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Show WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS BY JOSEPH W. LaBINE G. 0. P. Centers on Vandenberg Despite Tom Dewey's Showing In Popular Opinion Samplings (EDITOR'S NOTE When opinions are expressed in these columns, they are those of the news analyst and not necessarily of this newspaper.) n-lfn:oH by Western Newspaper Union. POLITICS: G. O. P. Shift As recently as one year ago politicians poli-ticians feared such highly successful success-ful public opinion samplings as the Gallup poll might make party nominating nom-inating conventions needless. Example: Ex-ample: New York's racket-busting District Attorney Thomas E. Dewey is No. 1 popular candidate for the Republican presidential nomination next year. But popular opinion is one thing and common sense another. Astute Republicans know Tom Dewey has no administrative record, know also that he might be elected and still prove a failure, thus destroying the party's chances in 1944. In Washington, Wash-ington, where political schemes are hatched, the G. O. P. now seems bent on nominating not Tom Dewey I I II. STYLES BRIDGES A'o '' in campaign literature. but another Michigan product, Senator Sen-ator Arthur H. Vandenberg. Reasoning: Rea-soning: Most conservative politicians politi-cians favor him and most G. O. P. editorial support falls in his direction. direc-tion. What such seers have not considered consid-ered is that 1936 found Gallup polls, Fortune polls and several other samplings much less fallible than U. S. editorial opinion, which the public rejected to elect a Democratic Demo-cratic President. But since 1936 the public has followed a newspaper-inspired newspaper-inspired trend to conservatism, which probably makes today's editorial edi-torial opinion less erring. Biggest Vandenberg asset in winning win-ning both G. O. P. and Democratic votes is his middle-of-the-road record rec-ord and a reputation for working harmoniously with both friends and enemies. In May he led a victorious victori-ous fight against the Florida canal project in which he was supported by 22 Republican and 23 Democratic Democrat-ic senators. Better than anyone else, observers think he could win anti-Roosevelt Democratic votes. Other G. O. P. boomlets: Bridges. In 1936 New Hampshire's ex-governor and present senator, H. Styles Bridges, missed the vice presidential pres-idential nomination with Alfred M. Landon simply because strategists thought a Landon-Bridges combination combina-tion sounded too much like "London Bridge is falling down." This month thousands of booklets captioned: cap-tioned: "For President in 1940 Styles Bridges" are being distributed distribut-ed in his behalf by a New Hampshire Hamp-shire organization. Noticeably absent ab-sent from campaign literature is the first initial H., a concession to diplomacy. diplo-macy. Martin. House Minority Leader Joseph W. Martin Jr. was judged most popular congressman'last winter win-ter by newspaper correspondents and has now become vice presidential presiden-tial possibility. Since he would rather rath-er be speaker of the house next session ses-sion than vice president (provided the election goes Republican), Joe Martin is busily fighting off boosters like Illinois' Rep. Leo E. Allen, who predicts that the man who managed Alf Landon's nomination fight at the 1936 convention will find a lot of friends awaiting him at next year's gathering. AGRICULTURE: Good or Bad? Until Judgment day men will probably use the year 1929 as a basis for comparing economic conditions. condi-tions. This year, 10 summers after the stock market reached its peak, a decade's experience led Standard Statistics company to probe the U. S. farmer's status. General conclusion conclu-sion is that it almost parallels 1929's, though conditions themselves differ as night from day. Today's "prosperity" "pros-perity" has a different basis. Retail sales, always a good index, seem to be up. But biggest increases are shown not by independent local merchants but by mail order houses, which may indicate no return of prosperity but simply a swing to mail order buying. Less important, but significant in the mail order increase, in-crease, is decentralization of industry in-dustry ' OiV..eUing a possibly di-ll picture is a drastic shifi in 'am expenditures. expendi-tures. Though cash income fur I 1939's first four months was only 73 per cent of 1929, the farmer's essential es-sential purchases cost substantially less. In the past 10 years mortgage mort-gage debt has dropped 26 per cent; interest charges, 35 per cent; hired hands and expenditure for labor has dropped; taxes in 1937 were 33 per cent less than 1929. Result: Overhead Over-head and operating costs are down and a larger portion of farm income in-come is available for buying industry's indus-try's products. But if this increased portion goes exclusively to mail order or-der houses and not to local merchants, mer-chants, observers wondered how permanent prosperity could reach the rural U. S. WHITE HOUSE: Initials Hint to uninformed newspaper readers: Added this month to Washington's Wash-ington's alphabetical agencies are FWA, FLA and FSA Federal Works, Federal Loan and Federal Security agencies. Another change: Though WPA retains its battle-scarred battle-scarred initials, it must now be called Works Projects administration, administra-tion, not Works Progress administration. adminis-tration. BELGIUM: Isolation In 1914 German troops marched to France via Belgium, meeting little lit-tle resistance en route. In 1939 a Reich war machine would be stopped on Belgium's frontier, thanks to a fortification system far out of proportion to the little kingdom's king-dom's size. But Belgium has not cast her lot with France and Britain, Brit-ain, has instead followed King Leopold's Leo-pold's pronouncement of 1936 when Belgium declared herself free from all former obligations with these nations. na-tions. Significantly, no