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Show Washington, D. C. RUSSIA AGAIN BUYING COTTON Here is big news for the South. Soviet Russia is back in the American Ameri-can cotton market. She already has purchased 58,000 bales, of which 18,000 are en route via Vladivostok in Greek ships, and has indicated the total orders may run as high as 500,000 bales. I To facilitate transportation, the maritime commission last week granted sub-charters to Amtorg (the Soviet trading agency) for three U. S. freighters, the Carleton, Export and motor ship Excelsior, which will load the cotton at Houston and Galveston. Gal-veston. The last time Russia bought U. S. cotton was in the early 1930s. Official Russian explanation for the U. S. purchases is that under the latest five-year plan, her spinning equipment is so rapidly expanding that she needs more cotton than she produces. According to the Soviet buyers their spindle capacity will reach a point in 1942 which will require re-quire a 40 per cent increase in cotton cot-ton supply. The matter of possible Russian reexport re-export of the U. S. cotton to Germany Germa-ny was one of the subjects discussed dis-cussed by Undersecretary of State Sumner Welles and Soviet Ambassador Ambas-sador Oumansky, who gave positive assurances that the cotton was strictly for Russian use. DIPLOMATIC CAPITAL It looks as if San Francisco is slated to become the capital for Axis diplomacy in the United States. For several years, the city has been the headquarters of Capt. Fritz Wiedemann, Hitler's World war commander and personal representative represent-ative in this country. And now he has been joined by a new Italian consul general of equal behind-the-scenes eminence. He is Carlo Bos-si, Bos-si, who ranks as high in inner Mussolini Mus-solini councils as Wiedemann does in Hitler's. Bossi, who is carefully avoiding the limelight, played a leading role in Italy's support of General Franco against the Spanish Loyalists, and is credited with directing the capture of Barcelona, the blow that crushed the Republic. He is strongly anti-British anti-British and has close ties with both Nazi and Japanese bigwigs. It was no accident that Bossi assumed as-sumed his San Francisco post shortly short-ly before the announcement of the Axis-Japanese alliance From the r-acmc coast city, and working closely with Wiedemann, he will be in a strategic position to represent II Duce in the Far East. NEW SYSTEM FOR ARMY BUYING Nothing has been said about it publicly, but the defense commission commis-sion has persuaded the army to make a revolutionary change in its purchasing methods. It will mean juicy orders to hundreds of factories which never had a look in before. The new system junks the old procedure pro-cedure of advertised bids and substitutes sub-stitutes a modified plan of negotiated contracts. Instead of buying shoes, shirts, or raincoats in huge quantities quanti-ties from a few large concerns, the army will purchase these goods as far as possible within each of the nine corps areas. This means that small local factories fac-tories will have a chance to obtain a chunk of the army's business. On the basis of orders already granted under the new system, experts ex-perts say costs will be no higher than under the old procedure'. WINNING ISOLATIONISTS Very quietly, the administration is waging a campaign to win over Midwest Mid-west isolationist sentiment Most striking feature of this campaign is the distribution of the Bullitt speech given at Independence hall in Philadelphia. Phila-delphia. This distribution has now reached the amazing figure of 2,384,000. After his speech, Bullitt received no less than 9,000 letters and telegrams, tele-grams, with unsolicited contribu-tions contribu-tions totaling more than $6,000 This paid for distribution of the speech. Three people saw the Bullitt speech before it was delivered. One was Stanley Hornbeck, state department depart-ment adviser on Far Eastern af. UrgCd' without access, that Bullitt tone it down. Another was Archibald MacLeish, librarian o congress, who was elated with it. The third person was the President Note - Highlight of the Bullitt speech was the warning: "The Unit-ed Unit-ed States is in as great peril today as was France a venr less we act now, decisively.' to meet' the .threat, we shall be too late." . MAIL BAG yctmPh"?dClPl" Any mnn "Ot dnrt T y be0me SUbJt to the dra whenever the President --registration day. Under he ow he may designate future reels tration dnvs nnrt n, , rtt,s- iciE? - L- T. A., Sun Mateo. Calif r ,i. |