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Show Washington Comment Now that the Greatest Show On . Earth is over and done with, Washington has tucked its top hats away in mothballs, donned its carpet slippers, and slipped gratefully grate-fully into its customary summer doldrums. By this time everyone in the country or the world, for that matter who possesses a radio has listened to extravagant descriptions of the famous royal visit, hour by hour, so it would be useless and boring to give you a rehash cf the stirring events of that momentous Thursday and Friday. Every time her majesty smiled, or the king nervously fingered his necktie, some radio announcer hysterically went on the air. We are glad to report, however, how-ever, that the royal visit went off without a hitch, as far as Washington Wash-ington was concerned, and the only disgruntled onlookers at the great parade were the unfortunates who paid $100 apiece for window-seats and then were cut off from view cf the queen by the cute little gray parasol she carried to shield that beautiful English complexion from Washington's burning sun rays. The "man in the street" and the urchin on an overturned peach basket for once fared better, being alble to look up under the royal umbrella. We end that chapter of Washington's history with an enthusiastic en-thusiastic appreciation of a most engaging young couple who quite won our hearts and brought a lift to our weary spirits. We hope they come again! While the senate threatens a mid-August session if the administration adminis-tration insists on repeal of the anus embargo, the rest of Washr ington is going ahead with its preparations for an annual vacation. vaca-tion. The practical disappearance of the "war scare" has caused an increase in European bookings in the past week, but previously, American travel to Europe has been nearly halved. Although the "Queen Mary" sailed May 10 of this year with a record passage list of 1,581 the largest in nine months and close to the bookings (Continued on last page) AT M Washington Comment (Continued from first page) for May, 1938 the passport division divi-sion of our state department says that only half as many of our people peo-ple are going abroad this year as last. Here are some of their figures: fig-ures: in the first week of May 1938, 5,600 American travelers applied ap-plied for European passports; in the first week of 1939, there were only 2,900; last year, the number rose to 6,000 the second week in May; the third week, 6,300 and the fourth week, 6,100; this year, the fourth week in May tops the list with 4,200 applications; there were 4,100 the third week, and only 3,600 the second week. Of course, June, July and August are the heaviest travel months, so business may pick up yet, but the wise traveler knows the endless red-tape red-tape involved in getting a simple passport out of the state department depart-ment and generally takes time by the forelock in early spring even if he has an August 31 sailing in view. This travel drop hurt Uncle Sam's peckebbook, ' too, because passports cost money; passport fees in 1938 were $1,234,339. Revenue Reve-nue from that source pays the full salary bfll of the state department and foreign service. The passport division says that disturbances abroad have caused a boom in passports for Americans long resident in foreign countries who never Ibefore bothered much about their citizenship. Now they're screaming for credentials to get them home. Of course, the war scare isn't the only factor in the reduction of the foreign travel quota this summer. sum-mer. Lots of Americans are feeling feel-ing in pretty poor financial shape and will probaibly consider themselves them-selves lucky if they can manage a World's fair, either east or west. Even Uncle Sam's income is 207n under the figures set by the administration ad-ministration as its goal to cut unemployment un-employment and balance the budget. bud-get. The commerce department reported last week the national income in-come at $64,000,000,000. The total is well above the $40,000,000,000 low mark cf 1932, but a decline of more than 11 from the 1937 figures. |