French or British general can today examine King Leopold's defenses. Last month France's General Chauvineau protested, declaring a French-Belgian defensive formation was the best for all concerned. A few weeks later France got her answer an-swer in Brussels' newspaper, Der-niere Der-niere Heure. The Belgian stand: If Germany respects Belgium's independence in-dependence in a general war, all will ' V 1 yfv, 4 KING LEOPOLD He prefers to be friendless, foeless. be well, although France's line of defense would be shortened by 155 miles. But if Germany again penetrated pene-trated Belgium, France would possibly pos-sibly evade a German attack on its northern frontier and might not aid Belgium as immediately as it did in 1914. If past experience is any indication, indi-cation, France might even squeeze out of a war via the time-tested appeasement ap-peasement route. Meanwhile the Belgians have good reason to rush their fortifications. Knowing a German drive would hold France as its ultimate goal, shrewd King Leopold also knows the Reich might avoid a conflict with him if there is a good chance it would delay de-lay the attack on France. INTERNATIONAL: Armaments What constitutes absolute "neutrality" "neu-trality" in wartime has never made itself quite clear. Superficial neutrality neu-trality under the U. S. law bans sale of arms and munitions "lethal weapons" yet under the amendment amend-ment of Ohio's Rep. John M. Vorys such indispensable war-making equipment as trucks and commercial commer-cial airplanes may be sent abroad. Early July, when the neutrality bill was making its way through congress, con-gress, found the agriculture department depart-ment proposing government subsidized subsi-dized export of cotton in a program whose chief benefactors would be aggressive Germany and Japan, both of whom need cotton to stuff into their ammunition. But U. S. participation in dictator rearmament is only part of the picture. pic-ture. Though France has just banned shipment of scrap iron to Germany, though Britain's new ministry min-istry of supply will have the right to ban such shipments, profit-con- , i -i f t 7 -- si SCRAP IRON SHRAPNEL British steel, British deaths? scious democracies and dictatorships dictator-ships have no moral compunctions about such things; scrap iron or any other material of Mars is sold abroad to the highest bidder until domestic rearmament demands that it be kept at home. Samples: Last month Britain's liberal Lord Davies told how scrap iron and steel exports from the United Kingdom King-dom to the Reich rose from 4,500 tons in July, 1938, to 17,000 tons in August, 21,000 tons in September (month of the Munich crisis) and 23,000 tons in December. France gave Germany 350 tons of pig iron last August when the Czech crisis was just rising, gave her 19,-000 19,-000 tons in September when the crisis cri-sis was at its peak, and 75,000 tons in November. Still more revealing are Germany's Ger-many's 1938 foreign trade statistics, statis-tics, showing that 1,059,800 tons of Germany's total 1,146,027 tons of 1938 scrap iron came from Belgium, Bel-gium, Luxemburg, France, Great Britain, Holland and the U. S., all potential enemies. In March, 1939, the same countries contributed 161,-344 161,-344 tons, which would make 1,936.128 tons if the same import level were maintained throughout the year. From the U. S. in 1938 came 462,782 tons; in March, 1939, came 20,175 tons. Other import figures for Germany: Ger-many: Iron Ore (tons). 1930 1937 1938 Sweden 6,725.432 9,083.751 8,992,331 France 2,779,868 5.739,513 5,056,121 Spain 1.824.880 310.540 1,082,551 Copper Ore (tons). G. Britain .. 20,121 60.081 32.055 France ... 96,297 86,227 155,869 Belgium 64.970 66.752 53,710 Manganese Ore (tons). U. S. S. R. ... 173.653 61.336 60,924 Brit. India .. 78,353 121,318 17.226 Australia .. 53,668 S. Africa 290,679 268,044 Nickel Ore (tons). Brit. India ... 2,711 3,593 60 Greece 8,839 Canada 99 13.250 13,368 Most logical deduction is that the next World war may find British, French, Canadian, Belgian and possibly U. S. troops dying of wounds inflicted by arms made of metal from their homelands. CONGRESS: Going Up In 1878 an economy-bent Forty-fourth Forty-fourth congress appropriated $291,-220,000. $291,-220,000. In 1909 the government's expenditures first topped the billion-dollar billion-dollar mark; 1918's war crisis brought it to 18 billion; 1919 made it 27 billion. Never since then have U. S. expenditures dropped much below the four-billion mark and last year came a peacetime record of 11 billion. By mid-July, with most appropriating (but little else) out of the road, the Seventy-sixth congress had managed to set a new record of about 513,110,000,000. Beyond its control were such costs as mounting old age pension reserve and the railroad retirement plan. Cropping up from the past, too, was an item of $3,624,812,065 for interest on the $40,000,000,000 national debt. Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini were held responsible for almost two billion of it, but not even President Presi-dent Roosevelt would acknowledge the $338,000,000 which an election-conscious election-conscious senate tacked to the agriculture agri-culture department's appropriation bill for parity payments and disposal dis-posal of surplus commodities. Most significant drop: Relief. For the 1939-40 fiscal year the U. S. will spend $1,755,600,000, against $2,915,-605,000 $2,915,-605,000 last year. Item by item expenditures, ex-penditures, with little more to come: Independent agencies SI. 668. 218.340 Agriculture 1.194.173.633 Interior 172.6,9.765 Treasurv-post office 1. 700,615. 054 War (militarv) 508.789.824 War (supplemental) 223.393.047 War I engineering projects etc.) 305.1S8.511 Navy 773.04!). 151 Labor ..;. I7 Slale justice, commerce .. i:'.. i 7 7 .''Jd Con:-r-.si..r. 21 35 1.779 Firs' rlelici'Mcy 2.';.7-m.iM S.ci'iul rtnviPi:cv 1,77 'llli.il."! 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