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Show WEEKLY NEWS ANALYSIS BY JOSEPH W. LaBINE Cabinet Shifts, Bombing Raids Presage Big Spring Offensives; Russia Draws Closer to Italy (EDITOR'S NOTE When opinions are expressed in these columns, they are those of the news analyst and not necessarily of this newspaper.) Released by Western Newspaper nninn I EUROPE: From Axis ' to Triangle If foreign observers hoped the Finnish peace would place a quietus on western warfare, their mistake was clearly evident by late March. ' Not by secret maneuvers but by leaps and bounds the Rome-Berlin axis was merging into a Russian-German-Italian coalition designed to force a dictators' peace down the Anglo-French throat. At London and Paris the populace protested, demanding de-manding more aggressive pursuit of the war. Their parliaments fumed, and one government fell completely. complete-ly. The other, sorely afraid, jumped into the conflict head first. Dir. Welles Goes Home Nobody knew what was in his briefcase but U. S. Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles boarded the Conte di Savoia at Genoa, homeward home-ward bound to tell Franklin Roosevelt Roose-velt about the chances for a European Euro-pean peace. Sidetracked by France I ! i PAUL KEYNAUD He got the call. (See below.) and Britain, he had more luck with Germany and Italy whose dictators, Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, met at the Brenner pass and presumably pre-sumably framed a set of abortive terms. Also discussed at Brenner was an Italo-Russ compromise calling for sphere-of-influence division in the Balkans. A few days later, when Soviet Ambassador Alexander Schkvarzev flew from Berlin to Moscow Mos-cow on a secret mission, it was clearly evident that Germany was drawing Rome and Moscow closer together. As if gloating over this diplomatic victory, Hitler sent his raiders to bomb the British naval base at Scapa Flow. Reaction In England. When press and public pub-lic began yelling for action, Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain got mad. He gave parliament the fightingest speech of his career and promised to strike back. 'ortli :&&zp F o r t h e Sea DENMARK , umpteenth priUi fl 1 time in three ?.'kU q V v"v) years he vC, averted a HELIGOLAND? government collapse, -y this time by y sending f GERMANY planes on a i retaliatory air raid against the Nazi base at Sylt (see map). Wave after wave of bombers poured tons of explosives on the island fortress; next day reconnaissance planes brought back pictures to prove the damage. Hastily the Germans took precautions at their other vulnerable vulner-able base, Heligoland. Then they In the HEADLINES OKLAHOMA The U. S. obtained a preliminary order restraining Gov. Leon C. Phillips from using troops to prevent completion of the $20,000,000 Grand River dam. Phillips' Phil-lips' contention: That the U. S. should pay the state $889,000 for property to be damaged. TAXATION At Washington, the U. S. treasury figured early 1939 income tax returns showed a 26 per cent boost over last year, with heaviest heav-iest collections still to be reported. AVIATION American Airlines, Inc., asked the civil aeronautics authority for permission to operate the first complete airline from Chicago Chi-cago to Mexico City. COMMUNICATIONS Maj. Edwin Ed-win Armstrong, inventor of static-free static-free "frequency modulation" broadcasting, broad-casting, asked the Federal Communications Commu-nications commission to give his "F-M" the broadcasting channels now used for television. Argument: That television, now impractical commercially, stands in the way of radio progress. TRADEMARK At Baltimore a federal district court injunction ordered or-dered makers of five other soft drinks to cease using the words "coca" or "cola," because it In-rringed In-rringed on Coca Cola's trademark. took revenge by raiding British convoy con-voy ships in the North sea. In France. Fighting increased on the western front but there was a bigger fight in Paris. Called on the carpet as a result of the Russian threat, Premier Edouard Daladier emerged with such a weak vote of confidence (311 deputies had not voted) that his cabinet resigned. This was a victory for democracy, because the Daladier government has ruled for seven months under dictatorial decrees. Quickly President Presi-dent Albert Lebrun summoned Paul Reynaud, conservative ex-finance minister, bitter foe of Naziism and distaster of the polities-ridden Daladier Dala-dier cabinet. Next day Premier Reynaud Rey-naud emerged with a well publicized, psychologically sound "victory" cabinet dedicated to trouncing the Nazis. Edouard Daladier was still war minister, and all parties were so thoroughly represented that the chamber's confidence seemed assured. as-sured. Iii Finland While 500,000 Finns hastened evacuation of territory ceded to Russia, Rus-sia, the battered little nation began patching her defenses and counting noses. Total war casualties were placed at 58,500, of which 29,700 were dead or seriously disabled. (Total army: 360.000.) Meanwhile new troubles were arising with Russia. The Finnish cabinet, about to resign, heard that the Kremlin opposed formation of a Norwegian-Swedish-Finnish mutual defense alliance on the ground that it would be aimed at the Soviet. Obviously Russia was not willing to surrender her new-found domination over Scandinavia. In Poland Numerous and unpleasant are the atrocity stories coming out of Poland Po-land since German occupation last autumn. Much of this information probably came from consular officials of-ficials of neutral nations, a possibility possi-bility which might explain the latest Nazi order: Effective immediately, immediate-ly, all foreign consular offices in Poland must be evacuated, making Germany the sole source of official information on conditions in the area. At Washington the state department de-partment announced the Reich had been adamant to its protests. Left without official representation were 532 Americans living in Poland. ASIA: Crow Eaters For two and one-half years Japanese Jap-anese troops fighting in north China have reported after every encounter encoun-ter that the enemy has been "routed," "rout-ed," "given a stunning blow," "wiped