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Show WHO GETS THE PLANES? WASHINGTON. Backstage, all the stew over whether the allies are getting planes ahead of the U. S. army and navy boils down to a personal per-sonal vendetta between the secretary secre-tary of war and the secretary of the treasury, plus some needling by younger army air corps officers. It happens that Treasury Boss Henry Morgenthau asked for and got the job of co-ordinating airplane purchases, and his bouncing little cabinet colleague, Henry Woodring, didn't like it If you note the congressmen con-gressmen who are stirring up the investigation on Capitol Hill, they are chiefly friends of Secretary Woodring. Real fact is that although Morgenthau Mor-genthau has made some minor mistakes, mis-takes, his chief error has been in offending people. Army and navy plane purchases have not suffered. Both Secretary of the Navy Edison and Assistant War Secretary Johnson, John-son, who has charge of purchases, testify to this. U. S. planes have been delivered on time, and no secret planes are getting to the allies. Morgenthau's chief boner was in asking the quartermaster general of the army, Maj. Gen. Henry Gibbins, and the paymaster general of the navy, Rear Adm. Ray Spear, to sit in on his allied purchasing coordinating co-ordinating committee. Neither one knows anything about airplanes. Younger officers in the air corps resent re-sent this, and have been squawking, though the able chief of air corps, General Arnold, hasn't. Worried Morgenthau. Morgenthau got into the airplane picture because this is the one big j commodity the allies are purchasing purchas-ing and he told the President he didn't want their financing operations opera-tions to upset the U. S. money market. mar-ket. To pay for the planes, the allies are dumping American securities, securi-ties, plus U. S. government bonds and Morgenthau didn't want them to depress his own government offerings. of-ferings. (He has to issue new ones constantly.) Siding with Morgenthau are several sev-eral big shot army-navy men, including in-cluding Johnson and Edison, who say that the more planes the allies buy here, the more it helps the U. S. army and navy to develop better planes. For instance, the Glenn Martin company is building a brand new bomber for the French. But as a partial result of experimenting for the French, Martin also has developed devel-oped a new bomber for the U. S. which will almost fly circles around the French planes. Also Lockheed is selling several hundred tip-top planes to the British and French. This has helped it develop de-velop a new pursuit plane, which will make about 400 miles per hour. It is the first twin-motored pursuit plane, has a liquid-cooled engine and is expected to astound the world's fighting forces. CAPITAL CHAFF At the annual stunt party of the National Women's Press club every one of the 500 women present sa rose when Mrs ' ! Roosevelt was Vs x presented, except JIV her cousin and ! t? bitter administra -? tion hater, Mrs S 1 Alice Roosevelt ! Longworth 1 N , Among those who fX did rise were i Mrs. Thomas ' " Dewey, Mrs. Bob s Taft, and Mrs ssv Arthur Vanden- - - berg. Mrs. Long- Ance Longworth worth not only ostentatiously remained seated but talked to others near her during Mrs. Roosevelt's little speech. MERRY-GO-ROUND Whether his membership on the Dies committee has anything to do with it is conjectural, but it is a fact that Rep. Noah Mason has n opposition in either the G. O. P. or Democratic primary in his Illinois district. Handsome Rep. Jennings Randolph, Ran-dolph, who through his chairmanship, chairman-ship, of the District of Columbia committee is known as "mayor" of Washington, is being strongly urged to run for governor of West Virginia, Vir-ginia, but is holding off because of the bitter factional split among local Democrats. Only 37, a former newsman and professor, Randolph has his eye on the U. S. senate. Speaking of horse-and-buggy days, Henry Wallace points out that his father, secretary of agriculture under un-der Harding, was the last member of the cabinet to give up a team of horses. This was late in 1921. The man to watch in Louisiana is Eugene Stanley, who will be the new attorney general. Reason the federal government had to step in to clean up Louisiana was that the attorney general hitherto was under the thumb of the Huey Long machine. ma-chine. But most of the scandal falls under the jurisdiction of the state, and the federal men were limited. Now, Stanley is ready to dig into a lot more scandals . . . Latest Dip-lomatgram: Dip-lomatgram: "Lord Clive founded the British empire, Nelson saved it, and Chamberlain lost it." |