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Show MERRY-Gp-RtiufiD UU l HOBBRTALLBN . CONGRESS UNDER GUARD WASHINGTON. It has been done so quietly that only a few officials know it, but congress now is being guarded by the most elaborate police po-lice system since World war days. The legislators are protected almost as carefully as the President. The first step was taken last fall when a detail of G-men and detectives detec-tives was assigned to reinforce the Capitol's regular police force, which is made up chiefly of patronage appointees, ap-pointees, students working their way through school. Then in the spring a squadron of metropolitan uniformed police was sent to the Hill making a total of 250 blue-coats and plainclothes plain-clothes men guarding 531 senators and representatives. Last week, still another protective measure was taken in the form of a set of drastic regulations under which: The Capitol is closed to the public daily at 4:30, except when congress is in session, and admittance ad-mittance is only by special cards. Guards are stationed at the subway entrances of the senate and house wings to scrutinize everyone going in and out and to examine all packages. The Capitol's power plant is guarded 24 hours a day. Plainclothes men accompany every group of sightseers. All persons who summon members off the floor are kept under constant surveillance. A constant police vigil is kept in the public galleries, in the restaurants, and at night, in all corridors inside, and the grounds outside. One reason for these elaborate precautions is to prevent a recurrence recur-rence of the bombing that took place in the Capitol prior to American entry en-try into the last war. Planted in a senate reception room by a paci-fistic paci-fistic college professor, the bomb exploded ex-ploded at midnight, July 2, 1915, and left the chamber a shambles. Earlier that day the Washington Times received a letter from the perpetrator announcing his intention to bomb the capitol "as an exclamation exclama-tion point to my appeal for peace." He was arrested several days later at Mineola, L. I. He committed suicide sui-cide in his cell. WILLKIE'S SPEECH That acceptance speech Wendell Willkie is writing is one of the toughest tough-est jobs he's ever tackled! It can make him or break him. Willkie has got to crack two of the hardest political nuts ever handed hand-ed a G. O. P. standard bearer: the power issue and foreign policy. Even under normal conditions the power issue is pure TNT, particularly particu-larly in the West, which is strong for public power. For Willkie, with his Wall Street and utility background, back-ground, the handling of this issue so it doesn't explode in his face is .doubly delicate. Perhaps even more difficult is the question of foreign affairs and its closely related problem of compulsory compul-sory military service. On the latter, lat-ter, Willkie has never declared himself him-self and the Republican platform also is silent. , Roosevelt has declared for "universal "uni-versal training," although so far he has not expressed a view on the pending bill. But his leaders are for it and it's generally considered an administration measure. On foreign policy, particularly on aid to the British, the President's record is an open book. And so was Willkie's until he was nominated. Since that moment not one word has come from him on this all-important topic, though he has talked daily on various other matters. It didn't leak out at the time, but when Willkie visited Washington early last month, the G. O. P. isolationists, iso-lationists, led by Senator Vandenberg, Vanden-berg, tried to corral the new candidate candi-date and give him a big isolationist sales talk; warning him to pipe down on aiding the British. But Willkie sidestepped the bloc and they didn't get a chance to put on the pressure. Note Regardless of what Willkie says, running-mate Sen. Charles Mc-Nary Mc-Nary is isolationist and pro-public power. He intends to say so in his acceptance speech late this month. THE LaFOLLETTES In the current pre-campaign jockeying jock-eying for position, both Republican and Democratic chiefs are warily watching Wisconsin's famous brothers broth-ers LaFollette Senator Bob, who is up for re-election this year, and ex-Governor ex-Governor Phil, who since his defeat two years ago has been quietly promoting pro-moting a "Fuehrer-principle" kind of organization which he launched in the spring of 1938 with a lot of fanfare. fan-fare. Bob LaFollette faces a tough battle. bat-tle. Three key voting blocs in the state are the large German, Scandinavian Scandi-navian and Polish groups. Obviously Obvious-ly playing for the favor of the first two. Bob was a very active isolationist isola-tionist last November. But this stand boomeranged when Hitler invaded the unarmed Scandi- navian countries. So with the Poles already down on him, the disaffection disaffec-tion of the Scandinavians was a serious se-rious blow. There is no question of LaFol-lette's LaFol-lette's personal hostility toward Hitler Hit-ler and Nazism. |