out" or "annihilated." In late March the Japanese army was forced to eat crow. An official survey sur-vey admitted that more than a million mil-lion Chinese troops were still fighting fight-ing in north China under leadership of Gen. Cheng Chien, whom the Japs reported killed in 1938. In the south, Nippon had better luck, capturing the walled city of Lingshan and encircling a large Chinese force east of the Nanning-Yamchow Nanning-Yamchow railroad. Meanwhile the puppet regime of Wang Ching-wei, turncoat ex-Chinese ex-Chinese premier, summoned a central cen-tral political council and established a government at Nanking under Japan's watchful eye. POLITICS: Farley's Inning In late March Columnist Ernest Lindley wrote from Washington that President Roosevelt had told an unidentified un-identified southern legislator (1) that he wanted to retire; (2) that Cordell Hull should succeed him; (3) that Jim Farley's Catholicism would make impossible a successful race by the postmaster general. Next day Franklin Roosevelt protested. pro-tested. Said he: The remark about Farley and the rest of the article all came from whole cloth it was utterly false. While this was no recommendation, it at least let Farley's Far-ley's friends believe that he would have an equal chance for the job if Mr. Roosevelt turns it down. Farley himself took heart. Next day, stepping from his train at Springfield, Mass., where Democrats Demo-crats have entered a full slate of delegates for him in the forthcoming forthcom-ing primary, he said flatly: "To clear up any misunderstanding, let me say that my name will be presented pre-sented to the national convention at Chicago, and that's that." And it was. Other political news: ft Secretary of the Navy Charles Edison announced "after weeks of earnest consideration"his candidacy in the New Jersey Democratic gubernatorial primary May 21. ft Sen. Arthur Vandenberg (R., Mich.) a G. O. P. presidential hopeful, turned down invitations to campaign in Wisconsin and Nebraska Nebras-ka (where he is a primary candidate). candi-date). Reason: "The choice of the (G. O. P.) convention should flow from the deliberate judgment of the people, and not from ... a campaign tour." Women in the News DORIS DUKE CROMWELL, "world's wealthiest girl," found Husband Jimmy Cromwell in trouble. As U. S. minister to Canada he criticized American isolationists and denounced Germany, Ger-many, prompting congressmen to demand his recall. MRS. FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT ROOSE-VELT JR. fell from a horse, frac- . tured her pelvis and suffered a slight concussion. JACQUELINE COCHRAN, ace aviatrix, tried to better the world's air speed record of 311 miles an hour. JOAN FONTAINE, actress wife of Actor Brian Aherne, sister of Actress Olivia de Havilland, was seriously ill in a Hollywood hospital. hos-pital. CONGRESS: Farm Fund Passed by the senate (and certain cer-tain to pass the house) was a $923,-000,000 $923,-000,000 agriculture appropriation bill ( carrying $212,000,000 for parity payments pay-ments and another $85,000,000 for the surplus commodities program. It was more than $200,000,000 above either the house bill or the President's Presi-dent's budget, and wiped out most of the $300,000,000 earlier savings through which the house planned to avoid new taxes or a boost in the national debt limit. Though congress hoped to offset the farm boost by slashing defense and relief appropriations, even this possibility was fading fast. Europe's Eu-rope's war was forcing U. S. attention atten-tion to her armed strength and metropolitan congressmen were demanding de-manding at least a $500,000,000 boost in WPA's appropriation. Some observers ob-servers predicted the deficit for next fiscal year would be at least $2,500,000,000, compared with the $1,716,000,000 estimate by President Roosevelt. Treasury Secretary Mor-genthau, Mor-genthau, hearing that congress was looking covetously at this $2,000,000,-000 $2,000,000,-000 stabilization fund, hastened to protect it. Also in congress: ft Indicating a lessening of administration admin-istration opposition to Wagner act amendments, the pro-New Deal house labor committee voted to expand ex-pand the labor board from three men to five. Earlier the committee MICHIGAN'S HOFFMAN "Hell's bells, no!" rejected 9 to 8 a motion for establishment estab-lishment of a new board, but there was skullduggery in this. Rep. Clare Hoffman (R., Mich.) learned his proxy vote had been cast against the proposal by error. Asked if he would have voted as his proxy was cast, Hoffman replied: "Hell's bells, no! Everybody knows what I think of this board!" ft After passing the farm bill, the senate took up the house-approved resolution to extend for three years the reciprocal trade act. Its support sup-port diminished, the bill stood only a 50-50 chance of passing as the administration wanted it, minus a clause requiring senate ratification of each pact. ft The senate banking and currency committee approved 14 to 4 the bill of Sen. John G. Townsend (R., Del.) to repeal the silver purchase act of 1934. Reasons: (1) Too costly; (2) it has subsidized Chinese, Mexican Mex-ican and Canadian silver; (3) heavy gold purchases have made it impossible im-possible to attain the goal of 25 per cent silver in the U. S. monetary mone-tary stock. ft An amendment to the Hatch "clean politics" act, designed to bar political activity on the part of state employees paid with U. S. funds, passed the senate and headed head-ed for a pigeonhole in the house. ftThe house military committee began investigating foreign purchases pur-chases of U. S. airplanes, fearing vital defense mechanism was being be-ing sold abroad. Meanwhile the allied al-lied purchasing committee begged the U. S. to sell $1,000,000,000 worth of its newest, secret planes. Reason: Present models would be obsolete by the 1941 delivery date. SUPERLATIVES in the neivs . . . BIGGEST CARGO U. S. navy tugs began towing a 6,500-ton floating float-ing dry dock from New Orleans to Pearl Harbor, Honolulu 6,000 miles away. SUREST DATE As they have for 100 years, a band of swallows returned re-turned on the appointed day to San Juan Capistrano, Calif., which they leave regularly each October 23. |
