded that the average citizen may have the option op-tion of inclosing unsigned answers to questions concerning his income in-come in a sealed envelope to be handed to census enumerators. Representative Ditter of Pennsylvania Penn-sylvania proposes that congress merely repeal the penalty provisions provi-sions of the bill. Mr. Roosevelt accused Senator Tobey of advising advis-ing the American people to violate a law of the land. Senator Tobey claims that Mr. Roosevelt is acting act-ing like Hitler. And, all the while, the poor census officials are tearing tear-ing their hair (if any) and bleating bleat-ing that the millions and millions of census blanks are already printed and the "big push" ready to start April 1. All in all, it's one of the sweetest brawls we've seen in some time! We're having three major epidemics epi-demics in Washing-ton this siea-son siea-son flu, crime and royalty. It isn't safe for a citizen to be abroad after nightfall he'll either have his purse snatched, or he'll trip over a title. The dust from the departure of Prince Bertil of Sweden had scarcely settled before be-fore the Austrian brothers, Archdukes Arch-dukes Otto and Felix, were in our midst. They're nice boys really lOtto is pretender to the throne of Austria-Hungary, of course but Felix appears to be a business man. He's sewed this country up for a series of 23 lectures at $1000 a crack, which probably just goes to show why Europe thinks all Americans are gullible. The engaging en-gaging pair are incognito, and therefore there is no official entertaining, but it seems odd to find them frequently dining in ! solitary at one of our swank rotels j when society hostesses are so avid ; to snap up even the mildest title, i and our manless girls gobble every eligible or ineligible male I who unwarily shows himself on j the horizon. However, a few "off the record" parties have been given, and the ladies, dying to trot their "curtseys" (so arduous-! ly learned for the British king and queen's visit last summer) curtsied curt-sied all over the place to the youthful and rather embarassed Otto. (Congress may, or may not, get away from Washington early, asJ it hopes, but meanwhile it is not overlooking its own interests. The house has just passed a $23,907,-744 $23,907,-744 appropriation bill carrying funds to run congress for the current cur-rent fiscal yeear. The bulk of the increase is due to an additional clerk allowed each senator and representative. Already the capi-tol capi-tol railroad ticket office is reported report-ed doing a rushing business arranging ar-ranging transportation for house members traveling into one another's an-other's districts to make campaign speeches. i |