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Show CHANGED CITY Washington has changed overnight. over-night. Washington was a boom town one week; next week it was a war town. The change is partly a matter of visible things, partly things that are felt without being seen . . . Khaki-clad soldiers, with tin hats and bayonets, patroling two abreast between the White House and the state department . . . Darkness Dark-ness over the Capitol dome, where searchlights are blacked out, for the duration ... A jam of volunteers for Civilian Defense . . . New flags delivered at Civilian Defense headquarters, head-quarters, two for LaGuardia's car, two for Mrs. Roosevelt's car, six for the motorcycles . . . The residence of German correspondent Kurt Sell is raided at night and Sell is taken into custody by FBI. Though the department of commerce com-merce deals with such innocuous subjects as census figures, its great steel doors are locked, and guards demand credentials at the main entrance en-trance . . . Women fliers of America Ameri-ca call a hurried meeting to speed up plans for training ... An extra detail of police strolls on the south grounds of the White House, last trampled by egg - rolling Easter crowds. In his press conference, the President's Presi-dent's voice is so grave and low that a newsman calls out, "Louder, please" . . . Four plainclothesmen, in two cars, sit parked all day on Waterside drive, where the bank rises sharply on the back garden of the Japanese embassy . . . Even Falla, the President's Scottie, feels the change, for the White Housa guards have less time to play with him, and he curls up disconsolate in his green dog-house, just back of the, President's office. JAPANESE SPIES Last summer Congressman Martin Dies had investigators make a thorough thor-ough survey of Japanese activities along the West coast. The results eventually were suppressed by the state department and the President himself, but a brief summary of them indicates that some parts of the United States face a dangerous problem when it comes to fifth column col-umn activity. . Hitler had many agents planted through Norway, France and the Low Countries when he attacked, but the Japanese, according to the Dies report, start out with 150,000 of their countrymen in the United States. These are all Japanese citizens, citi-zens, and do not include 50,000 second sec-ond generation Japanese born in the United States. The Dies report shows that 200 key Japanese have been decorated by the emperor during dur-ing the past two years and that many Japanese are in close co-operation with the homeland . through the Central Japanese association which has been directed by consulates consu-lates in California. Dies agents have collected photographs photo-graphs of various Japanese truck gardens operated alongside oil tanks and strategic railroads. Also they report 5,000 Japanese residing on terminal islands in Los Angeles harbor, har-bor, where are located strategic oil tanks, Reeves field and a shipbuilding shipbuild-ing company. Oil storage tanks blown up in the harbors would endanger en-danger all of the Los Angeles area. The most revealing documents seized by Dies' agents are maps, showing all the U. S. strategic points and fortifications, and a naval manual man-ual showing the size of all American Ameri-can naval vessels. The naval manual, published in 1941, is so up to date that it even shows latest models of U. S. mosquito mos-quito boats together with the Presidential Presi-dential yacht Potomac and the plan of U. S. airplane carriers. The location lo-cation of guns, engine room, etc., is indicated alongside the photograph photo-graph of each vessel. It must have taken Japanese agents months or years to collect this data. KNEW FORMATIONS Another Japanese map seized by Dies' agents is revealing in the extreme. ex-treme. It shows the layout of the American fleet in a typical battle formation near Hawaii. U. S. naval officers confirm the fact that the map correctly shows past naval maneuvers. ma-neuvers. The documents show the details of Pearl Harbor, the Panama canal, San Francisco, Manila, Guam nd Vladivostok. They also give the normal nor-mal crusing radius of the U. S. fleet out of Honolulu, together with the normal location of airplane carriers, cruising battleships, scouts and auxiliary aux-iliary transports. Maps also show the whereabouts of submarine cables, ca-bles, mines, channels, wireless stations, sta-tions, Japanese consulates and air bases all along the West coast . WAR CHAFF C.It was significant that Japanese struck first not at the Philippines, which is armed to the teeth with heavy bombers, but at Hawaii. Hawaii Ha-waii had sent its best war planes on to the Philippines ... If the navy had read the newspapers it might have been better prepared. C. Consiantine Brown, foreign affairs expert of the Washington Star, predicted pre-dicted war with Japan 10 days in advance and named Sunday, December De-cember 7, as the starting date. |