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Show Washington Comment Great things happened in 1770, just as others are happening today that will change the whole fabric of American life. We cannot help but feel the tremendous historical significance of the numbers linking link-ing this aid-to-Britain bill (H. R. 177G) with that other momentous document. The ruggid spirit of '70 is coming alive again. Our admiration and sympathy for an embatttled Britain make us forget for-get that we once threw off the yoke of English injustice; bygones are indeed bygones and eagerness to help is the national watchword. Perhaps the Britain of '76 wouldn't have believed that, by '41, the mill of the gods could grind so exceedingly fine! Representative Sol Bloom, who i", an authority on historical things, claims for H. R. 177G a record for verbosity; he has figured figur-ed that all the words of all the great documents the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, and the famous addresses of our past presidents added together, would be fewer in number than the words spouted by congress, pro and con, during the lease-lend debate. de-bate. It's a trifle dampening to our (Continued or. last page) M Washington Comment (Continued from first page) enthusiasm to discover that the national debt limit will have to be boosted again next year. No raise in the $65,000,000,000 limit is needed to carry out Mr. Roosevelt's Roose-velt's 57,000,000,000 aid fund request re-quest this year, we are promised. Administration officials are confident?) con-fident?) that the new money cannot be spent fast enough to eat up the remainder of the legal debt limit before a new session of congress, but they estimate that the $65,000,000,000 ceiling will be reached by the fiscal year 1942. To help pay for the reecord program', pro-gram', the secretary of the treasury trea-sury will ask congress for new taxes calculated to bring in revenue reve-nue of $1,000,000,000 to $1,500,-000,000. $1,500,-000,000. The army's manpower last week passed the million mark, a record since the 3,600, 000-man World war army demobilized 22 years ago. The war department announced that there were 68,500 officers and 935,000 men in active service. The totals included 14.-0 14.-0 0 0 regulars, 16.500 national guard, and 38.000 reserve officers; 467.000 regular enlisted men, 255.000 enlisted guardsmen, and 213.000 selective trainees. Plans call for about 95.000 officers and 1,418.000 men by mid-June. Selective Se-lective service headquarters disclose dis-close that 40 percent of American men between the ages of 21 and 36 have been found unfit physically physi-cally or mentally for military service, defective teeth being tht principal cause for rejection. |
